4 ms·

My theory is there's a bell curve. The bottom end is the zone where you're using WhatsApp as source control. The top end is where you're competing (yes, competi

by muzani 2y ago

My theory is there's a bell curve. The bottom end is the zone where you're using WhatsApp as source control. The top end is where you're competing (yes, competing) with people who easily got a double degree at Harvard and MIT. The middle is just nice. There's a lot of these curves though. If you can only work in Japan, then there's probably a top tier Japanese company that absolutely sucks, and it's probably easier to get an O-1 visa for some mid tier job in the US or something. There's also some overlap between top tier tech giant and lower-mid tier startup founder. Lots of people do startups because it's easier to sell a company for $30m than get a $1m salary. I think Ask HN lies on the upper end of the curve which is why you see "how do I deal with burnout" posts every other month, or cynical responses by clearly intelligent people (key symptoms of burnout). So keep that in mind. Reddit is probably squarely in the middle globally and you'll get different job advice. When I came up with this theory, I was in a group that was saying $50k annual is being too ambitious and they should stick to a $36k job.

paulcole 2y ago
> I think Ask HN lies on the upper end of the curve which is why you see "how do I deal with burnout" posts every other month, or cynical responses by clearly intelligent people (key symptoms of burnout). Remember that nobody is going to post "Everything is going well for me right now." You're looking at only part of the story and have 0 idea how big the piece you're not seeing is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjFoDTPeX6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjFoDTPeX6U
- muzani 2y ago
  They post it in the form of "Should I take the $50k job when I'm happy with the $36k job?". To a lesser degree, there's "How do I motivate myself to work more than 10 hours a week?" I'm not sure if 'comfort zone' indicates happiness, but it's comfortable at least. Comfort zone posts are pretty damn common, but I see none here. A litmus test I do on communities is write a variation of, "I spent my Sunday sleeping." If people congratulate you on your rest, they're likely overworked. If they hope you have a more productive Sunday, they're likely in the comfort zone. Another metric is smiling. They're hard to see online, but I'd say the optimism-pessimism ratio, or excited-cynical ratio.

by muzani 2y ago

paulcole 2y ago

> I think Ask HN lies on the upper end of the curve which is why you see "how do I deal with burnout" posts every other month, or cynical responses by clearly intelligent people (key symptoms of burnout). Remember that nobody is going to post "Everything is going well for me right now." You're looking at only part of the story and have 0 idea how big the piece you're not seeing is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjFoDTPeX6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjFoDTPeX6U

muzani 2y ago
They post it in the form of "Should I take the $50k job when I'm happy with the $36k job?". To a lesser degree, there's "How do I motivate myself to work more than 10 hours a week?" I'm not sure if 'comfort zone' indicates happiness, but it's comfortable at least. Comfort zone posts are pretty damn common, but I see none here. A litmus test I do on communities is write a variation of, "I spent my Sunday sleeping." If people congratulate you on your rest, they're likely overworked. If they hope you have a more productive Sunday, they're likely in the comfort zone. Another metric is smiling. They're hard to see online, but I'd say the optimism-pessimism ratio, or excited-cynical ratio.