10 ms·

There are talented people everywhere, the probability of somehow being ground breaking and world impactful is ridiculously small. Anyone pegging their self-wort

There are talented people everywhere, the probability of somehow being ground breaking and world impactful is ridiculously small. Anyone pegging their self-worth on that goal is setting themselves up for a lot of mental health struggles. My levels of ambition and relentlessness absolutely shifted after having kids, I used to be absolutely furious about being the best. Now I am very much "fuck you pay me" and my priority is having as much free time as possible for family and friends. I for one would be fine with Mr. Westbrook's career although thankfully I haven't had as crappy colleagues as him throughout my career. There are people of all types who will want different things, no point in judging. As the great thinker Alicia Keys once said: 'you do you boo!'

taude 3y ago
Agree with you. I don't understand the point of this article other than some sort of tongue and cheek snobbery. Hope it maybe made the OP feel better about themselves.
- surprisetalk 3y ago
  Author here! For context, I recently wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to coast in large companies. [0] https://taylor.town/corporate-camouflage https://taylor.town/corporate-camouflage That got me thinking about what happens when people, especially engineers, coast too much, or fail to plan out their careers. I know plenty of smart people that are enchanted by comfort, then chain themselves to companies that take advantage of them. If you've developed transferrable skills, this parable probably isn't for you :) I personally think it's okay to be ambitious, and it's also okay to chill.
  - sramsay 3y ago
    Honestly, I just thought it was hilarious -- a sort of parodic counterpoint to the Story of Mel.
    - HenryBemis 3y ago
      I thought I was reading at The Onion!!
  - nazgulsenpai 3y ago
    You say tongue-in-cheek while, almost verbatim, summarizing my day-to-day strategy at $megacorp! Seriously great stuff.
  - nus07 3y ago
    I will not call it snobbery but a difference in generational culture. I am assuming you are below the age of 45 and came into the industry where jobs were aplenty , super low interest rates and the industry was rapidly innovating and risk taking is encouraged . For a lot of folks from the Office Space days of 80s and 90s that wasn’t necessarily the case . Tech jobs were limited and you probably had to post or submit a paper version of your resume. I would encourage you to take a look at JavaScript code from 2003 or a Java codebase from then and see how dreary and different the tech industry was back then . As for transferable skills there is a reason IT workers were stereotyped as autistic nerds before the brash,well rounded, rock climbing risk takers came in. Culture, risk, opportunities and interest rates had to do a lot . Edit- I was probably like Arthur Westbrook when I was working on a visa and had a family to support . As soon as I got my greencard my appetite for risk taking increased and showing my transferable skills increased . Situational context .
- BowBun 3y ago
  This level of reaction tells me more about you than the author. Referring to it as 'snobbery' shows that you interpret satire as a personal attack on someone, probably yourself. I clicked to their home page and immediately figured out that they dabble in tech and like to joke around. This is as much a tip for myself as for you: take a deep breath before reacting.
- Mashimo 3y ago
  I think it was just a joke :)
lusus_naturae 3y ago
You're just going to off load your lost potential and lack of ambition on to your kids, and so on and so forth. It's the main reason why people have them.
- baz00 3y ago
  I mostly had my kids because I was drunk.
  - generic92034 3y ago
    Boredom is another common reason. ;)
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Well, if nothing else, it certainly solves that problem.
- SanderNL 3y ago
  You're being negged into oblivion, but you have a point. There is "I'm OK with my pedestrian job but I still try to do my best and actually like the people there" and "my job sucks all joy out of my life and provides me with nothing of value except money". I have kids, but I somehow skipped the "I want to be the best"-phase and went straight to "I'll make do with whatever you give me" so nothing really changed. I actually work a bit harder now so my kids can see work is good - also to pay for their fancy shit. Even stupid jobs can be sources of relative joy if you let them. Don't put up with abuse of any kind, though.
- wiz21c 3y ago
  The opposite is no good. I had 1 or 2 opportunities which a lot of people of my age were looking at with envy. I was not super gifted but they came out of passion: by working on the things I loved relentlessy, I ended up being noticed. I was good because I worked a lot. It was not hard work since it was stuff I enjoyed a lot to do, but I spent countless hours on it (about 25-30 hours a week in addition to my studies or day time job). Problem with the kids is that when I tell them about that, they feel they don't have enough passion to succeed. So you see, eventhough I was on the right side of success for a while, it scares the hell out of them...
