6 ms·

My job allows me to go back stage at Glastonbury and track-side visits at the Olympics, front seat views of royal weddings, orchestral pit on last night of the

My job allows me to go back stage at Glastonbury and track-side visits at the Olympics, front seat views of royal weddings, orchestral pit on last night of the proms, and I have a fairly sedantry job of mostly pushing buttons. Colleagues have spent days in jungles building bridges to drive cars over them, have got to know people living in random villages from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and share in their culture, have met and quizzed world leaders, have been to Antarctic bases, and have exposed and brought down criminal networks making lives miserable for thousands of people. I guess you'd define that as "glorious toiling", but I could have 10m in the bank and never have to work again, but get to do very little of that.

JamesAdir 6y ago
What's your job?
- harel 6y ago
  Works at the BBC if I had to guess...
  - iso1631 6y ago
    A lot of OBs are outsourced
burntoutfire 6y ago
> My job allows me to go back stage at Glastonbury and track-side visits at the Olympics, front seat views of royal weddings, orchestral pit on last night of the proms, and I have a fairly sedantry job of mostly pushing buttons. I had a similar job once, where I worked in TV coverage of final table of WSOP (World Series of Poker). I was around the poker celebs at the time, preparing talking points for my boss who interacted with them, even have somewhere a photo of me sitting at the final table. My ultimate conclusion is... so what? Beyond a cool story to share with people interested in poker, there's little value in that for me, and I was a poker nerd then.
- emteycz 6y ago
  It seems like this person deeply values what they had the opportunity to do, while you don't care about poker.
  - abledon 6y ago
    in the end, everyones going to just figure out they should be doing yoga
- SamBam 6y ago
  I'm unsure how this is a relevant reply. I guess if you interpret GP's comment as saying "I had a job that I could tell a lot of cool stories about," then you're right, that's not worth so much if all you get out of it is a "cool story bro." But if you actually enjoyed living in those stories, then how can the ultimate conclusion be "so what?" Having an interesting and rich life that you enjoy is clearly a goal for many.
teachingassist 6y ago
If you have 10m in the bank and want to be involved in events at that level, you can be: we would just instead call you an executive producer.
fsloth 6y ago
My choice of expression was a bit clumsy. By "toil" I did not mean a thing without a worth - a thing you find worthwhile is intrinsically valuable. I don't believe you can compute economic value to life experiences. I would call toil anything that does not enable you to rise to the stage of self-actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But like I said my intent was not to present such a non-self actualizing job as bad, quite contrary.
gaws 6y ago
> My job allows me to go back stage at Glastonbury and track-side visits at the Olympics, front seat views of royal weddings, orchestral pit on last night of the proms, and I have a fairly sedantry job of mostly pushing buttons. Cool.... so what do you do?
- toomuchredbull 6y ago
  Sounds like some sort of audio tech?
- iso1631 6y ago
  Mostly broadcast contribution and networking. Take the London Marathon in October, nice simple job given it's covid with 6 outgoing video circuits to national and international - some via satellite, some via dual-fibre - 4 incoming circuits, about 16 bidirectional audio channels, wifi across the compound. Most of it is sitting at home making sure everything runs fine -- today I was looking into a supposedly resilient SRT connection that's dropping every few days - incoming packets from two different suppliers stop at the same millisecond, but the far end (not mine) insist they are coming from two different devices (which I can't believe)
bobthechef 6y ago
On a related note, I think what you might call "low income" service jobs are often more likely to put you in contact with those sorts of people than some middle class job. Sort of like being a maid. Maids work for the rich and the rich are more likely to be those sorts of people. So a maid is more likely to know one of those people than a middle class person and in a way that is quite personal (you're in their house, possible living under their roof). I know of cases like that involving well known people. Naturally, the perspective is more quotidian and more accurate than the kind of comical celebrity fantasies middle class people often believe.
tootie 6y ago
I've done some travel for work in my life. I did an extended stay in the UK (I'm American) when I was young and it was pretty amazing. Many years later I had a gig that needed me to spend time in spots around the US and also some stays in East Asia. All business class and expense accounts in first-rate cities and I hated it. I'm older now and I have kids at home that I didn't get to see. Taking a business trip to Tokyo always seemed like the ultimate Business Guy thing to do but I spent 80% of my waking hours in conference rooms with salary men. You value different things at different times in your life, but looking back I'm glad I got to experience those things because most people don't get the chance.
manitowoc 6y ago
What are ‘the proms’? And why would anyone want to sit through royal weddings
- flobosg 6y ago
  He is probably referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms#Last_Night_of_the_Proms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms#Last_Night_of_the_Pr...
- iso1631 6y ago
  Major cultural event And as for weddings about a million people lined the streets of London when Kate + William got married. Might not be your cup of tea, but horses for courses.
  - manitowoc 6y ago
    Ok. Major British cultural event. It would have been helpful to include that since (I assume) most HN readers are American. And I guess Royal weddings are more popular than I thought, at least in the UK.
    - qw 6y ago
      https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/tv-ratings-royal-wedding-brings-18-million-viewers-us-broadcast-1113498 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/tv-ratings-royal-... > TV Ratings: 22.4 Million U.S. Viewers RSVP to Royal Wedding
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      Most HN readers should have been able to work out it was a non-American comment, based on the "royal wedding" event option even if unfamiliar with Glastonbury and the proms.

