[HN Gopher] Ask HN: I am not a competitive guy, how will it affe...
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Ask HN: I am not a competitive guy, how will it affect my career?
Hello, I am not a competitive guy. Neither am I curious enough to
dive deep into intricate details. I am jack of all trades but
master of none. All I is know enough subject matters to make things
work. Is there something fundamental that I am missing? I enjoy
life in the most boring way. Just doing enough to pass a day. I
strive for being good, but my good is just average. Is it necessary
to be competitive to have a successful career in tech? How far can
a boring person with diversified interest go? If one doesn't aim
for excellence, is it a bad thing? I am really early in my career
and sometimes I get cold feet when I see how incredible other
people are. What does it take to uplift myself and my own levels?
I have come to realize that just to make a small dent (as in new
contribution beyond being a boring copy-cat), I would require
tremendous amount of years of consistent effort. Thank you for
suggestions!
Author : throwaway1183
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-02-09 18:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
| omeysalvi wrote:
| There is a slight disconnect in what you are saying you are and
| what you want for yourself. If you say you are not competitive,
| then why are you trying to uplift yourself or make a dent?
| Success is very relative. You either need to have enough self
| esteem to find joys in other things in life to treat the job as a
| job and not let your performance at it shake you too much OR you
| can make a choice that what you want matters to you to the point
| you are ready and WANT to work for it.
|
| There are no free lunches. Nothing comes for free. So why should
| success? If you want something, you HAVE TO work for it.
|
| So this brings me to my three steps for you:
|
| 1. Give a hard look within yourself for what you want. Keep in
| mind that this can change with age and what you want for yourself
| now won't be what you want 5 or 10 years from when you will have
| to do this exercise over again.
|
| 2. Once you've figured out what you want, the hard part is
| figuring out EVERYTHING, and I mean absolutely EVERYTHING, that
| you will need to succeed at it. It is completely easy to delude
| yourself at this point. People delude themselves into thinking a
| 1 hour YouTube video can make them a programmer or a 497 dollar
| course can make them a real estate mogul. There is real work
| involved and you have to research to KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING
| INTO. If you ignore this step, you are going to enter a field
| with a false sense of security and, to some extent, entitlement
| because you will expect your dreams to come true but wont have
| the hard skills needed to survive long enough to achieve them.
|
| 3. Finally only if you decide that the hard work is worth it,
| COMMIT yourself to it. Commitment is a word which does a lot of
| heavy lifting and I personally believe that very few people,
| especially the younger ones, know what that word entails.
|
| Only if you do all of these 3, will you be successful. If you
| skip 1, you will be passionless and hate your career. If you skip
| 2, you will trampled by your competition because you won't even
| know what you don't know. If you skip 3, you will just give up at
| the first sign of hardship.
|
| I, for myself, decided that I'm not very competitive and would
| rather live life easily rather than kill myself to compete with
| others. I've given up hope on a lot of things and know there are
| a few things I'll never have but I'm OK with that for now.
|
| Good luck with your decision.
| throwaway1183 wrote:
| Thank you for your perspective! I have myself come to realize
| the importance of commitment, objectives and habit tracking.
|
| > why are you trying to uplift yourself?
|
| It comes from my personal experience. For example, if I am
| doing something for the first time, I do it enough to make it
| work. Maybe after a certain time, I forget those things. When I
| go back to the same old stuff, I realize that I could have done
| better when I started. I could have kept better notes, better
| links, better work. Doing so would have saved my own personal
| time!
|
| The sloppy habit leaks into other aspects. Therefore, it feels
| quite inadequate. I am sorry if this made sense or not!
| kirse wrote:
| _I enjoy life in the most boring way. Just doing enough to pass a
| day_
|
| You sure you're not depressed, etc? Done any bloodwork or checked
| test/hormone levels? Eating and sleeping well?
