[beastman82]

I want to thank everyone who hates work, is mentally checked out of their jobs and quiet quitting etc.

It makes it much easier for me to distinguish myself as a hard worker who cares about the business being successful. It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed.

When you are old and have lots of formative experiences that are not work-based, we can shake hands and mutually appreciate each other's motives and respective outcomes.

[garciasn]

I am arguably a successful employee in a tech-focused role. I enjoy my job and others seem to feel I'm good at what I do.

That said: I am NOT at all interested in identifying myself in social situations by my job. When someone asks what I do, I respond that I work in tech. I am not interested in giving more details nor talking in-depth about what I do to others I have just met.

Why? Because that's not at all what makes me...me. I am far more interested in what I do outside of work (reading...a lot, listening to music, spending as much time w/my family as possible, traveling, spending time at my lake home, etc). That is what I work to do; enjoy my life.

I realize this is an uncommon opinion, but I find it SO VERY ODD that folks are OBSESSED about their jobs and make it a central point of their existence to those outside of their specific industry. I do NOT care what someone does for their day-to-day; it's unlikely it will have any impact on me or my friendship with them. I want to know what they bring to the table in our current or potential social situation and the fact that they make PowerPoint presentations for whomever to look at, ask a few questions answered in the presentation's appendix, and never think about again doesn't do anything to further any of that.

[marconey]

Well said, thanks

I’d much rather know and learn about someone’s passion for woodworking, hill walking, flower arranging, whatever they enjoy doing in their free time, rather than having to talk about their (or my!) work.

[chrisweekly]

Yeah! IMHO "What are you into / what do you care about or do for fun?" should replace "What do you do? [ie, what's your profession / where do you work]" as the default ice-breaker. More interesting, less reductive or competitive.

[KellyCriterion]

So you are saying that your job does not have any impact on your personality, despite you are there for 8+h a day? The environment you are in for hours (even if its great, you are forced) does not shapre who you are?

And regarding social interactions: Its no difference for you interacting with people from your mind-liked crowd in opposion to someone who runs a gun-shop-chain? For sure, a constructed example, but Id say there is for sure some difference when acting with the different groups?

[Arainach]

> So you are saying that your job does not have any impact on your personality, despite you are there for 8+h a day

(Not OP) It's not a core part of it, no. I'm a person who likes solving problems and has an attention to detail. If I see that something is wrong I have a desire to fix it regardless of it's my responsibility or not. This could be finding an outdated piece of documentation at work or finding a piece of litter on the street.

These traits make me an effective software engineer (up to the senior level, then I have to fight against those parts of my personality and focus on specific high-impact things if I want to succeed at Staff+), but they are a part of who I am totally independent from my career.

Software engineering is a field that I am good at and that pays exceptionally well, but I could be happy utilizing these traits in any number of careers. Were I financially independent, my dream career would probably be something closer to the people who design and build elaborate contraptions for stage shows such as Cirque du Soleil.

[jazz9k]

Do you have any friends? Your job is a good topic that allows you to find something in common with another person.

[galleywest200]

I prefer to ask people what they do for fun when looking for something in common, as opposed to what they do for work.

Some people are recently laid off, and asking what they do for work might sting a bit.

[tdeck]

I like asking both, but these days a lot of the "what do you do for fun" answers are just consumption hobbies (e.g. I watch X show on Netflix) that people use to switch off after a long day of work. It's easier to think of interesting follow up questions about someone's work than about these kinds of hobbies. Even if (especially if) the work is something completely different from what I'm doing.

[9rx]

> I prefer to ask people what they do for fun when looking for something in common, as opposed to what they do for work.

Hasn't the question always implied to be about what you do for fun? It has never occurred to me that should answer "I wash the dishes".

[fcarraldo]

Not if they work outside of tech…

[Tor3]

As the sister comment said: "Not if they work outside of tech…" And not even then, in many cases. I know exactly what I do, but having to explain that to anyone, including people in tech, is difficult.

And, you know, it's not interesting to talk about. Talking about that is fine at the job, that's what we do. I have no interest in talking about that when I'm not working. Instead I want to talk about other things. Hobbies, activities, music, books, whatever. Enquring about someone's job will not lead to that at all.

[manmal]

It sounds like you have a privileged life, and a hard time getting into the shoes of people who don’t.

[loglog]

Traveling? Lake home? I am glad to go to work just to not listen to my wife how we are so poor and cannot have nice things.

[Arainach]

> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed.

If you believe the managers who interact with you have any say in who gets laid off, then your understanding of how business works isn't nearly as good as you seem to believe it is.

[yurishimo]

Depends on the size of company. I’ve definitely worked for companies where I know for a fact that my manager had the final say.

[windward]

If you still have a manager, it's not a bad layoff

[alpha_squared]

Something tells me you haven't been laid off before. I think the overconfidence you're displaying here will be shattered if that were to happen. I hope it doesn't happen to you, but if it does I hope you remember that you are not your job.

[cj]

I think it has a lot to do with the size of the organization. If you're at a relatively small company, it's not that hard to identify and retain the top performers.