a_c 3y ago
Have kids really bring things into perspective. Every moment with them is unique.
- weregiraffe 3y ago
  Every moment without them is also unique.
  - tacitusarc 3y ago
    Everything is unique, but some are more unique than others.
    - throwaway14356 3y ago
      it is all the same to me
    - falcor84 3y ago
      Some dichotomies are more dichotomous than others.
  - bflesch 3y ago
    Having kids is such a traumatic, life-changing event. I mean this in the most positive way. I can see why so many people see this as the before/after watershed moment of their lives and ambitions. However, it's understandable that not everyone needs to have kids to come to this realization.
    - lovecg 3y ago
      For me it was the profound perspective shift from being a leaf node of a tree so to speak to becoming just one link in a long chain. It tends to relax the do-or-die drive quite a bit.
      - ambicapter 3y ago
        Maybe the do-or-die drive is relaxed because you (or your body) realizes that you've fulfilled your biological purpose and passed on your genes?
bayindirh 3y ago
> I used to be absolutely furious about being the best. I found out that just being better than yourself takes you a long long way. I have never competed, but just did my thing. Then found out that I've already know more and ahead of many people I'm inspired by. Yet, this was not my aim, and still is not. I'm just one of the so-called dark developers. I just do my thing, try to do it better every time, and don't care about hall of fame of anything casual or serious.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  I recently put a little modal on my phone that just says "Compete against yourself" every 30 minutes, and I'm finding it remarkably helpful at focusing my efforts back to what I want to see in the world. I like the mindset of trying to be just a little better than you were, every day. It feels... correctly scaled, somehow.
  - toastedwedge 3y ago
    What does it mean in this context to compete against yourself? Anything at immediately at hand or on the todo list? Or is it just a reminder to get something done you thought of doing but normally wouldn't otherwise?
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      It means "It doesn't matter what other people do, are doing, or have achieved". In other words, do not compare yourself to others. Do what you're doing, a little better this time, then GOTO 10.
    - carlivar 3y ago
      I've become very fond of the phrase "comparison is the thief of joy" lately. This seems like a version of that. Keep your scope local only.
    - kayodelycaon 3y ago
      I like it phrased this way: "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
josephg 3y ago
> There are talented people everywhere, the probability of somehow being ground breaking and world impactful is ridiculously small. No there aren’t. For every Jonathan Blow, Salvatore Sanfilippo (redis) or Mike Pall (LuaJIT) there are probably thousands of run of the mill developers working at feature factories. You don’t build amazing software by being lucky. Your boss at GenericCo will never go out of their way to ask you to build that thing you’ve always been dreaming of making. You choose to work on software you find interesting. Or, for any of 1000 totally valid reasons, you choose to be small. If you think you’re all that, don’t blame your company for “not getting the opportunity”. Please. You already have all the tools you need to code. Make something cool!
- constantly 3y ago
  I don’t even know where to begin with this comment. It’s a gross mischaracterization of what was being said for starters.
  - deely3 3y ago
    Its not a mischaracterization, its a projection: if you don't do something that parent commenter believes is important then you are not important. Moral : before starting new job always ask parent commenter are this new job is important for him?
    - josephg 3y ago
      That’s not an accurate summary of my beliefs. Maybe this would be clearer: If you want to be interesting, choose to do something interesting. Luck is rarely the limiting factor in your creative output.
      - deely3 3y ago
        Thanks for explanation. > If you want to be interesting, choose to do something interesting. Interesting for who? For you or for someone else?
hgomersall 3y ago
Engineering is one of a few special disciplines where peoples' hobbies align easily with ability to earn money at most levels of professional performance; being mediocre is still a recipe for a generally acceptable standard of life. Compare it to things like sports or acting or music. It's possible to make a living at the lower echelons (read: everything below elite level), but it's hard work or mundane and often not well compensated.
- ecshafer 3y ago
