3 ms·

Being paid a lot of money for not having any responsibility sounds good to me. This guy sure seems angry about it though.

globular-toast 7y ago
Some people just don't enjoy that kind of life. I worked for a large financial company where I had a super easy job, very little responsibility, but great compensation. I didn't last a year there. Every day I could feel the life being drained from me. After a few years I would have been a braindead drone just like the rest of them. Doing what I'm good at is far more fulfilling than getting paid to waste my life.
- allovernow 7y ago
  My first real job out of grad school was like that. I was making bank but not doing anything useful. It was soul crushing to spend so much time doing nothing, or doing bullshit work - writing reports that no one would read, making presentations that no one needed to hear... I took a paycut but the world is totally different when you enjoy your job.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
herenorthere 7y ago
also giving up a $50k severance package doesn't sound as exceptional when you've already collected $660,000 from them. Yeah it's still a lot of money, but apparently being able to promote his blog with anecdotes from Pivotal was worth the $50k to him...
- RobRivera 7y ago
  To be fair, his severance legal vernacular seemed problematic.
  - herenorthere 7y ago
    Fair enough-- I suppose that makes his decision moderately more reasonable
- bootlooped 7y ago
  It makes me suspicious of a person who passes up $50k because they would rather write a rant on their blog. What type of personality does that? Sure the agreement was one sided, and maybe it even had questionable legal basis and would be unenforceable, but guess what, so do many other contracts consumers sign every day, and those don't usually net us $50k!
  - throwawayjava 7y ago
    > passes up 50K If the author had another job lined up already, the severance package wasn't worth much of anything -- it only paid out until he had a new position. So, probably closer to passing up $0 than to passing up $50K. Still a bit of an annoying personality. If you know you won't get any $ from the severance package, just send a "thanks but no thanks" message to the person off-boarding you. Don't harass some poor corporate lawyer 2 years of out law school with inane demands for preferential terms on the severance contract for an individual contributor.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      I think you're giving the system too much deference here. If an individual contributor is important enough that the company wants to give them a gag order, they're important enough to ask for preferential terms about it.
fierarul 7y ago
You probably wouldn't enjoy it. Everybody talks about Impostor Syndrome but I bet you would start internalising some deep fear about your own capabilities if you never get to do anything and people paid about the same money do get to do stuff.
autarch 7y ago
I had a job for several years where I was paid a lot of money to do very little, because the company moved at a glacial pace compared to what I was capable of. I did do a lot of FOSS work during that time but ultimately I started feeling depressed. I'm not a live to work person, but I do want to feel like my work has some sort of meaning, even if that meaning is just "building a product that people use". Having my contract not be renewed (insourcing to China) was the best thing that could have happened to me. I got a new position where we moved at a decent pace and I was contributing to something real, and I felt way better almost immediately.
austincheney 7y ago
When I was in Kuwait on military deployment last year one of my three roommates was a pediatric cardiologist. I remember hearing a conversation between him and another of my roommates who was disgruntled because they couldn’t get a real job. I butted in saying I have a six figure job in a low cost of living economy and I don’t do shit. I hate it so much they could take my job. I would happily give it to them. They were both envious, but surprisingly the cardiologist voiced the greatest envy. I am home from deployment working at the same employer, one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the country/world. This employer is one of the best employee friendly companies I have ever seen and pays well. I still hate it. It’s not really the employer I hate, but working in corporate software. If I could get any other job at a vaguely similar income level I would take it happily, even if it’s digging ditches or shoveling shit, and this is even though I really enjoy writing software. Corporate software is grossly dysfunctional. * In software I am frequently surrounded by people who are afraid to do their jobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22478996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22478996 * It could be that I am frequently surrounded by people who lack confidence because they have no idea how to do their job - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22412477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22412477 * Or maybe software just allows people to be less than competent because there is not an agreed upon definition of competence. Maybe software is a blue collar industry with an identity disorder - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391509 * If you needed an example of that identity disorder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22360326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22360326 * It seems other developers have similar observations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345702 * Often times it’s easier to do nothing, because when you try people cry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194297 * Since there are not industry defined norms and ethics you too can attain a do nothing job recognizing the bias that goes into hiring and manipulating it to your favor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22164138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22164138 * For the longest time I had incorrectly thought the corporate software directly encouraged incompetence in a highly competitive way. A HN comment convinced me it was just mental laziness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116659 * Sexism is just a symptom of that bias and mental laziness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22098101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22098101 * If you want examples of mental laziness in practice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21965539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21965539 * Everyone in software is an engineer right? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21905285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21905285 * People actually seriously trying to justify being paid for other people doing theirs jobs for them - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21885691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21885691 * If you actually do your job you might fail, so better play it safe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21884188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21884188 * Blue collar work work, as evidenced by the expectations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21739708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21739708 * Originality is scary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21417450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21417450

globular-toast 7y ago

Some people just don't enjoy that kind of life. I worked for a large financial company where I had a super easy job, very little responsibility, but great compensation. I didn't last a year there. Every day I could feel the life being drained from me. After a few years I would have been a braindead drone just like the rest of them. Doing what I'm good at is far more fulfilling than getting paid to waste my life.

