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I don't think it's terribly strange to view lower unemployment numbers as something to strive for. The idea that I might not need a job (when I haven't accumula

by k33n 7y ago

I don't think it's terribly strange to view lower unemployment numbers as something to strive for. The idea that I might not need a job (when I haven't accumulated the resources to support myself without one) is totally foreign to me, and not attractive at all. I grew tremendously as a person working jobs I didn't enjoy. I only work on what I want to now, and I couldn't imagine I'd be very satisfied with my life I didn't navigate to this position through hard work.

burkaman 7y ago
Do you think it's possible to work hard at something you enjoy?
- mamon 7y ago
  It is possible, but it is also quite rare, and usually happens for higly paid, white collar jobs. I'm yet to meet, say, trash pickup guy that enjoys his job. EDIT: to clarify - it's not that I look down on any jobs. Trash pickup is very much needed profession. What I'm saying is: Let's say person wins a lottery and suddenly has all the money they need for the rest of their lives. I can imagine that many software developers will still continue to program, writers or musicians would continue writing novels or songs, but I'm pretty sure noone would voluntarily continue their trash pickup work.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I know plenty of tradespeople who enjoy their work and find value and some fulfillment in what they do. Do they love it like I love programming? Maybe; maybe not, but it seems possible.
    - adamsea 7y ago
      True but tradespeople !== trash man or inkjet-printer factory worker (similar to example from an above post).
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        My primary point was that these were not highly-paid, white collar jobs.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    It's also possible that people with jobs you are judgy about won't tell you they actually like the work that you look down upon. This is one of the ways prejudice is self reinforcing. People tend to frame things selectively in response to the audience in question. People in vulnerable positions are usually aware of it and acting to protect themselves.
shkkmo 7y ago
There are jobs that you don't enjoy but that will help you achieve a better future. Then there are jobs that do nothing but provide a temporary stop gap from financial ruin. The idea isn't that you don't need a job, the idea is that you are less dependent on finding a job right away so that you can find a good fit between your skills and your goals and your job. This not only will lead to a better life for you, but more overall economic productivity.
- k33n 7y ago
  If working a job will prevent financial ruin, then it's a good job. No job has to be permanent.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    There's no reason people should have to suffer "busy work" while they're looking for some place to be truly productive, just to assuage the grievances of Puritan work ethic folk. "Any job" doesn't help people find stable work as well as training and a safety net do. SOME jobs provide this, but forcing people into jobs that don't is counterproductive. This is a common misunderstanding people have.
  - adamsea 7y ago
    What if the job has terrible safety conditions and a high injury rate. Is it still good? I’m not arguing that it doesn’t provide some value if it staves off financial ruin, but, the world is composed of more than only “good” and “bad”. If it wasn’t things would be so simple that sites like HN would not exist.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > If working a job will prevent financial ruin, then it's a good job. No job has to be permanent. That seems to be the definition of an acceptable job. To me a good job is one which you wouldn't mind doing every day for the rest of your life. The occupation needs to actually be desirable in the long run, and a decent paycheck does not fit the bill.
    - 7y ago
alsoh 7y ago
Would you prefer a system which teaches you in let's say a high quality education system? If yes: imagine a world where more people are willing to do other jobs more social because money becomes less relevant.
zzzeek 7y ago
note: this is an "old man yelling at clouds" post. I hope readers can consume it in a way that they find valuable to their current perspectives. I have experiences with many jobs that were not enjoyable. By "not enjoyable", I don't only mean they were dull office jobs. I had a lot of jobs in my early twenties, often through temp agencies but not always: working in warehouses, working as a manual laborer in large institutional buildings (moving furniture etc), two different jobs working on factory assembly lines, working in old office buildings to pull network cable through ceilings and floors, working on receiving docks, etc. Well over ten or fifteen jobs, as they tended to last for a summer, or a few months or weeks. As someone with computer skills and ultimately a pretty promising career ahead of me, I always had the sense in these temp jobs that they were just that, "temporary". However, most everyone I worked with in these roles were not there as temps, they were the people for whom life had worked out such that these kinds of jobs were close to the best they were going to get. There is no amount of "hard work" that someone in these roles can apply to move to a new station in life, there are too many strikes against them: educational, cognitive/developmental, health-wise, criminal backgrounds, etc. that make it extremely unlikely they would ever have much better of a station in life. And like me, all of these people were entirely aware of this element of who they were; they were the "lifers". One of the worst jobs I had which I could only handle for about two weeks was working in a factory that manufactured rolls of ink ribbon for line printers and typewriters. My job was to be handed a large metal bar called the "spindle" onto which I would pull out 30 or so rolls, stick all the rolls onto the spindle with spacers in between them, then hand them off to this other woman who had whatever minor skill was required to put this spindle into the machine that would roll the ink ribbon onto them. You do this in a dark and smelly factory for 8 hours a day. This job was for me, a valuable experience, as I can look back on it with all the perspective offered by doing that kind of job. But for all the other folks working in that place including the woman who I handed the spindle off towards, that was it for them. They were all at most high school grad or less, they were people for whom there were no opportunities. The job paid minimum wage. They were "lifers". These people are counted as part of "the employed". But they live paycheck to paycheck with minimal benefits or health care, in a dangerous and unhealthy environment, low life expectancy, poor nutrition, all of it. I don't consider low employment numbers to be very interesting when one notes how miserable life is for so many of the "employed".

