A Lesson In Hard Work (as a software engineer)

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[@finalquest]

I like the phrase. 20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids.

[@tonyhart2744]

damn man, it hit hard

[@diogogf9754]

F

[@spyroninja]

Super duper true

[@DanielDroegeShow]

That is great.

[@spyroninja]

@@Zutraxi way to miss the point

[@jaymason7097]

I was this person and it bit me. I have chronic health issue now for nothing. I dumped all my time and dedication into a company that was acquired with no equity. Every edge I gained from over working in that time has been lost and now I’m behind. Live a balanced life while working as hard and smart as you can and listen to your body. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

[@az8560]

Life is not a race at all

[@ChrisAthanas]

Some of us learn the hard way

[@quocanhhbui8271]

Thanks for valuable lesson

[@landonmackey1091]

Thank you for sharing this and for speaking graciously about your hardship

[@pieflies]

This is pretty much my same story. It definitely gets you down sometimes to think about it and it can cause great cynicism. I hope things are going well for you now.

[@AntranigVartanian]

Dear ThePrimeagen, thank you for not opening Medium/LinkedIn posts! You are making the internet a better place by forcing people to... have websites!

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

gotem

[@cowCuddler]

​@@ThePrimeTimeagenmy pee looks like that I have lupus though so. That's why.

[@zyriab5797]

69 likes on Prime's comment, can't be the one to break such a beautiful thing.

[@alexv3312]

Yep. Duck medium.

[@jeffabailey]

Agreed, Medium is Low-Class.

[@tashima42]

Saying Linkedin has intellectual content is everything you need to know about this article and the author

[@SumTingWong886]

This^^ the author is exactly the kind of cooperate white knight who posts on linked in about how they missed their grandpa’s funeral so their manager wouldn’t have to cover the shift.

[@peanutcelery]

Also when they begin with Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates

[@Tobsson]

@@SumTingWong886 To be fair, it's probably written by a kid. LinkedIn is only a shallow shit storm once you are able to see all the corporate bullshit for just that. Bullshit without anything profound or glorious behind all those words. For someone without that type of experience I'm sure it's inspirational. And as a younger self I used to have an endless supply of will to work. Did that for 10 years and found myself lonley without real connections outside of work. It was not a good wake up call, but it is something I couldn't see in the midst of it. I just had my mind on the money and self improvement. Later in life I got married, had 2 kids of my own and 2 from my wifes previous marriage. I got a few but steady friends and I take care of our garden a few days a week. I still love to work and learn new stuff so I got into programming last year and here I am working as a dev, learning hacking in my alone time and the rest is devoted to my family and friends. Work smart AND hard is always key, but you can't keep chasing others like this kid is doing. Limit your hours and go outside to actually explore life. "Gotta close that gap!", there really is no need. If you're lucky the path to those higher up jobs will come your way if you want them, and you sure need to have structured some kind of background to be able to get them, but there is just so much luck involved. I'm just rambeling now as it's late and I probably forgot my point a gigazillion times. Take care everyone!

[@shoooozzzz]

Virtue signaling the grindset mentality on LinkedIn for clout 🤮

[@TheNewton]

there is valuable stuff and they have courseware there but good lord there is so much networking/lead-gen garbage there just like now on medium and chatgpt is really gonna be filling up those landfills.

[@olafbaeyens8955]

Sleep deprived programming is like drunk driving. Your project goes off the rails and you don't realize it until your service comes down crashing.

[@encapsule2220]

Lol 100%. Software engineering is one of the few jobs where u absolutely need to sleep and sleep a lot. No way u can do all nighters and survive.

[@0xDAEF0F]

Sleeping 9 hours and napping 20 mins after lunch is my alpha

[@user-gt2th3wz9c]

​@@0xDAEF0Fwhen you go to sleep? I have troubles falling asleep even at night, so can't get it how you sleep after lunch

[@ethanwasme4307]

sitting makes me tired asf, i always go for walks during my breaks @@user-gt2th3wz9c

[@personal-stream-studio]

One time I was so deprived that my project gone to Rails™

[@TayambaMwanza]

This is "How to get motivated: gaslight yourself"

[@GoblinDigital]

Some people shouldn't write. I wish him well.

