[tylerlarson]

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked.

I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not being able to pay their bills. Is this entitlement?

There are actual problems in the world, sure most of them you are able to effect might be small but what a complete waist of time to be stuck in a job for 8 hours a day and be actively choosing not to contribute solutions to the problems you are faced with. Sure not everything along the way is going to be interesting but if these problems don't excite you there are other jobs that should and if all of that fails go start a company because you are only on this planet for so long and waisting these hours making it look like you are doing work pails in comparison to actually making any impact on the people and things around you. You will be missing out on shared relationships of successes and failures as you resign yourself to this void.

It doesn't feel good to deceive people, it doesn't feel good to take money from people for work you haven't done.

There are people in this world that would literally give anything to have the jobs you have all listed but they can't even apply because they were not born in the right country or their parents didn't have the money to send them to the right school or their accent or skin color made that same interview that you passed impossible to even get.

This whole thread feels so wrong to me and I'm really amazed this community is okay with propagating it. It goes completely against the idea of progress and works against any form of entrepreneurial spirit. Companies fail because of this mentality and world as a whole is worse off because of it. Sure everyone has moments of these feelings but to encourage this as an ok path through of life, I just don't understand.

[protonimitate]

I really disagree with this point of view. I don't think anyone should feel indebted to their circumstance/employer just because there are others out there without the same opportunities.

Is it entitlement? Maybe. But isn't it also entitlement for companies to try to squeeze the maximum amount of productivity out of employees for the least amount of compensation? Why can't they see that there are less fortunate companies that can't afford to bring on the most productive workers?

If OP wants a low stakes job to coast to retirement in - more power to them. The only "issue" I see is if OP intentionally deceives their immediate team/coworkers and is off-loading their commitments while reaping the benefits.

> It goes completely against the idea of progress and works against any form of entrepreneurial spirit

Not everyone cares about these as values. Some people just want to have a decent life and spend time thinking about things other than work. I don't see why they should uphold these values just because others don't have the opportunity to.

[cratermoon]

> Some people just want to have a decent life and spend time thinking about things other than work.

A few years ago when the first rumblings of "everyone is an entrepreneur" and "be your own brand" and all that stuff with books I read a book called Life, Inc, by Douglas Rushkoff. It helped me realize that the people who thought that living your life like you are corporation comes from a particular worldview that deifies people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and the like. It equates that view of life as the best, nay only, way to live and succeed.

Personally, I love programming, and I love other activities. I tolerate some corporatization of myself for programming because it pays the bills. I would never want to be an entrepreneur or run a company. I hate doing all the other stuff that running a business requires.

Not that love being a wage slave, but that I have better things to do with my life than sell my skills.

[dontreact]

I think it's fine for one person to not uphold these values, but I remember coming to hackernews because I was excited about progress. Now it seems like self interest has taken over as the primary value.

[eloisius]

Maybe it’s the aggregate cynicism of seeing all that “progress” amount to little else than hype, shifting market share from older giants in every sector to new exciting new startups that almost immediately become just as bad as the old giants or in many cases worse. Ten years ago I also couldn’t wait for my plot of land on Mars. 2021-Me Cannot imagine being truly inspired by a software company.

[dontreact]

I can see how the hype not matching up with reality leads to cynicism. At the same time, I believe cynicism is worth fighting because we have 50 or more years ahead of us while we are alive to make progress, and just because the last 30 years of hypercapitalism has led to a lot of pain doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and despair.

[sidlls]

It seems to me you mistook one kind of self-interest for a labor toward progress. And you still do, for that matter.

[dontreact]

You’re gonna have to unpack that quite a bit more for me to understand what you are trying to say

[sidlls]

Hacker News has always been about self-interest.

[zedd0]

I think you're really reaching with that analogy. No, that's not entitlement - that's capitalism. Compensation is always a two-way agreement between the employee and employer - you're never doing a job that you didn't agree to do. If you agree to it, that means you consider the compensation worth the effort.

