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Your time is never wasted. You still get paid. That might just be my jaded way of looking at it though.

prewett 11y ago
When your job becomes something useless you do because you want the money you get super unmotivated, to say the least. An painter spends 18 months creating a great work of art, one of his best. After he is finished, a guy buys it for a large sum of money and promptly burns it. How does the artist feel? Is he going to be motivated to spend another 18 months on his next idea, even though his previous idea was a financial success?
- Dr_tldr 11y ago
  That all depends on how you feel about ice sculptures. Maybe only a few people see it before it melts, but that doesn't matter. The skills gained in striving towards excellence are not ephemeral. Even if the product goes nowhere, no one can take away what was gained in the process. And if the process is pure tedium and you learned nothing about yourself or the tools throughout it, you should try to create the tools that do inspire you to perform the tasks that don't. Manually creating a production build is boring and you rarely learn anything, but creating a good task runner can be incredibly satisfying.
  - prewett 11y ago
    Good point about ice sculptures. However, the difference with ice sculptures is that you know it is going to melt before you start.
  - sdrothrock 11y ago
    I think the difference between the example and ice sculptures is that ice sculptures are enjoyed before they melt, but the example was produced for the sole purpose of being destroyed, rather than enjoyed for a short time. Edit: Another example with something temporary would be spending time making food for someone who consumes it, versus spending time making food for someone who just throws it in the trash.
- lfowles 11y ago
  While they may not be in the job for the money, there is still a split between those who are in the job for the recognition and those who are in the job for the learning experience. Most of my work is hidden to everyone except those on my immediate team of 2-3, but I learn an incredible amount.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- forty 11y ago
  > An painter spends 18 months creating a great work of art, one of his best. After he is finished, a guy buys it for a large sum of money and promptly burns it Out of topic, but in some countries, it's illegal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights)
- hollerith 11y ago
  >An painter spends 18 months creating a great work of art, one of his best. After he is finished, a guy buys it for a large sum of money and promptly burns it. How does the artist feel? Those poor nuclear physicists and rocket engineers -- thousands of them -- in the US and the Soviet Union whose ICBMs and nuclear warheads were never used!
ssalazar 11y ago
> You still get paid. In the case of the game industry, you still got paid, but markedly less than a comparable software engineering job outside the game industry and with poor working conditions in general. This is tolerated because you're invested in the work; when that work just gets thrown away, you might as well have been working on the next Facebook for Cats and making the correspondingly at-market/inflated salary.

When your job becomes something useless you do because you want the money you get super unmotivated, to say the least. An painter spends 18 months creating a great work of art, one of his best. After he is finished, a guy buys it for a large sum of money and promptly burns it. How does the artist feel? Is he going to be motivated to spend another 18 months on his next idea, even though his previous idea was a financial success?

Dr_tldr 11y ago
That all depends on how you feel about ice sculptures. Maybe only a few people see it before it melts, but that doesn't matter. The skills gained in striving towards excellence are not ephemeral. Even if the product goes nowhere, no one can take away what was gained in the process. And if the process is pure tedium and you learned nothing about yourself or the tools throughout it, you should try to create the tools that do inspire you to perform the tasks that don't. Manually creating a production build is boring and you rarely learn anything, but creating a good task runner can be incredibly satisfying.
- prewett 11y ago
  Good point about ice sculptures. However, the difference with ice sculptures is that you know it is going to melt before you start.
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  I think the difference between the example and ice sculptures is that ice sculptures are enjoyed before they melt, but the example was produced for the sole purpose of being destroyed, rather than enjoyed for a short time. Edit: Another example with something temporary would be spending time making food for someone who consumes it, versus spending time making food for someone who just throws it in the trash.
lfowles 11y ago
While they may not be in the job for the money, there is still a split between those who are in the job for the recognition and those who are in the job for the learning experience. Most of my work is hidden to everyone except those on my immediate team of 2-3, but I learn an incredible amount.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
forty 11y ago
> An painter spends 18 months creating a great work of art, one of his best. After he is finished, a guy buys it for a large sum of money and promptly burns it Out of topic, but in some countries, it's illegal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights)
hollerith 11y ago
>An painter spends 18 months creating a great work of art, one of his best. After he is finished, a guy buys it for a large sum of money and promptly burns it. How does the artist feel? Those poor nuclear physicists and rocket engineers -- thousands of them -- in the US and the Soviet Union whose ICBMs and nuclear warheads were never used!

ssalazar 11y ago

> You still get paid. In the case of the game industry, you still got paid, but markedly less than a comparable software engineering job outside the game industry and with poor working conditions in general. This is tolerated because you're invested in the work; when that work just gets thrown away, you might as well have been working on the next Facebook for Cats and making the correspondingly at-market/inflated salary.