4 ms·

Aren't young people allowed to, well, be young though? When you don't go to nightclubs, don't have friends to call at 1am and can't play guitar in your 400sqft

Aren't young people allowed to, well, be young though? When you don't go to nightclubs, don't have friends to call at 1am and can't play guitar in your 400sqft apartment with neighbors on all sides of the world's thinnest walls, is it a terrible thing if coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week is your primary source of excitement? Does it not beat alcohol and Counter-Strike in the realms of bad things for your health that generate dopamine? (Totally agree with the advice who have money and relationships though. But none of us start there.)

CogitoCogito 8y ago
You should try to do whatever makes you happy. If it makes you happy to give your labor away for free to some large profitable company, then by all means do so. I would personally try to use my time for myself (either to make more money or to do things I enjoy), but it's a personal choice after all. Only you can make that choice. That said, having balance is usually a good idea. If you have interests indepedent of your work, you will be able to lean on those interests when work isn't going well. This may not seem important now, but some day you may find yourself tired and lonely working late at night without seeing the fruits of those labors and suddenly your stuck with nothing else going on in your life.
- arandr0x 8y ago
  I know that (I learned it at 25 though) but I don't regret being 19 and unbalanced. I had fun in the end. Suffering is a universal human experience and not something to be avoided at all costs or anything. I mean, sometimes we give young people advice and they are super eager to do everything right and use all the lessons the older people learned. I figure, there may be value in learning that particular lesson on one's own and on one's own time. The recent Tesla news are a good warning bell against never learning it, though. As was in a different way the recession.
  - CogitoCogito 8y ago
    > I figure, there may be value in learning that particular lesson on one's own and on one's own time. I smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. I mean sure I also went through similar unbalanced years as you and I learned from them, but if I could go back and change something I would instill some more wisdom in myself earlier. I don't live regretting that time of my life, but if I had the chance I'd certainly do it differently.
naeemtee 8y ago
Why is the alternative nightclubs and counter-strike though? Why not, getting a good nights sleep, reading books and lifting weights?
- sincerely 8y ago
  Because you can do the latter relatively easily at any point in your life (pre-senility) unlike the former.
fb03 8y ago
I believe that most of us that 'made it' (past the kickstart/young-ish phase) have experienced burnout at some point, and we know how much it can delay us from making progress... That's why I think we should at least try to warn our younger friends that all that eagerness to 'make it there' might actually hurt them in the process. Consistency is key and will take you far, because you'll keep on delivering. Your boss most surely won't remember of your "weekend hero/superstar" phase when you're having a one or two month downtime period because your head isn't right, and your body isn't working okay from all those jolts you've given yourself from your caffeine micro-poisonings. He'll ask "are you gonna keep me those deadlines?" :-) So yeah, we should leave the young people be young but the more information, the better.
- gulperxcx 8y ago
  Truer words have never been spoken.
macNchz 8y ago
When I was in my early twenties, hungry and looking to prove myself, it was fun for me to stay up all night programming, put in wild hours to get stuff done, lose myself in overly ambitious projects etc. At some point I realized I kept hitting a wall (which was just actually me burning out, but I didn't recognize it at the time) and finding it basically impossible to care or get even the simplest things done for weeks at a time. My overall productivity was extremely bursty then–herculean efforts followed by barely anything at all. Now, years later, I'm much more defensive of my time, it's far easier to maintain a consistent flow of good work, and I no longer wake up in the middle of the night having had a bad dream about my code crashing.
- phaedrus 8y ago
  This resonates for me, particularly the description of falling into bursty-then-herculean-then-barely anything. So what did you do when you were hitting that wall? Myself I've started putting more time the last few years into non-computing hobbies when outside of work. It's a hard decision because that feels like an abandonment of things I used to like to do or of creative things I had high hopes for producing. But it's probably necessary. I know that taking a vacation is important too, but it's hard to take enough time off when you only get 10 days' a year. And I have a crap immune system so I end up using half of that to cover for when I run out of sick days every winter. (At my last job they started "hemorrhaging" developers because a local startup put out a standing offer to higher people for 20% less pay, but 20 days starting vacation. So many people took them up on it that our branch office dwindled from 12 to 2-3 people and retention of new hires went to the basement as well. The impression we got from management was they'd let the company burn to the ground before making "more vacation" a negotiable, probably because they had a vesting scheme and existing senior employees had worked there 10+ years to earn comparable amounts.) At my now-job I have the option to work 9 hour days and get a day off every other week, which helps make my "real" vacation hours stretch longer but the downside is that 9 hour days are not easy, either.
dkersten 8y ago
Do what makes you happy, but don’t neglect your health (mental as well as physical) and take breaks/holidays. I spent too much of this year hating computers due to burnout and it’s extremely draining and depressing to have your primary passion leaving you feeling annoyed, frustrated and empty. It’s taken me pretty much all year (most of which I spent out of work) to get to the point where I can work without feeling too bad, but I still struggle to get any code written for passion projects despite having tons of ideas that excite me (until I sit down to work on them). It’s nuch easier to prevent the problems than to fix them after the fact. In my personal experience, the way to prevent burnout for me is to have other hobbies, to stay physically healthy (especially to get enough sleep, but exercise and diet are super important too), to take plenty of holiday time, and to work on passion projects that are meaningful to you. Working on stuff to make someone else rich isn’t meaningful to me (especially when you see people getting burned by employers again and again — it’s rare that companies will return the favour) Also, go easy on the coffee. Caffeine is a bad substitute for sleep.
geezerjay 8y ago
> Aren't young people allowed to, well, be young though? Working all-nighters to the point your health starts to suffer is not being young. It's exploitation the likes of which the chapters on the industrial revolution warn us about. More importantly, we as a society should actively discourage this sort of abuse. It makes no sense to let our health waste away just because a manager wants to boast about a target or a deadline.
- sincerely 8y ago
  If I'm pulling an all-nighter coding, it's sure as hell going to be on my own project. I think that's the context of the convo
  - SZJX 8y ago
    The OP wrote: > "coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week" which makes no sense. Of course if one ever codes outside of the day job one should code for their own project, but that's not what the OP was suggesting.
    - sincerely 8y ago
      Oh, I must have missed that. My apologies :)
SZJX 8y ago
This doesn't make much sense. You can very well code at night but at least that shouldn't be related to your day job. I'm not sure what you get out of "coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week". If you code something for yourself that's the best. Also, not sure if Counter Strike should be regarded as bad as alcohol, though indeed both might become addictive if careful.

