14 ms·

You’re going to get a bias in here because a lot of folks are STEM focused / high achieving high anxiety types :)

mouse_ 4y ago
I guarantee most of these "high achieving high anxiety types" live with significantly less anxiety than customer service reps/bag handlers/food service workers.
- tdesilva 4y ago
  Why do you think that?
  - rfrey 4y ago
    Because most of us can afford food for our families, even in the last week of the month.
    - WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
      Yeah. I did a decade where that wasn't the case. Poverty is longer and harder in southern states.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    None of them make six figures while browsing HN
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Those browsing HN still have sprint deadlines. Browsing HN creates more stress. Or keep online 24 hours or spend the night mentally trying to solve an abstract issue. At 5pm they are done. Different stresses / pressures. How many are learning a new language in their freetime just to keep employed. How many people create side projects to land employment at a coffee shop? To compare employment how many coffee shops test if an employee can make a cup during the interview? How many people are excluded from an interview because they only made starbucks coffee at a previous position.. no way they can figure out McDonalds coffee machines.. How many are asked to go through a take home coffee making task? None..
      - panzagl 4y ago
        How many developers clock out then go to the second job they need to make rent?
        ipaddr 4y ago
        Many developers work two jobs. Many jobs prevent employees from doing this. Many employees work on free open source. Many companies try to prevent or control this. Some do it for rent, child payments, mortgage or car payments. I made minimum wage at my first job. Didn't cross the poverty line until my 3rd or 4th job years later. Things might be different now, I started after the .com crash.
- jahsome 4y ago
  Do you honestly see value in comparing scars? Does that matter in any meaningful way? The worst stress of someone's life is the worst stress of their life. It's unproductive and petty to bicker about who has it worse. If life is stressful for anyone, regardless of status, title, age, etc. there's a good chance it's undeserved. The takeaway is to treat people better, not dismiss their stressors as less significant.
  - mouse_ 4y ago
    Do you honestly not see how your own narrative could be seen as dismissive to the vast majority of the world? And yes, I do see value in comparing scars, as do most people who do not reside in the high tower. I understand the social rift between you and I is comparable to living on a different planet, and I forgive you for not getting that, but others may not. Please just understand that our current situation is particularly perilous and likely will not last long. I hope you are prepared and able to cope with greater stressors.
    - antihipocrat 4y ago
      The physical experience and effects of enduring a stressful environment is the same for everyone regardless of who they are, where they're from, or what they are doing. An equivalent high stress environment can occur whether working in an executive office, working in a call center or selling bracelets on the street. Learning to overcome high stress experiences is a transferrable skill regardless of the context in which it was learned.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        > An equivalent high stress environment can occur whether working in an executive office, working in a call center or selling bracelets on the street. This doesn't necessarily mean an equivalent high-stress life. The call center employee has fewer or worse options for dealing with stressors outside their job which they share with the executive. > I need to eat. > I need to travel. > I need somewhere to live. By and large these things cost money and the person who doesn't have to worry about having enough money for such things is going to have less stress in their life.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tanseydavid 4y ago
  You are talking in terms of externalities. Anxiety is an internal response that can be expected to be different for different individuals under the same circumstances. Trying to judge whether or not another individual "ought to" experience anxiety in a given situation is a matter of opinion and it has no bearing on what the other person is experiencing.
- matwood 4y ago
  I've done waiting/service type jobs. For me, the stress during the work period was way higher than anything in my software/business jobs. But, every night when I got off work, the stress was immediately gone. That shift was over, and the tomorrow really was new day. With my office jobs the max stress is lower, but it also never really goes away.
  - officeplant 4y ago
    This is it. I never took home stress from any previous job until I got an office job. (AutoCAD Draftsman for Fire/Gas Industrial systems). My life as a radioshack wage slave began and ended when I clocked in and out. If something was fucked when we left the previous night that was tomorrows problem. It's retail, no one is being paid enough to truly care. Doing contract work for engineers who are willfully ignorant of fire code causes me lasting stress in my soul. Either way the biggest stress is still financial and I'll stop stressing about that when I'm dead.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    I ran entire kitchens of high volume restaurants...sometimes single handedly. I loved it. I wasn't happy unless I was getting crushed. Some of my best memories are from working mothersday and getting absolutely blitzed. Compared to being a developer, I wish every god damned day I could be back in a kitchen. But the pay is absolute shite.