  While I love programming and computer science that is one of the reasons I chose programming over other fields. I figure if you want to be a journalist you’re basically broke unless you’re one of the top few that are also making money writing books or doing podcasts. If you’re a historian you are basically not doing well unless you are one of the top and get a tenure track professor position. If you are a programmer, and aren’t even that good, you have a comfortable life in the us. The bottom 20% of software jobs are still in like the top 75% pay range.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
duxup 3y ago
Maintenance doesn't get enough respect / glory too. "Arthur" should be highly thought of. Folks writing new code in the wonderfully free world without a ton of odd dependencies and corner cases ... IMO often aren't doing as much "work".
- lolsal 3y ago
  Writing new code with no existing constraints or requirements isn’t some masterful feat of engineering, usually. Working in an existing code base, on a team with multiple features going in, gathering requirements from stakeholders and negotiating deliverables on a timeline while refactoring is happening, libraries being upgraded and CVEs being fixed - navigating all of that while being a useful, compassionate team member - that’s priceless on a team.
sspiff 3y ago
I largely agree. My goals have shifted from having an impact moving the technology world forward to not being frustrated and depressed from work and getting enjoyment and satisfaction from personal small projects with no deadlines. Since having kids, most of these have shifted from a few months in time to a few years, but they are unambitious, poorly defined and unimportant so who cares if they take a little longer? My main goal at work is not getting annoyed or frustrated and getting paid well for my time.
sanderjd 3y ago
I'm in a constant state of pendulum swing with this. (Not with the goal of being "ground breaking" or "world impactful", but just doing "great" work within the range of my own self-perceived capabilities.) When I first had children, my pendulum swung way over to disinterest in seeking anything in my work beyond financial support for my family and time to spend with them (while still supporting and not breaking trust with my professional colleagues). But my kids are growing and becoming more independent all the time, and I'm currently in a phase where my mental cycles and energy are on an upward trajectory over time, and now I'm back to being excited to use those cycles to do impactful work. But critically, I think, with significantly more wisdom about how to strike a healthy and happy balance for me and my family. I mean, I'm not naive, I don't think it will be easy to strike a good balance, I think it require be constant work and effort at it. But as I've emerged from the baby-brained haze, I have renewed clarity that neither focusing my energy entirely on family or entirely on work is the right path for me.
mlinhares 3y ago
So true, I wish I had this perspective before having kids as well, I was so focused on the rat race and on "being the best", to the point of being hospitalized with intestinal problems. Now I have a great job, that gives me joy but the two things i care the most in life are my two little devils.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
It was once said that the national anthem of Hell is "My Way", and that the motto over the main gate reads "Do what thou wilt". Pride, radical individualism, self-promotion. These are extremely common today, especially in the US (just compare an American resume with a European CV). Both the US and Europe have their problems, but this particular obsession tends to be more conspicuous in the US. Paradoxically, it doesn't bear the desired fruit because it misunderstands the nature of personal excellence. This isn't a vote for collectivism or mediocrity. Only dead fish float downstream. It's a vote for the notion that the riches of society are the result of countless incremental contributions up and down the hierarchy of value for the sake of the common good. But liberalism embraces an inverted view of reality. All our relationships are viewed instrumentally and transactionally. We place desire above reason. We've become atomized, because nothing sensible unites us (perfect for those in power who view people as "human resources"). The "social contract" view of society is a disaster.
- pineaux 3y ago
  I absolutely LOVE this comment. Thank you for this prose.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sam0x17 3y ago
> the probability of somehow being ground breaking and world impactful is ridiculously small. See I have the opposite take. There are so many damn facets of modern life/society, and new avenues/facets/domains coming out every year, that it is actually pretty easy to find some niche where something hasn't been done yet that is world-shattering for some specific community or niche. World-shattering for everyone is pretty overrated.
i_am_a_peasant 3y ago
I also went from dreaming of being the best at 1 thing to "fuck you pay me" in a hilariously short time. 10 years of being underpaid and yet being the most productive guy at work will do that to you.

