Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922) - <AUTHOR> https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-being-so-accommodating/ <comment><USER2> For anybody learning to say "no" currently - learn to say "no" gently and kindly. I'm quite bad at this myself. I let people impose stuff on me, and once I have had enough, I have a very rude way of telling people off. One reason for this rudeness is a fear that I will lose something when declining (e.g. a relationship or money), so I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place - I don't want to help, but I feel I should not decline. Most of the times, my rudeness while finally saying "no" is out of place, e.g. when my fiance needs something from me that actually makes sense, or a customer who needs some small task that they would actually pay for.

Watching other people (esp my fiance) saying "no" ever so gently has me wondering how easy life could be if I were able to do the same. I'm practicing it, and I think I'm getting better at it. Telling the other person the root cause why you say "no" helps a lot to instill empathy for your situation. The root cause always stems from a need or necessity that you currently have, like need for rest/food/time to think/time to finish this or that task properly/... Even if you are lazy and simply don't want to help right now, remember that this laziness also fulfils one of your needs - probably you need to rest or think.

ADDED: Telling people that you just cannot help _right now_ also softens the blow. Also, if it's a customer then delaying might even be more beneficial than just declining - you might need the billable hours in the following week.

<comment><USER3> One method I found works disturbingly well is to have a busy life or cultivate the appearance of a busy life. It's counter-intuitive for some and obvious for others, but people will value you more if you are less available whereas they will treat your time with increasing contempt if you can be reached and interrupted easily.

With this reputation in place, people are much less likely to try to trick you into doing what they want, and more likely to try to get you to do things with them.

You have to be a little careful though. If you don't have much social capital to begin with, it could backfire into being ignored altogether. If you overdo it, it may also be counterproductive.

<comment><USER4> > One method I found works disturbingly well is to have a busy life or > cultivate the appearance of a busy life.

There is nothing original about this. Practically everyone is doing all they can to pretend to be busy, to the point that many people actually believe that they are, and all to avoid meaningful interactions with the people around them. Meaningful interactions are risky and costly and modern people have lost their nerve. It's so much easier to watch Net Flix when you want to feel. I'm sick to death of this. I want to surround myself with people who live deeply and with meaning.

Think about it, how many people, other than your family, really give a shit if you live or die? For most people that number is close to zero and it's not going to change if you buy in to this bullshit that the solution to your problems is to guard your time or focus more on yourself. In my experience, the only people who say they need to start thinking more of their own needs are the ones who have always done so.

<comment><USER3> >Think about it, how many people, other than your family, really give a shit if you live or die?

That is actually one of the crucial realizations that helped me change my behavior towards others. It may seem hard to believe, but once I understood that interactions were more transactional than I had previously thought (in the sense that you always have to create some form of value for others since people don't care about you otherwise), I was able to have a richer and deeper social life because people fundamentally changed the way they responded to me.

I had the exact same goal you've described in your post. Like you've hinted at, the current trend in society is along the lines "however cares the least wins" and the sad truth is that you have to play the game to some extent to unlock richer interactions. People who don't respect you will rarely have meaningful interactions with you, if at all. I know this because I've been on both sides of the aisle.

>In my experience, the only people who say they need to start thinking more of their own needs are the ones who have always done so.

I agree, since I used to be this person. The only thing I'm suggesting is that for people to consider you a certain way you have to act a certain way to meet their conscious and unconscious expectations, even if the charade is irrational as a whole. Think of it as a way to get a social baseline that will in turn help you have a more meaningful existence. In fact, in my case I started to like people more and more since I ended up with fewer mental burdens and negative feelings.

<comment><USER5> "The only thing I'm suggesting is that for people to consider you a certain way you have to act a certain way to meet their conscious and unconscious expectations, even if the charade is irrational as a whole. Think of it as a way to get a social baseline that will in turn help you have a more meaningful existence."

