I was a staff software engineer (front end lol so take that for what it is) at a medium sized B2B SaaS company that turned into a unicorn during my time there.
I quit in 2019 to start a company. In 2020 my time was split 80/20 between building a company and working alongside brothers and sisters in my local church.
In the past couple of years I’ve degreased kitchens, demolished walls, hauled concrete, done some electrical, metal work, automotive, woodworking, janitorial, hauled bags of salt and piled em up two stories high in a metal warehouse during a thunderstorm. Dirt under your nails work.
Yes 80% of my time was still tech (working on hardware though, which is a nice change) but I wouldn’t give the 20% for the world.
There’s a deep satisfaction in putting forth real effort - mentally and physically with sweat and sometimes blood - doing something that’s taxing, alongside and for the people in your community you know and love.
The things that separate and seem so large - cultural background, socioeconomic status, upbringing - they melt away when you’re in the dirt laboring together.
And I understand that this is coming from a privileged viewpoint. And that I had the choice to take on these things while others don’t. But in a way that makes it more meaningful.
Jesus didn’t have to empty Himself of His power. God Himself chose to humble Himself taking the form of a man and instead of being a ruler over the humanity while He was here, He chose to live among the lowest of the low. To love and care for the folks that society tried to pretend didn’t exist without any gain, self aggrandization, or virtue signaling. To die for us in order that if we turn away from the world and towards Him in faith we would be saved from the sin inside of us that separates us from God and warrants His judgment.
Jesus’ love makes me want to be like Him. I’m nowhere close — often foolish and more often still selfish. But in His presence there’s fullness of joy and an abundance of life that’s only found in sacrificing one’s self to Him.
Anyone romanticizing physical work based on doing it as an unpaid hobby is not experiencing what it's like to actually rely on that kind of work to survive. You aren't 'living like the common people do' because you do some work for your church sometimes. You're an otherwise rich tech worker who also likes to do physical things sometimes as part of a community.
Working as a shift engineer at an industrial facility is not even remotely the same thing.
I equate this to the people working with habitat for humanity (no offense it's a great program) but these people are for the most part cos playing construction workers. But there's no foreman busting your ass because you are moving too slow or the general disregard for safety because you only have 3 days to frame out the house and it rained yesterday. It's no different than when the CEO works the register at some coffee place or fast food joint -look at me I work hard just like the little people. It's a show, in the end they go back to their rarefied positions and their outrageous salary not understanding that somebody has to do that back breaking work every day and for a wage a lot people wouldn't get out of bed for. I'd also add that they likely did a shit job that would gt you fired if you weren't working for free.
Do it everyday and live off the low wages for a year and then come back and tell me how fulfilling it is.
I worked in the trades for almost a decade before switching to tech. Frankly, manual labor is far more fulfilling than anything I've done in tech. I'd still be doing it if it paid more.
> Do it everyday and live off the low wages for a year and then come back and tell me how fulfilling it is.
That makes no difference, it is still a choice. As soon as you've figured out you can rub 2 stones together and make fire you will never [again] get to experience the cold nights as something unavoidable.
Why do we work at all? Why not travel the world and enjoy ourselves? The only reason I can think of is that insecurity is terrifying. Then the next guy pulls his guitar out of its bag and people start throwing money in his hat.
Construction work isn't that hard or back breaking. One guy's operating a machine and one guy is spotting him, you drive a lot, take hour lunches, sleep in the machines. $25 an hour to start. Foreman's are usually busy with the people above them.
I run a homestead as my primary means of surviving, it's similar work, 12 hour days, a fraction of the pay and pretty darn fulfilling.
Gottach, you aren't in the trades, you work for yourself on your own plot of land. That's exactly like working a 12 hour day in 10 degrees in an empty sky scraper. Herding your goats is not construction.
Huh, what an interesting and specific rant toward Habitat for Humanity volunteers. Is it your experience that those volunteers pretend to be "real" construction workers?
Homelessness is not a mental hell hole of despair, and claiming it is does more to dehumanize the homeless than anything.
Being in a mental hell hole of disparity is a mental hell hole of despair, but that can come with any profession at any position on the socioeconomic ladder.
Thanks for this. All I said is we don’t live in a deep hole of despair. Sure parts are bad, but I don’t know of anyone who lives with absolutely no bad in their life.
Lots of wealthy people moan and whine all day long. It is arguably how one becomes wealthy. Lots of poor people are happy. It is arguably why they are poor. Life can hand you a good hand of cards or a bad one. Sure. How much that gets to you is up to you.