taude 3y ago

Agree with you. I don't understand the point of this article other than some sort of tongue and cheek snobbery. Hope it maybe made the OP feel better about themselves.

surprisetalk 3y ago
Author here! For context, I recently wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to coast in large companies. [0] https://taylor.town/corporate-camouflage https://taylor.town/corporate-camouflage That got me thinking about what happens when people, especially engineers, coast too much, or fail to plan out their careers. I know plenty of smart people that are enchanted by comfort, then chain themselves to companies that take advantage of them. If you've developed transferrable skills, this parable probably isn't for you :) I personally think it's okay to be ambitious, and it's also okay to chill.
- sramsay 3y ago
  Honestly, I just thought it was hilarious -- a sort of parodic counterpoint to the Story of Mel.
  - HenryBemis 3y ago
    I thought I was reading at The Onion!!
- nazgulsenpai 3y ago
  You say tongue-in-cheek while, almost verbatim, summarizing my day-to-day strategy at $megacorp! Seriously great stuff.
- nus07 3y ago
  I will not call it snobbery but a difference in generational culture. I am assuming you are below the age of 45 and came into the industry where jobs were aplenty , super low interest rates and the industry was rapidly innovating and risk taking is encouraged . For a lot of folks from the Office Space days of 80s and 90s that wasn’t necessarily the case . Tech jobs were limited and you probably had to post or submit a paper version of your resume. I would encourage you to take a look at JavaScript code from 2003 or a Java codebase from then and see how dreary and different the tech industry was back then . As for transferable skills there is a reason IT workers were stereotyped as autistic nerds before the brash,well rounded, rock climbing risk takers came in. Culture, risk, opportunities and interest rates had to do a lot . Edit- I was probably like Arthur Westbrook when I was working on a visa and had a family to support . As soon as I got my greencard my appetite for risk taking increased and showing my transferable skills increased . Situational context .
BowBun 3y ago
This level of reaction tells me more about you than the author. Referring to it as 'snobbery' shows that you interpret satire as a personal attack on someone, probably yourself. I clicked to their home page and immediately figured out that they dabble in tech and like to joke around. This is as much a tip for myself as for you: take a deep breath before reacting.
Mashimo 3y ago
I think it was just a joke :)

lusus_naturae 3y ago

You're just going to off load your lost potential and lack of ambition on to your kids, and so on and so forth. It's the main reason why people have them.

baz00 3y ago
I mostly had my kids because I was drunk.
- generic92034 3y ago
  Boredom is another common reason. ;)
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Well, if nothing else, it certainly solves that problem.
SanderNL 3y ago
You're being negged into oblivion, but you have a point. There is "I'm OK with my pedestrian job but I still try to do my best and actually like the people there" and "my job sucks all joy out of my life and provides me with nothing of value except money". I have kids, but I somehow skipped the "I want to be the best"-phase and went straight to "I'll make do with whatever you give me" so nothing really changed. I actually work a bit harder now so my kids can see work is good - also to pay for their fancy shit. Even stupid jobs can be sources of relative joy if you let them. Don't put up with abuse of any kind, though.
wiz21c 3y ago
The opposite is no good. I had 1 or 2 opportunities which a lot of people of my age were looking at with envy. I was not super gifted but they came out of passion: by working on the things I loved relentlessy, I ended up being noticed. I was good because I worked a lot. It was not hard work since it was stuff I enjoyed a lot to do, but I spent countless hours on it (about 25-30 hours a week in addition to my studies or day time job). Problem with the kids is that when I tell them about that, they feel they don't have enough passion to succeed. So you see, eventhough I was on the right side of success for a while, it scares the hell out of them...

