4 ms·

I remember a while back someone was talking about how one thing they love about living in SV is how you can go to a bar and end up spending the night chatting a

I remember a while back someone was talking about how one thing they love about living in SV is how you can go to a bar and end up spending the night chatting about JavaScript frameworks with the guy sitting next to you. That just horrified me. Sorry, but that's work stuff. Work stuff stays at work. If you hang out with people in different industries, you're less inclined to talk about work stuff because neither of you will understand the nuances of the other's job.

wgerard 9y ago
> you're less inclined to talk about work stuff because neither of you will understand the nuances of the other's job. Yes, thank you for this! I was struggling to articulate why those novel conversations happen, but this is totally the reason.
dev_throw 9y ago
Its not just work though. It can be learning a new framework to build an open source tool or something that can generate side income. And in my experience, I sometimes get unstuck on "work stuff" by a chance conversation at an event/bar, which makes me happier/helps my career :)
- amyjess 9y ago
  I guess this goes back to pg's essay on the messages cities send [0] that was posted here the other day. One person offered a particularly insightful comment on the message of my city, Dallas. I'll quote the most relevant part: > I'd also say the message to me is "work hard, play hard, and keep a work life balance". People in Dallas get shit done, but they aren't going to work for more than 40-50 hours/week. I can confirm that the culture here is very 9-5. We don't have the ambition-centric culture that SF has, and that works for me because I'm honestly not an ambitious person. You're probably not going to find many people here who are trying to grow their own business on the side or who go to a bar still trying to work through problems they're stuck on at work. I go to the bar when my job is stressing me out so I can forget about the stress by drinking tasty alcoholic treats until I can no longer concentrate on anything. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16468986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16468986

wgerard 9y ago

> you're less inclined to talk about work stuff because neither of you will understand the nuances of the other's job. Yes, thank you for this! I was struggling to articulate why those novel conversations happen, but this is totally the reason.

dev_throw 9y ago

Its not just work though. It can be learning a new framework to build an open source tool or something that can generate side income. And in my experience, I sometimes get unstuck on "work stuff" by a chance conversation at an event/bar, which makes me happier/helps my career :)

amyjess 9y ago
I guess this goes back to pg's essay on the messages cities send [0] that was posted here the other day. One person offered a particularly insightful comment on the message of my city, Dallas. I'll quote the most relevant part: > I'd also say the message to me is "work hard, play hard, and keep a work life balance". People in Dallas get shit done, but they aren't going to work for more than 40-50 hours/week. I can confirm that the culture here is very 9-5. We don't have the ambition-centric culture that SF has, and that works for me because I'm honestly not an ambitious person. You're probably not going to find many people here who are trying to grow their own business on the side or who go to a bar still trying to work through problems they're stuck on at work. I go to the bar when my job is stressing me out so I can forget about the stress by drinking tasty alcoholic treats until I can no longer concentrate on anything. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16468986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16468986