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Someone commented this on the original post: >People who work on something they aren't passionate about deserve neither, and their sacrifice will go unnoticed.

by batista 15y ago

Someone commented this on the original post: >People who work on something they aren't passionate about deserve neither, and their sacrifice will go unnoticed. To which I reply: That's an extremely arrogant, insulting and self-entitled notion. You, sir, ONLY get to do what you "love" because millions of people every after day do what they don't love but have to do anyway (in order to pay for their food and family). People from the guys that work in mines to gather materials to make your computer internals, to guys that transport gas and flip switches at energy plants so that you can have electricity, to the guy that flips your burgers when you go to the fast food joint across the street, to the guy that cleans your offices. Not "loving your job" has nothing to do with an aversion to "hard work" (people work far more hours and intensely in shit jobs, because they have to), or not taking pride in one's work (there are people that DO take pride in doing a good job at cleaning streets from garbage for example --that doesn't mean the love their job). It's a silly American notion that every job can be (or worse, has to be) the worker's "passion" --and only few get to have the privilege of that notion, and then again only after they have a lot of lucky breaks.

peacemaker 15y ago
Perfect post. The dreams of the fortunate ride on the backs of the unfortunate. It's good to remember this on those days when you're not enjoying your work.
- fleitz 15y ago
  Indeed they do, it's much better to be fortunate.
ChrisLTD 15y ago
I had the same reaction to that comment. If anything, I have more respect for people who do jobs I'd find soul crushing.
ajdecon 15y ago
And it's worth adding: a pretty large proportion of these people who don't work jobs they love are still pretty happy. They have families and hobbies and lives that are full of more than their work.
koeselitz 15y ago
Not only that - but this notion that "you should only work on what you're passionate about" can kill projects when versatility is required. 'I'm not really passionate about doing database interoperability stuff in Java - I took this job because I wanted to write Python.' Well. A job is a job, no matter what your passion is - and someone who will patiently and carefully slog through for 40 hours a week regardless of their passions is worth more to my team than somebody who'll give 80 hours a week to their one passion and zero hours to anything different.
- fleitz 15y ago
  I've never refused to work on stuff I don't like I just charge more for it, usually a percentage. A multi-million dollar project that can be killed because someone doesn't want to write java interop code is something I want to support, most people mistake me for a programmer, I'm a business guy who knows how to code, what the bossman has in this situation is a win-win situation, his programmer gets to keep writing python, I get to write java interop code for a percentage of the project, and he gets a project finished.
- jrockway 15y ago
  A job is a job, no matter what your passion is - and someone who will patiently and carefully slog through for 40 hours a week regardless of their passions is worth more to my team than somebody who'll give 80 hours a week to their one passion and zero hours to anything different. That's awfully defeatist. Why does it matter to someone who is passionate that you don't value him on your team? The end state is simple: he will not be on your team and it will not matter what you think. So what's the value of having (and writing about) this blanket opinion?
  - jamesaguilar 15y ago
    Having an opinion isn't worth anything unless it corresponds with the truth. Maybe this does correspond with the truth (i.e. grandparent wants to work with team players rather than people who only do what's fun). Seems pretty straightforward to me. Value of writing about it? Very few of the comments on HN are valuable. People write for their own pleasure primarily, and if communication occurs that's icing on the cake. What's the "value" of you writing your rebuttal questioning the gp post's value? TL;DR: don't really understand your question.
shadowfiend 15y ago
I'd go one step further and say that it's likely many of them are working on something they're passionate about: Their families.
- peterbessman 15y ago
  I would up-vote this one thousand times over if I could. Blazing ignorance of the most basic verisimilitudes of the human condition is one of the more annoying characteristics of hacker culture.
  - kirubakaran 15y ago
    I wouldn't characterize 'hacker culture' like that. Vocal minority is the blight of all groups / cultures.
- chris_wot 15y ago
  So you cannot be passionate about software and at the same time be passionate about your family? That doesn't sound right at all.
  - shadowfiend 15y ago
    I did not say that at all. I challenged the idea that a person who is not passionate about their job is not working on something they are passionate about, by pointing out that you can have a job that you're not passionate about but still be passionate about working on your family—on raising your children well, on having a happy life with your spouse, on maintaining a strong relationship with your parents and siblings and nephews and nieces, etc. There are always some things we have to do in life that we're not necessarily passionate about.
    - chris_wot 15y ago
      You just crashed my lexical parser :-) Jk... However, apologies I can see that I misread you. Sorry about that.
- 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
driverdan 15y ago
There is a difference between a job and a career. Taking a job you don't like to make ends meet while you try to find work doing something you're passionate about is one thing. Having a career doing something you're not passionate about is entirely different. There's also a difference between passion and enjoyment. I can understand your work being enjoyable but not your passion. During one trip to LA I got a burger at In-N-Out. The high school aged people working there were clearly enjoying what they were doing, they made it fun while providing fast, kick ass customer service. I know developers who enjoy what they do but their real passion is something entirely different. To me making a career out of something you don't enjoy or aren't passionate about is crazy.
- dasil003 15y ago
  You don't wanna know what happens to the In-N-Out employees if they ever stop smiling though.
  - adrianbravo 15y ago
    Animal-style is people?
- tjr 15y ago
  Sure, I enjoyed working as a clerk at a grocery store. It was fun. If it paid as well as programming, I'd probably be content to still be working at a grocery store, and doing programming for fun in the evenings, as the grocery work comes with built-in physical exercise...
Cushman 15y ago
> It's a silly American notion that every job can be (or worse, has to be) the worker's "passion" --and only few get to have the privilege of that notion, and then again only after they have a lot of lucky breaks. I agree with this, but I don't think we should take the opposite for granted either-- personally I dream of a world where no human being has to scrape shit off the sidewalk to survive.
developer9 15y ago
American notion? I blame Americans also, because I'm American and I feel I have the right. But it being a good idea to do something you're passionate about doing if you can be successful at it is not just an American notion. It's a fact. Were not Einstein, Gallileo, Newton and many, many others not passionate about their work?
temphn 15y ago
But why are those jobs necessarily "shit jobs"? Isn't that an even more condescending attitude? The jobs you mentioned (mines, truck driving, fast food, janitorial) involve moving things around in the physical world. When the work is done, it's clearly and perceptibly done. In certain key ways this is less mentally stressful than information work. And nowadays even a janitor can afford an apartment, computer, smartphone, and internet connection. For those positions you mention that pay less (janitorial, fast food), the demands and training requirements are less. For those that pay more (mines, power plants), the risks are higher but the training requirements are also less. And in each of these areas, you do have some fraction of people who are ambitious, who care about the technologies involved, and who get promoted. It's not like software engineering is the only interesting thing out there.
medius 15y ago
My thoughts exactly. The external world does not work based on someone's passion. Whatever we do is the result of the sum of all the things in our life and not just our work life. If you found your passion and it also pays your bills, great. Congrats. This is not true for most people.
kamaal 15y ago
I think the concept of a 'shit job' basically is embedded in our human culture. Work was synonymous with slavery even until recently. People who build beautiful things like Taj Mahal, Pyramids etc were all slaves who worked at the commands of kings. And most of them did it because they had no other option or nothing else to do. A few who realized what they are worth and escaped that became philosophers and scholars. Getting the point? 501 vs non-501, Its almost like slaves Vs philosophers. Organized 9-5 labor is always going to be inglorious even if you are the best algorithmist in the whole world, because deep down inside it has a strong taste of slavery to it. They are parallels to the slaves who build the Colosseum of Rome. Even if you were the slave who could build 10 walls in a day you are still 'A nobody'. No one will even remember you. And individual contributors working on their own crazy hours are always going to be glorious people, because deep down inside they are parallels to Socrates and Plato.
- eli_gottlieb 15y ago
  I think the concept of a 'shit job' basically is embedded in our human culture. No, no, and no. It is embedded in recent cultures of vast inequality, slaves fed on dreams of glory. Egalitarian cultures don't have very much concept of "shit jobs", not the way we do.

