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I understand what you’re saying but I wouldn’t completely dismiss the psychological effect that a sense of feeling needed or the pride you can gain from work ha
by Inconel 10y ago
I understand what you’re saying but I wouldn’t completely dismiss the psychological effect that a sense of feeling needed or the pride you can gain from work has on many people. The sense of being needed may not be important to you, and to be clear I make no negative judgement about that, in fact I’m glad to hear from anyone whose own self worth or happiness isn’t tied to their job as this probably leads to much richer lives, but for many people this doesn’t hold true.
I often see the sentiment shared on HN that if posters here didn’t have to work for a living they would be equally or more fulfilled working on their own projects or spending more time with friends/family, but in some ways I think this feeling at least partially correlates with intelligence, creativity, ambition, or simply being a confident well adjusted adult. I definitely get the impression that HN is filled with people on the higher end of the intelligence/creativity/entrepreneurial spectrum and that might be resulting in a particular narrative that doesn’t always hold true for the rest of us.
I would say that I definitely fall into the very bottom portion of intelligence/creativity among the readership here. I don’t really have much to contribute to this community beyond personal anecdotes, and I’m frequently in awe of the projects and overall knowledge I see on display here. As someone who isn’t smart or creative, never did well in school and has no formal education beyond high school, grew up in poverty and has been homeless for extended periods (12 months or more) twice in my life, doesn’t have a whole lot of self confidence or things to be proud of, my work (which involves machining and precision manufacturing) is pretty much the main thing that gives me a sense of self worth. For many people that statement may seem sad or somewhat pathetic, but it’s honestly how I feel.
I live in LA county, not exactly a low CoL area, and as a single person without dependents I can very comfortably survive on $1100-$1200 per month. BI could easily fulfill my financial needs but it wouldn’t do much to provide for the other things that my work provides for me, namely the sense of purpose and pride it gives me. I understand that BI doesn’t mean the end or work, or that people wouldn’t be allowed to work or seek out volunteer opportunities, so my comment isn’t a general critique of BI, particularly as the more I learn about it, increasingly from HN, the more optimistic and supportive I become of it, but a realization that while I think it’s effects would be very positive overall, I don’t think it would solve all of our problems. As a society we will still need to find ways to make people feel wanted. And as of now for many of us work is what fulfills that role.
- mistermann 10y agoI think it's great when there's perspectives from the non-typical-HN reader, it's easy to forget how exceptional most people's lives are here. So, with that upbringing, how did you end up doing machining and precision manufacturing? And how'd you wind up on Hacker News? What brand of CNC machines do you work with?
- Inconel 10y agoThank you for the encouraging words. I try and check HN every day before my shift but I usually never have time to comment until much later, at which point there isn't much activity in the threads, so I sometimes wonder whether or not my posts add any value or if I'm just writing for myself. With regards to how I ended up in my current job I'll do my best to offer a succinct timeline. My prior work experience consisted mostly of manual labor or retail/customer service type jobs. I never enjoyed customer service, I'm too shy, but through circumstance and my own apathy and lack of ambition that's were I ended up. After some time my dissatisfaction with my work and my own wasted potential led me to reevaluate the seriousness with which I needed to focus on my career. Machining/welding and general manufacturing was something that always interested me even though I had limited experience with any of those fields. I've always been good with my hands and I'm obsessively detail oriented and like fixing things. I love following well delineated procedures and checklists actually make me smile so I felt something in aerospace might be a good fit. I was fortunate to be living in an area with a ton of aerospace/manufacturing companies and I ended up applying to a number of them. I got hired for a very entry level low skill position having nothing to do with the manufacturing side of things. But, it got my foot in the door and I eventually moved into a role closer to the factory floor and from there worked my way into an apprenticeship that led to my current position. As to how I found HN, I'm not entirely sure. While I've been reading HN for a number of years I've only relatively recently started posting, largely in an attempt to improve my writing, which is something I'm very self conscious about. I find this one of the few places online were I'm confident that if I say something stupid or make an argument lacking clarity, that I'll be called out on it in a civil and constructive manner. It's possible that I came about HN through one of those "We act like HackerNews" threads on /g/ but that would be slightly embarrassing so I hope it was through some other avenue. I've worked with a number of brands like Haas, Fanuc, Mazak and recently some 3d printers from EOS. Haas stuff breaks all the time which can be infuriating.