On the other hand, for someone to accept a job and then go to work with the intention of being as unproductive as possible - that's entitlement, and that word is putting it lightly. A century ago they would've called it "shameful" or "dishonorable", but nowadays such behaviour is excused with a kind of pseudo-marxist "stick-it-to-the-man" vibe. However, when you boil it down, it's just a bullshit excuse for laziness and dishonesty.

[zedd0]

I think I replied to the wrong comment somehow lol, just re-read this and can't see how my comment relates to the parent-comment. Don't recall what I was responding to either.

[jen20]

> it doesn't feel good to take money from people for work you haven't done.

I can think of entire ranges of organizations I would have no problem in extracting money from.

Despite personally regularly working 60+ hour weeks (I actually like my job), your entire post feels like you’re pretty deep into the wage-slave kool-aid. A job is a means to an end, not a reason to exist, and companies do not care for you in the slightest. Extending them the same courtesy is a reasonable step.

[amarant]

If you feel that way, you should consider starting your own company. Freelance consulting is an easy business to run, if you don't have any more exciting ideas.

[jen20]

Been there, done that. I’m not interested in the paperwork, or the “hustle” of finding projects (though that historically has never been a problem, who is to say it will remain that way when the next dot-com crash equivalent era hits).

Note that “working to live” and not “living to work” is not the same as “not fulfilling your contractual obligation to your employer”, which you absolutely should do.

[MattGaiser]

> Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not being able to pay their bills. Is this entitlement?

Except paying the bills and achieving something are only weakly correlated concepts in many cases, especially when salaried.

If you don't care about the particular ethics/concerns for humanity, what OP wants is definitely possible.

A lot of it also comes down to incentives. What percentage of employees have any stake whatsoever in whether their own project succeeds or fails? Or even the company they are with?

So many projects/companies are essentially relying on individual altruism to choose to take action rather than not.

[pessimizer]

> If you don't care about the particular ethics/concerns for humanity, what OP wants is definitely possible.

Or actually the opposite. The reason I've lost interest in the businesses that I code for is that their products and missions are reprehensible. I feel bad when I do a good job.

[dontreact]

>Except paying the bills and achieving something are only weakly correlated concepts in many cases, especially when salaried.

This seems like an extremely short-sighted view. If you have a string of successful projects, your salary will go up over time (you may have to switch jobs a few times though).

>If you don't care about the particular ethics/concerns for humanity, what OP wants is definitely possible.

If someone has no concern for ethics or humanity, I want to avoid working with that person. I also want to make sure that they do not get into a position of power.

>A lot of it also comes down to incentives. What percentage of employees have any stake whatsoever in whether their own project succeeds or fails? Or even the company they are with?

So many projects/companies are essentially relying on individual altruism to choose to take action rather than not.

I agree here and I think over time there should be a shift towards making it harder to keep such a disproportionate amount of equity for being a founder. Of course they should get the most, but the balance doesn't seem optimal for the long term progress of our industry and would benefit from some regulatory limits.

[MattGaiser]

> This seems like an extremely short-sighted view. If you have a string of successful projects, your salary will go up over time (you may have to switch jobs a few times though).

People like OP are happy on level though. They do not want a big raise and probably would prefer to not switch companies.

> If someone has no concern for ethics or humanity, I want to avoid working with that person. I also want to make sure that they do not get into a position of power.

I completely understand not hiring people like them.

[sidlls]

> If you have a string of successful projects, your salary will go up over time (you may have to switch jobs a few times though).

Lot to unpack here. Switching jobs doesn't require successful projects, only self-marketing to make projects seem successful and important. You're basically suggesting we have a merit-based industry, when in reality it's just as much subject to social networking as any other.

[VBprogrammer]

The prevailing attitude in this community is work hard in your day job, your side hustle and try to solve inequality and the environment in your spare time.

As such I found this discussion an interesting diversion. Slightly awkward comic relief perhaps.

There is a lot to of work in industries which have a predominantly negative effect on the world around us. Slacking off while working in one of those companies might even be a net positive.