by batista 15y ago

peacemaker 15y ago

Perfect post. The dreams of the fortunate ride on the backs of the unfortunate. It's good to remember this on those days when you're not enjoying your work.

fleitz 15y ago
Indeed they do, it's much better to be fortunate.

ChrisLTD 15y ago

I had the same reaction to that comment. If anything, I have more respect for people who do jobs I'd find soul crushing.

ajdecon 15y ago

And it's worth adding: a pretty large proportion of these people who don't work jobs they love are still pretty happy. They have families and hobbies and lives that are full of more than their work.

koeselitz 15y ago

Not only that - but this notion that "you should only work on what you're passionate about" can kill projects when versatility is required. 'I'm not really passionate about doing database interoperability stuff in Java - I took this job because I wanted to write Python.' Well. A job is a job, no matter what your passion is - and someone who will patiently and carefully slog through for 40 hours a week regardless of their passions is worth more to my team than somebody who'll give 80 hours a week to their one passion and zero hours to anything different.

fleitz 15y ago
I've never refused to work on stuff I don't like I just charge more for it, usually a percentage. A multi-million dollar project that can be killed because someone doesn't want to write java interop code is something I want to support, most people mistake me for a programmer, I'm a business guy who knows how to code, what the bossman has in this situation is a win-win situation, his programmer gets to keep writing python, I get to write java interop code for a percentage of the project, and he gets a project finished.
jrockway 15y ago
A job is a job, no matter what your passion is - and someone who will patiently and carefully slog through for 40 hours a week regardless of their passions is worth more to my team than somebody who'll give 80 hours a week to their one passion and zero hours to anything different. That's awfully defeatist. Why does it matter to someone who is passionate that you don't value him on your team? The end state is simple: he will not be on your team and it will not matter what you think. So what's the value of having (and writing about) this blanket opinion?
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  Having an opinion isn't worth anything unless it corresponds with the truth. Maybe this does correspond with the truth (i.e. grandparent wants to work with team players rather than people who only do what's fun). Seems pretty straightforward to me. Value of writing about it? Very few of the comments on HN are valuable. People write for their own pleasure primarily, and if communication occurs that's icing on the cake. What's the "value" of you writing your rebuttal questioning the gp post's value? TL;DR: don't really understand your question.