It is oftentimes limiting too much - their expectations costs you. I get what you are saying and that it works that way, but it oftentimes forces you to pretend you don't like things you like or to avoid things you would like to try. I mean, yeah, they would respond to me better and I would have more meaningful social interactions, but the cost is too much.

<comment><USER3> I had similar thoughts as well at first. I chafed against the effort involved in dressing better, being more sociable, and a whole range of other habits. The surprising discovery I made in that case was that I started to like things I previously disliked (certain types of social activities) and lost interest in things I previously spent a lot of time on (mostly escapism). As I engaged more with the world my attitude changed, even though I retained the same core personality. I effectively passed a threshold beyond which the effort started to pay off in terms of satisfaction, to the point where it no longer seemed like a burden at all.

Of course, this is only my own experience and will not be relevant for most people. However, it's certainly a counter-intuitive notion that merits investigation. At the very least, it's quite helpful to critically evaluate your most common habits and patterns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's ok to be accommodating as long as you have learned to be introspective. We all have demands of our own time and money. Introspective accommodating people are able to help others in a generous way while protecting the time and resources they need to help themselves. It's a difficult balance to achieve.

Through experience, I've come to believe that this holds true in long-term personal relationships, too. While many will tell you that compromise is the key to a successful marriage, I think that standing up for yourself and who you need to be usually is more important.

There's a needle on the gauge of life that experiences pressure to move from both directions. When you are too accommodating or compromise unequally, the needle moves towards you and establishes a new norm for expected behavior. Your job should be to push back just enough to keep the needle balanced at a point where you retain a full sense of self and the space within which to exercise it. That requires a strong sense of introspection and can take years of adult life to develop.

<comment><USER7> You want to compromise on the stuff that _other_ people find important and hold fast on the stuff that _you_ find important. Goes for both relationships, friends, teammates, and business associates.

Most people come into the world assuming that their desires are everybody's desires. We live life by the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." This obscures that there's often a wide variety in the things we would like others to do unto us, and that assuming everybody wants what you wants often leads us to do exactly what they don't want.

It was a revelation when my therapist told me "You need to show love in the ways that other people want to _receive_ it, not the way you want to _send_ it." It hadn't really occurred to me before then that things I considered really inconsequential - checking if she got home okay, or leaving the porch light on for her at night - might really matter to my girlfriend (now wife), or that things that I considered really important - like listening to my latest theory on reality, or showing enthusiasm when I show her my latest product demo - might be considered inconsequential by her.

Many people have this intuitive idea that service & favors are a zero-sum game, but in actuality, some actions cost you a lot less than the recipient benefits from them, and some cost you a lot more than the recipient cares. It makes a lot of sense to perform favors that are cheap for you but benefit the recipient a lot. It's on you to figure out how much the recipient cares and how much time & energy you can spare for them.

<comment><USER8> >It was a revelation when my therapist told me "You need to show love in the ways that other people want to receive it, not the way you want to send it."

I'm curious, was it along the lines of this? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages)

<comment><USER7> Similar - you can bet that most therapists have read that and incorporate it into their practice. My wife and I are fortunate enough to share the same primary love language, but like with most couples, there are a bunch of little things where we differ. This is why they say communication is key in a relationship - if you're not communicating, you never learn that the other person might come into the relationship with subtly different values or experiences, and then when they do things that make you feel ignored or hurt, you attribute it to malice rather than ignorance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm going through this change right now.

Some words of hard earned "wisdom": make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far out in the other direction.

I went from being an accommodating person to an intense asshole - trying to dial it back now but it's hard, especially when you notice that people definitely respect you more for good or bad reasons when you're like that. Take it too far though, and it will of course go all the way around and bite you in the ass.

<comment><USER10> the trick is to finely calibrate your bullshit meter through life experiences.

what people tend to respect innately is a genuinely nice person who can instantly turn into a no-holds-barred asshole if bad intentions are detected.

<comment><USER11> IMO, the trick is to have control over the level of accommodation you present to different people and different situations. The key quote from the article:

>I gave to them for years, at the expense of those who had a far better claim upon my generosity.

