5 ms·

Oh yeah. I've met more than a couple of engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burn

Oh yeah. I've met more than a couple of engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression. They are better than average technically, but their social skills fail them. Which in a paid employment situation carries a lot of weight. I feel sorry for these guys

alrlroipsp 4y ago
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Who is "we"? Unemployed code wizards?
  - alrlroipsp 4y ago
    We are "engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression". Who is you? Not a comedian?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pennaMan 4y ago
>paid employment situation Just don't get yourself in such a situation and you'll do fine :)
- Rezwoodly 4y ago
  Yeah, sure. It's super easy to avoid gainful employment. Based on this comment I can already tell you're a genius.
  - pennaMan 4y ago
    If you ignore corporate and social propaganda it tones the difficulty down a bit by having the right mindset. I've only been an employee at the start of my adult life for 3 years at a small software outsourcing agency. Been gaining a steady 20x the median salary for my city for the past 12 years since I've abandoned "employment". Can't say I'm particulary smart. I'm closer to Dumb and Dumber than Rainman. I just ignore opinions of other people or entities and go my own way.
fuckstick 4y ago
> all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression Nonsense. John Carmack is the most obvious counterexample. But pretty much anyone that works in gaming. While the stories of resentment of specific employers abound — your general thesis is nonsense.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- agentultra 4y ago
  I think John Carmack is amazing but also an outlier. The intersection of the sets of developers who: A) make it to their 40s and are still IC's B) still work > 40hrs/wk on a startup for little-to-no-pay C) are still happy and enjoying themselves Is small. It's not empty though! But I do think there are many people who think this is the ideal way to live or something they ought to strive for. And the set of people who try and realize later in life that was not what they should have been working towards do tend to burnout and have regrets. It happens a lot to people who want to be famous. They don't think about what they would have to give up to get it: some measure of your health in later life (hello carpal tunnel, frequent recurring hemorrhoids, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, poor vision, etc), friends and relationships (read enough biographies and loneliness is a recurring theme) -- things they might take for granted. There are stories from people who did make it and became famous and wish they hadn't. There are more of those than the, "I wouldn't have given this up for the world," types I think. Grass is always greener on the other side, as they say. Update: also, Carmack hasn't been working at a startup since he took the golden parachute out of Id and could afford to build rockets as a hobby.
  - amag 4y ago
    I'm trying to make it through your comment but get stuck at IC, asking the Internet gives me this list: https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/IC https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/IC
    - agentultra 4y ago

alrlroipsp 4y ago

mardifoufs 4y ago
Who is "we"? Unemployed code wizards?
- alrlroipsp 4y ago
  We are "engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression". Who is you? Not a comedian?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pennaMan 4y ago

>paid employment situation Just don't get yourself in such a situation and you'll do fine :)

Rezwoodly 4y ago
Yeah, sure. It's super easy to avoid gainful employment. Based on this comment I can already tell you're a genius.
- pennaMan 4y ago
  If you ignore corporate and social propaganda it tones the difficulty down a bit by having the right mindset. I've only been an employee at the start of my adult life for 3 years at a small software outsourcing agency. Been gaining a steady 20x the median salary for my city for the past 12 years since I've abandoned "employment". Can't say I'm particulary smart. I'm closer to Dumb and Dumber than Rainman. I just ignore opinions of other people or entities and go my own way.

fuckstick 4y ago

> all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression Nonsense. John Carmack is the most obvious counterexample. But pretty much anyone that works in gaming. While the stories of resentment of specific employers abound — your general thesis is nonsense.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
agentultra 4y ago
I think John Carmack is amazing but also an outlier. The intersection of the sets of developers who: A) make it to their 40s and are still IC's B) still work > 40hrs/wk on a startup for little-to-no-pay C) are still happy and enjoying themselves Is small. It's not empty though! But I do think there are many people who think this is the ideal way to live or something they ought to strive for. And the set of people who try and realize later in life that was not what they should have been working towards do tend to burnout and have regrets. It happens a lot to people who want to be famous. They don't think about what they would have to give up to get it: some measure of your health in later life (hello carpal tunnel, frequent recurring hemorrhoids, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, poor vision, etc), friends and relationships (read enough biographies and loneliness is a recurring theme) -- things they might take for granted. There are stories from people who did make it and became famous and wish they hadn't. There are more of those than the, "I wouldn't have given this up for the world," types I think. Grass is always greener on the other side, as they say. Update: also, Carmack hasn't been working at a startup since he took the golden parachute out of Id and could afford to build rockets as a hobby.
- amag 4y ago
  I'm trying to make it through your comment but get stuck at IC, asking the Internet gives me this list: https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/IC https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/IC
  - agentultra 4y ago