I disagree entirely that work is the best way to feel needed, and that feeling needed is necessary. I work because I have to, not because I care about working. If I didn't have to work, I wouldn't. I would spend time on personal projects and enjoying my life with my friends. Relationships are far better than work for "feeling needed".
To be honest though, I don't care about being needed. I don't need to exist. I like existing, and I don't want that to change any time soon, but not being needed doesn't affect my enjoyment. I like when my existence is appreciated by someone else, but my happiness and mental wellbeing is not predicated on that.
> There are a number of reasons why health declines after retirement, said Dave, but, mental and social stimulation are a large factor. For many people, work is where they are the most social and do the most physical activity. When that core social network is removed, health declines.
Specifically, this.
> For many people, work is where they are the most social and do the most physical activity. When that core social network is removed, health declines.
By that notion, are all young Remote workers -- think 99% of the Wordpress core team -- declining in health and dying? I'm not buying this.
They're needed by their job, and their friends, society. For a lot of people, when they retire, they don't really have anyone to talk to anymore. Maybe they don't have many personal friends. Maybe they don't have a strong marriage, or their spouse passed, or they never married. Maybe their children have moved away, and are so busy with their exciting lives, it seems they never have time for anything more than the obligatory weekly skype session.
I understand what you’re saying but I wouldn’t completely dismiss the psychological effect that a sense of feeling needed or the pride you can gain from work has on many people. The sense of being needed may not be important to you, and to be clear I make no negative judgement about that, in fact I’m glad to hear from anyone whose own self worth or happiness isn’t tied to their job as this probably leads to much richer lives, but for many people this doesn’t hold true.
I often see the sentiment shared on HN that if posters here didn’t have to work for a living they would be equally or more fulfilled working on their own projects or spending more time with friends/family, but in some ways I think this feeling at least partially correlates with intelligence, creativity, ambition, or simply being a confident well adjusted adult. I definitely get the impression that HN is filled with people on the higher end of the intelligence/creativity/entrepreneurial spectrum and that might be resulting in a particular narrative that doesn’t always hold true for the rest of us.
I would say that I definitely fall into the very bottom portion of intelligence/creativity among the readership here. I don’t really have much to contribute to this community beyond personal anecdotes, and I’m frequently in awe of the projects and overall knowledge I see on display here. As someone who isn’t smart or creative, never did well in school and has no formal education beyond high school, grew up in poverty and has been homeless for extended periods (12 months or more) twice in my life, doesn’t have a whole lot of self confidence or things to be proud of, my work (which involves machining and precision manufacturing) is pretty much the main thing that gives me a sense of self worth. For many people that statement may seem sad or somewhat pathetic, but it’s honestly how I feel.
I live in LA county, not exactly a low CoL area, and as a single person without dependents I can very comfortably survive on $1100-$1200 per month. BI could easily fulfill my financial needs but it wouldn’t do much to provide for the other things that my work provides for me, namely the sense of purpose and pride it gives me. I understand that BI doesn’t mean the end or work, or that people wouldn’t be allowed to work or seek out volunteer opportunities, so my comment isn’t a general critique of BI, particularly as the more I learn about it, increasingly from HN, the more optimistic and supportive I become of it, but a realization that while I think it’s effects would be very positive overall, I don’t think it would solve all of our problems. As a society we will still need to find ways to make people feel wanted. And as of now for many of us work is what fulfills that role.
Thank you for the encouraging words. I try and check HN every day before my shift but I usually never have time to comment until much later, at which point there isn't much activity in the threads, so I sometimes wonder whether or not my posts add any value or if I'm just writing for myself.
With regards to how I ended up in my current job I'll do my best to offer a succinct timeline. My prior work experience consisted mostly of manual labor or retail/customer service type jobs. I never enjoyed customer service, I'm too shy, but through circumstance and my own apathy and lack of ambition that's were I ended up. After some time my dissatisfaction with my work and my own wasted potential led me to reevaluate the seriousness with which I needed to focus on my career. Machining/welding and general manufacturing was something that always interested me even though I had limited experience with any of those fields. I've always been good with my hands and I'm obsessively detail oriented and like fixing things. I love following well delineated procedures and checklists actually make me smile so I felt something in aerospace might be a good fit.
I was fortunate to be living in an area with a ton of aerospace/manufacturing companies and I ended up applying to a number of them. I got hired for a very entry level low skill position having nothing to do with the manufacturing side of things. But, it got my foot in the door and I eventually moved into a role closer to the factory floor and from there worked my way into an apprenticeship that led to my current position.
As to how I found HN, I'm not entirely sure. While I've been reading HN for a number of years I've only relatively recently started posting, largely in an attempt to improve my writing, which is something I'm very self conscious about. I find this one of the few places online were I'm confident that if I say something stupid or make an argument lacking clarity, that I'll be called out on it in a civil and constructive manner. It's possible that I came about HN through one of those "We act like HackerNews" threads on /g/ but that would be slightly embarrassing so I hope it was through some other avenue.