shadowfiend 15y ago

I'd go one step further and say that it's likely many of them are working on something they're passionate about: Their families.

peterbessman 15y ago
I would up-vote this one thousand times over if I could. Blazing ignorance of the most basic verisimilitudes of the human condition is one of the more annoying characteristics of hacker culture.
- kirubakaran 15y ago
  I wouldn't characterize 'hacker culture' like that. Vocal minority is the blight of all groups / cultures.
chris_wot 15y ago
So you cannot be passionate about software and at the same time be passionate about your family? That doesn't sound right at all.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  I did not say that at all. I challenged the idea that a person who is not passionate about their job is not working on something they are passionate about, by pointing out that you can have a job that you're not passionate about but still be passionate about working on your family—on raising your children well, on having a happy life with your spouse, on maintaining a strong relationship with your parents and siblings and nephews and nieces, etc. There are always some things we have to do in life that we're not necessarily passionate about.
  - chris_wot 15y ago
    You just crashed my lexical parser :-) Jk... However, apologies I can see that I misread you. Sorry about that.
15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

driverdan 15y ago

There is a difference between a job and a career. Taking a job you don't like to make ends meet while you try to find work doing something you're passionate about is one thing. Having a career doing something you're not passionate about is entirely different. There's also a difference between passion and enjoyment. I can understand your work being enjoyable but not your passion. During one trip to LA I got a burger at In-N-Out. The high school aged people working there were clearly enjoying what they were doing, they made it fun while providing fast, kick ass customer service. I know developers who enjoy what they do but their real passion is something entirely different. To me making a career out of something you don't enjoy or aren't passionate about is crazy.

dasil003 15y ago
You don't wanna know what happens to the In-N-Out employees if they ever stop smiling though.
- adrianbravo 15y ago
  Animal-style is people?
tjr 15y ago
Sure, I enjoyed working as a clerk at a grocery store. It was fun. If it paid as well as programming, I'd probably be content to still be working at a grocery store, and doing programming for fun in the evenings, as the grocery work comes with built-in physical exercise...

Cushman 15y ago

> It's a silly American notion that every job can be (or worse, has to be) the worker's "passion" --and only few get to have the privilege of that notion, and then again only after they have a lot of lucky breaks. I agree with this, but I don't think we should take the opposite for granted either-- personally I dream of a world where no human being has to scrape shit off the sidewalk to survive.

developer9 15y ago

American notion? I blame Americans also, because I'm American and I feel I have the right. But it being a good idea to do something you're passionate about doing if you can be successful at it is not just an American notion. It's a fact. Were not Einstein, Gallileo, Newton and many, many others not passionate about their work?

temphn 15y ago

But why are those jobs necessarily "shit jobs"? Isn't that an even more condescending attitude? The jobs you mentioned (mines, truck driving, fast food, janitorial) involve moving things around in the physical world. When the work is done, it's clearly and perceptibly done. In certain key ways this is less mentally stressful than information work. And nowadays even a janitor can afford an apartment, computer, smartphone, and internet connection. For those positions you mention that pay less (janitorial, fast food), the demands and training requirements are less. For those that pay more (mines, power plants), the risks are higher but the training requirements are also less. And in each of these areas, you do have some fraction of people who are ambitious, who care about the technologies involved, and who get promoted. It's not like software engineering is the only interesting thing out there.

medius 15y ago

My thoughts exactly. The external world does not work based on someone's passion. Whatever we do is the result of the sum of all the things in our life and not just our work life. If you found your passion and it also pays your bills, great. Congrats. This is not true for most people.

kamaal 15y ago

I think the concept of a 'shit job' basically is embedded in our human culture. Work was synonymous with slavery even until recently. People who build beautiful things like Taj Mahal, Pyramids etc were all slaves who worked at the commands of kings. And most of them did it because they had no other option or nothing else to do. A few who realized what they are worth and escaped that became philosophers and scholars. Getting the point? 501 vs non-501, Its almost like slaves Vs philosophers. Organized 9-5 labor is always going to be inglorious even if you are the best algorithmist in the whole world, because deep down inside it has a strong taste of slavery to it. They are parallels to the slaves who build the Colosseum of Rome. Even if you were the slave who could build 10 walls in a day you are still 'A nobody'. No one will even remember you. And individual contributors working on their own crazy hours are always going to be glorious people, because deep down inside they are parallels to Socrates and Plato.

eli_gottlieb 15y ago
I think the concept of a 'shit job' basically is embedded in our human culture. No, no, and no. It is embedded in recent cultures of vast inequality, slaves fed on dreams of glory. Egalitarian cultures don't have very much concept of "shit jobs", not the way we do.