JamesAdir 6y ago

What's your job?

harel 6y ago
Works at the BBC if I had to guess...
- iso1631 6y ago
  A lot of OBs are outsourced

burntoutfire 6y ago

> My job allows me to go back stage at Glastonbury and track-side visits at the Olympics, front seat views of royal weddings, orchestral pit on last night of the proms, and I have a fairly sedantry job of mostly pushing buttons. I had a similar job once, where I worked in TV coverage of final table of WSOP (World Series of Poker). I was around the poker celebs at the time, preparing talking points for my boss who interacted with them, even have somewhere a photo of me sitting at the final table. My ultimate conclusion is... so what? Beyond a cool story to share with people interested in poker, there's little value in that for me, and I was a poker nerd then.

emteycz 6y ago
It seems like this person deeply values what they had the opportunity to do, while you don't care about poker.
- abledon 6y ago
  in the end, everyones going to just figure out they should be doing yoga
SamBam 6y ago
I'm unsure how this is a relevant reply. I guess if you interpret GP's comment as saying "I had a job that I could tell a lot of cool stories about," then you're right, that's not worth so much if all you get out of it is a "cool story bro." But if you actually enjoyed living in those stories, then how can the ultimate conclusion be "so what?" Having an interesting and rich life that you enjoy is clearly a goal for many.

teachingassist 6y ago

If you have 10m in the bank and want to be involved in events at that level, you can be: we would just instead call you an executive producer.

fsloth 6y ago

My choice of expression was a bit clumsy. By "toil" I did not mean a thing without a worth - a thing you find worthwhile is intrinsically valuable. I don't believe you can compute economic value to life experiences. I would call toil anything that does not enable you to rise to the stage of self-actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But like I said my intent was not to present such a non-self actualizing job as bad, quite contrary.

gaws 6y ago

toomuchredbull 6y ago
Sounds like some sort of audio tech?
iso1631 6y ago
Mostly broadcast contribution and networking. Take the London Marathon in October, nice simple job given it's covid with 6 outgoing video circuits to national and international - some via satellite, some via dual-fibre - 4 incoming circuits, about 16 bidirectional audio channels, wifi across the compound. Most of it is sitting at home making sure everything runs fine -- today I was looking into a supposedly resilient SRT connection that's dropping every few days - incoming packets from two different suppliers stop at the same millisecond, but the far end (not mine) insist they are coming from two different devices (which I can't believe)

bobthechef 6y ago

On a related note, I think what you might call "low income" service jobs are often more likely to put you in contact with those sorts of people than some middle class job. Sort of like being a maid. Maids work for the rich and the rich are more likely to be those sorts of people. So a maid is more likely to know one of those people than a middle class person and in a way that is quite personal (you're in their house, possible living under their roof). I know of cases like that involving well known people. Naturally, the perspective is more quotidian and more accurate than the kind of comical celebrity fantasies middle class people often believe.

tootie 6y ago

I've done some travel for work in my life. I did an extended stay in the UK (I'm American) when I was young and it was pretty amazing. Many years later I had a gig that needed me to spend time in spots around the US and also some stays in East Asia. All business class and expense accounts in first-rate cities and I hated it. I'm older now and I have kids at home that I didn't get to see. Taking a business trip to Tokyo always seemed like the ultimate Business Guy thing to do but I spent 80% of my waking hours in conference rooms with salary men. You value different things at different times in your life, but looking back I'm glad I got to experience those things because most people don't get the chance.

manitowoc 6y ago

What are ‘the proms’? And why would anyone want to sit through royal weddings

flobosg 6y ago
He is probably referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms#Last_Night_of_the_Proms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms#Last_Night_of_the_Pr...
iso1631 6y ago
Major cultural event And as for weddings about a million people lined the streets of London when Kate + William got married. Might not be your cup of tea, but horses for courses.
- manitowoc 6y ago
  Ok. Major British cultural event. It would have been helpful to include that since (I assume) most HN readers are American. And I guess Royal weddings are more popular than I thought, at least in the UK.
  - qw 6y ago
    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/tv-ratings-royal-wedding-brings-18-million-viewers-us-broadcast-1113498 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/tv-ratings-royal-... > TV Ratings: 22.4 Million U.S. Viewers RSVP to Royal Wedding
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    Most HN readers should have been able to work out it was a non-American comment, based on the "royal wedding" event option even if unfamiliar with Glastonbury and the proms.