CogitoCogito 8y ago

You should try to do whatever makes you happy. If it makes you happy to give your labor away for free to some large profitable company, then by all means do so. I would personally try to use my time for myself (either to make more money or to do things I enjoy), but it's a personal choice after all. Only you can make that choice. That said, having balance is usually a good idea. If you have interests indepedent of your work, you will be able to lean on those interests when work isn't going well. This may not seem important now, but some day you may find yourself tired and lonely working late at night without seeing the fruits of those labors and suddenly your stuck with nothing else going on in your life.

arandr0x 8y ago
I know that (I learned it at 25 though) but I don't regret being 19 and unbalanced. I had fun in the end. Suffering is a universal human experience and not something to be avoided at all costs or anything. I mean, sometimes we give young people advice and they are super eager to do everything right and use all the lessons the older people learned. I figure, there may be value in learning that particular lesson on one's own and on one's own time. The recent Tesla news are a good warning bell against never learning it, though. As was in a different way the recession.
- CogitoCogito 8y ago
  > I figure, there may be value in learning that particular lesson on one's own and on one's own time. I smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. I mean sure I also went through similar unbalanced years as you and I learned from them, but if I could go back and change something I would instill some more wisdom in myself earlier. I don't live regretting that time of my life, but if I had the chance I'd certainly do it differently.

naeemtee 8y ago

Why is the alternative nightclubs and counter-strike though? Why not, getting a good nights sleep, reading books and lifting weights?

sincerely 8y ago
Because you can do the latter relatively easily at any point in your life (pre-senility) unlike the former.