[@elmersbalm5219]

Think of weightlifter Ronnie Coleman. He worked hard. Harder than most. He got to the top. He didn't pause. He didn't take breaks. Most importantly, he didn't give his body time to heal after strenuous exercise. Now he's in crutches nursing a broken body.

[@Asto508]

He is a prime example of work hard and work dumb.

[@ellisfrancisfarros3935]

As someone who's coming from bodybuilding, there's a lot of overlap between bodybuilding and programming in terms of advice they give. It's almost like it can be applied to other aspects in life as well. Some of it may be niche, but most of it is common to everything.

[@brady1123]

But the adage is not "Work smart, not hard", it's "work smarter, not harder". The use of a comparative instead of a noun is important. The assumption is that you're already putting in adequate effort, at which point progress is more readily achieved by being selective and thoughtful about how you work rather than just pressing your nose to the grindstone even harder than you already have been. Yes, sometimes you just need to grind out work, but other times you're just attempting to bubble-sort harder when instead you should be taking a step back and considering a better sorting algorithm.

[@kevgoeswoof]

About being selective: a no is a no to one thing but a yes (like this guy is saying to working endless hours of work) is a no to many things, such as friends, hobbies, health, and family. And that’s a lesson this guy hopefully doesn’t learn the hard way.

[@Pekz00r]

Yes, exactly this.

[@jemag]

Imagine thinking you shouldn't take a day off for 3 years, do unpaid overtime and work nights.

[@Rakkoonn]

At the very least he could spent that extra time working on his own projects, instead of donating time to a company.

[@moxopal5681]

He probably pays to work for that company aswell.

[@markmywords3817]

I'd like to check in eith this author back in 7 years when he realizes his decade was all a blur. Hopefully, it doesn't have to come to that. 3 years is too short to make any sort of claims of career wisdom

[@EbonySeraphim]

Nigerian parents predisposed me to this as a normality before I even graduated from college.

[@joaodiasconde]

This article is from someone surely American that will burn out in a couple decades, die full of regrets or die happily as an worker ant.

[@bobsemple9341]

Not America, someone possibly Indian who believes hours at a computer equals productivity

[@MichaelLazarski]

Sounds like every second Junior dev I had to work with and train them. I have seen this mentality and it outcomes. Yes there is time were you "only work". All weekend all day. This can work for years but if work is the only thing you have and then it is taken away from you whats left? You will not change the world through software alone. Software is a tool not the solution. And as Prime is saying Kids and family will change this. I would love to sit and learn rust for a whole weekend but I can't because i also have a 2 year old baby so of course I will chose here over learning rust. Also just learning frameworks and not the basics is not a good thing in the long run. I can learn 10 frameworks and 10 languages but its not about knowing them. It is about how easy I can understand the next thing because I already understand the base concepts.

[@tashima42]

This is a very good comment, putting all your self worth in work is extremely dangerous

[@KonradGM]

THIS ABOUT FRAMEWORKS!!! Why the fuck is it so hard to learn inner workings of stuff? Like if i have to read that State in REact is used to manage state one more time i will resolve to violence

[@tashima42]

This is once again, a very bad take. Only working hard and never leaving the office only benefits the employer, I always do whatever is expected of me and a little bit more, but I’ll never sacrifice myself for a multi million dollar company to get a few more bucks, this a crazy perspective. Work hard enough to complete your tasks and do it the best way you can, but use your energy to be healthier, travel more, build relationships, do a hobby, whatever. Do not sacrifice yourself for a company that in the end, doesn’t give a fuck to you.

