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> How do you live with yourself like this? Pre-define your endgame lifestyle, calculate the costs, and then get off at your stop. Seriously, it's like a proje

> How do you live with yourself like this? Pre-define your endgame lifestyle, calculate the costs, and then get off at your stop. Seriously, it's like a project cost estimate. How many kids do you want to have? Where do you want to live? What do you want to live in? When do you want to retire? What do you estimate yearly costs will be by the time of retirement? Calculate the cost of everything (it'll be in the millions) and then you've got a handle on how much money you'll need every year, and what you need to grow into. Then you've got a target to aim for, and you can either adjust the target (increasing frugality, downgrading your expectations) or you can upgrade your weapon (switching careers, gunning for higher-up positions). It's important to remember that no one actually feels rich or successful. If you have a million dollars, you'll be able to hang out with guys who have ten million dollars. But those guys can hang out with guys who have a hundred million dollars... it's a never-ending slide of bigger houses, better vehicles, longer vacations, more important jobs, and it never feels satisfying- unless you decided where you were going to stop. How could you be bothered by someone being more successful than you if you already decided how successful you wanted to be?

dogman144 6y ago
This is actually spot-on for my views in this area. I have a QoL in mind, the inputs required, and a general expectation that I won't get morality from my workplace unless I go to the civil service. It brings a form of inner capitalist peace. Rant incoming.... I think many Americans, of which I am one of course, expect their offices to be that moral link, and from there all of this anger (justifiably maybe once it shows false) flows as that morality doesn't exist there. This anger gets made worse by the SV trope of "Making the world a better place by X," which overtime starts to ring untrue because of course it's untrue. This then gets further exacerbated by seeing a-hole, incompetent Brian's lifestyle far outstrip yours, and it seems like Brian doesn't much care about making the world a better place but is succeeding at these companies. What management books has he been reading? This is an old hand but it's true: if you want morals and a sense of tangible community, seek out a bowling league, your Boy Scout troop (RIP s/), your church, Boys and Girls club, a soup kitchen, the PTA, local govt, school boards, mentorship programs, jesus I can go on and on. These are places that are crying out for volunteers usually and make tangible impacts on local communities that a fleet of donated Chromebooks will never make. Why do I feel empty inside after closing this project? It's because it doesn't compare to mentoring a low-income kid into college that only requires of you 1x Thur night a week to do vs. 400 sprints and Brian to get those Chromebooks out the door and into a school. Want to go really wild? Take that dev or infosec job at your city govt. Lord knows they need the help - be the team that unfks the COVID unemployment API (if only it was that simple haha, but still). But no, that job pays $90k to my $160k and no Asana. What am I supposed to tell you friend :shrug:. Morality is out there but it takes a paycut or IRL interactions on a Thursday night. Buy into tech capitalism and the UES apartment and all the tradeoffs or don't, but you can't have it both ways in this system.
- quacked 6y ago
  I agree with everything you said, but having worked as a contractor for the civil service, there's not a lot of morality here- more incompetence and cruising for pensions than can possibly be believed, though. As an aside, that pay cut is exactly why the gov't programmers are struggling. Top talent wants money, and the government will not offer competitive salaries, so the government IT structure is all garbage, and the cycle continues...

dogman144 6y ago

This is actually spot-on for my views in this area. I have a QoL in mind, the inputs required, and a general expectation that I won't get morality from my workplace unless I go to the civil service. It brings a form of inner capitalist peace. Rant incoming.... I think many Americans, of which I am one of course, expect their offices to be that moral link, and from there all of this anger (justifiably maybe once it shows false) flows as that morality doesn't exist there. This anger gets made worse by the SV trope of "Making the world a better place by X," which overtime starts to ring untrue because of course it's untrue. This then gets further exacerbated by seeing a-hole, incompetent Brian's lifestyle far outstrip yours, and it seems like Brian doesn't much care about making the world a better place but is succeeding at these companies. What management books has he been reading? This is an old hand but it's true: if you want morals and a sense of tangible community, seek out a bowling league, your Boy Scout troop (RIP s/), your church, Boys and Girls club, a soup kitchen, the PTA, local govt, school boards, mentorship programs, jesus I can go on and on. These are places that are crying out for volunteers usually and make tangible impacts on local communities that a fleet of donated Chromebooks will never make. Why do I feel empty inside after closing this project? It's because it doesn't compare to mentoring a low-income kid into college that only requires of you 1x Thur night a week to do vs. 400 sprints and Brian to get those Chromebooks out the door and into a school. Want to go really wild? Take that dev or infosec job at your city govt. Lord knows they need the help - be the team that unfks the COVID unemployment API (if only it was that simple haha, but still). But no, that job pays $90k to my $160k and no Asana. What am I supposed to tell you friend :shrug:. Morality is out there but it takes a paycut or IRL interactions on a Thursday night. Buy into tech capitalism and the UES apartment and all the tradeoffs or don't, but you can't have it both ways in this system.

quacked 6y ago
I agree with everything you said, but having worked as a contractor for the civil service, there's not a lot of morality here- more incompetence and cruising for pensions than can possibly be believed, though. As an aside, that pay cut is exactly why the gov't programmers are struggling. Top talent wants money, and the government will not offer competitive salaries, so the government IT structure is all garbage, and the cycle continues...