|
| Everyone, particularly men, have that thing that reveals their
| core passion - that topic/thing where they could talk the ear off
| anyone about it, that thing which fulfills their need to satisfy
| meaning and purpose.
|
| If you're just punching the clock in life, something is off.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > Everyone, particularly men, have that thing that reveals
| their core passion - that topic/thing where they could talk the
| ear off anyone about it, that thing which fulfills their need
| to satisfy meaning and purpose.
|
| And none of them make money :)
| jedberg wrote:
| I worked with a guy like you when I was younger. I was 28 and he
| was 61 and we were the same level (senior engineer, below staff,
| basically two levels up from fresh grad). This was at eBay, which
| at the time was like working for a FAANG today.
|
| He was perfectly happy. He came in at 9:30, napped at lunch for
| an hour, left at 5:30, and did ok work, good enough that you
| could give him a boring task and he'd get it done in a fairly
| timely manner. We made enough money to cover his mortgage and
| expenses, and he really had no ambition to go farther.
|
| And there was nothing wrong with that. He enjoyed himself, wasn't
| bitter or angry or anything like that. Last I heard he retired at
| 67 and collected social security.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Sounds like he had perfected the work culture. I hope you
| applied his life lesson that life is more important than work.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > He came in at 9:30, napped at lunch for an hour, left at
| 5:30, and did ok work [...] And there was nothing wrong with
| that.
|
| It's a sad testament to the current skewed work/life balance
| that the observation that someone worked regular 9-to-5 hours
| has to have the addendum "and there was nothing wrong with
| that". Of course there is nothing wrong with it, what's wrong
| is _not_ doing so.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| It is sad. For many unfortunates, work becomes their "life".
| I recall a time when men sometimes complained that, after
| retiring, there was "nothing to do". Their identity was gone.
| Some died within a few years of 'retirement'. Some had been
| too tired at the end of every day of labor to develop outside
| interests, have a hobby, whatever they might enjoy in the
| 'golden years' after the hearty hand-clasp. Even IF the
| pension had survived.
| sufehmi wrote:
| I have never believed in all-or-nothing / aggressive competition.
| I believe that a win-win situation for everyone is always
| possible.
|
| That's why I never spend any time in things like sports
| competition (despite having the talent for it), etc.
|
| I've created communities and foundations, but found that my true
| strength lies at being "the engine", not the leader / celebrity.
|
| An "engine" is hidden away, not visible - but it's the one that's
| actually make everything works.
|
| I enjoy staying behind the scenes, connecting with people,
| encouraging & motivating them, work together, developing
| strategic partnerships - and leave the stage for others more
| talented for it.
|
| I helped advocate and assist leaders, but I don't want the
| spotlight because of its various burdens.
|
| In an IT team, I help people work together, smooth any wrinkles,
| help my colleagues, discuss strategic targets with my boss and
| help the team to focus on it, etc. I talked with users, note
| their concerns, and help raise it internally in my team.
|
| I started as a lowly junior programmer - but rose so quickly I
| suddenly ended up as Head of IT. I quit soon, because it's
| putting me in the spotlight; this makes a lot of things suddenly
| political and involves a lot more drama than necessary.
|
| I just want to have fun, not encountering drama queens everyday.
|
| So yes, it is possible to be not competitive and be successful
| anyway.
| achenatx wrote:
| that sounds like me, Im probably older than you.
|
| You might realize in the grand scheme of the universe everyone is
| meaningless no matter the impact. After a generation or two,
| almost everyone is forgotten.
|
| Do what makes you happy (not always easy to know what that is).
|
| My dad used to say dont bother to do something if you cant be the
| best. For me, I do things while they are fun (learning phase) and
| then I move on before the mastery phase.
|
| Ive known some amazing, brilliant, and successful people. I do ok
| and dont sweat it. The happiness killer is comparing yourself to
| other people.
| [deleted]
| davidkuennen wrote:
| I think it depends on your workplace and environment. I'm not a
| competitive guy. I simply cannot be bothered.