There's a life skill getting pointed at here. Specifically, comparing the demand to the level of obligation you want to fulfill, and reacting appropriately. There's another higher-level skill of figuring out what the results of different obligation levels are and strategically choosing them.

Basically, saying "yes" implies saying "no" to the alternatives, and sometimes those alternatives are far better.

<comment><USER12> _> the trick is to have control over the level of accommodation you present to different people and different situations_

Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "People never trust an accommodating man with important things. That may sound harsh and cynical, but check it up in your own experience. If you have a severe illness, for example, you turn to the busiest, most exacting doctor in town. The fact that he is busy and can't be bothered by little things gives you confidence in his ability and judgment."

<comment><USER14> Well, there's also the fact that the best doctors are the most in demand, so a doctor who isn't busy isn't that in demand, which is a good indicator that he isn't the best.

<comment><USER15> I know this is just a metaphorical doctor, but i don't think there are any doctor's who aren't busy

<comment><USER16> Sherlock Holmes was written by a doctor who wasn't busy, and who therefore had time to write.

<comment><USER17> "I couldn't save your wife sir, but I wrote a hell of a novel!"

<comment><USER18> Lmao. Depending on the marriage, that could've changed the man's life for the better. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Part of the problem is that "good manners" only seem to be considered in one direction. It is time to redefine "rude" to include people that do not know how to communicate their needs very well and/or are just super-entitled.

Why am I the one considered "impolite" by not dropping everything and helping you immediately, if you haven't bothered to do things like:

\- Indicate everything you have tried already (or worse, you haven't done _any_ basic research yourself)?

\- Consider the possibility that I _can't_ respond instantaneously because my Inbox has _dozens_ of other items already? Or that I didn't answer my phone or your text because I was actually busy, or in a bathroom, or due to some other totally reasonable explanation?

\- Consider that you are basically asking for free help, when there are people who pay for my time?

\- Show even the slightest interest in helping others yourself?

<comment><USER20> I agree with you, but I think it's important not to take the bait. If someone is implying you're a rude person for not doing what they want, and you know you're not that, you can simply disregard. What they think of you is their problem and not yours. Always maintain the frame of what you think is right and what is best for you, and do not buy into their frame.

Of course, it gets trickier in different situations for different reasons. But basically, people try to use shaming and emotional blackmail to get what they want, don't let them.

One other thing: I think about the fundamental attribution error / actor- observer bias a lot. You're an asshole because you won't do the thing I want, but when someone else asked me for a thing and I said no, it was because I was busy and etc etc. This dynamic influences _so_ much of what people think about others and themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd consider myself accommodating and people often come to me for all sorts of advice. Or help with their new amazing idea. It's nice having a reputation of being able to do a wide variety of things, including building companies which many people fantasize about. I have a successful SaaS with a partner that brought me an idea/opportunity because I had built a reputation as collaborative/knowledgeable/accommodating. I'll invest my time and expertise to explore opportunities and people know I'm candid.

However, I get ideas brought to me from everywhere, incl. friends of friends of friends. I'm happy to provide detailed thoughts and notes but now I make sure to challenge the person and the idea.

If it's a good idea, I want them to do some work upfront before I put anything else into it. Sad to say that most people start really excited about their idea, then I'll note that there are companies doing the same or nearly the same thing already, that they need to differentiate, what it's going to take to compete, etc and they will get completely deflated. Most of the time there's no follow up. That's why most people can't be entrepreneurs.

I've helped out way too many people in the past only to have them give up so easily. So if you're in this camp - I'd recommend challenging those that want your help - it's a great filter and also a way to say yes and no at the same time. You'll end up wasting less time and you'll still be open to great collaborations and more rewarding experiences from helping others out.

<comment><USER22> I've been using this to great benefit also - require the person to put a decent amount of effort into the idea first. Some people resent you for it, but those that are destined to succeed and are able to make it will keep persevering.

