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0 pointsChuckMcM10mo ago0 comments

I will never understand people who can't think of anything to do if they didn't have a job.

Let me ask you a question and perhaps it will help?

What if there was something wonderful and curious that you could explore and someone else would actually pay you money while you were exploring that thing?

I've met a number of folks in research who "work" at a University doing their research and even though the pay sucks love what they are doing. You could pay them nothing and they would still love doing it. They might be forced to do something else if they didn't have enough money to live on, but even if they had millions and millions they wouldn't be doing anything differently.

Keith, the guy I was renting the room from, was in the latter position. He didn't "have" to work, and didn't "have" to work at IBM to work on computers, but in doing so he got to satisfy his curiosity and got to work on much better equipment than if he were funding it himself. Is that something understandable?

FWIW, in the Bay Area we call this "failing" at retirement :-) Failing is in quotes because if you choose to go back to work is it really a failure? Had a great conversation with Guido von Rossum when he decided to 'un-retire' and go "work" for Microsoft. There are a lot of things to like about the office, a community, a continual stream of interesting problems to solve, Etc. And knowing that if you didn't like it you can just stop really helps in dealing with people who would attempt to assert power over you.

0 comments

saulpw10mo ago

> What if there was something wonderful and curious that you could explore and someone else would actually pay you money while you were exploring that thing?

The days of patronage are basically over; no one pays you real money to explore anymore. Corporations only pay you money to exert your brain towards some goal. There may be an exploration phase but well over half the work will be the grind of bugfixing and maintenance (or equivalent in other fields) that is the actual reason for your employment.

ChuckMcMOP10mo ago

Could you say more about that? I don't think of it as patronage and I agree with this statement: "Corporations only pay you money to exert your brain towards some goal." but in my experience you can go to a corporation and say "I'm really interested in working on <this thing>, are you interested in that sort of stuff?" And if they are they'll start paying you money to explore that thing with them. I did exactly this the first time I "retired", I'm really fascinated by software defined radio and I was exploring how it works and what one could do with it and a friend said, "I'm working at a company that needs help understanding how to do repeatable software and they are doing a lot of SDR work." Which led to a conversation with the CEO that led to a job offer where I helped their software teams get better and I got to use the multi-million dollar RF lab to continue my explorations. Granted my role was "technical leader" and not "programmer" but how I spent my time was a joint agreement between the company leadership and my interests. I wouldn't expect a company doing accounting software to pay me to design SDRs of course.

And if you passion is something completely different then that can be the case too. A executive I met at IBM retired and has gone head first into their actual passion which is art history. They didn't major in it at school or try to get a job in it because those jobs didn't pay them what they wanted but now that they are retired they are spending their time in libraries and museums all over the place digging into the nuances of various bits of art. Are they "working"? Yes in the sense that they are doing the same thing they would have done if someone had hired an art history major apparently :-).

keiferski10mo ago

Getting paid to work on your hobby only works if your hobby is somehow tangential to industry. For technical people, this isn’t really a big issue, because we live in a society that puts technical achievements (which result in profits) above pretty much everything else.

But for non-technical people, getting paid by a corporation to work on your hobby is mostly impossible, no matter how important the problem is. No company is going to fund things which are deemed important yet don’t make anyone money directly.

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smokel10mo ago

There are still people with too much money who want to do good. In the art world, for example, it is pretty common to sponsor promising artists in one way or the other.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the problem of picking the right person to donate to is a very hard one.

And the amounts of money involved might be on the low end of your expectations.

paulcole10mo ago

> What if there was something wonderful and curious that you could explore and someone else would actually pay you money while you were exploring that thing?

The latter part of this is irrelevant if you’re rich.

I have no issue with someone who is rich who chooses to do what most other people consider work.

The issue I have is someone who says, “What would I do if I wasn’t working?” Figure it out. You’ve got infinite options. Consider enough of them to be confident in your choice.

If you’re just defaulting to “working” because you haven’t really tried anything else, that’s what I don’t get.

ChuckMcMOP10mo ago

I don't know anyone who "defaulted" to working when they didn't have to. I do know several people who actively avoid explaining why they are working to people who don't have the choice to work or not.

paulcole10mo ago

Huh? Isn't that what the IBM guy in your original story was doing?

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ghaff10mo ago

I think the problem with doing this at companies is that there tends to be a lot of BS associated with actually working at a company (good things as well but not sure as much in a largely remote situation).

I try to do some interesting stuff including going to some selected events (who will mostly comp my attendance) in locations I can do some other activities in conjunction.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsChuckMcM10mo ago0 comments

I will never understand people who can't think of anything to do if they didn't have a job.

Let me ask you a question and perhaps it will help?

What if there was something wonderful and curious that you could explore and someone else would actually pay you money while you were exploring that thing?

0 comments

saulpw10mo ago

> What if there was something wonderful and curious that you could explore and someone else would actually pay you money while you were exploring that thing?

ChuckMcMOP10mo ago

keiferski10mo ago

1 more reply

smokel10mo ago

There are still people with too much money who want to do good. In the art world, for example, it is pretty common to sponsor promising artists in one way or the other.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the problem of picking the right person to donate to is a very hard one.

And the amounts of money involved might be on the low end of your expectations.

paulcole10mo ago

> What if there was something wonderful and curious that you could explore and someone else would actually pay you money while you were exploring that thing?

The latter part of this is irrelevant if you’re rich.

I have no issue with someone who is rich who chooses to do what most other people consider work.

The issue I have is someone who says, “What would I do if I wasn’t working?” Figure it out. You’ve got infinite options. Consider enough of them to be confident in your choice.

If you’re just defaulting to “working” because you haven’t really tried anything else, that’s what I don’t get.

ChuckMcMOP10mo ago

paulcole10mo ago

Huh? Isn't that what the IBM guy in your original story was doing?

2 more replies

ghaff10mo ago

I try to do some interesting stuff including going to some selected events (who will mostly comp my attendance) in locations I can do some other activities in conjunction.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse