6 ms·

It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like

It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's this spare time available to do other things; but, when you are in it, it's not obvious where the boundary is between this extra time and where the work time should be. I know it sounds like a first world problem; but, it actually feels really awful to be in this spot because you can't even admit you are there to anyone without feeling like a slacker/loser/failure/time-thief, a torturous trap.

croh 5y ago
terrible time. you feel like losing the game, falling behind from all new cool-aid drinks. You feel like your friends and colleagues are working on something cool, and then suddenly re-org happens and you wonder is your career on right track ?
spookthesunset 5y ago
Last two years of my life was this. Sitting at home with nothing meaningful to do but still having to park my butt in my kids bedroom.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pdimitar 5y ago
  So why didn't you use your time better and invest in other skills you want to have?
  - Damogran6 5y ago
    "Why don't you just not be sad?"
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      I didn't say or even imply that and it's unfair to interpret it that way. Distract yourself in a positive manner. Don't dwell on meaningless thoughts that you'll never defeat. Only way to win is to do something else with your time. It's fine if you don't think that's the solution but straight up misrepresenting what has been said to you is not cool.
      - SwSwinger 5y ago
        I think the point is that this negative pitfall happens to people and multiple people concur. It's easy to say "fight this with positivity", most people on HN started with this philosophy. In practice, it's hard to do that consistently after the first 10 years, especially when you don't notice the slide until you're in a pit.
        pdimitar 5y ago
        Hm, didn't occur to me to look at it that way so you're likely correct. I am personally 41 and I've fought tooth and nail to not just sit at the computer for the sake of it, neither in an office nor at home. Nowadays when I sit at my desk, I have goals in mind and if I catch myself not working towards any of them in an hour, I just get up and go do something else and someplace else. But I maintain that nowhere did I imply something as dismissive and shallow as "just don't be sad" or, not shallow but still far from what I meant, "fight this with positivity". It's not that at all, it was much more along the lines of: "find your own purpose and don't wait for others to impose theirs on you". In my current job I am one of 3 recent hires (just recently hit the 4 months mark) and since we come from very different backgrounds compared to the company's culture, we often have 5 PRs just waiting on reviews and we find ourselves completely blocked on any further progress (can't even open other PRs since we still haven't received feedback on the current ones and that would severely change what code we should put in the new ones). I have raised the problem multiple times, from squad leaders all the way to the CEO, but it seems that the people are cool with it and don't mind if you just twiddle your thumbs every now and then. So I started picking up more and more sysadmin skills which I need for my home NAS management and potentially other home servers in the future. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But maybe my comment up-thread was way too short and open for negative interpretation?
granshaw 5y ago
I’d like to find contracts that are purely delivery based and not part of a team setting. And do value based pricing so if I finish quickly, I’m truly off the hook and have my own time back
anothernewdude 5y ago
I just got a second job. Keeps me busy rather than just spending time waiting all day.
- heurist 5y ago
  Side gig/project is the answer here. If you're not doing 6-8 hours of active work per workday and no one is complaining you might as well use the rest for yourself. Make sure it's something where you can exercise creativity and/or learn.
ravenstine 5y ago
And even if you can manage to find things to do to occupy the time and appear busy, you'll be lucky if management considers the importance of your work and schedule it with the rest of your workload. One too many times have I had to find something to do and spend weeks or months on that thing only to have management tell me to immediately stop working on it even though that thing was actually important. This may not seem different from just being "on", but I find that having real work be tossed in the garbage is even more demoralizing than milling around and not really doing anything.
- wreath 5y ago
  Someone here on HN once mentioned that they cleaned or worked on their deck or whatever while working and nobody cared. I did the same (well, no deck but other stuff) when i had long stretches of downtime or notice that nobody else cares as much as I do about the project. Same result, nobody gave a fuck really. I don't think it's sustainable, but whatever.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Ideally the thing you spend time on should be something you can use outside the org. E.g. learn k8s.
  - Juliate 5y ago
    That’s if you’re not already frozen regarding the field. I’m exactly in this spot right now. And yes, self-training on side quests like k8s or anything related to the field looks nice on the paper. The problem comes from when 1/ you already associated all these training with the field you’re working in, and it feels helpless and boring, 2/ you still feel somehow disloyal to use your time like that.
    - orzig 5y ago
      Yeah, a good manager can fix that in 30 seconds (by giving you explicit permission to learn), but a surprising portion don’t think too.
- 5y ago
thematrixturtle 5y ago
Bingo. Working from home also exacerbates this, since there is no longer a physical division between "work" and "home", plus there is virtually no social pressure not to slack off.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  ...And the problem is, what exactly?
  - chasd00 5y ago
    Lack of self discipline. If you’re going to wfh you have to be disciplined enough to work during work hours and not work during non work hours.
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      Well, it pays off to be aware of the issue at least, right? I too have grappled with this for a while but I believe this struggle was for the better and it eventually led to reduced stress. Nowadays when I mentally proclaim "I am done for the day!" I know that I did my best and that I have put enough hours / effort to not feel guilty about not putting more. So yeah, you are right. I just think people should go through this fight for discipline because it's ultimately better for their mental health when they learn to put boundaries.
- osigurdson 5y ago
  I think that works both ways. If you want to work more, it is easier to do from home as there is less social (i.e. family) pressure to come home from the office. The key is to find a workable balance.
pdimitar 5y ago
So don't admit it to anyone. Work on it by yourself or by sharing it on HN / Reddit / etc. It still reads too much as a very first world of a problem to me, admittedly. I recognize that us the people need to have a goal and a direction, otherwise we start feeling like aimless leaves on the wind -- but you can still do a ton of things at home (if you work remotely which you should) while checking your Slack and email every 15 minutes, no? But if it really bothers you so much then you have to make a choice between (a) prestige / a lot of money / boredom and (b) enjoyment / medium money / purpose. Apparently in big corps you can't have both. Being stuck in a FOMO feedback loop and being unable to choose between either path is very toxic and produces a lot of internal pressure. At some point you have to choose for the sake of your mental well-being. ...Or, as other commenters alluded to, find a job that allows you to combine them. I do doubt that many other companies can give salaries in the $250K - $500K annual range though. But who knows. As a general observation throughout my life, us the Homo Sapiens seem to suck super bad at picking a side and/or to leave a toxic relationship before it starts to poison us long-term. We must proactively work hard to periodically challenge our priorities and reassess our situation. So if you are up for an advice from a stranger: do that and do it often, something like 2-3 times a month, for whatever period of time, until you feel you finally are where you belong. We the people hold on to things for way too long. It seems to be our default mode of operation. It also doesn't help at all that our current civilization seems to thrive on bombarding people with FOMO, sigh. But we gotta adapt and find our own way through it all regardless.
- granshaw 5y ago
  You can take on a little more risk, esp if you have a spouse with employer health insurance, and be a contractor. Hitting the $300k annual ballpark is pretty doable even with giving yourself about 20 days off a year, even while working at startups and places where their employees don’t get near that
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