I used to not do this and wasted a lot of time in the process. Do you find it hard to shake the reputation you had from before? I know I do.

<comment><USER21> Yeah it's definitely hard but what helps is to really be upfront and candid about how limited my time is from the beginning.

So if someone refers someone to me, I'll tell them that I'm happy to assist however I can at this point but that my time is limited for the foreseeable future. You can do that directly or just by letting them know what you're currently working on. I want to keep the opportunity open while being honest about how I might be able to assist. Down the road it may even make sense for me to shift my time from one of my other projects/companies to the new opportunity that was cultivated from the reputation.

If it's an area that I'm not interested in, I'll say that too - "the restaurant (tech) business is tough and I don't have expertise in that arena so it's not for me". But I'll usually provide some strategies and let them know that the dialogue is always open with me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When you're trying _that_ hard to please every trivial whim of anyone, regardless of the cost to yourself: what are you compensating? Who hurt you? Who lied to you? I mean, there's gotta be _something_ that made you rate the approval by others so highly, and your approval of others so unimportant. Something or someone that stole you from you. Would you take 2 weeks of the life of one person to save another person 5 minutes? Unlikely, and it isn't so different when you are one of those persons.

We'd be super weirded out if someone in front of us in the queue in the supermarket committed suicide so we could pay faster. Apart from that probably increasing checkout times for everybody -- just imagine the chaos -- we wouldn't even appreciate "the thought", we'd be like "how DARE you use me for this?". Most of us don't mind being catered to or even pampered, but we don't want others to just throw themselves away for us. There are limits, even though it's kind of invisible most of the time, there _is_ a line where hurting ourselves too much to help others a little bit actually hurts society, and offends others, correctly so.

Last but certainly not least: this over-the-top, dysfunctional selflessness in the sense of having no self (or rather, not respecting one's self) attracts not only knights in shining armour, but mostly _baaaad_ types. You might say abuse breeds abuse in that someone who for some reason is playing doormat is emitting pheromones for people who like to trample on others. I really don't mean this to victim blame at all, but it's sadly true. And the less you let others violate your boundaries, the clearer your sight becomes for what you can freely give for mutual benefit. E.g. don't spend 2 weeks to save someone 5 minutes, but do spend 5 minutes to save someone 2 weeks.

TL;DR: you can't be a good friend to others without being a good friend to yourself first.

<comment><USER24> Unsure why you're being downvoted; this is one of the best comments on the thread (and I remember this story from the last time it was posted).

 _You might say abuse breeds abuse in that someone who for some reason is playing doormat is emitting pheromones for people who like to trample on others._

This is absolutely true. Perhaps some readers were confused by your metaphorical use of 'pheromones' to mean signalling in general. A great example of this is griefing behavior in MMORPGs (and trolling in general, but in games it's already quantified and thus far easier to measure). Most games implement some sort of safe zone and/or NPC policing function to prevent griefers from hassling new players to the point of wrecking the game, which is the griefers' underlying and _often unconscious_ objective (so as to 'own' the territory of the game space even if this is poisonous to the growth of the player pool).

Denied the ability to pick on newbies, griefers then usually collect in small packs and lurk around entry-exit routes to danger zones (whether from NPCs or territorial conflict) where there's a possibility to target outcoming damaged players or incoming ones pushing up against their skill envelope. Griefers like to think of themselves as apex predators, but typically lack the self- discipline and strategic vision required to organize as such, so more often than not they occupy the same environmental as scavengers such as hyenas, vultures etc.

I haven't kept up with the latest research on this, but I recall that EVE had an economist on staff several years ago and I'd imagine that the larger participants in that market are open to or already working with sociologists, game theorists, and other quantitative social scientists to better understand the dynamics of their virtual ecosystem.

