5 ms·

> Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what really matters to you. Then focus

> Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what really matters to you. Then focus on that, and use your job to fill the boring hours in between. You’re going to spend more time at work than doing almost anything else during those years of your life where you work. Why not do something meaningful with those hours if you can? And if OP can get a job at Google they almost certainly can.

CydeWeys 7y ago
What percentage of software engineers are doing "something meaningful"? That seems like a small number, no? Contrast with teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc., almost all of whom I think would say they do something meaningful.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  I’ve been a teacher. It’s basically just a job. If you want meaning have your own children. I have no idea what proportion of software engineers consider what they do meaningful but the team who work on Google Scholar have done a great deal for me and I’m not even an academic. The drivers at Uber and Lyft and their riders have almost all had their lives improved by their existence. Amazon has made the experience of buying books so much better it’s ridiculous. Lambda School is taking 1000s of people from basically useless as programmers to a new career. Those are all pretty meaningful, at least as meaningful as your list, which seems be about displaying caring as much as actually effecting people’s lives. If you build something people want and it isn’t harmful you’re having an effect.
  - greenie_beans 7y ago
    I'm not sure I agree that Amazon has done meaningful work in the world of books. They've crippled the book industry. They've ran a ton of brick and mortar bookstores out of business, which has effectively destroyed community centers. There are other alternatives to Amazon that have "made the experience of buying books so much easier". Visit powells.com or alibris.com. And what they've done to the publishing industry is a whole nother beast.
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      Likewise for Lyft and Uber; they just haven't fully collapsed yet -- but give them another 2 years. There will be a smoking pit in the short-range transit market because it costs at least twice what riders pay today just to keep the drivers making the same amount when the VC subsidies go away, and nobody is willing to pay that. You're already starting to see the subsidies dry up with food delivery services where there's an additional $15-20 in fees. The next recession is going to be a bloodbath for a lot of low-income people when the demand for the gig economy dries up.
    - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
      > They've ran a ton of brick and mortar bookstores out of business, which has effectively destroyed community centers. Can you really blame Amazon for destroying community centers because they put bookstores out of business? Bookstores aren't the only viable community center, after all. Most cities and counties have a public library that's supposed to exist for the community's benefit. Additionally, in rural parts of the US, the only real community center you used to find was a church, not a library or a bookstore. Personally speaking, my community centers exist on Signal, WhatsApp, IRC, Mastodon, Slack, Twitter, Telegram, and Facebook. (And I neglect half of those entirely.) I don't see any need to have a physical watering hole.
      - greenie_beans 7y ago
        I guess it depends on the place, honestly. The best communities I've been a part of -- in my short existence -- revolved around bookstores. Maybe that's subjective, but I can also argue that Signal, WhatsApp, etc aren't the only viable community centers. Also, I'm from rural US, and those places do revolve around churches, but the pockets of enlightenment revolve around bookstores. IMO, a healthy community has a strong group of intellectuals. Intellectuals tend to gravitate to bookstores. And yes, you can definitely blame Amazon for putting bookstores out of business. I'm too lazy to find stats to support that, but there is definitely evidence that Amazon is to blame. And sure, libraries are for the community's benefit in an ideal world, but I'm talking about the real world.
- drivebycomment 7y ago
  The meaning is what you define and draw from. Even the job of driving a garbage truck has a meaning. Software is no different - short of doing something actively harmful or you are morally against, you can find a meaning in any job. It may not satisfy your ambition or ego, but that's a different problem that finding a meaning.
- kqr 7y ago
  All of those you list as doing something meaningful can multiply their efforts if only there's a good software developer upstream from them. Software developers invent the tools and environments that enable other people to do more efficient work. Sometimes it enables entire classes of meaning work that weren't possible before. How can that not be meaningful? For better or worse, everything is driven by software these days. All work is, directly or indirectly, powered by software. Being in software is like the most meaningful thing you can do.
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    Many jobs in our society enable others to do efficient work. From the bus drivers that get Google employees to work to the teachers that work 60 hour days educating future doctors and lawyers--it's hard to say that engineers are particularly special in this regard.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Teachers do not work 60 hours a week. Bureau of Labor Statistics time use studies find that the only age group of teachers that work more than forty hours a week are those over 50. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf
      - ikeyany 7y ago
        It looks like those statistics have summer months included. That changes things from "60 hour work weeks when school is in session" to "60 hour work weeks amortized over a year". In addition that study notes that teachers are more likely to work a second job, something a Google engineer wouldn't need to do to make a decent wage.
        barry-cotter 7y ago
        The median household income in California is $70K[1]. > The average salary of public school teachers in 2017 – 18 for the State of California was $80,680. [2] Teachers make a perfectly decent wage as is, more than the average household . [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N [2] https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp
wayoutthere 7y ago
I think you absolutely can find meaning at work, but it cannot replace the meaning you find outside of work. You can tolerate doing a meaningless job if you have other things in your life to sustain you, but you can't guarantee your work will always be meaningful. Finding meaning outside work is resiliency.