- derefr 4y ago
  Taboo the word "anxiety" here — you're using it to mean "environmental stressors" while the GP is using it to mean "a psychological trait of not dealing well with such stressors, due to a higher baseline feeling of stress, and/or a magnified experience of stressors." Compare/contrast: "living in exurban Detroit is depressing" (= has many environmental depressors) vs "poets are usually depressives" (= depressive disorders being common among people who choose to become poets.) We use different words (most of the time) for these two things when speaking of depression, but often aren't so careful with anxiety.
- api 4y ago
  Nurses. Lots of people around here would be in tears after attempting that job for a day.
- atlgator 4y ago
  As someone who got started as a bag handler at Winn Dixie, I can tell you I'm a lot more stressed out now managing a career than I ever was working a "job."
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Winn Dixie cashier here - my first job. I’ve never counted the clock so hard, but I’m pretty sure I forgot the content of my shift the moment I walked out.
    - atlgator 4y ago
      Ditto. When I left work, I really left work. Didn't think about it at all. Even the 15 minute breaks were enjoyable. I'd buy a package of Little Debbie pinwheels and flip through the damaged magazines in the breakroom. Didn't own a phone then.
- lubesGordi 4y ago
  As this sort of argument always boils down to privilege, I'll throw my two cents in and say probably the biggest privilege (for a regular ass middle class person) is having a parent who knows math.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
carabiner 4y ago
Yeah, exactly. There are tons of schools outside of this that still shape kids into productive members of society, even if non-elite. Places like University of New Haven (acceptance rate 94%, founded 1920), Central Washington University (88%, 1891), Western Washington University (96%, 1886), Stetson University in Florida... The list goes on. The vast of US college students attend these decent and non-selective schools.
- com2kid 4y ago
  When I went to Western in early 00s, the CS department's theory seemed to be to allow anyone to attempt to join, and then just ruthlessly fail people in the first year. Between Ada, Scheme, C, and C++, class sizes shrunk fast. IMHO this is more fair than making the department hard to get into. Let everyone have a go at it.
  - intelVISA 4y ago
    > Between Ada, Scheme, C, and C++, class sizes shrunk fast. Sounds legitimately fun. I wish more CS depts kept a tasteful blend of Haskell/C/Lisp instead of forcefeeding you a vile mix of "using std; C++03" and overly-OOP Java.
    - dcow 4y ago
      It is! We did Scheme (the media scheme distribution), C, Java, Python and then implemented Scheme in Scheme. The theory was that students need to learn the science of algorithmic thinking before worrying about dirty machine representation and limited resource engineering problems. The downside was listening to the incessant complaints from the other sciences students "I just want to take an intro CS class that can teach me what I need to know to succeed at being a script kiddy". Well sorry, our department teaches computer science, not how to script R and how to read DNA sequencer strings in Python.
    - com2kid 4y ago
      It was. After that series of courses most classes had students complete assignments in any language of their choosing, with the exception of obvious ones like the Java OO class or the C based networking class which was a direct successor to the initial C based class on *nix programming. Related: Implementing networking stuff using raw sockets is fun! I ended up with C, Ada, C++, Scheme, Java, C#, and PHP on my resume by the time I graduated. Started my career on a compiler team! (see https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/how-microsoft-tested-compilers-circa-2006 https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/how-microsoft-tested... for more info on my first job out of college!)
fsckboy 4y ago
> You’re going to get a bias in here because a lot of folks are STEM focused / high achieving high anxiety types :) yeah, but you'd expect STEM types to know how to analyze data and realize they aren't the majority and that these studies are not representative of them. I am disappoint.
- ido 4y ago
  This is very a common & a very hard to completely avoid bias your entire life. I had tenured (internationally renowned) math professors at university that would sometimes intuitively react like that to stuff in everyday life. Cut people some slack.
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    > Cut people some slack. yes, I agree, that's what I was advocating: HNers with a personal anecdotal axe to grind frequently throw away the value of good posts because they have just have to grind their axe axe again. Whether social media is harming children's development is an interesting and important question and of a scientific nature, so people here should cut the researchers some slack and at least read the evidence at face value