[@anarchoyeasty3908]

Agreed. I'd say, work hard if working hard is what you want to do for your own growth and goals. If you want to be a truly great developer, do like this guy and work hard and a lot and grind and you'll get there. But if you are doing it in service of a company, and think that company is going to repay you? Think again. I did that shit for 5 years at my last gig, I was employee #1 at a startup, became director of engineering, built a lot of the core infrastructure and created multiple tech teams under my guidance. And I worked long fucking hours. I pulled all nighters, I gave up weekends, I gave up holidays, and I worked myself sick multiple times. And in the end, they let me go just like any other employee. Work hard for your goals, but don't make loyalty to your company your goal. My wife is still upset of the years I spent on that company that I could have spent that time with her working on our relationship and becoming stronger together.

[@tashima42]

@@anarchoyeasty3908 This is tough to hear, but I see this all the time with so many companies doing layoffs. I hope you and your wife have a lot of time to be together now!

[@Dario-mc4gw]

he could improve his skill outside of the company, he doesn't have to be a slave of where he works to get better... i don't get it.

[@ice-sugar.]

@@anarchoyeasty3908 what a slave you are

[@ToddFSnyder]

The hardest part of learning or life in general is setting priorities and accepting when it time to move on. It is easy to get obsessed with a certain tech or framework and lose focus on learning new skills vs mastering something that might not be useful moving forward. Learning to manage life and accepting things not in your control is the hardest life skill to learn.

[@MrHords]

Man this was an eye opener for me sat here watching this video after working from 7:30am til 10pm flat out. Prime's out here giving me the progeamming advice but also literally some of the best life advice i've ever recieved from anyone... Thank you man I feel like my life has genuinely improved since watching your vids 👍ill try not to feed the learning beast as much

[@reisvc]

Prime, it's incredible how you trash talk and come up with genius stuff at the same time! Work, knowledge and self improvement, as a false god! That's a great take! Thanks for that!

[@reisvc]

By the way, that's supposed to be a complement, I hope it came out like intended.

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

hah, i am complemented and ty :)

[@Brunoenribeiro]

Great insights Prime. Our working field is plaged with workaholic incentives. I went deep on that, "work hard play hard", and it felt exhilirating at times but it was mostly a miserable experience. I'm very fortunate to have good friends and family that helped me strike a balance. It literally saved me.

[@josephizang6187]

@Primeagen, I really appreciate all your channels. There is a really nice balance you have when you give your "takes" on articles, tech etc. It can be askew at times (as are all our views at times) but really great to follow and hear your takes on things. You got my attention when you said the author of the article is making hard work his "god". Your views are deeply appreciated. Keep doing what you do.

[@arcane3327]

I really like your perspective on mental health. Yeah you wanna work hard but also take your time to back off. Really good advice. I think in the end it all has to do with if you actually love what you are doing. If the activity becomes end in itself you will improve without really noticing. Ever woken up and asked yourself how you would do this in only one line? Or if the build system of nixOs - hydra is really worth it building your own product around it? If the next step is practicing what you are curious about, you are using the freudian principle of pleasure for your learning experience. and deez nuts.

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

:)

[@PowderedBonuts]

As a young father of 3 who loves learning about tech and integrating it into my work (finance and accounting analytics), your remarks about the challenge of focusing on your family instead of learning work are so validating. Thank you for being a great voice in this space to shine light on what is most important in life!

[@faridguzman91]

100 bucks says the author doesnt even code

[@tearing2803]

this has bootlicking PM written all over it

[@aaronmotacek9343]

I read this as “100 bucks a month”. I was like yes subscription model bets

[@olafbaeyens8955]

I agree the end of the article gives just a series of buzz-words, that guy probably never went beyond the "Hello world" stage. Look I can create a C++ Hello world, therefore I am a C++ expert now. Look I can create a "Hello world" Micro-service, therefore I am an Micro-service expert now.

[@PuntiS]

This ordeal of a text screams of 0 responsabilities besides their job, which is a danger in itself. I was like this for 2 years when I started working, until I got severely sick. I spent any extra I earned with therapy and medical procedures. At the end of the project, the company replaced the entire office (120 ppl) with another team in India and laid us all off. Since then I realized I work for myself and my family first, and my company second.