|
| Starting as a developer in the company I'm working today I'm now
| the Head of Product Management. Even as a developer I was always
| focusing on the customer and UX of the features I was developing.
| Our management and CEOs were great. They noticed that and
| promoted me throughout the years without me ever asking for it.
|
| I think if you have the right management, just being great in
| what you do is enough.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| With all respect, it sounds like you want to be "excellent" but
| without the work?
|
| You can't have one without the other. If you don't want to do the
| work that's totally fine, but you have to come to agreement with
| yourself that you stop measuring yourself against that. Really,
| the secret to tech is caring enough about the people and the
| results to do a good job. Do that and you will be more than fine.
| Just be sure you're getting something you want out of your job!
|
| Decide what you want exactly, and be willing to sit with the
| question for a long while without an answer. Do you want to be in
| tech? Do you want to be deeply technical? Do you want to mix
| technical work with people management?
|
| Once you know what you want, you will find work you want to do to
| get there, if need be.
| appleiigs wrote:
| Check out this book: "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a
| Specialized World" by David Epstein. I bought it, but haven't
| read it yet. It's highly rated on Amazon.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Hi just so you know, I am you 30 years from now and I have come
| back to tell you that we are a loser. Now I would not have
| thought this to be true until a few days ago, my time of course,
| but I am telling you that we have made a big mistake. You will
| need to be aggressive and make more money so you still have
| enough to retire on after the gold digger leaves you.
| manmal wrote:
| I'm sorry about what you seem to be going through right now.
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| > How far can a boring person with diversified interest go?
|
| Someone once said "quantity has a quality all its own." A diverse
| skill set can be a force multiplier when tackling challenging
| problems. Bringing a wider perspective can lead to more optimal
| solutions.
|
| > If one doesn't aim for excellence, is it a bad thing?
|
| Is it a bad thing if other people don't aim for excellence? The
| guy fixing your brakes? The airplane mechanic on your next
| flight? The front-end developer of the corporate chat program you
| use every day?
|
| That's not to say everything you produce must be perfect in every
| way - but I've always found that I never feel bad when I know
| I've given my best effort. Whereas knowingly under-performing
| does tend to eat at you.
|
| > I am really early in my career and sometimes I get cold feet
| when I see how incredible other people are.
|
| Lack of experience is a temporary state. The smartest, most
| experienced person in the room started from ignorance. They put
| in the time and effort to improve and you can certainly get there
| too if it interests you.
|
| > What does it take to uplift myself and my own levels?
|
| My recommendation would be to find a hobby or side project that
| is at least somewhat related to your field. Something that you
| find interesting and can use as a springboard for skill
| development. Getting involved in an open source project is a good
| example of somewhere one could contribute as well as benefit.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| Consistent boring work over time will take you further than being
| "competitive"; as they say "genius is 1% inspiration and 99%
| perspiration".
| shetill wrote:
| No one likes competitive coworkers. I've heard of some being
| fired for being too competitive.
|
| I've also had a manager being very competitive against us people
| reporting to him. He always tried to monopolise interesting
| projects, fully control standups such as telling us who goes next
| who does what. Disregard important pieces of work done by other
| team members because he didn't contribute in it and take credit
| for other people's work. Intentionally hire lower skilled
| candidates so he can be "top" one in the team... One of the main
| reasons I left that job, don't be like that guy.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Your post demonstrates humility and a drive to improve. You
| realistically assessed that making a dent would take years of
| consistent effort rather than building up some crazy competence
| self image up in your head and exaggerating.
|
| I'm only a few years into my career myself so I can't say how far
| you will go but you sound like an awesome coworker to me.
| greg7gkb wrote:
| You don't need to be competitive to be successful or happy. My
| first question is: what do you want?
|
| If you enjoy life in the most boring way, then it sounds like
| something in your life is already fulfilling. Boring and exciting
| are entirely in the eye of the beholder.