[jrsj]

How would it be entitlement for me to do this but not for my boss to expect me to work my ass off for a small share of the profit he’ll get for my work? Hell, in most cases I won’t even get credit for what I did, my manager will! Especially when the end product is either entirely useless or actively harmful for society (displacing low skill jobs disproportionately held by the same underrepresented groups corporate HR claims to want to help etc), why make personal sacrifices to help build that?

[myth2018]

I totally share your values and agree when you say there are folks causing problems during their attempts on dodging their duties. On the other hand, I didn't see this sort of bad attitude on the OP's side. He's looking for a low-demanding job, which I think is a valid choice, and he's OK about earning less as well. What would be bad -- and, as you said, it's unfortunately pretty common -- is if he were looking for ways of keeping a job while delivering less than what's been asked for -- which he could attempt on any job at all.

[SwiftyBug]

Why would that be bad? I couldn't care less about the actual value I'm generating to a company. As long as I can maintain a balance of working the least and earning the most and my employer think I'm being overpaid, I'm fine. The reality is that even when I strive to work the least I can, I still am being underpaid. That's how companies work. The value I generate is much greater than what I'm paid.

[myth2018]

Putting it in another way: imagine you are sick and a doctor can recover your health. The value they provide is unmeasurable. However, there are many of them able to help you recover, and they charge differently, based on a number of factors. Despite, they all provide you a unmeasurable value: your health.

Can you see how the money you make can't be determined solely by the value you provide?

[myth2018]

> The reality is that even when I strive to work the least I can, I still am being underpaid

I use a simple "heuristic" to determine whether I'm actually being underpaid or I'm just unhappy with my earnings.

- are there companies out there paying more for my abilities?

- do I want to do that job, in case it exists?

- do I manage to get that job, in case it exists?

In case ALL those questions have an answer 'Yes', THEN I'm being underpaid. Otherwise, I'm just unhappy about how the market priced my abilities.

[SwiftyBug]

* [...] and my employer _desn't_ think I'm being overpaid

I can't edit comments. I used to be able to do it.

[AlwaysRock]

Boo. You're mad that someone wants a lowish paying tech job where they can finish their work quickly then not be bothered? There are a lot of those jobs. Most mildly successful companies that have 20+ year devs working at the same place in the same role for about the same pay are those jobs. That is the backbone of the dev world.

Don't be upset because someone rejects the idea of spending countless hours of their life building software.

[fwipsy]

It sounds like your frustration is with people who should be doing more work than they are. I'm not sure that OP is looking for a job where they can wriggle out of responsibilities. It may be they are just looking for a job where the responsibilities are minimal to begin with, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If OP can fulfill the requirements of a job and someone wants to hire them, who cares?

Also, I don't like the implication in your third paragraph that people who aren't working at full capacity are "wasting their time." There's more to life than work. The suggestion that undermotivated people start their own company seems particularly egregious. Seems like starting a company requires more motivation than working other jobs, not less.

[vsareto]

There's room for lifestyle companies which work a low amount of hours. I'd totally take 20 hour weeks for a 50% pay cut, for example.

I think this is really what the OP wants, but it can be hard to find because the 40 hour work week is so ingrained into work as a baseline (some industries go higher, some lower).

Instead of the inevitable back and forth that this view will generate, we should probably look for ways to support lower hour work weeks through innovative companies or changing company culture.

[eloisius]

> you are only on this planet for so long and waisting these hours making it look like you are doing work pails in comparison to actually making any impact on the people

At least you acknowledge the finite nature of life, but it seems like a grand assumption that environmental incentives currently optimize for spending that finite life in a way that is ultimately meaningful to yourself or others. What if all this tech bullshit we’ve seen for the last two decades really is just bullshit, and the toxic by-product of exponential-growth-crazed tech economy that netted a few billionaires and a few tens or hundreds of thousands of highly paid tech workers has been the hollowing out of our culture and destruction of shared institutions. So what if op wants to take an easy job beneath their abilities and lap up some easy ad tech money to divert it into something unprofitable but meaningful? What’s the counter argument? That we should all take jobs at the very peak of our abilities and fully devote our energies to maximizing economic output? What about people that have kids and want to focus on being a parent?