For 'nice' players (in games and in life) who don't comfortably slot into large teams, the usual advice is to be more of an asshole. And while that's partly true, being an armored up lone wolf will only take you so far. Unless the system as a whole is dysfunctional, individual lone wolves are never competitive against anything bigger than a small-medium team. However, lone wolves can team up and be very effective; to do so they (obviously) have to overcome significant trust barriers, but can succeed by maintaining smallish flat structures and growing hierarchies below those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As someone who trends towards heavily accommodating, I often seem to find my actions that I judge as selfish or arrogant are the ones that I get respect for. Definitely a phenomena I don't understand, but its real so it should be very valuable to learn where to draw the line.

<comment><USER26> Put it in the context of dominance and submission among apes and it becomes clear. The one who does nice things for you is displaying a submissive posture and trying to win your favor. They are probably your social inferior: beneath you in the hierarchy, or at most, a peer. The one who doesn't care about you and does what he wants, shows that he's above you in the hierarchy. And some people just can't resist their internal ape tendency to think "wow that's sure an impressive alpha ape right there." But some, who consider themselves alphas themselves, will take it as a challenge. Etc. etc. etc. All somewhat dreary thoughts in the light of soaring techno-optimist talk about the glory of the human spirit, but I think we're all still apes and I've said so, enough times on HN, that I'm at risk of becoming known as the "ape guy."

Manners are in fact detailed prescriptive means & methods for being submissive, or rather for sending submissive signals, as the default behavior in societies where there are more humans living together than normal, i.e. anytime after 1800 when the population really started to shoot upward and to urbanize. It ends up being very practical to train people to be submissive in an urban industrial society, because if you have a thousand supposed self- declared alpha-apes constantly fighting it out "out there," things become a mess very quickly.

Edit: to the respondents, I am intentionally keeping morality out of it (decency and so forth), because a strictly moralistic right/wrong judgment- based view didn't seem to be enhancing the parent's understanding. But dominance & submission, like morality, is just another narrow rubric for viewing the world, doesn't describe the whole world, and isn't the only way of describing the world. So it's best not to take it too far beyond a blurry big- picture view!

<comment> le-mark This equating of manners to a submissive posture is odd to me. One wonders what is meant by "manners". Saying yes, please, thank you, and holding a door are by no means submissive acts. Table manners, or not acting boarish while dining, is not submissive. Conducting oneself in a respectful, cordial manner is not submissive.

However fawning and currying favor may indeed be submissive, but are not proscribed by any idea of "politeness" I am aware of. Excessive accommodation to the detriment of yourself and your interests would also be submissive in my view.

<comment><USER27> _This equating of manners to a submissive posture is odd to me. One wonders what is meant by "manners". Saying yes, please, thank you, and holding a door are by no means submissive acts. Table manners, or not acting boarish while dining, is not submissive. Conducting oneself in a respectful, cordial manner is not submissive._

I disagree, I think it is more submissive than doing the opposite. But that's not a bad thing - people who are _never_ submissive don't fit into society. They have terrible manners and drive dangerously, like you point out.

A certain amount of strength is admired, but too much and you're almost unilaterally rejected.

<comment><USER28> Yes. Always and never submitting will both cost you your freedom. If you always submit you'll never get to to do anything you want, if you never submit you'll literally go to jail.

But some people might be so submissive by nature that "Never Submit" is good advice for them, because in those situations where they really should submit it will never even occur to them not to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > "You are thirty-five years old," I said to myself. "More than half of your > life has already been spent. Who is living your life, anyway? Is it actually > yours? Or is it a kind of public storehouse of odd jobs? A pile of days and > hours put on the counter of the world with a sign inviting every Tom, Dick, > and Harry to take one?"

This was probably the best part for me. We have longer life spans and so we trick ourselves into thinking that we have more time to waste on things we don't really want to do. We can procrastinate all we want but in the end, we still come back to this question without a single clue of how to answer it.

<comment><USER30> That line struck me as unexpectedly grim. You forget that it used to be most people didn't make it to retirement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was explaining this point of view to a good old aunt of mine one afternoon and she exclaimed: "But, Joe, it is so selfish for a man to put his work ahead of everything! It's unchristian."

