2 ms·

> But the environment matters a lot less than the fact that when I get home from work—which is a two hour commute each way (sorry, I can’t afford to live in dow

by nilkn 13y ago

> But the environment matters a lot less than the fact that when I get home from work—which is a two hour commute each way (sorry, I can’t afford to live in downtown San Francisco)—I just feel like being mentally incapacitated. Although this seems like a minor point in the article, and to some extent it is, I think this is still fairly significant. Four hours of commuting every day is a hell of a lot. I'd eventually come to hate almost any job if I had to commute that much. I'm also quite confused on why this person didn't go to graduate school. By his own admission, he's not making enough to even live inside San Francisco (you can certainly share an apartment downtown on a modest income if you're frugal), so he's not really getting the main advantage that a career offers over graduate school: money. If he's not going to make much money doing something he dislikes, why not instead make little money doing something he loves?

brotchie 13y ago
Exactly my thoughts. He comes across as the ideal candidate for further study. No doubt, if he's as capable as he makes out, he'd be able to get a PhD scholarship, and spend all day doing what he wants do to. Granted, there is still a lot of "politicking" in grad school, but you can avoid most of it. re: commuting. I spent 10 years commuting 1 hour each way (2 hour daily commute) to and from first high school, then university. The biggest quality of life improvement I've ever experienced was moving closer to wherever I had to be day-in-day-out. Every single relocation decision has been chosen explicitly to lower my commute time.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
This is exactly why I'm in graduate school. It has its own problems, the premier of which is: you spend a lot of time meeting others' expectations before you can start even looking at "your own" research. Turns out the real world exists in grad-school too. Still better than a cubicle, for me!

by nilkn 13y ago

brotchie 13y ago

Exactly my thoughts. He comes across as the ideal candidate for further study. No doubt, if he's as capable as he makes out, he'd be able to get a PhD scholarship, and spend all day doing what he wants do to. Granted, there is still a lot of "politicking" in grad school, but you can avoid most of it. re: commuting. I spent 10 years commuting 1 hour each way (2 hour daily commute) to and from first high school, then university. The biggest quality of life improvement I've ever experienced was moving closer to wherever I had to be day-in-day-out. Every single relocation decision has been chosen explicitly to lower my commute time.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

This is exactly why I'm in graduate school. It has its own problems, the premier of which is: you spend a lot of time meeting others' expectations before you can start even looking at "your own" research. Turns out the real world exists in grad-school too. Still better than a cubicle, for me!