a_c 3y ago

Have kids really bring things into perspective. Every moment with them is unique.

weregiraffe 3y ago
Every moment without them is also unique.
- tacitusarc 3y ago
  Everything is unique, but some are more unique than others.
  - throwaway14356 3y ago
    it is all the same to me
  - falcor84 3y ago
    Some dichotomies are more dichotomous than others.
- bflesch 3y ago
  Having kids is such a traumatic, life-changing event. I mean this in the most positive way. I can see why so many people see this as the before/after watershed moment of their lives and ambitions. However, it's understandable that not everyone needs to have kids to come to this realization.
  - lovecg 3y ago
    For me it was the profound perspective shift from being a leaf node of a tree so to speak to becoming just one link in a long chain. It tends to relax the do-or-die drive quite a bit.
    - ambicapter 3y ago
      Maybe the do-or-die drive is relaxed because you (or your body) realizes that you've fulfilled your biological purpose and passed on your genes?

bayindirh 3y ago

> I used to be absolutely furious about being the best. I found out that just being better than yourself takes you a long long way. I have never competed, but just did my thing. Then found out that I've already know more and ahead of many people I'm inspired by. Yet, this was not my aim, and still is not. I'm just one of the so-called dark developers. I just do my thing, try to do it better every time, and don't care about hall of fame of anything casual or serious.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
I recently put a little modal on my phone that just says "Compete against yourself" every 30 minutes, and I'm finding it remarkably helpful at focusing my efforts back to what I want to see in the world. I like the mindset of trying to be just a little better than you were, every day. It feels... correctly scaled, somehow.
- toastedwedge 3y ago
  What does it mean in this context to compete against yourself? Anything at immediately at hand or on the todo list? Or is it just a reminder to get something done you thought of doing but normally wouldn't otherwise?
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    It means "It doesn't matter what other people do, are doing, or have achieved". In other words, do not compare yourself to others. Do what you're doing, a little better this time, then GOTO 10.
  - carlivar 3y ago
    I've become very fond of the phrase "comparison is the thief of joy" lately. This seems like a version of that. Keep your scope local only.
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    I like it phrased this way: "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."

josephg 3y ago

> There are talented people everywhere, the probability of somehow being ground breaking and world impactful is ridiculously small. No there aren’t. For every Jonathan Blow, Salvatore Sanfilippo (redis) or Mike Pall (LuaJIT) there are probably thousands of run of the mill developers working at feature factories. You don’t build amazing software by being lucky. Your boss at GenericCo will never go out of their way to ask you to build that thing you’ve always been dreaming of making. You choose to work on software you find interesting. Or, for any of 1000 totally valid reasons, you choose to be small. If you think you’re all that, don’t blame your company for “not getting the opportunity”. Please. You already have all the tools you need to code. Make something cool!

constantly 3y ago
I don’t even know where to begin with this comment. It’s a gross mischaracterization of what was being said for starters.
- deely3 3y ago
  Its not a mischaracterization, its a projection: if you don't do something that parent commenter believes is important then you are not important. Moral : before starting new job always ask parent commenter are this new job is important for him?
  - josephg 3y ago
    That’s not an accurate summary of my beliefs. Maybe this would be clearer: If you want to be interesting, choose to do something interesting. Luck is rarely the limiting factor in your creative output.
    - deely3 3y ago
      Thanks for explanation. > If you want to be interesting, choose to do something interesting. Interesting for who? For you or for someone else?

hgomersall 3y ago

Engineering is one of a few special disciplines where peoples' hobbies align easily with ability to earn money at most levels of professional performance; being mediocre is still a recipe for a generally acceptable standard of life. Compare it to things like sports or acting or music. It's possible to make a living at the lower echelons (read: everything below elite level), but it's hard work or mundane and often not well compensated.