Op was very candid about wanting a low-expectation position, not deceiving anyone about whether or not they are working at all. Find your sinecure and produce something you or someone else cares about, op!

[OnlyOneCannolo]

> It doesn't feel good to deceive people

Are you putting words in OP's mouth? There's a big difference between slacking off and having an inherently slow job.

[yowlingcat]

This comment strikes me as a little idealistic and cut off from reality. At large companies (where 90% of the jobs are), 90% or more of the work is KTLO (keep the lights on) work. It's menial and intellectually un-stimulating by design, because a bunch of really smart people early on in the company's history put work into building a machine that prints money with little non-maintenance work. That's because they knew that such a company would be able to fetch high multiples for investors.

If you want a job like that, not only are they easy to find, but they're absolutely everywhere. It's in contrast the intellectually stimulating and challenging jobs which are hard to find, because they attract growth-oriented individuals who by nature are very competitive. Getting a menial, coast-worthy FAANG job isn't that hard because you're only competing with a pool of others who want the same thing -- by definition, you just need to be a little bit more differentiated than them and you're golden; there's a gigantic supply and it's ever increasing.

[NDizzle]

The worst part of this is that software is typically a collaboration. It's fine to want to work just enough to provide for whatever it is you want to provide for. Morally (I guess?) it's not right to drag a bunch of teammates down with you as you try to make software.

I know some artisans that do this exact thing. I'm sure a lot of people on here know people exactly like the ones that I do. I know a cabinet maker who has been doing it for over 40 years. He'll make a fantastic set of cabinets for someone and then not work a bit for 3 months. Then he'll do it again. I know another guy who makes custom offroad accessories. He'll do a run of whatever, working hard for 2 weeks, and then fuck off for 2-4 months at a time. Repeat as needed. Do more when you need more money, do less when you need less. It's a healthy pattern if you can pull it off.

I think it's fine if you want to do the software development version of that, but you need to be in a situation where you're doing freelance or project based work and not negatively affecting your peers.

[smdz]

> Is this not abuse of privilege?

Not really. It is part of the journey towards evolving efficient systems as a whole. If you go by the 80/20 principle about workplace/work (which is true in most cases) - will you fire away 70-80% of the staff as a manager/entrepreneur? or will you give 80% the privilege of not doing as much work or taking on responsibility as the 20%?

[sidlls]

Bless your heart!

People measure "progress" differently. Almost none of what anybody in the software industry is working on, is working towards any meaningful progress in my view. It's mostly electron shuffling to display ads or funnel people into paying for baubles and other transient happiness-boosters (which feed the need for the next hit, mostly).

[heldrida]

It's definitely entitlement! Nothing against the OP, but some of the stuff people shared, is even hard to believe. I haven't got much work for the past year because of the pandemic and it's been extremely hard. During the same period, interviewing been painful, absolute waste of time. Everything seems so pointless.

[sjg007]

I'm not sure a moral argument here achieves anything because with every example there are exceptions on both the employer and employee. If you can leverage your skill for a job with higher pay and less hours that seems fine. Employers outsource to get equivalent work for less cost for example.

Speed is one reason startups win and its because the incumbents cannot move fast enough. When you've worked at a company that takes 9 months to deliver basic features you see that.

[WhompingWindows]

Devil's Advocate: We don't have all the information about OP. He claims he wants to work hard for 2 hours in the morning and then do what he's really passionate about. He mentions hobby materials. For all we know, he could be a genius painter or woodworker in the making. Who is it for us to say that a master craftsmen should spend 40 hours a week on tech if they truly care most about their art? If they can contribute good value for 10 hours a week, enough that their employer is still happy paying them, who are we to criticize that?

[myth_buster]

Leverage is great thing!

[nx7487]

100% agree, people like this guy are despicable.

[dontreact]

It was a relief to read this post, thanks for writing it. Are there other aggregators or communities that have less of this attitude that you visit online? I heard about lobster.rs recently, not sure if things are better there.