CydeWeys 7y ago

What percentage of software engineers are doing "something meaningful"? That seems like a small number, no? Contrast with teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc., almost all of whom I think would say they do something meaningful.

barry-cotter 7y ago
I’ve been a teacher. It’s basically just a job. If you want meaning have your own children. I have no idea what proportion of software engineers consider what they do meaningful but the team who work on Google Scholar have done a great deal for me and I’m not even an academic. The drivers at Uber and Lyft and their riders have almost all had their lives improved by their existence. Amazon has made the experience of buying books so much better it’s ridiculous. Lambda School is taking 1000s of people from basically useless as programmers to a new career. Those are all pretty meaningful, at least as meaningful as your list, which seems be about displaying caring as much as actually effecting people’s lives. If you build something people want and it isn’t harmful you’re having an effect.
- greenie_beans 7y ago
  I'm not sure I agree that Amazon has done meaningful work in the world of books. They've crippled the book industry. They've ran a ton of brick and mortar bookstores out of business, which has effectively destroyed community centers. There are other alternatives to Amazon that have "made the experience of buying books so much easier". Visit powells.com or alibris.com. And what they've done to the publishing industry is a whole nother beast.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    Likewise for Lyft and Uber; they just haven't fully collapsed yet -- but give them another 2 years. There will be a smoking pit in the short-range transit market because it costs at least twice what riders pay today just to keep the drivers making the same amount when the VC subsidies go away, and nobody is willing to pay that. You're already starting to see the subsidies dry up with food delivery services where there's an additional $15-20 in fees. The next recession is going to be a bloodbath for a lot of low-income people when the demand for the gig economy dries up.
  - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
    > They've ran a ton of brick and mortar bookstores out of business, which has effectively destroyed community centers. Can you really blame Amazon for destroying community centers because they put bookstores out of business? Bookstores aren't the only viable community center, after all. Most cities and counties have a public library that's supposed to exist for the community's benefit. Additionally, in rural parts of the US, the only real community center you used to find was a church, not a library or a bookstore. Personally speaking, my community centers exist on Signal, WhatsApp, IRC, Mastodon, Slack, Twitter, Telegram, and Facebook. (And I neglect half of those entirely.) I don't see any need to have a physical watering hole.
    - greenie_beans 7y ago
      I guess it depends on the place, honestly. The best communities I've been a part of -- in my short existence -- revolved around bookstores. Maybe that's subjective, but I can also argue that Signal, WhatsApp, etc aren't the only viable community centers. Also, I'm from rural US, and those places do revolve around churches, but the pockets of enlightenment revolve around bookstores. IMO, a healthy community has a strong group of intellectuals. Intellectuals tend to gravitate to bookstores. And yes, you can definitely blame Amazon for putting bookstores out of business. I'm too lazy to find stats to support that, but there is definitely evidence that Amazon is to blame. And sure, libraries are for the community's benefit in an ideal world, but I'm talking about the real world.
drivebycomment 7y ago
The meaning is what you define and draw from. Even the job of driving a garbage truck has a meaning. Software is no different - short of doing something actively harmful or you are morally against, you can find a meaning in any job. It may not satisfy your ambition or ego, but that's a different problem that finding a meaning.
kqr 7y ago
All of those you list as doing something meaningful can multiply their efforts if only there's a good software developer upstream from them. Software developers invent the tools and environments that enable other people to do more efficient work. Sometimes it enables entire classes of meaning work that weren't possible before. How can that not be meaningful? For better or worse, everything is driven by software these days. All work is, directly or indirectly, powered by software. Being in software is like the most meaningful thing you can do.
- ikeyany 7y ago
  Many jobs in our society enable others to do efficient work. From the bus drivers that get Google employees to work to the teachers that work 60 hour days educating future doctors and lawyers--it's hard to say that engineers are particularly special in this regard.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Teachers do not work 60 hours a week. Bureau of Labor Statistics time use studies find that the only age group of teachers that work more than forty hours a week are those over 50. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf
    - ikeyany 7y ago
      It looks like those statistics have summer months included. That changes things from "60 hour work weeks when school is in session" to "60 hour work weeks amortized over a year". In addition that study notes that teachers are more likely to work a second job, something a Google engineer wouldn't need to do to make a decent wage.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        The median household income in California is $70K[1]. > The average salary of public school teachers in 2017 – 18 for the State of California was $80,680. [2] Teachers make a perfectly decent wage as is, more than the average household . [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N [2] https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp

wayoutthere 7y ago

I think you absolutely can find meaning at work, but it cannot replace the meaning you find outside of work. You can tolerate doing a meaningless job if you have other things in your life to sustain you, but you can't guarantee your work will always be meaningful. Finding meaning outside work is resiliency.