ecshafer 3y ago
While I love programming and computer science that is one of the reasons I chose programming over other fields. I figure if you want to be a journalist you’re basically broke unless you’re one of the top few that are also making money writing books or doing podcasts. If you’re a historian you are basically not doing well unless you are one of the top and get a tenure track professor position. If you are a programmer, and aren’t even that good, you have a comfortable life in the us. The bottom 20% of software jobs are still in like the top 75% pay range.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

duxup 3y ago

Maintenance doesn't get enough respect / glory too. "Arthur" should be highly thought of. Folks writing new code in the wonderfully free world without a ton of odd dependencies and corner cases ... IMO often aren't doing as much "work".

lolsal 3y ago
Writing new code with no existing constraints or requirements isn’t some masterful feat of engineering, usually. Working in an existing code base, on a team with multiple features going in, gathering requirements from stakeholders and negotiating deliverables on a timeline while refactoring is happening, libraries being upgraded and CVEs being fixed - navigating all of that while being a useful, compassionate team member - that’s priceless on a team.

sspiff 3y ago

I largely agree. My goals have shifted from having an impact moving the technology world forward to not being frustrated and depressed from work and getting enjoyment and satisfaction from personal small projects with no deadlines. Since having kids, most of these have shifted from a few months in time to a few years, but they are unambitious, poorly defined and unimportant so who cares if they take a little longer? My main goal at work is not getting annoyed or frustrated and getting paid well for my time.

sanderjd 3y ago

I'm in a constant state of pendulum swing with this. (Not with the goal of being "ground breaking" or "world impactful", but just doing "great" work within the range of my own self-perceived capabilities.) When I first had children, my pendulum swung way over to disinterest in seeking anything in my work beyond financial support for my family and time to spend with them (while still supporting and not breaking trust with my professional colleagues). But my kids are growing and becoming more independent all the time, and I'm currently in a phase where my mental cycles and energy are on an upward trajectory over time, and now I'm back to being excited to use those cycles to do impactful work. But critically, I think, with significantly more wisdom about how to strike a healthy and happy balance for me and my family. I mean, I'm not naive, I don't think it will be easy to strike a good balance, I think it require be constant work and effort at it. But as I've emerged from the baby-brained haze, I have renewed clarity that neither focusing my energy entirely on family or entirely on work is the right path for me.

mlinhares 3y ago

So true, I wish I had this perspective before having kids as well, I was so focused on the rat race and on "being the best", to the point of being hospitalized with intestinal problems. Now I have a great job, that gives me joy but the two things i care the most in life are my two little devils.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

It was once said that the national anthem of Hell is "My Way", and that the motto over the main gate reads "Do what thou wilt". Pride, radical individualism, self-promotion. These are extremely common today, especially in the US (just compare an American resume with a European CV). Both the US and Europe have their problems, but this particular obsession tends to be more conspicuous in the US. Paradoxically, it doesn't bear the desired fruit because it misunderstands the nature of personal excellence. This isn't a vote for collectivism or mediocrity. Only dead fish float downstream. It's a vote for the notion that the riches of society are the result of countless incremental contributions up and down the hierarchy of value for the sake of the common good. But liberalism embraces an inverted view of reality. All our relationships are viewed instrumentally and transactionally. We place desire above reason. We've become atomized, because nothing sensible unites us (perfect for those in power who view people as "human resources"). The "social contract" view of society is a disaster.

pineaux 3y ago
I absolutely LOVE this comment. Thank you for this prose.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sam0x17 3y ago

> the probability of somehow being ground breaking and world impactful is ridiculously small. See I have the opposite take. There are so many damn facets of modern life/society, and new avenues/facets/domains coming out every year, that it is actually pretty easy to find some niche where something hasn't been done yet that is world-shattering for some specific community or niche. World-shattering for everyone is pretty overrated.

i_am_a_peasant 3y ago

I also went from dreaming of being the best at 1 thing to "fuck you pay me" in a hilariously short time. 10 years of being underpaid and yet being the most productive guy at work will do that to you.