I guarantee most of these "high achieving high anxiety types" live with significantly less anxiety than customer service reps/bag handlers/food service workers.

tdesilva 4y ago
Why do you think that?
- rfrey 4y ago
  Because most of us can afford food for our families, even in the last week of the month.
  - WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
    Yeah. I did a decade where that wasn't the case. Poverty is longer and harder in southern states.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  None of them make six figures while browsing HN
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Those browsing HN still have sprint deadlines. Browsing HN creates more stress. Or keep online 24 hours or spend the night mentally trying to solve an abstract issue. At 5pm they are done. Different stresses / pressures. How many are learning a new language in their freetime just to keep employed. How many people create side projects to land employment at a coffee shop? To compare employment how many coffee shops test if an employee can make a cup during the interview? How many people are excluded from an interview because they only made starbucks coffee at a previous position.. no way they can figure out McDonalds coffee machines.. How many are asked to go through a take home coffee making task? None..
    - panzagl 4y ago
      How many developers clock out then go to the second job they need to make rent?
      - ipaddr 4y ago
        Many developers work two jobs. Many jobs prevent employees from doing this. Many employees work on free open source. Many companies try to prevent or control this. Some do it for rent, child payments, mortgage or car payments. I made minimum wage at my first job. Didn't cross the poverty line until my 3rd or 4th job years later. Things might be different now, I started after the .com crash.
jahsome 4y ago
Do you honestly see value in comparing scars? Does that matter in any meaningful way? The worst stress of someone's life is the worst stress of their life. It's unproductive and petty to bicker about who has it worse. If life is stressful for anyone, regardless of status, title, age, etc. there's a good chance it's undeserved. The takeaway is to treat people better, not dismiss their stressors as less significant.
- mouse_ 4y ago
  Do you honestly not see how your own narrative could be seen as dismissive to the vast majority of the world? And yes, I do see value in comparing scars, as do most people who do not reside in the high tower. I understand the social rift between you and I is comparable to living on a different planet, and I forgive you for not getting that, but others may not. Please just understand that our current situation is particularly perilous and likely will not last long. I hope you are prepared and able to cope with greater stressors.
  - antihipocrat 4y ago
    The physical experience and effects of enduring a stressful environment is the same for everyone regardless of who they are, where they're from, or what they are doing. An equivalent high stress environment can occur whether working in an executive office, working in a call center or selling bracelets on the street. Learning to overcome high stress experiences is a transferrable skill regardless of the context in which it was learned.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
      > An equivalent high stress environment can occur whether working in an executive office, working in a call center or selling bracelets on the street. This doesn't necessarily mean an equivalent high-stress life. The call center employee has fewer or worse options for dealing with stressors outside their job which they share with the executive. > I need to eat. > I need to travel. > I need somewhere to live. By and large these things cost money and the person who doesn't have to worry about having enough money for such things is going to have less stress in their life.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tanseydavid 4y ago
You are talking in terms of externalities. Anxiety is an internal response that can be expected to be different for different individuals under the same circumstances. Trying to judge whether or not another individual "ought to" experience anxiety in a given situation is a matter of opinion and it has no bearing on what the other person is experiencing.
matwood 4y ago
I've done waiting/service type jobs. For me, the stress during the work period was way higher than anything in my software/business jobs. But, every night when I got off work, the stress was immediately gone. That shift was over, and the tomorrow really was new day. With my office jobs the max stress is lower, but it also never really goes away.
- officeplant 4y ago
  This is it. I never took home stress from any previous job until I got an office job. (AutoCAD Draftsman for Fire/Gas Industrial systems). My life as a radioshack wage slave began and ended when I clocked in and out. If something was fucked when we left the previous night that was tomorrows problem. It's retail, no one is being paid enough to truly care. Doing contract work for engineers who are willfully ignorant of fire code causes me lasting stress in my soul. Either way the biggest stress is still financial and I'll stop stressing about that when I'm dead.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  I ran entire kitchens of high volume restaurants...sometimes single handedly. I loved it. I wasn't happy unless I was getting crushed. Some of my best memories are from working mothersday and getting absolutely blitzed. Compared to being a developer, I wish every god damned day I could be back in a kitchen. But the pay is absolute shite.
derefr 4y ago
Taboo the word "anxiety" here — you're using it to mean "environmental stressors" while the GP is using it to mean "a psychological trait of not dealing well with such stressors, due to a higher baseline feeling of stress, and/or a magnified experience of stressors." Compare/contrast: "living in exurban Detroit is depressing" (= has many environmental depressors) vs "poets are usually depressives" (= depressive disorders being common among people who choose to become poets.) We use different words (most of the time) for these two things when speaking of depression, but often aren't so careful with anxiety.
api 4y ago
Nurses. Lots of people around here would be in tears after attempting that job for a day.
atlgator 4y ago
As someone who got started as a bag handler at Winn Dixie, I can tell you I'm a lot more stressed out now managing a career than I ever was working a "job."
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Winn Dixie cashier here - my first job. I’ve never counted the clock so hard, but I’m pretty sure I forgot the content of my shift the moment I walked out.
  - atlgator 4y ago
    Ditto. When I left work, I really left work. Didn't think about it at all. Even the 15 minute breaks were enjoyable. I'd buy a package of Little Debbie pinwheels and flip through the damaged magazines in the breakroom. Didn't own a phone then.
lubesGordi 4y ago
As this sort of argument always boils down to privilege, I'll throw my two cents in and say probably the biggest privilege (for a regular ass middle class person) is having a parent who knows math.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

