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RK's avatar

Not everybody *can* work 80 hours a week. When Vivek and his techbro pals imply that everyone should be willing to work like they do, I find that condescending in the extreme.

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Russell Gold's avatar

No, it is not mediocrity that we celebrate.

I am both a software developer and an actor, among other things. Being sensible, I realized that the former was a much better prospect for making a living than the latter, so I made acting my hobby (and have since moved from stage acting to voice acting).

I can tell you from personal experience that I received much more adulation as an actor than I ever have as a developer, and I don't think it's so much a question of applauding mediocrity as it is the social connection.

As an actor, people can see me work. They don't see the rehearsals or direction, but they do see the finished product and see me actively doing it. Similarly for professional athletes - the audience gets a sense that they can connect to what those folk are doing, and in many cases like to believe that they know them - especially if they see them perform over and over.

As a developer, though, I usually work alone and occasionally with a co-worker. I generally don't find that even my manager really understands my work in any detail. He can typically tell which parts of the system have the most problems, and that I can solve them faster than most people, but there's often no real personal connection, especially as we have transitioned to remote work. And what connection there is is much weaker with the higher-ups, much less our customers. So how would most people come to appreciate what I do?

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