"On the contrary, it is Christian in the very finest sense," I replied. "What was it that Jesus said when his parents rebuked him for his failure to keep his engagement with them on that first journey down from Jerusalem? 'Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' He demanded. He had work to do — great work and little time in which to do it. Even He was no exception to the eternal rule that achievement comes only through the subordination of every power to a great ideal; and that no man is really obliging who does not first discharge in full his obligations to his work."

<comment><USER32> These types of arguments on whether something is or isn't _Christian_ or so prevalent on my FB feed, especially in regards to current politics, even being posted by non-Christians trying to convince their Christian relatives and friends to renounce a policy or politician.

My take would be - this is arguing within a nonsensical framework, and we are prolonging the _hopefully_ last stages of the superstitious demon-haunted world era of humanity.

<comment><USER33> You seem very secure in the belief that, once the "demons" of which you speak are gone, naught but pure cool reason will replace them. One can only assume such optimism stems from a complete ignorance of history.

<comment><USER34> One can be secure in the belief that a battle is worth fighting, even if nobody has ever one one before. Our future is not determined only by our history.

<comment><USER33> Whence came you by this remarkable idea that the battle against religion has never been won before? - not permanently, to be sure, but nothing else ever ends, and why should this?

I find little in the results of past such victories to recommend the conflict be reopened. Should you care to take the time, I'd be interested to hear what leads you to view the matter so differently.

<comment><USER34> I didn't say it hasn't been won before, only that it doesn't matter whether or not it has.

Anyway, what leads me to view the matter differently is that I do not simply look to the past to inform me of what will be effective tomorrow. I also look to the potential that flourishes in microcosms of today. And to the increasing efficacy of our culture's ability to promote and propagate the valuable ideas of individuals and small groups. How we communicate today distinctly different than in the past, and it opens some doors in a big way. And it is far too soon to say whether this is a good or bad thing, so we may as well do what we can to ensure it is a good thing.

You might believe war doesn't ever change, but it can change quite quickly when a new weapon is developed. More importantly, even if the victory is temporary, the results of a temporary enlightenment can guide the development of society for ages after the war has been lost. Greek democracy failed, but still lessons where learned. Enlightenments wane, but the world is a brighter place even so.

<comment><USER33> Yet the belief persists that there can be such a thing as a single, unitary culture, somehow satisfactory to all. But perhaps you're right that this idea actually is amenable to simple reason and persuasion, and it's a mere accident of history that, in every prior case where it's been at issue, the issue has eventually been decided by means of force.

<comment><USER34> Well, firstly, the ability to make rationally optimal decisions is not merely a matter of cultural preference. Promoting the ability to make decisions which marginalize errors generally - under _arbitrary_ goals - does not inhibit anyone from having a satisfying culture. Rationalism doesn't choose your goals, it determines the optimal way to achieve them. Now, it _does_ inhibit people from participating in a culture which promotes their death as some 'ideal' state of being, as most religions that promote an idyllic afterlife do.

I mean, if you put me on a raft out in the ocean and ask me whether we should shoot and eat the Christian or the Atheist, I'm going to ask "which one of them asserts their death will result in a state of unending glory and euphoria while preserving the 'existence' of their mental state?" Because that's the one that should be killed. And these kinds of biases pile up over the long term, leaving a distinct mark of fragility and unnecessary risk on the entire culture. You have ability to choose that, but I cannot advocate that you ever should.

Secondly, it is not a historical accident that this issue has been decided by force. It is not even really true; far more violence has been carried out in the name of spreading religion than has been in the name of eliminating it. And again, this is of little relevance anyway, because the past has been more violent in general, and we have better understood and more widely available means of achieving goals through peace today than any time in human history.