fb03 8y ago

I believe that most of us that 'made it' (past the kickstart/young-ish phase) have experienced burnout at some point, and we know how much it can delay us from making progress... That's why I think we should at least try to warn our younger friends that all that eagerness to 'make it there' might actually hurt them in the process. Consistency is key and will take you far, because you'll keep on delivering. Your boss most surely won't remember of your "weekend hero/superstar" phase when you're having a one or two month downtime period because your head isn't right, and your body isn't working okay from all those jolts you've given yourself from your caffeine micro-poisonings. He'll ask "are you gonna keep me those deadlines?" :-) So yeah, we should leave the young people be young but the more information, the better.

gulperxcx 8y ago
Truer words have never been spoken.

macNchz 8y ago

When I was in my early twenties, hungry and looking to prove myself, it was fun for me to stay up all night programming, put in wild hours to get stuff done, lose myself in overly ambitious projects etc. At some point I realized I kept hitting a wall (which was just actually me burning out, but I didn't recognize it at the time) and finding it basically impossible to care or get even the simplest things done for weeks at a time. My overall productivity was extremely bursty then–herculean efforts followed by barely anything at all. Now, years later, I'm much more defensive of my time, it's far easier to maintain a consistent flow of good work, and I no longer wake up in the middle of the night having had a bad dream about my code crashing.

phaedrus 8y ago
This resonates for me, particularly the description of falling into bursty-then-herculean-then-barely anything. So what did you do when you were hitting that wall? Myself I've started putting more time the last few years into non-computing hobbies when outside of work. It's a hard decision because that feels like an abandonment of things I used to like to do or of creative things I had high hopes for producing. But it's probably necessary. I know that taking a vacation is important too, but it's hard to take enough time off when you only get 10 days' a year. And I have a crap immune system so I end up using half of that to cover for when I run out of sick days every winter. (At my last job they started "hemorrhaging" developers because a local startup put out a standing offer to higher people for 20% less pay, but 20 days starting vacation. So many people took them up on it that our branch office dwindled from 12 to 2-3 people and retention of new hires went to the basement as well. The impression we got from management was they'd let the company burn to the ground before making "more vacation" a negotiable, probably because they had a vesting scheme and existing senior employees had worked there 10+ years to earn comparable amounts.) At my now-job I have the option to work 9 hour days and get a day off every other week, which helps make my "real" vacation hours stretch longer but the downside is that 9 hour days are not easy, either.

dkersten 8y ago

Do what makes you happy, but don’t neglect your health (mental as well as physical) and take breaks/holidays. I spent too much of this year hating computers due to burnout and it’s extremely draining and depressing to have your primary passion leaving you feeling annoyed, frustrated and empty. It’s taken me pretty much all year (most of which I spent out of work) to get to the point where I can work without feeling too bad, but I still struggle to get any code written for passion projects despite having tons of ideas that excite me (until I sit down to work on them). It’s nuch easier to prevent the problems than to fix them after the fact. In my personal experience, the way to prevent burnout for me is to have other hobbies, to stay physically healthy (especially to get enough sleep, but exercise and diet are super important too), to take plenty of holiday time, and to work on passion projects that are meaningful to you. Working on stuff to make someone else rich isn’t meaningful to me (especially when you see people getting burned by employers again and again — it’s rare that companies will return the favour) Also, go easy on the coffee. Caffeine is a bad substitute for sleep.

geezerjay 8y ago

> Aren't young people allowed to, well, be young though? Working all-nighters to the point your health starts to suffer is not being young. It's exploitation the likes of which the chapters on the industrial revolution warn us about. More importantly, we as a society should actively discourage this sort of abuse. It makes no sense to let our health waste away just because a manager wants to boast about a target or a deadline.

sincerely 8y ago
If I'm pulling an all-nighter coding, it's sure as hell going to be on my own project. I think that's the context of the convo
- SZJX 8y ago
  The OP wrote: > "coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week" which makes no sense. Of course if one ever codes outside of the day job one should code for their own project, but that's not what the OP was suggesting.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    Oh, I must have missed that. My apologies :)

SZJX 8y ago

This doesn't make much sense. You can very well code at night but at least that shouldn't be related to your day job. I'm not sure what you get out of "coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week". If you code something for yourself that's the best. Also, not sure if Counter Strike should be regarded as bad as alcohol, though indeed both might become addictive if careful.