|
| Especially early in your career it can be daunting to see the
| success and skill of other people in the field but recognize that
| their success took a long time to build up, and probably some
| amount of thrashing around too.
|
| So again, what do _you_ want? Do you enjoy continually learning
| new things and getting satisfaction from exploring new ideas? Do
| you enjoy the act of building something new from scratch? Do you
| enjoy optimizing parts of what you build at a small level until
| the details are just right? See if you can clarify for yourself
| what you really care about and focus on doing more of that.
|
| For now, I would also counsel against avoiding being 'a boring
| copy-cat'. It already sounds like you have an interest in going
| broad - embrace that.
| throwaway1183 wrote:
| > Do you enjoy continually learning new things and getting
| satisfaction from exploring new ideas? Do you enjoy the act of
| building something new from scratch?
|
| These are something I do just for fun. But I never go deep
| enough to be good at it. That habit has cost a quite of
| opportunities!
| kokanee wrote:
| Being competitive correlates with advancement at managerial
| levels. Being competent, productive, and pleasant to work with is
| enough to put any individual contributor role within your grasp.
| Whether or not either of those are related to "success" is up to
| you.
|
| After ten years, I've started equating success with happiness,
| and as a result my decisions have changed drastically.
| d--b wrote:
| Remember Office Space? Sounds to me that you've got upper
| management written all over you
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Define "successful career in tech" for yourself, then ask if that
| is what you're doing.
|
| For me, I want to put my attention onto helping others, in this
| case by using computers, data, and statistics. I also put
| attention onto playing music for others, listening to their
| problems, and cooking for them. There's no need to one-up anyone
| if your goal is simply to help others.
|
| And btw, it's not bad to spend attention on yourself, it's good
| to improve your fitness, nutrition, sleep, quality of life, and
| your own satisfaction and joy. There's nothing wrong with a Giver
| Giving to Themselves, which will enhance their overall health +
| giving abilities.
| robinjhuang wrote:
| I like what Kevin Systrom said on a podcast about being
| competitive. (Paraphrasing) He said he was not the type of person
| to need to beat someone else in everything. He doesn't need to be
| number 1 all the time. But he was competitive with himself. He
| would set goals, and try to reach them. Personally, I think this
| type of competition is very healthy and will lead to a fulfilling
| life.
|
| Set your own goals. Don't just ladder-climb or be competitive for
| the sake of it. Don't live someone else's life.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I did not know that guy, but it seems I agree to him.
|
| "Set your own goals."
|
| Just be careful, that they are truly your goals.
|
| All those poor wannabe models for example, who believed they
| need to maintain the goal of a certain very low weight and in
| effect developed bulimia? The same can happen with any goals.
|
| So always be free to drop or change your goals, if you find
| they no longer fit, or were not smart to begin with.
|
| But this if of course the hard part: figuring out when you give
| up on a goal - is it, because you are just lazy and should
| maintain discipline - or was it really a wrong or unrealistic
| goal?
|
| So be realistic, if you set goals as it is of course not ideal
| to your morale, to drop goals, instead of accomplishing them.
| prewett wrote:
| > How far can a boring person with diversified interest go?
|
| Diversified interests sounds like the opposite of boring to me.
|
| > If one doesn't aim for excellence, is it a bad thing?
|
| It probably indicates that your actual interests lie in something
| other than what you are currently doing. One suggestion I found
| useful was to make two columns on a sheet of paper and keep it at
| your desk. The first column is "I loved this!" and the other is
| "I hated this". When you find yourself enjoying a task (or vice-
| versa), write it down. The theory is that our interests are
| surprisingly specific. The guy saying this (Erwin McManus if I
| recall correctly) said that he is really excited by helping
| people _find_ their passions. Not pursue them, find them. It
| helped me identify some of the areas I enjoy, so I 've pursued
| jobs in those areas.