If you're at a faceless megacorp, that's a different story.

[alpha_squared]

You can be laid off at small companies too. For example, a company may be running out of runway and it's looking increasingly likely the next round of funding will not materialize in time. It needs to control expenses and extend runway an extra 6 months, but everyone's a "top-performer". Who gets laid off? It's likely going to be those adding features (e.g. product folks), not those maintaining the business (accounting, devops). We can get into whether it's a good idea to kick off the death spiral for a company in that way, but my point is that no one is immune to layoffs, not at any scale, except maybe the founders.

[cj]

> everyone's a "top-performer"

Except, that’s very rarely the case IME.

We’re talking about improving, not guaranteeing, your odds long term employment.

[windward]

40 years of an ego dependent on Russian roulette.

[asveikau]

> worker who cares about the business being successful

In most cases, this is a sucker mentality that makes you vulnerable to abusive employers. You will stress yourself out making your boss richer. They won't care or make reciprocal gestures. They'd be happy to replace you should you become inconvenient.

[yurishimo]

It’s not about stressing yourself out; that’s something you can ultimately control (though admittedly, many people are bad at separating the two) but more about _how good you are at putting on a show_ of giving a shit.

There is a non zero chance that the company I work for pivots into some weird crypto niche (low, but we’re already fintech-y). If that happens, I’m out, but no way in hell am I gonna pivot my work personality overnight because of a business decision made by the company’s board and investors.

If I need to put on a happy face for my boss to keep my job, then I’m gonna do it because I can’t afford not to at the moment. That’s not to say there is no line, but being a generally positive person in the workplace is a role I’m fine with playing. It costs me very little personally and opens a lot of doors because let’s face it, nobody likes working with a loathsome human being, even if they’re right.

Am I a sucker? Maybe by your definition, but I don’t feel like one currently.

[asveikau]

> Am I a sucker? Maybe by your definition, but I don’t feel like one currently.

Part of being a sucker is not thinking you're a sucker.

> more about _how good you are at putting on a show_ of giving a shit.

> If I need to put on a happy face for my boss to keep my job,

OK, this is an entirely different thing. This is being dishonest.

[dolebirchwood]

I've known people who survived multiple rounds of layoffs, not because they were "distinguished", but because they were the cheapest. Meanwhile, their more talented counterparts got the ax for being too expensive. Simple as that.

[noisy_boy]

> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed.

I can assure you that when they are laying off to cut costs, which is most of the time, what they notice is A) the old/expensive ones who can be let go without any major disruptions and B) the "expendables" such as contractors or those they have a personal dislike of - the latter usually has not much to do with hard work and a lot more to do with perception. Category A is to meet cost targets while category B can also help with number targets.

If you think your hard work alone will save you, I pray that life spares you that rude shock.

[testing22321]

> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed.

Sounds like you’re young and early in your career.

Wait till you’re part of a layoff where an entire division or arm of the company is axed in a 750 person headcount reduction.

Doesn’t matter how good you are, how many years of service you have or even if the CEO loves you. You’ll be out.

[ThrowawayR2]

It does matter because it's your network that gets you your next job and colleagues remember who was doing a good job and helping meet goals and those who didn't.

[testing22321]

We were talking about keeping a job, not finding a new one.

[oncallthrow]

> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed.

I got to this bit before realising this is satire

[Arainach]

I have no faith that this is satire since America is full of people who underestimate the impact of luck and privilege in the course of their life in favor of a view that everything is due to their own personal efforts and the suffering of others is obviously due to their personal defects. These people will relentlessly defend any actions by the owner class without realizing that they themselves are not in that class and never will be. They say things like this a lot.

[Tade0]

This approach makes huge sense when you're a contractor who is aiming to graduate into a staff engineer.

[ThrowawayR2]

I mostly agree with the parent post. There certainly are roles where the entire scope of the job is to convert Jira tickets to code and nothing else and nobody will blame you for being a checked out 9-5er in such places but that isn't the audience of HN. Most here are software engineers who get fairly broad latitude to exercise judgment and expertise/education in furtherance of business goals and that's they get the FAANG-sized paycheck and RSUs/stock grants for. And you better believe colleagues in those roles notice who is just doing the minimum and who is helping to achieve goals.

[paganel]

You only care about “business goals” under a certain age, I’d say 35-ish, afterwards, if you hadn’t realized by that point that it’s just a paycheck and nothing more then no mindfulness trickery not any “let’s-experience-things”-consoomerism is going to fill the spiritual void inside of you.

Could be 35-ish of age, like in my case, could be later, could be earlier, but at some point that realization will have to come otherwise you’ll remain an empty corpse throughout the rest of it all.

[ThrowawayR2]

You care for business goals because that's what you're being paid to do. The "nuh-uh, I'm being paid to code and that's it" are the ones who wonder why their career stalled early.

Nobody's saying you should care about business goals personally; that would indeed be dumb.

[dgxyz]

Yeah that.

I don’t put any effort in now. Still get paid the same. Now have more time for better stuff.

[sodapopcan]

Hate to say it but very appropriate username.

[reactordev]

Until you get fired…