[@random_bit]

I haveba hard disagreement, i would work hard for things that better yourself not for a job. A job puts food on the table, that's it, they'll throw you away at a moments notice. Growing your knowledge base for yourself and your own projects ? Infinitely in favor, thats what I do in my downtime and outside of work. Why waste the prime years of my life in getting wasted when I could use my young mind to learn more things.

[@tashima42]

I agree, just don’t forget about doing other stuff, exercises, cooking, etc

[@scaylos]

I have to say that you put forth a pretty good take on this. Bizarre as it seems, overworking yourself in "knowledge work" fields WILL destroy your body just as much as overworking yourself in physical work, just in different ways. I worked at a startup during the pandemic pulling 16-18 hour days with few breaks and frequently putting in weekend hours to boot. What did I get out of it? Physical health issues that caused mental health issues requiring me to make significant lifestyle changes, not to mention relationship strife that didn't need to happen. Did it buy me a house? Nope. Asettlement from a car wreck did. Did I get high-value equity? Yes. However, I lost most of it due to mother downturns and the company hasn't had an IPO while its valuation drops like a stone. Taken as a whole, the post's thesis is pure garbage. Trying to make it a virtue to destroy yourself for free is a terrible thought process. I do find myself agreeing with must of the same points as ThePrimeagen, though, challenging yourself and doing hard things is of great value. You learn a lot, fail a lot, and learn more. But, nothing comes for free and some prices are far too steep. And that's not even getting to the part where he's not advocating Rust for everything. I mean, how lazy is this guy?! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and see about using Rust to make really annoying noises with a low-power MCU.

[@greglocker2124]

19:55 That's some old man wisdom that took me from the age of 18 to 28 to figure out.

[@DNA912]

There are 3 parts of life I think you always should strive for at least allocating some part of each day to. Work, Play and self-care. Work is work, Play when you do something primarily for your own enjoyment. self-care, eat good, exercise, etc. we all need all of these, if you don't work, you feel useless, if you don't play, you burn out, if you don't take care of yourself, you'll just feel shit (at least in the long run).

[@SlimeyPlayzOSE]

having watched your videos for a while now, i really appreciate your profound wisdom and life experience. a lot of really thought provoking insights, like the concept of a lower and a higher will. did you read about this elsewhere? i also really like how you always ere on the side of caution, admitting that you dont know when there is something you are uncertain about, such as whats better between two things. it shows that youre not willing to hastily believe what youre fed without thinking about it. i am probably younger than the author of this article, and i appreciate learning from you. i am about to embark on my journey as a cs student and i hope i can do the right choices or learn from wrong ones.

[@mannycalavera121]

Why would I even bother reading when I can have you do it for me?

[@tinnick]

Because maybe you could learn to spell better. (I’m joking I’m sure it’s just autocorrect making you a bad at it)

[@Lazdinger]

That’s some good wisdom my friend. A retired farmer once said to me “my only regret is working too much; I wish I would’ve spent a bit more time with my family.” I’ve heard a few people of retirement age and older say basically the same thing with varying degrees of regret but all rooted in the same idea of meaning and _relationships;_ as in cultivating their existing relationships or taking the opportunity to create new ones.

[@SimGunther]

Work as smart as you can while incrementally building the ability to work hard over time.

[@pieflies]

Your opinion at the end was spot on, in my opinion

[@duanebuell7055]

Sleep deprivation affects you so much more than we realize. I developed epilepsy and i attribute it primarily to believing that sleep was unnecessary 3-day work binges were not foreign to me. Now I regret it.

[@TheSkepticSkwerl]

You say "working too hard causes people to hurt" but also, some people are just average, and are in tons of pain. Some people work super hard, and never hurt. Our bodies are friggin weird.