croh 5y ago

terrible time. you feel like losing the game, falling behind from all new cool-aid drinks. You feel like your friends and colleagues are working on something cool, and then suddenly re-org happens and you wonder is your career on right track ?

spookthesunset 5y ago

Last two years of my life was this. Sitting at home with nothing meaningful to do but still having to park my butt in my kids bedroom.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pdimitar 5y ago
So why didn't you use your time better and invest in other skills you want to have?
- Damogran6 5y ago
  "Why don't you just not be sad?"
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I didn't say or even imply that and it's unfair to interpret it that way. Distract yourself in a positive manner. Don't dwell on meaningless thoughts that you'll never defeat. Only way to win is to do something else with your time. It's fine if you don't think that's the solution but straight up misrepresenting what has been said to you is not cool.
    - SwSwinger 5y ago
      I think the point is that this negative pitfall happens to people and multiple people concur. It's easy to say "fight this with positivity", most people on HN started with this philosophy. In practice, it's hard to do that consistently after the first 10 years, especially when you don't notice the slide until you're in a pit.
      - pdimitar 5y ago
        Hm, didn't occur to me to look at it that way so you're likely correct. I am personally 41 and I've fought tooth and nail to not just sit at the computer for the sake of it, neither in an office nor at home. Nowadays when I sit at my desk, I have goals in mind and if I catch myself not working towards any of them in an hour, I just get up and go do something else and someplace else. But I maintain that nowhere did I imply something as dismissive and shallow as "just don't be sad" or, not shallow but still far from what I meant, "fight this with positivity". It's not that at all, it was much more along the lines of: "find your own purpose and don't wait for others to impose theirs on you". In my current job I am one of 3 recent hires (just recently hit the 4 months mark) and since we come from very different backgrounds compared to the company's culture, we often have 5 PRs just waiting on reviews and we find ourselves completely blocked on any further progress (can't even open other PRs since we still haven't received feedback on the current ones and that would severely change what code we should put in the new ones). I have raised the problem multiple times, from squad leaders all the way to the CEO, but it seems that the people are cool with it and don't mind if you just twiddle your thumbs every now and then. So I started picking up more and more sysadmin skills which I need for my home NAS management and potentially other home servers in the future. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But maybe my comment up-thread was way too short and open for negative interpretation?

granshaw 5y ago

I’d like to find contracts that are purely delivery based and not part of a team setting. And do value based pricing so if I finish quickly, I’m truly off the hook and have my own time back

anothernewdude 5y ago

I just got a second job. Keeps me busy rather than just spending time waiting all day.

heurist 5y ago
Side gig/project is the answer here. If you're not doing 6-8 hours of active work per workday and no one is complaining you might as well use the rest for yourself. Make sure it's something where you can exercise creativity and/or learn.

ravenstine 5y ago

And even if you can manage to find things to do to occupy the time and appear busy, you'll be lucky if management considers the importance of your work and schedule it with the rest of your workload. One too many times have I had to find something to do and spend weeks or months on that thing only to have management tell me to immediately stop working on it even though that thing was actually important. This may not seem different from just being "on", but I find that having real work be tossed in the garbage is even more demoralizing than milling around and not really doing anything.

wreath 5y ago
Someone here on HN once mentioned that they cleaned or worked on their deck or whatever while working and nobody cared. I did the same (well, no deck but other stuff) when i had long stretches of downtime or notice that nobody else cares as much as I do about the project. Same result, nobody gave a fuck really. I don't think it's sustainable, but whatever.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Ideally the thing you spend time on should be something you can use outside the org. E.g. learn k8s.
- Juliate 5y ago
  That’s if you’re not already frozen regarding the field. I’m exactly in this spot right now. And yes, self-training on side quests like k8s or anything related to the field looks nice on the paper. The problem comes from when 1/ you already associated all these training with the field you’re working in, and it feels helpless and boring, 2/ you still feel somehow disloyal to use your time like that.
  - orzig 5y ago
    Yeah, a good manager can fix that in 30 seconds (by giving you explicit permission to learn), but a surprising portion don’t think too.
5y ago

thematrixturtle 5y ago

Bingo. Working from home also exacerbates this, since there is no longer a physical division between "work" and "home", plus there is virtually no social pressure not to slack off.

pdimitar 5y ago
...And the problem is, what exactly?
- chasd00 5y ago
  Lack of self discipline. If you’re going to wfh you have to be disciplined enough to work during work hours and not work during non work hours.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Well, it pays off to be aware of the issue at least, right? I too have grappled with this for a while but I believe this struggle was for the better and it eventually led to reduced stress. Nowadays when I mentally proclaim "I am done for the day!" I know that I did my best and that I have put enough hours / effort to not feel guilty about not putting more. So yeah, you are right. I just think people should go through this fight for discipline because it's ultimately better for their mental health when they learn to put boundaries.
osigurdson 5y ago
I think that works both ways. If you want to work more, it is easier to do from home as there is less social (i.e. family) pressure to come home from the office. The key is to find a workable balance.

pdimitar 5y ago

So don't admit it to anyone. Work on it by yourself or by sharing it on HN / Reddit / etc. It still reads too much as a very first world of a problem to me, admittedly. I recognize that us the people need to have a goal and a direction, otherwise we start feeling like aimless leaves on the wind -- but you can still do a ton of things at home (if you work remotely which you should) while checking your Slack and email every 15 minutes, no? But if it really bothers you so much then you have to make a choice between (a) prestige / a lot of money / boredom and (b) enjoyment / medium money / purpose. Apparently in big corps you can't have both. Being stuck in a FOMO feedback loop and being unable to choose between either path is very toxic and produces a lot of internal pressure. At some point you have to choose for the sake of your mental well-being. ...Or, as other commenters alluded to, find a job that allows you to combine them. I do doubt that many other companies can give salaries in the $250K - $500K annual range though. But who knows. As a general observation throughout my life, us the Homo Sapiens seem to suck super bad at picking a side and/or to leave a toxic relationship before it starts to poison us long-term. We must proactively work hard to periodically challenge our priorities and reassess our situation. So if you are up for an advice from a stranger: do that and do it often, something like 2-3 times a month, for whatever period of time, until you feel you finally are where you belong. We the people hold on to things for way too long. It seems to be our default mode of operation. It also doesn't help at all that our current civilization seems to thrive on bombarding people with FOMO, sigh. But we gotta adapt and find our own way through it all regardless.

granshaw 5y ago
You can take on a little more risk, esp if you have a spouse with employer health insurance, and be a contractor. Hitting the $300k annual ballpark is pretty doable even with giving yourself about 20 days off a year, even while working at startups and places where their employees don’t get near that
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]