I talk with a dying man one time who worked in a hospital for dying people. He asked for me because he knew dying people had the best conversations with those they didn't know intimately. The one thing that stuck with me was the contrast between 2 types of people, one kind screams and cries for 2 weeks straight, day and night "I'M GOING TO DIE!!" the other kind talks about all of the great things they experienced in their lives. He remembered one specifically who smiled and said: "I had a great life" then turned over in his bed and was gone.
Before you can live in a deep hole of despair you first have to dig it yourself.
The real percentage is far smaller. I suspect the parent has only encountered homeless beggars, in the context of being begged at. If that’s all you knew I could see how you might think they hate it.
In reality homeless place a higher value on personal freedom than most, and the absolute happiest people I’ve ever met were all homeless with no intention of being otherwise. For these, possessions often come from donations they receive from people they meet and develop real connections with.
"I suspect the parent has only encountered homeless beggars, in the context of being begged at."
Oh no. The complete opposite. I lived in SF 15 years, worked and talked to the homeless dozens of times. 99% [not mentally handicapped] are addicted to fentanyl, destroyed all their relationships, and are slowly dying. Trying to justify it as "freedom" is a bizarre comment. They tend to have ZERO freedom, trying to score another fix, in an endless loop - they have NO ability to do anything else. People in prison have more freedom IMHO. They need detox now.
SF is an exception. They’ve been grossly mismanaged for years. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10’ pole. The homeless there get government cash to buy drugs and government hotel rooms to use them in.
It’s expressly designed to select for the lowest common denominator, and it shouldn’t surprise anything that what they’ve received is exactly that.
SF is no exception, and the "Berkeley girls are sluts" implication makes me wonder how homeless this poster is; reads like something a 60-year old former programmer with a grudge would say.
My wife works in the homeless shelter / battered woman shelter sphere, and depression, drug use, and misery is widespread. Many of her clients, after getting sober, are deeply isolated, and many have few skills, few friends, and terrible self-esteem. Many straight-up don't care if they die, and the only thing motivating them on the day-to-day is avoiding withdrawal.
This is nowhere near SF, but it's not like homelessness is magically different because you're in California.
> My wife works in the … battered woman shelter sphere
Ah. Perhaps the following reformulation of this thread will help you to understand how clouded with prejudice your viewpoint is:
> All women live a life of getting battered.
> This isn’t true. I’m a woman, and I don’t get battered.
> You are incorrect. I know someone who knows a lot of women at a battered women shelter, and they all get battered. Therefore, the vast majority of real women must certainly get battered. Accordingly, I’m left to wonder how much of a true woman you really are.
The fact that you accompany this absurd line of reasoning with a tidbit in which you take a statement I made praising and reminiscing upon a group of people who categorically treated me with upmost kindness immediately following an all-time low^, then replace my words with derogatory sexualized ones, then turn around and claim I hold a grudge? Icing on the cake. Got any mirrors in that big fancy home of yours?
Here’s the root of the matter: the only thing that just be true for someone to be “homeless” is that they don’t have a home. The fact that you’ve had such a narrow experience with the homeless that you think they must also be impoverished drug addicts does not mean that anyone who doesn’t have a home but isn’t an impoverished drug addict isn’t homeless, but rather that you speak overconfidently of things you know nothing.
If you met me on the street you’d see a happy guy walking on the street with his dog, taking the time stop and talk with anyone who cared to chat. You would hear no mention of my homelessness, and you’d walk away remaining stuck in your perverted worldview in which homelessness implies every bad thing you can imagine.
^ A week of torrential down pour preventing me from a wink of sleep and soaking everything I own, followed by a government agent invading my space and robbing me of all my most prized possessions, including the single pair of shoes I owned.
It is different in that you get to fish and laugh with friends the year round in stead of just 14 days recovery from that to-fast moving conveyor belt in that noisy stinking factory for that boss who hates you.
While religion is on the decline in the US, Christianity is still the dominants religion, and it's a famous parable. And this is an American, English-language website; it's not crazy to think that much of the population has heard the saying.
HN is also a cyber-entrepreneur website, and if there is anyone willing to disregard that saying extra hard they're here too...
Did you know "needles eye" does not refer to sewing needle? I'm told it actually referred to something like a cattle gate. So the message is actually "hard but not impossible..."
According to Wikipedia, there's no actual evidence for such a gate, so this seems like apocrypha meant to soften the message.
But given that we're talking about the man who preached "give up everything you have and follow me" and "let the dead bury their own dead" I'd favor the more radical interpretation being the most likely.