[@abrafgesvbeac3676]

Thank you, great talk

[@Archheret1c]

Top managers get bonuses that regular employees normally don't get, business owners wealth can increase exponentially if their business does good. I'm not saying you shouldn't work hard, just remember who you compare yourself against.

[@erick_falker]

There's one silly thing I can't understand about Primeagen and that I can't get this rid of my mind. Why does he select the text in the page that way, selecting the whole paragraph but leaving out the first and last letter? The makes me have OCD attacks. 🤣🤣🤣

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

i cannot help it

[@benfurstenwerth]

Man you're part about the wife and kids.. so true. For me I have a constant desire to work on new stuff... family comes first for me... it's still hard though for sure. Sometimes I would stay awake so that I can do both... That wasn't free either because I was exhausted and it made the time that I spent with them less meaningful

[@Jabberwockybird]

19:54 Prime sums things up quite well. I think we both know of a God with burdans that are easy and yoke that is light.

[@damymetzke514]

This is some speculation, but maybe the author is somehow better at continuously working. Perhaps they really are like the farmer. What this could mean is that they are regulating their efforts: The author is working way longer, but on a lower intensity than other programmers. This is the only explanation I can come up with that suggests that the behavior is healty. The alternative would be that the author is headed straight towards a burnout. If my speculation is right, then this take is bad not because it is wrong, but rather because it is unique to how the author psychologically functions. But again, just speculating here.

[@VudrokWolf]

Excellent take on this article, I do love software engineering, but the tricky thing as Primeagen says "the hard thing is not to do", I love having human interactions with my wife and kids, also with family and friends, during these years that I was all about work even one time I worked 60 hrs straight you can damage your health pretty quickly pretty easily, now I don't want to be Bill, Jeff, Steve, nor any of those, to me the greed is the worst of human enemies when we learn to hold and regulate our greed we will reach another evolutionary point.

[@banned_from_eating_cookies]

He sounds like an oh-so-serious junior dev

[@UnhingedNW]

Its funny, working as a chef is both physical and mental, although not as mental as a software position. Managing both sides of the spectrum at the same time is difficult. It makes it a strain to complete anything outside of work. The oddest thing is that once I added exercise and good sleep, my day ran out of hours and I can’t be productive on my college work. Trying to decide if I want to go back to 6 hours of sleep, and getting my homework done in the middle of the night or just stay healthy and find where I can fit it in.

[@alcb1310]

I agree totally with Prime’s take in this

[@nickwoodward819]

Heaven forbid a company provides you the time and space to build tools for them

[@redguard128]

I know my company is: hey, thanks for building this automated Excel importer, it simplifies our work substantially. Also, don't even do that again.

[@Speglritz]

The author seems like very a motivated person and his current outlook will probably serve him well in furthering his craft as an engineer and eventually also as for why it's not good advice.

[@MatheusOliveira-er4gq]

Thats why companies need to force people to take breaks

[@matthewlefevre5667]

I resonate so much with what you said about fatherhood and spending time with your children. Thank you.

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

^^

[@tudobemtudobem]

Damn, what a great conclusion

[@redguard128]

At the end of the day the company owners reap the benefits no matter how hard you work. I worked hard on a project to repair it and it was cancelled anyway. I worked hard on another project that was taken down a few years later. I did clandestine work on the foundation of the company I work at and managed to get the processing time from minutes to less than one second for each request. What I got as a response from the company owners was: We were happy when it was taking 30 seconds, we didn't need it to be less than 1 second :| Nobody wants perfection, not even the owners of the business. Mediocrity - and sometimes even that is an over-achievement - that's all you need. I hated my fellow software developers that took 2 weeks to write a with 2 inputs, now I understand them so well. Nobody understands or cares about technology and nobody cares about your performance-improving ideas.

[@Asto508]

The "nobody cares mentality" is what kills the businesses in the end by competitors that actually care about how to make things better to gain the edge on a market and that's how you need to pick your work too. Either you find a company with the correct mindset or you create your own and crush the incompetent competitors. Just think about how many tech companies completely smashed older dinosaurs in a few years.

