by jackallis on 1/9/24, 4:45 PM with 161 comments
by wins32767 on 1/9/24, 5:06 PM
Organizing society to minimize harm is an understandable impulse, but it's really harmful to people's ability to cope when difficult to avoid or unavoidable stressors hit.
by VirusNewbie on 1/9/24, 5:51 PM
I thought my resume was a perfect fit, an intersection of fairly niche technologies and skills that I actually had. I had to do multiple screening rounds, solve leetcode-esque problems.
I made it to the onsite! My nerves were going crazy but, the first coding problem, I went right to work, my fingers were flying, and by the end of it I could see that my interviewer was more than pleased. He said I finished early and we could just chat about life at BigCo.
The second round was similar, and the third round! Fourth round, not as great, but I didn't completely whiff on the question. And..........I got rejected.
I was in the dumps for months. Maybe I wasn't cut out for big tech. I'm not smart enough. I don't have impressive credentials. But eventually I said fuck it, I'm going again. I applied to a few more jobs and.....started getting offers at top tier companies.
The algorithmic thinking is hard, coding fast is hard, not letting my nerves get the best of me is hard, explaining my thought process took practice, but just having the resilience to go through the process after hard rejection was crucial.
I had a job at the time, and part of me really wanted to just give up and say I was content with my gig at a small company. But I didn't give up.
I hope I can pass on that trait to my son one day.
by toomanyrichies on 1/9/24, 5:06 PM
by wing-_-nuts on 1/9/24, 5:39 PM
That's a nice sentiment, but something I noticed when I eventually managed to graduate college was that there was no substitute for a good safety net and parental support.
I watched dumbfounded as some of my classmates went on to found or join risky startups during the great recession. For me, failure would have been catastrophic. I'd have likely wound up sleeping under a bridge. I was amazed they were so fearless! Only, I later learned the reason they were so fearless is they knew their parents would step in and pay for their living expenses while they got back on their feet.
TLDR: Some folks can swing for the fences, take outsized risks, and reap the rewards, because failure is always an option.
by rawgabbit on 1/9/24, 6:39 PM
As for deeper changes, business self-help authors — who often make their real money not from selling books, but from paid speaking and consulting gigs at large companies — aren’t about to tell you to quit your draining job and take a (perhaps lower-paid) role at a less-demanding organization. Nor do most of them suggest policy changes that contribute to a more resilient workforce — such as paid sick days, parental leave or flexible staffing models — that cost companies money. It’s safer for their business model to keep emphasizing inner strength. And maybe, too, that message plays well with an audience that hates to admit there can be trade-offs.
by iteratethis on 1/10/24, 12:27 AM
You'll have evil corp pushing their employees to the max. Then HR sends an email "we care about your mental health", which includes a link to an e-course on meditation.
They do not care about your mental health because they don't spent a second addressing the root cause of the overload of stress.
All of society now has this fatalism built in. The believe that we can fix problems and improve life for all is largely gone. Instead, the energy is that we accept that the future is bleak, make no effort to change it, expect things to perpetually get even worse, and somehow at an individual level try to find some marginal happiness within this reality we see as a given.
I'm personally not as pessimistic as the above suggests, just saying this is the culture.
by korse on 1/9/24, 6:39 PM
This is HN. Private bit torrent trackers anyone? The higher your seed-to-leech ratio in a small community, the more use the community will be to you.
This applies directly to friend groups. If each person tries to seed the group with actions that benefit many but are trivial for them to accomplish based on personal stats, everyone benefits disproportionately to the individual effort invested. High ratios can then be tapped for uncommon and/or infrequent requests without compromising relationships.
by npilk on 1/9/24, 5:20 PM
by kridsdale1 on 1/9/24, 7:53 PM
by TriangleEdge on 1/9/24, 5:18 PM
Anecdote: being poor is the most soul crushing thing that has happened to me. In my early 20s, I would go dancing sometimes and someone would approach me saying "you should buy me a drink" and I remember saying no because I had like 50$ total. Note, I was not blessed with loving parents. I don't know for sure, but I am willing to bet that people with more money have more friends with higher quality and deeper bonds then people with less money. I do think this plateaus however.
by sonorous_sub on 1/9/24, 6:39 PM
by anotherhue on 1/9/24, 5:09 PM
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918643
1: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
by stanleykm on 1/9/24, 5:15 PM