|
| > I am jack of all trades but master of none.
|
| Reframe this: I know a little bit about everything, so no matter
| what your problem is, I can solve it. I might not solve it the
| most efficiently, but if you need a problem solved, I'll solve
| it.
|
| Some environments need raw production. Some need carefully
| crafted algorithms. Some need prototypes held together with duct
| tape. Some need solidly connected piping. Breadth favors some
| environments over others. Breadth is helpful for freelance
| contracting, for instance, since clients have a problem and want
| the assurance that you have already solved a similar problem
| before, so the more difference environments you have worked with,
| the more likely you will look like someone who can solve their
| problem.
|
| I wouldn't worry too hard, though. (Nor would I recommend jumping
| in to freelancing too early.) If you're early in your career,
| focus on figuring out what it is that you enjoy, and leverage
| your skills to slowly move in that direction. And figure out what
| your boundaries are (hrs/week, pay, on-call, etc.), so that you
| know what things to avoid. There's plenty of software jobs
| besides FAANG out there.
| dustymcp wrote:
| Work with larger companies and you will be fine..
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Depends on your work ethic and concentration.
|
| Competitiveness is just a motivator to be productive and focus.
| Arguably non-competitive high producers are the best for keeping
| objectivity and not getting too emotionally attached to one
| approach or another.
| bogrollben wrote:
| Work hard, don't be a jerk and you'll be fine.
|
| A lot of ambition these days is misplaced in my opinion. Why
| don't you try crossing over some of these diversified interests?
| Some very interesting things can happen when you mix disparate
| interests and before you know it, you could be one of the
| authorities in something new.
|
| Or if not, then at the very least just keep being a great
| employee. There's plenty of room in tech for people that are
| consistently good but average. Remember "average" means you're
| already better than half the people! Rockstars are way overrated
| but they get all the attention. Don't buy the hype. Right now in
| tech (and the economy in general - speaking of the US here),
| employers would give their right arm just for a solid worker that
| shows up consistently and on-time. Showing up is half the battle.
|
| Also maybe lean into the boredom a little. Sometimes boredom can
| be a great motivator into doing something different, wacky or
| new.
| rewgs wrote:
| > Remember "average" means you're already better than half the
| people!
|
| Well, no. It just means you're part of the bell curve. Which is
| probably around 60 to 90% of people.
| akudha wrote:
| _Work hard, don 't be a jerk and you'll be fine._
|
| This doesn't always work. I have seen plenty of assholes easily
| climb the ladder, make tons of money while good people are
| stuck.
|
| Example: A guy was making 60k, his employer spent tens of
| thousands on tuition so he could get MBA from a world class
| school. He took a new job a month after getting his MBA,
| doubling his salary. That is just one example, I have seen
| more. One of my CTOs mistreated nearly everyone, still kept
| failing forward. I've seen sexist and racist people at top
| positions. And so on.
|
| This is not to say that one shouldn't be nice, but to set the
| expectation that being nice automatically brings rewards. It
| does not work that way always.
| sorry_outta_gas wrote:
| > Remember "average" means you're already better than half the
| people
|
| not really
| marifjeren wrote:
| I disagree. Job performance is believed to follow either a
| symmetric normal distribution or an L shaped distribution. In
| either case, the mean is either very close to or greater than
| the median.
|
| See e.g. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.17
| 44-6570....
| jshorty wrote:
| > We conducted 5 studies involving 198 samples including
| 633,263 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and amateur
| and professional athletes.
|
| It seems tough to take anything meaningful from that study,
| based on the job types it examined, and the tiny percentage
| of the workforce those jobs represent. Working in tech our
| job responsibilities are often quite fuzzy and performance
| is difficult to quantify.