[@Wanderer2035]

I don’t care how strong willed or determined you are, if your not sleeping or sleeping to little, your brain will deteriorate and you WILL NOT function properly, hallucinations and dementia is just one of the many problems. That’s why I often don’t listen to these motivational speakers, they really don’t know what they talking about

[@ardnys35]

picking up hobbies are great to not be like this. yes i'd love to learn more and i do but it doesn't occupy all my free time. especially real work. i think reading, arts, sports and outdoor activities are way more beneficial in the long run. maybe you can learn and do more in that time but what for really? experiencing the life in a totally different way and having unique memories are invaluable. that sort of mentality hits like a truck when i socialize. as if social anxiety isn't enough, it makes me realise that my life is one dimensional and there is nothing interesting to even mention in a stupid chat with someone i won't even see again. this happens once every 2 years but at least connecting with a fellow human being on a shared medium is probably better than being stuck in a prison of a over worked mind.

[@nikozdev]

I am the one who can prove these hard workers why this is a bad idea… Health issues speak for themselves when you significantly change your sleep and physically exercising too much. I completely agree with what Primeagen said

[@mohamaddelkhah]

The dude's training like an anime protagonist.

[@boazhershkovitz232]

Hey Prime. Really enjoying your content. Could you please add a link to the articles you read in the video descriptions?

[@graydhd8688]

The physical toll of manual labor can be immense. Had a car accident at 20 that left me with a decade of chronic pain that I pushed through to work physical jobs. Body started breaking down big time last year, and have been on work leave for just over a year. FInally found the actual problem and had surgery a few weeks ago, right before my 30th birthday. I started learrning programming the past few months and my brain is really enjoying the process. Time to start moving away from destroying my body so I can have the strength to do the really fulfilling things in my life like playing guitar. Music means everything to me, and it's impossible to voice the existential emptiness that comes with losing the ability to engage in the artistic endeavors that bring your life meaning. I need to fix and take care of my body so I can play guitar and tuba into old age

[@hanabimock5193]

Those were good words man!

[@0runny]

Be with your kids, give them your time, that's all they want. They don't need fancy stuff, they just need you to be there. One day they won't need you and would prefer to spend time with their friends. Life is short, work hard, but don't let it take over. I learnt this the hard way, I spent every hour working hard making the money (for someone else - but I didn't know it at that time) I missed my daughter growing up, today she's all grown up, we talk and get on fine, but I miss what could have been a closer relationship. With my son who is 10 years younger, I realised what I had missed, so I spend as much time with him as he wants, we talk, we go on bike rides, and long walks. All this whilst I'm developing in Rust,. I'm also looking at Ocaml. I enjoy Rust, but Ocaml is a different beast. I'm getting there, but I fear my Son will be married with kids before I get proficient in Ocaml.

[@leahfluffytail5623]

hey prime, random wholesome question but what headphones do you have? ive seen you use them a lot and i assume theyre good quality then, my headphones keep breaking lol..

[@mid110300]

Think harder. Work smarter.

[@xesf]

He is the definition of a workaholic in the making, and it is not healthy!!! Having a girlfriend could help balancing that!! It is great throughout your career to keep learning, and sometimes you do add your own time to a company, but those should be exceptions. You know you are getting a return by doing it, but that return is limited to the knowledge and value you get by a company need. Having hobbies is usually a better and healthy alternative as you give time to something of your interest and tend to be different from your day-to-day at work, so you can balance your work/life but keep improving your knowledge and motivation by doing it.

[@jwbonnett]

I believe that working smart gives you the ability to work hard. It's all about anothers perception and that perception is typically the amount of work you do, not the quality of work.

[@alxk3995]

I agree with primeagens take on this. Or as paracelsus said: "the dose makes the poison".

[@dragenn]

Holy shit this was good! (His history give him super human insight! "BLAZINGLY INSIGHTFUL!")

[@ametreniuk]

Preach, Prime!

[@NickSteffen]

When you start getting deep into overtime work consistently, each additional hour of work makes all of your other others less effective. You will have a harder time concentrating, lack of sleep will slow you down a little at first and then a lot later and eventually kill you. People who work out regularly have less stress, sleep better, more energy and if you do cardio, more neurons. Cardio can literally make you smarter. Working 18 hours is not smart and you will find that you probably get the same amount done as someone who works 12 in the long run.

[@EsronDtamar]

This is a trap, every time I watch videos on this subject I got anxious, mostly because I disagree with you sir, and some times because I agree with you, and just wanted to ask you questions or have a talk with you about it. So I come here again and again.

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

hah! i would like to think my take is very nuanced on this topic which, if i could define with a bit more thought than live streaming "define your goal and work towards that." if you want to be an "olympic" level programmer then you have to put in "olympic" level effort if you wish to be a 9-5er you have to put in the effort to be hired somewhere and remain employed to whatever minimum is required. and anywhere in between is a range of those two :)

[@olafbaeyens8955]

Smart people tend to leave a mess behind that over time will fail any project. My job is to clean up the mess and make the project stable. By doing this I also remove any bugs they left behind, upgrade to the latest language version, document stuff, fix bad configuration to a point when software suddenly runs very smooth and have no more service tickets to resolve..

[@hashtagPoundsign]

That article comes across as someone trying to tell themselves more than anything.

[@oszi7058]

Work smarter and with working smarter work even harder! Because now working hard has an efficency buff!

[@bonecircuit9123]

21:28 onwards is nailing it to the wall.

[@EdubSi]

Good take Prime - love knowledge and hard work but don't let it be your god.

[@SandraWantsCoke]

This article could've been written by me. Except I sleep well. But I learn on weekends and very often after work.

[@anj000]

I saw a study somewhere that high mental demand for extended periods of time is degrading the brain. But the irony is that my brain is already fried and I don't remember what the study was exactly.

[@TheNorpix]

Omg, so good content, good mindest

[@teodor-valentinmaxim8204]

Idk, I agree with him somewhat, but he is leaning too much on the extreme side of things. I got my bachelor, while working full time as a dev in my last year of studies, and even now while I'm going through my masters. In my country, education is completely free if you get good grades and place among Top X Students of said Study Program. I do work a little hard, and sometimes I do overtime, but very rare, but I take days(in advance) off when I don't feel like working or starting to get burn out. When I feel lazy, I work from home, treating myself with some food I've ordered. I do sleep well, at least ~8 hours. I try to have balance scheduled meal plan,(3, 4 foods per days in lesser quantities than just 2 meals a day with large quantities of food). I've started to work out, lost 4kg in 2 weeks, and I'm feeling good. Sometimes, after work I try to learn new technologies, like NestJS and SolidJS (not JS dev btw). I think balance really is most importantly, if I overwork, next day I take hours off my work schedule by the amount of overworked hours, so balance is achieved.

[@ChrisAthanas]

GOT the $250k from his PARENTS

[@cubbucca]

Only work for what you're paid, unless you're working for yourself. Unpaid overtime should be illegal and your co-workers should stop you. Sometimes there is a need for the crunch, but it should be paid and not the norm.

[@redguard128]

The only time when "crunch" is needed is in the design phase. You get your Figma or whatever software you use for designing interfaces and start setting in stone everything about your application. When you start writing the first line of code, everything should be reviewed 10 or more times so you are left with no uncertainties.

[@israelmsnts]

I used to do something very similar to this and the result was depression and medication

[@lainiwakura3741]

This "work hard and smart" take is super strange.. I always thought people say "work smart not hard" to be cheeky and actually just mean that sometimes it's worth it to stop working, think a little and then maybe implement something smart that saves time.