<comment><USER33> > if you put me on a raft out in the ocean and ask me whether we should shoot > and eat the Christian or the Atheist, I'm going to ask "which one of them > asserts their death will result in a state of unending glory and euphoria > while preserving the 'existence' of their mental state?" Because that's the > one that should be killed

See what I mean when I talk about progressivism? Heretical it may be, but the truth of God shines through nonetheless. For all the wrong reasons, from all the wrong priors - you misunderstand the nature of death and that which follows after, _and_ the nature of life and what it means to follow Christ - yet we still come up with precisely the same answer: "This is my body, which is given for you."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> His drug store father example struck me - I don't really experience this "service worker" thing anymore, even when I was a service worker.

It seems to me the playing field is being extraordinarily leveled. When I was a bagger at a grocery store, nobody looked down on me. Maybe because of my town, but I was never expected to "serve" someone's whims - I was just expected to do my job, and when I did my job people thanked me.

Now whenever I'm out and about getting a thing done, I don't think of the people "serving" me as "serving me." I'm at the mechanic's, I'm pinging him for his expert advice. I'm at the carwash place, I'm asking them if they wouldn't mind doing the interior windows for a bit extra, etc.

Maybe I just am very lucky that I never underwent the brunt of service work torture because of my town, but is it still a "thing" to be asked to do a bunch of random shit at the convenience of others? Am I just so lucky in all of my jobs that everybody is respectful of eachother an their time?

<comment><USER36> I worked at a restaurant for a while and had a similar experience. I had no bad experiences with customers like the horror stories you always hear.

<comment><USER37> In contrast, I worked in tech support and had no end of terrible experiences with customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Something I have concluded: Genuine respect is a two way street. People expecting things they won't equally do in return are not expecting you to respect them. They are expecting you to kowtow to them and be their bitch.

Those people can go to hell. They will never give back. They do not for one minute believe in a social contract where both people invest in the relationship. They are just using you. Doing anything for them just signals that it is _okay_ for them to use you. This is a terrible social contract to make.

You can still do nice things for other people because it serves something you believe in. Just don't agree to be anyone's bitch, ever, for any reason.

</comment><comment><USER39> On a related note is "reasonable". In English this word is routinely abused. I consider it a huge red flag.

"4+4=11"

"No, 4+4=8"

"Oh, c'mon, Joe, don't be difficult."

"4 and 4 is 8, 11 isn't correct.

"Be reasonable here. OK, let's compromise on 9.5, OK?"

<comment><USER40> This comparison falls apart the moment you're talking about matters of moral, conscience, or basically anything that doesn't have an epistemologically solid answer.

People can debate these issues, arrive at different answers, and still get along at the end of the day.

When those issues are compared to math, where one side is automatically Right and the other side is automatically Wrong and you are Unreasonable if you don't agree... not so much.

A part of being a reasonable person is recognizing this and understanding that the process you went through to arrive at the opinion you hold is _not even a little bit_ comparable to the rigor and certainty of the answer to a child's math problem. The comparison is inherently dishonest.

<comment><USER39> I've never had a job involving "moral, conscience, or basically anything that doesn't have an epistemologically solid answer" except the moral issues that were clear-cut. E.g. flat-out illegal. Nor have I ever had anyone use the word "reasonable" that way in such a discussion.

I'm the technical expert wherever I work, and yes, the situation is pretty clear-cut. The abuse of the word in such clear situations is why I used an arithmetic analogy.

<comment><USER41> " _I 'm the technical expert wherever I work..._"

Therefore my opinions are correct and yours, to the extent that they differ, are wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This rings a bit hollow to me, kind of reminds of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" \-- a moral play, a fictional story passed off as autobiographical. Aimed to enforce our self-doubting instinct that we are somehow being a chump and letting society take advantage of us. Taking this literally is a path to regrets.

<comment><USER43> We can view it as containing slivers of truth, and then look at how to best extract those slivers and strengthen our mental models with them.

Of course, this is a lifelong and error-prone process :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I have had a very similar realization regarding customer service. I used to think manners obliged me to be patient on the phone or at the customer service counter. That I should jump through all the hoops put before me. And finally if the outcome put before me was unsatisfactory that I should accept it and move on. But I've come to see that customer service is just as much something I'm paying for as the root service or good I'm buying.