|
| PDF of article: http://www.hermanaguinis.com/PPsych2012.pdf
| dd444fgdfg wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by success. Those who rise through the
| ranks tend to have a combination of ambition and ability. I've
| worked with plenty of great devs who didn't have ambition to
| become a lead/manager never mind a VPoE. And, I've worked with
| plenty who had the desire to but they didn't have the ability.
| manmal wrote:
| > What does it take to uplift myself and my own levels?
|
| If you are not already, I'd invest heavily into health. I'd check
| for undiagnosed ADHD/ADD. I'd lay off cannabis if I were using
| it. I'd read up on how dopamine can be increased (there's often
| some low hanging fruit). No harm in at least investigating in
| that direction.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| No one is "boring" with diversified interests. It's how to listen
| to others first, find common ground (human condition is easiest),
| and emphasize the highlights of one's own interests now and then.
|
| If nothing done actively in work, consequences include:
|
| Lower salary.
|
| Fewer oppy's like management track.
| tw600040 wrote:
| Thank you for asking this. You are not doing anything wrong.
| There is more to life than being great at some niche tech skill.
| In many things, being a jack of all trades will help. It's
| perfectly okay to just treat a job as what it is, just a job and
| focus on what interests you or what matters to you. Many people
| come to this realization after slogging for many years at work.
| You have just realized that earlier.
| skmurphy wrote:
| I would make a distinction between striving for excellence, which
| is a desire for self-improvement and involves competing with
| yourself to do better, and competing with others in a desire to
| outperform them.
|
| I think you have to strive for excellence in some key areas in
| the your life, especially where you have talent or a strong
| affinity to participate or contribute.
|
| I find it's much more useful to collaborate with others than
| compete, but your mileage may vary. When I see other people who
| are incredible, I try to find a way to complement them and
| collaborate with them on projects where we have common interests.
| gorbachev wrote:
| One thing I would do if I were you is to find places of work that
| are pro-active about career development. Places like this
| typically reward managers for their underlings' success and
| career progression.
|
| In those type of companies you don't, necessarily, have to be
| competitive/ambitious to move ahead, because the incentive
| programs would make it so that your managers would push you
| forward. You'd still need to be able to express how you'd like to
| progress and to then take steps to make sure you could achieve it
| (learn new skills, work on your weaknesses, etc.), but you
| wouldn't need to drive it forward entirely on your own.
|
| In my personal experience managers who do this well are extremely
| rare, however.
| fooker wrote:
| >Neither am I curious enough to dive deep into intricate details.
|
| I think you should try to overcome this and become an expert in
| some narrow domain. That way, you will not have to be explicitly
| competitive about your career.
| exdsq wrote:
| It'd be fun to have a list somewhere of these domains for
| people to pick up
| throwaway1183 wrote:
| I have one field that I am really interested and currently
| investing in. But it is so difficult to get relevant job,
| because there are barely few companies that do it. Most of it
| are gaming companies!
| gmueckl wrote:
| Do you want to tell us what you find interesting? There are
| companies that do the same or very similar things to game
| developers, but for/in other industries.
|
| For example, the product I'm working on a product for real
| time architectural visualization, but at it's core it's very
| much like a true game engine with pretty much the same
| techniques for graphics, input, physics, sound... Since we're
| selling to customers in AEC and related industries, we're on
| a steady development schedule and the pay is good.
| throwaway1183 wrote:
| It's related to motion synthesis and animation!
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| This advice is specifically for the non-competitive types:
|
| If you find yourself in a situation where your boss wants you to
| compete with your teammates and the outcome for the loser is
| getting fired or making a lot less money, then find another job
| ASAP!
|
| Find places that reward teamwork.
| tragictrash wrote:
| Performance isn't everything. This may be total motivational
| speaker BS, but I fell for it hook line and sinker.
|
| https://kanbanzone.com/2021/performance-vs-trust-how-to-choo...