It was Jesus' answer to a follower who wanted to attend a family funeral. Jesus was saying that to follow him means separating yourself from the world to the point of considering even your own family to be dead to you.
> There’s a deep satisfaction in putting forth real effort - mentally and physically with sweat and sometimes blood - doing something that’s taxing, alongside and for the people in your community you know and love.
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I've never felt this. I have no interest in this and take no satisfaction from it. If somebody wants something from me I'll give my money. Obviously I give my time for my job so I get money but that's only because I have to work.
If I didn't have to work, I wouldn't. I took 3 years off once and kept to myself and loved it. Didn't contribute to society besides spending money.
I don't get it either. I'm a very senior engineer and I also live on a horse sanctuary. Taking care of horses is hard, very physical work that has to be done every day, regardless of weather or how deathly ill you feel.
It's a pain in the ass. People ask if it's rewarding. No, it's just pain in the ass labor that has to get done. The only reason I do it is so my wife doesn't have to do all the work by herself.
I took 3 years off once and kept to myself and loved it.
Were you stoned the whole time?
I only ask because if you're loving what you're doing, then there's usually some modus operandi or Summum bonum driving you.
A really good high is pretty straightforward.
Most others I know about tend to require something that contributes to a community, but certainly study or meditation can be lonely yet meaningful pursuits.
Nope! Took molly once during those 3 years, but other than that I've abstained from drugs, alcohol, and soda pop my entire life (I'm 100% non-religious though).
I read books, went to the gym, went on walks, rode my bike, hung out with friends, went on dates, went to the movies, went on the internet, and that was it. Absolute best time of my life.
Jesus was outcast by the temple for speaking against Jewish law. That kind made him “of the people”. Anyway, giving back to one’s community - either through church or a volunteer organization like Habitat for Humanity or Food Banks are very purposeful when money is taken out of the equation.
I feel like this is important, at least for me, to maintain a balance. I have a small bit of land. I'm often building with wood or metal. I'm lucky enough to have a shop/outbuilding where I can do those things like machine, weld, paint, cut, etc.
I grew up in a small town (less than 3500 people) and I was a pretty fanatical gear head. I thought, at around 10, I had my mind made up and I was going to be a mechanical engineer. It was a way to combine two things I loved: computers and machines. But then I stumbled across a new undergrad program at one of our state universities focusing on networking, programming and *nix OSes and fell down that rabbit hole. On one hand I'm glad I did, on the other hand I'm still tinkering with things like Fusion 360 and vCarve. Maybe it's that it's not my professional life but building real things has a different reward. I've built, extended and upgraded countless corporate networks and have mostly specialized in network security over the years. But it's really good to physically build or fix something. I've got dirt and grease under my nails often.
That's a really refreshing and admirable career story, thank you for sharing. I think so many people's problems with their mental wellbeing would dramatically improve if they had a community which fosters the type of 20% work you're describing. Great stuff.
It is what you make it. Some front end developers are the best software developers I’ve had the fortune of working with. Front end problems can be legitimately complex and difficult.
I quit in 2019 to start a company. In 2020 my time was split 80/20 between building a company and working alongside brothers and sisters in my local church.
In the past couple of years I’ve degreased kitchens, demolished walls, hauled concrete, done some electrical, metal work, automotive, woodworking, janitorial, hauled bags of salt and piled em up two stories high in a metal warehouse during a thunderstorm. Dirt under your nails work.
Yes 80% of my time was still tech (working on hardware though, which is a nice change) but I wouldn’t give the 20% for the world.
There’s a deep satisfaction in putting forth real effort - mentally and physically with sweat and sometimes blood - doing something that’s taxing, alongside and for the people in your community you know and love.
The things that separate and seem so large - cultural background, socioeconomic status, upbringing - they melt away when you’re in the dirt laboring together.
And I understand that this is coming from a privileged viewpoint. And that I had the choice to take on these things while others don’t. But in a way that makes it more meaningful.
Jesus didn’t have to empty Himself of His power. God Himself chose to humble Himself taking the form of a man and instead of being a ruler over the humanity while He was here, He chose to live among the lowest of the low. To love and care for the folks that society tried to pretend didn’t exist without any gain, self aggrandization, or virtue signaling. To die for us in order that if we turn away from the world and towards Him in faith we would be saved from the sin inside of us that separates us from God and warrants His judgment.
Jesus’ love makes me want to be like Him. I’m nowhere close — often foolish and more often still selfish. But in His presence there’s fullness of joy and an abundance of life that’s only found in sacrificing one’s self to Him.