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

good take

[@recarsion]

It matters WHAT you put your hard work into and my workplace is certainly not the place where I will put mine. I care about my craft but companies don't, what they care about is profit. I refuse to put my heart and soul into a product I couldn't give two shits about (which I feel is the sad reality for most devs), so I'm just going to do the bare minimum and collect my paycheck then go do whatever free time activity I want. Which very often will include coding, but coding something I think is worthwhile and exciting, the way I like it, not as dictated by an arbitrary deadline set by an incompetent manager.

[@redguard128]

Yeah, what I always recommend is doing the bare minimum at work because in the end nobody cares about the product they are building, not even the owners. And then get some gaming to clear your mind and work on your own software. Working 30 minutes on my project with all the right technical decisions feels a thousand times better than any achievement that, without doubt, gets ignored at work.

[@slephy]

I'd love to hire this person 😆

[@buffgarlichero]

Shit I didnt know there was a competition for the worst take of all time

[@Ring0--]

We miss you on KZbin.

[@oventree]

wow the author is just absolutely swallowing the corporate boot

[@marcelocardoso1979]

So, in the end he made a case for "work smart, not hard". The meaning of this phrase is very likely being misinterpreted. It should be about working efficiently to free yourself and your mind to do more, or simply do things you enjoy. It's not advocating for laziness, so rejecting it and going full bananas on working and learning to meet the Gods of computing seems utterly stupid. But in the end, the only person that can take the reins of its life, is yourself. So enjoy it!

[@TheKennyWorld]

Never trade sleep for anything

[@archmad]

The issues i have with generalist is that everyone is different. Cant fit everyone on the same boat

[@johnwu5908]

what's this guy name? he didn't mention it at the end

[@xaxfixho]

saul t. bawls

[@tashima42]

It’s Deez

[@LuciusAugustusRomanusInvictus]

Hugh Mungus

[@DanielDroegeShow]

Bezos got the money from his parents. When you work hard, you prioritize efficiency in completing the task, but this is not the same as working smart. When you are working smart, you find a novel way to do something that takes far less work without sacrificing safety or you know how to solve a problem 9 ways and instead of taking the easiest one, you consider the pros and cons of each before starting the task. Our brain is designed to make us lazy to free up more time for thought. This is the type of person who seeks validation from their company and it always ends poorly since no company was designed to show this level of appreciation to an employee this dedicated because it is insanity. When he is gone, people will still be using his miniservices and nobody will remember who built them or why. I have done hundreds of passion projects for my past employers and they were all to work smarter, not harder. This guys sounds like he is doing it for job security. The only difference between work and a hobby is getting paid to do it. He is hobbying hard, not working hard.

[@Topyy]

Saying hard work is good isn't the article's problem, I can work with that. The myth is that being employed means improving yourself and society, and working with brilliant minds. This is not true in a vast majority of cases.

[@hossammenem7396]

working hard to not work hard

[@mcine]

You cannot really work smart on understand concepts, if you are tired.. but there is good points in there

[@salvatoreshiggerino6810]

Every single company has treated me like absolute garbage, and worse the harder I have worked. By all means work hard if you gain from it, but don’t cast pearls before swine.

[@KingJellyfishII]

I have to ask myself, what is the point? Why work so hard, for so long, if you can't even enjoy the fruits of your labour? Sure, maybe you can retire a few years earlier, but you've wasted the years of your life where you have the most energy, physical ability, independence etc.

[@k98killer]

Young grug believe he big brain strong brain idealist, but he learn hard way in time and join old grugs in cynicism. No need reach for club.

[@iamvalenci4]

Es bueno ver como prime se contiene para evitar criticar el artículo fuertemente, respetuosamente leyó cada punto del artículo sin decir (This is a piece of #$%^)

[@dirtydan8044]

Less mowing more English Miguel

[@Mel-mu8ox]

Its a Pea Colour... Tinned peas always look this shade of dirty green.... They also taste like they look :D

[@DmitriPisarev]

I have a feeling the dude is like really young

[@vitiok78]

Work hard to become smart. Then work smart only

[@ikirachen]

ha i am doing gardening as well :)