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Are you passionate about anything? Doesn't have to be work.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| You seem to be conflating 'competitive' with being highly
| competent.
|
| In my experience, it's not necessary to be competitive, but
| pursuing a high level of competence _IS_ quite important.
|
| Yes, doing just enough to pass a day will likely affect your
| career.
|
| Having said that - being a generalist can be a skill all on it's
| own. Having the meta-ability to pick something up quickly and
| doing useful work with your new knowledge can be a highly useful
| skill, especially if you are working on smaller teams.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Is it necessary to be competitive to have a successful career in
| tech?"
|
| Depends on your definition of success, the definition your boss
| uses, and the culture/disposition of your peers.
|
| I'm very much a 'we did something' type of person vs taking
| credit for it myself. It absolutely has hurt my career.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| I need to fight, otherwise I'm not taken seriously.
| giantg2 wrote:
| All the consistently loud people at my company are promoted.
| I'll fight for what's right. But if 75% of the things
| discussed are things I agree with, then I'm not going to talk
| just to reiterate what someone else said.
|
| Being loud is how my company measures engagement, and they're
| all about that.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| It seems like you are describing someone who would work well in
| jobs that position them as the underdog. Especially since we can
| say that you just stood up in the company of a bunch of
| productive, competitive people and directly said, "I'm so not
| you." (Let's not look past the fact that this can be seen in some
| ways as a competitive, challenging stance.)
|
| So the fact that you can own this perspective in that way may say
| something about your resilience in subjectivity. Your ability to
| say "here's my thing, here's how I understand myself," combined
| with the conclusion, "let's say I don't change that. So what?"
|
| For the sake of reasonable contingency--just in case the
| opposites, all that grand stuff you _don't do_, starts to form
| into a cognitive blind spot later on, I'd probably start to
| objectively define those opposite things you are setting up
| against, ASAP. What is excellence really, what do people really
| expect of a non-boring person, and so on. This needs to be
| objectively outlined so it doesn't compromise your ability to
| keep an open mind if life change is ever really needed.
|
| On your question of uplifting yourself: I'd start with what
| you're showing you're good at right here--explaining your
| position gently, and seeing what other people offer in response.
| You will definitely be able to learn a lot of new perspectives
| that way.
|
| Eventually some of those positions can probably turn into
| experiments you can conduct, to find whether there are new paths
| worth exploring, or whether you already perceived them all. :-)
| You could document this, train others on it, use the experience
| for all kinds of advancement purposes toward uplifting yourself.
|
| Regardless, life is effort, career activity is effort--you'll be
| putting in some long-term effort anyway, so I think your
| circumspect analysis of such effort in this way is laudable and
| worthwhile.
|
| Good luck in wherever your path takes you.
|
| P.S. In regard to underdog paths, I'd look for underdog companies
| with counter-philosophies. Start with the extremes, heck even
| anti-work if you need to. It will be really important to find
| some grounding for your conceptual position and it's key to
| ground it where it connects well for starters. That will lend
| your efforts authenticity, which is key to seeing your thought
| position and experiments roll out in full effect.
| throwaway1183 wrote:
| Thank you for your detailed response! There is really nice
| perspective your wrote here!
|
| > I'd probably start to objectively define those opposite
| things you are setting up against, ASAP
|
| If I have a list of these things, does it act like a checklist
| for me, whether something would be worth pursuing in future or
| not?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| It's kind of you to say so & you're welcome.
|
| I would be really hesitant to give a checklist to the person
| you've described, but maybe if it really motivates you? I
| would rather see a qualitative exploration, something much
| deeper or even overlapping with your current concepts for
| curiosity's sake. For example could you somehow map the
| concept of excellence onto who you already are? I think you
| could, and maybe one result is something integrative of both
| aspects of excellence & appreciating the day-to-day, like Tom
| Hodgkinson's _How to be Idle_, etc.
|
| So the exploration and its nuance would probably be worth
| much more than the checklist itself, just a guess & IMO.