I've worked with a number of brands like Haas, Fanuc, Mazak and recently some 3d printers from EOS. Haas stuff breaks all the time which can be infuriating.
Inconel please continue to comment whenever you think you have something to contribute to the conversation. I also appreciated hearing your perspective. Your writing is fine! No need to feel self conscious.
Well life seems to have worked out fairly well for you so that's good. Not sure why you worry about your writing, seems fine to me.
How many machines are in your shop? Do you guys happen to use any software that monitors all the machines so you can see various charts and what not on uptime, downtime by reason, that sort of thing?
Thanks again to both you and mswen for the kind words and encouragement.
Sorry to not offer more specifics but I need to be careful on what I reveal about our workflow and ops since my employer guards those things pretty seriously but we have quite a large array of CNC, milling, lathes, spin forming, autoclave, welding, 3d printing, and other machines. The building I work in is a couple hundred thousand square feet and is constantly overflowing. We definitely have software tracking uptime/downtime and things like that.
Thank you for sharing, it's good to get outside perspectives on issues like this. I'll share a bit about myself as well, so you can get a better idea of where I'm coming from.
I don't consider myself on par with most of the stuff I see here either. I consider myself above average intelligence, but nothing special. I'm not particularly creative, but I love being part of the creative process with other people. If there's something I pride myself on, it's my ability to facilitate meaningful and effective conversation. I'm not very confident in myself; I think my above average intelligence lead me into contact with enough people who are simply smarter and work harder than me that I don't have any false notions of grandeur.
I get how work can provide you with a sense of purpose, I really do. One of the things I would do, assuming I didn't have to work, is volunteer for a non-profit that tackles an issue/issues I feel are important (like clean water for everyone). My personal projects would basically be two lifelong ones and whatever else caught my fancy. The first would be a music recommendation system that works differently from most others I've seen (any I've seen? copyright Jeff Holland, 2016): it would let you find music in genres you normally don't or have never listened to. The idea is, you can say "I like Queens of the Stone Age. What rap artists do QotSA fans like?" and it would suggest artists (and songs) accordingly. The great thing is, the sky is the limit when it comes to refining and expanding something like that, the challenges are technical and algorithmic. The second project would be a traditional roguelike with a different progression model for characters and story than is usual, with a technical focus on being truly cross-platform and providing a means of playing games via TLS on a central server (a la DCSS).
I know that was probably way more information than you wanted, but I wanted to give you some background on me. I'm not amazing or confident, but I do have a few things I'm passionate about. If either one of my personal projects was successful I would be incredibly happy. It doesn't even have to make me money if it makes enough to be self sustaining and the users find it worthwhile. All to say, I understand the feeling you can get from producing something valuable for others, and even enjoy it. I made a conscious decision when I was young(er) to disconnect that from my sense of self-worth, and it's now ingrained in me.
Essentially, my hobbies take the place of where the need to feel wanted would be. There's so much out there to enjoy that I don't mind if I'm not necessary (are any of us, really?); I can share the things I love and appreciate with others.
I appreciate your response and it definitely wasn't more information than I wanted, the main reason I enjoy this site so much is because I get to see what others are passionate about.
I also want to make extra clear that I didn't intend for my comment to come off sounding like I was criticizing your point which is absolutely valid, and I'm not sure if it did, but again, that wasn't my intention. I was just providing a counterpoint on how I personally feel and the sense of fulfillment work gives me. Much of what you said resonates with me and I hope to one day be able to feel that same sense of accomplishment without outside validation. It sounds like we're probably on similar paths, I just might be a bit further behind, which pretty much describes my life.
Yep, +1000. This is apparently very hard to grasp for some, or they just really love working (which I have my own doubts about). It's crazy to me that in this age of bounty, everyone is positively required to sell at least 40 hours per week of their time or face social exile, starvation, homelessness, etc.
I think another aspect of it is that people want it to feel fair, and that's a complicated thing. It doesn't take much hunting to find videos of someone chastising another customer at Walmart for paying with a government assistance card. We have this strange animosity toward anyone we deem doesn't work as hard as we do for the same result. Well, it's literally true that some people in this country make 1000x what others make while working less hours, doing less "hard" labor. Personally, construction, food service, mechanical maintenance, etc work much harder than I do, even though they might not have a clue how to do what I do (I would also likely suck at their job initially).
I love my work, and hanging out w/ the other coders on slack, but I would prefer not being forced to work, I'd much rather it be a 'choice' not something thrust upon me, or that I could live off 20 hours per week and spend the other 20 working on prototypes for web and mobile apps.
To be honest though, I don't care about being needed. I don't need to exist. I like existing, and I don't want that to change any time soon, but not being needed doesn't affect my enjoyment. I like when my existence is appreciated by someone else, but my happiness and mental wellbeing is not predicated on that.