by k33n 7y ago

burkaman 7y ago

Do you think it's possible to work hard at something you enjoy?

mamon 7y ago
It is possible, but it is also quite rare, and usually happens for higly paid, white collar jobs. I'm yet to meet, say, trash pickup guy that enjoys his job. EDIT: to clarify - it's not that I look down on any jobs. Trash pickup is very much needed profession. What I'm saying is: Let's say person wins a lottery and suddenly has all the money they need for the rest of their lives. I can imagine that many software developers will still continue to program, writers or musicians would continue writing novels or songs, but I'm pretty sure noone would voluntarily continue their trash pickup work.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  I know plenty of tradespeople who enjoy their work and find value and some fulfillment in what they do. Do they love it like I love programming? Maybe; maybe not, but it seems possible.
  - adamsea 7y ago
    True but tradespeople !== trash man or inkjet-printer factory worker (similar to example from an above post).
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      My primary point was that these were not highly-paid, white collar jobs.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  It's also possible that people with jobs you are judgy about won't tell you they actually like the work that you look down upon. This is one of the ways prejudice is self reinforcing. People tend to frame things selectively in response to the audience in question. People in vulnerable positions are usually aware of it and acting to protect themselves.

shkkmo 7y ago

There are jobs that you don't enjoy but that will help you achieve a better future. Then there are jobs that do nothing but provide a temporary stop gap from financial ruin. The idea isn't that you don't need a job, the idea is that you are less dependent on finding a job right away so that you can find a good fit between your skills and your goals and your job. This not only will lead to a better life for you, but more overall economic productivity.

k33n 7y ago
If working a job will prevent financial ruin, then it's a good job. No job has to be permanent.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  There's no reason people should have to suffer "busy work" while they're looking for some place to be truly productive, just to assuage the grievances of Puritan work ethic folk. "Any job" doesn't help people find stable work as well as training and a safety net do. SOME jobs provide this, but forcing people into jobs that don't is counterproductive. This is a common misunderstanding people have.
- adamsea 7y ago
  What if the job has terrible safety conditions and a high injury rate. Is it still good? I’m not arguing that it doesn’t provide some value if it staves off financial ruin, but, the world is composed of more than only “good” and “bad”. If it wasn’t things would be so simple that sites like HN would not exist.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > If working a job will prevent financial ruin, then it's a good job. No job has to be permanent. That seems to be the definition of an acceptable job. To me a good job is one which you wouldn't mind doing every day for the rest of your life. The occupation needs to actually be desirable in the long run, and a decent paycheck does not fit the bill.
  - 7y ago

alsoh 7y ago

Would you prefer a system which teaches you in let's say a high quality education system? If yes: imagine a world where more people are willing to do other jobs more social because money becomes less relevant.

zzzeek 7y ago

note: this is an "old man yelling at clouds" post. I hope readers can consume it in a way that they find valuable to their current perspectives. I have experiences with many jobs that were not enjoyable. By "not enjoyable", I don't only mean they were dull office jobs. I had a lot of jobs in my early twenties, often through temp agencies but not always: working in warehouses, working as a manual laborer in large institutional buildings (moving furniture etc), two different jobs working on factory assembly lines, working in old office buildings to pull network cable through ceilings and floors, working on receiving docks, etc. Well over ten or fifteen jobs, as they tended to last for a summer, or a few months or weeks. As someone with computer skills and ultimately a pretty promising career ahead of me, I always had the sense in these temp jobs that they were just that, "temporary". However, most everyone I worked with in these roles were not there as temps, they were the people for whom life had worked out such that these kinds of jobs were close to the best they were going to get. There is no amount of "hard work" that someone in these roles can apply to move to a new station in life, there are too many strikes against them: educational, cognitive/developmental, health-wise, criminal backgrounds, etc. that make it extremely unlikely they would ever have much better of a station in life. And like me, all of these people were entirely aware of this element of who they were; they were the "lifers". One of the worst jobs I had which I could only handle for about two weeks was working in a factory that manufactured rolls of ink ribbon for line printers and typewriters. My job was to be handed a large metal bar called the "spindle" onto which I would pull out 30 or so rolls, stick all the rolls onto the spindle with spacers in between them, then hand them off to this other woman who had whatever minor skill was required to put this spindle into the machine that would roll the ink ribbon onto them. You do this in a dark and smelly factory for 8 hours a day. This job was for me, a valuable experience, as I can look back on it with all the perspective offered by doing that kind of job. But for all the other folks working in that place including the woman who I handed the spindle off towards, that was it for them. They were all at most high school grad or less, they were people for whom there were no opportunities. The job paid minimum wage. They were "lifers". These people are counted as part of "the employed". But they live paycheck to paycheck with minimal benefits or health care, in a dangerous and unhealthy environment, low life expectancy, poor nutrition, all of it. I don't consider low employment numbers to be very interesting when one notes how miserable life is for so many of the "employed".