| exdsq wrote:
| Remember that even being average in tech means your standard of
| living is likely to be 1.5 or 2x that of the average person in
| your country (based on tech salaries vs average salaries in most
| countries). That's pretty awesome. You don't need to make
| yourself some sort of rockstar - most people, including those who
| want to be one, aren't. And that's totally fine. Just do what you
| enjoy and ignore the rat race :) Maybe one day you will wake up
| and go "Holy crap! I am so excited about {random_domain}!" and
| that excitement will get you a little further, but if you don't
| it doesn't matter that much. Forcing it however will just cause
| burnout, boredom, or stress.
|
| Note: I genuinely believe if you're here asking this question you
| are more interested in tech than the average, so you're probably
| putting yourself down a little.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I don't think "competitive" and "being curious to dive into
| details" are the same thing.
|
| You can definitely do fine without being competitive. I don't
| think competitivity is a plus, really.
|
| Can you do fine without being curious about technology, just
| doing enough to get by?
|
| Honestly, in the current market for software engineers -- I don't
| see why not. You might not get to the "top levels". You'll still
| make more than 90%+ of non-software engineers. There are people
| who arne't even competent who are getting rich, so.
| univalent wrote:
| Focus on being fulfilled. Learn to surround yourself with people
| who love you. Have a rich and varied life. What is excellence at
| work really worth in terms of utility? So you don't make VP or
| CTO or something. Think about what it is you really really want
| out of life.
| thelastinuit wrote:
| I have never been competitive. More a collaborative mindset. My
| career is fine I think. Working for a startup in SF. Making good
| money and it's a remote job.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I was never competitive, in the sense of wanting to "defeat" my
| workmates. If they wanted to defeat me, I'd concede, after
| putting up a brief fight. Life is very short, and there's no time
| for fussing and fighting. I would advocate strongly against bad
| decisions, ifd I thought I'd get a hearing.
|
| I became a programmer, and I stayed a programmer. Like, I tried
| managing projects once; didn't agree with me. And I was obliged
| to take on the management of a support team, once; that didn't
| agree with me either. I retired a programmer.
|
| I didn't get as rich as I'd have got as a man-manager; I suppose
| a really good project manager must be worth their weight in gold,
| because I've never met one. But I earned enough to raise my kids,
| buy a house, etc. So that's not so much about competitiveness, as
| about ambition. I have had the ambition to make something really
| cool; but I wasn't ever lucky enough to have a really good idea
| and the time to implement it. And probably I just wasn't clever
| enough.
|
| If you enjoy your life, and you earn enough, my advice would be
| not to worry about competitiveness and ambition.
| borroka wrote:
| "Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and
| fighting" --
|
| I would say that with no time for fussing and fighting, life,
| professional or not, can be even shorter.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| It's a quote, from Day Tripper by The Beatles.
|
| [Edit] Some people thrive on adversity and struggle; I'm not
| one of them, and I believe that the author isn't either.
| Adversity and struggle come anyway, there's no need to seek
| them out.
| bryceneal wrote:
| I think this quote is actually from "We Can Work It Out".
| Both great songs nonetheless.
| booboofixer wrote:
| Only way i can think of, is some people might try to gauge your
| desire to work and arrive at the wrong conclusion. Specifically
| the type of people who compare you to your coworkers or other
| people in general and tell you how you're worse off. Their idea
| of motivating someone is to put you down so you react to their
| terrible opinion of you. If you're not competitive, this doesn't
| work. If you dont react, you may appear as someone having little
| to no ambition to do anything.
| tyingq wrote:
| The one thing I would watch for is the "squeaky wheel gets the
| grease angle". If you don't do a little self promotion and
| negotiation, you'll likely miss out on larger merit/cola raises,
| promotions, etc.
|
| Since that works like compound interest, the missed opportunities
| can add up quickly.
|
| That is, if you don't feel like being competitive most of the
| time...fine. But there may be some benefit to doing it once in a
| while (yearly review, etc).
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