carabiner 4y ago

Yeah, exactly. There are tons of schools outside of this that still shape kids into productive members of society, even if non-elite. Places like University of New Haven (acceptance rate 94%, founded 1920), Central Washington University (88%, 1891), Western Washington University (96%, 1886), Stetson University in Florida... The list goes on. The vast of US college students attend these decent and non-selective schools.

com2kid 4y ago
When I went to Western in early 00s, the CS department's theory seemed to be to allow anyone to attempt to join, and then just ruthlessly fail people in the first year. Between Ada, Scheme, C, and C++, class sizes shrunk fast. IMHO this is more fair than making the department hard to get into. Let everyone have a go at it.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  > Between Ada, Scheme, C, and C++, class sizes shrunk fast. Sounds legitimately fun. I wish more CS depts kept a tasteful blend of Haskell/C/Lisp instead of forcefeeding you a vile mix of "using std; C++03" and overly-OOP Java.
  - dcow 4y ago
    It is! We did Scheme (the media scheme distribution), C, Java, Python and then implemented Scheme in Scheme. The theory was that students need to learn the science of algorithmic thinking before worrying about dirty machine representation and limited resource engineering problems. The downside was listening to the incessant complaints from the other sciences students "I just want to take an intro CS class that can teach me what I need to know to succeed at being a script kiddy". Well sorry, our department teaches computer science, not how to script R and how to read DNA sequencer strings in Python.
  - com2kid 4y ago
    It was. After that series of courses most classes had students complete assignments in any language of their choosing, with the exception of obvious ones like the Java OO class or the C based networking class which was a direct successor to the initial C based class on *nix programming. Related: Implementing networking stuff using raw sockets is fun! I ended up with C, Ada, C++, Scheme, Java, C#, and PHP on my resume by the time I graduated. Started my career on a compiler team! (see https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/how-microsoft-tested-compilers-circa-2006 https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/how-microsoft-tested... for more info on my first job out of college!)

fsckboy 4y ago

> You’re going to get a bias in here because a lot of folks are STEM focused / high achieving high anxiety types :) yeah, but you'd expect STEM types to know how to analyze data and realize they aren't the majority and that these studies are not representative of them. I am disappoint.

ido 4y ago
This is very a common & a very hard to completely avoid bias your entire life. I had tenured (internationally renowned) math professors at university that would sometimes intuitively react like that to stuff in everyday life. Cut people some slack.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  > Cut people some slack. yes, I agree, that's what I was advocating: HNers with a personal anecdotal axe to grind frequently throw away the value of good posts because they have just have to grind their axe axe again. Whether social media is harming children's development is an interesting and important question and of a scientific nature, so people here should cut the researchers some slack and at least read the evidence at face value