allovernow 7y ago
My first real job out of grad school was like that. I was making bank but not doing anything useful. It was soul crushing to spend so much time doing nothing, or doing bullshit work - writing reports that no one would read, making presentations that no one needed to hear... I took a paycut but the world is totally different when you enjoy your job.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

herenorthere 7y ago

also giving up a $50k severance package doesn't sound as exceptional when you've already collected $660,000 from them. Yeah it's still a lot of money, but apparently being able to promote his blog with anecdotes from Pivotal was worth the $50k to him...

RobRivera 7y ago
To be fair, his severance legal vernacular seemed problematic.
- herenorthere 7y ago
  Fair enough-- I suppose that makes his decision moderately more reasonable
bootlooped 7y ago
It makes me suspicious of a person who passes up $50k because they would rather write a rant on their blog. What type of personality does that? Sure the agreement was one sided, and maybe it even had questionable legal basis and would be unenforceable, but guess what, so do many other contracts consumers sign every day, and those don't usually net us $50k!
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  > passes up 50K If the author had another job lined up already, the severance package wasn't worth much of anything -- it only paid out until he had a new position. So, probably closer to passing up $0 than to passing up $50K. Still a bit of an annoying personality. If you know you won't get any $ from the severance package, just send a "thanks but no thanks" message to the person off-boarding you. Don't harass some poor corporate lawyer 2 years of out law school with inane demands for preferential terms on the severance contract for an individual contributor.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I think you're giving the system too much deference here. If an individual contributor is important enough that the company wants to give them a gag order, they're important enough to ask for preferential terms about it.

fierarul 7y ago

You probably wouldn't enjoy it. Everybody talks about Impostor Syndrome but I bet you would start internalising some deep fear about your own capabilities if you never get to do anything and people paid about the same money do get to do stuff.

autarch 7y ago

I had a job for several years where I was paid a lot of money to do very little, because the company moved at a glacial pace compared to what I was capable of. I did do a lot of FOSS work during that time but ultimately I started feeling depressed. I'm not a live to work person, but I do want to feel like my work has some sort of meaning, even if that meaning is just "building a product that people use". Having my contract not be renewed (insourcing to China) was the best thing that could have happened to me. I got a new position where we moved at a decent pace and I was contributing to something real, and I felt way better almost immediately.

austincheney 7y ago

When I was in Kuwait on military deployment last year one of my three roommates was a pediatric cardiologist. I remember hearing a conversation between him and another of my roommates who was disgruntled because they couldn’t get a real job. I butted in saying I have a six figure job in a low cost of living economy and I don’t do shit. I hate it so much they could take my job. I would happily give it to them. They were both envious, but surprisingly the cardiologist voiced the greatest envy. I am home from deployment working at the same employer, one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the country/world. This employer is one of the best employee friendly companies I have ever seen and pays well. I still hate it. It’s not really the employer I hate, but working in corporate software. If I could get any other job at a vaguely similar income level I would take it happily, even if it’s digging ditches or shoveling shit, and this is even though I really enjoy writing software. Corporate software is grossly dysfunctional. * In software I am frequently surrounded by people who are afraid to do their jobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22478996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22478996 * It could be that I am frequently surrounded by people who lack confidence because they have no idea how to do their job - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22412477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22412477 * Or maybe software just allows people to be less than competent because there is not an agreed upon definition of competence. Maybe software is a blue collar industry with an identity disorder - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22391509 * If you needed an example of that identity disorder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22360326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22360326 * It seems other developers have similar observations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345702 * Often times it’s easier to do nothing, because when you try people cry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194297 * Since there are not industry defined norms and ethics you too can attain a do nothing job recognizing the bias that goes into hiring and manipulating it to your favor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22164138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22164138 * For the longest time I had incorrectly thought the corporate software directly encouraged incompetence in a highly competitive way. A HN comment convinced me it was just mental laziness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116659 * Sexism is just a symptom of that bias and mental laziness - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22098101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22098101 * If you want examples of mental laziness in practice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21965539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21965539 * Everyone in software is an engineer right? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21905285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21905285 * People actually seriously trying to justify being paid for other people doing theirs jobs for them - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21885691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21885691 * If you actually do your job you might fail, so better play it safe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21884188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21884188 * Blue collar work work, as evidenced by the expectations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21739708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21739708 * Originality is scary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21417450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21417450