Furthermore, the notion that an acceptable remedy to the problem that a company cannot have it's shit together enough to adequately service the occasional difficulties surrounding the transactions of its products is to impose upon me has become unacceptable in my mind.

I know this is going to sound entitled but think of it this way, it is also an entitled position to assume people should be obliged to fill out forms, perform extra steps or wait in line because of a mistake a company has made.

I'm not encouraging anyone to treat people like garbage but my threshold for corporate BS has become extremely low and I ask for issue escalation pretty fast if a company isn't fixing a problem.

<comment><USER45> I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Would you mind just putting in a ticket?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Old submission with more comments here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041)

</comment><comment><USER47> Man, I'm a person that can't seem to say no.

Always eager to please other people before I even think about how it will affect me. Would you like to work two doubles in a row and potentially go insane? Ah sure... sure I'd love to!

Hey man, I'd like to catch this bus so I don't walk 6 miles home "Oh sure but before that, can you do this one thing..." ahhhhh

What happens when you let people walk all over you. It's funny too when I observe other people say no or F-off, people remember that and don't ask them to do things... hahaha. Ah well.

Someday my balls will drop.

</comment><comment><USER48> I was an accommodating person until I realize what people value is not you doing what they want when they ask you. But it is when you doing something with them or for them with a motivation from within yourself, just because you want to or just because you feel like to or just because you think they deserve it or something like that.

To them I am just an all nice fellow who is kind to everybody. I earned their gratitude but not their love and in the process I hurt people that truly care and love about me.

</comment><comment><USER49> Being accommodating is not necessarily a black or white thing. For me, it depends. I generally consider myself to be a nice easy going person who tries to be accommodating as long as it doesn't hurt me or others. Notice the "me" in my last sentence. Yes, be selfish and then be accommodating. Now, I can be a real jerk if I come across one. Nothing wrong with that.

<comment> drunken-serval Might want to read the entire article, it discusses that. The original author was more charitable and more effective in his charity towards others in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Wow! This thought thread is a what's what on the list of horrifying and inauthentic bullshit.

When did we lose the ability to have authentic relationships?

If someone needs your help and you have the capacity to help and they haven't burned you in the past, why not actually be human and help them? Perhaps one day you'll need help and they'll return the favour. If they don't without good reason, then next time say "hey, you know what, I was there when you needed help last time and when I needed help you were nowhere to be found, you flaked out on me because you didn't take my needs seriously." or whatever.

If you're hanging out with flaky people who give you bullshit excuses for not helping you out when you genuinely need help and you're not helping out when they genuinely need help then you don't have friendship, you have acquaintances.

 _Being a friend is being there when your friends need you and your friends being there when you need them_. If one side of that relationship isn't being honoured, it's not friendship. One or the other of you is taking advantage of boundaries that aren't being enforced or respected.

Kudos to everyone for wanting more time for themselves to find value in what they do but when you get to the pinnacle of whatever it is you're doing and you realize you've cast aside your friends and relationships for whatever shiny thing it is that currently has your attention, I hope the shiny thing is more valuable to you than your friendships, because you'll have none.

Addendum: I don't want to devalue those that are selfless and just trying to scramble back a bit of time for their own selves, I get it, I'm an introvert, I need time for myself to do my own things too, but don't lose sight of the fact that human connection is where happiness and love lays. If the giving of yourself to make those you love happy _isn 't making you happy_, then you should probably closely examine the quality of those relationships and either fix them or end them so you are.

<comment><USER51> I think this more like prioritizing minimum to desired requirements for your own self versus others.

For example, my boyfriend and I are both engineers but hes working at a place short term over the summer with a 3 hour time difference. I work 10am-4pm, he works 9am - 7pm but with a three hour time difference.

Staying up an extra hour to talk to him very night after hes done with work means going from 6.5 hours to 5.5 horus of sleep, which means I don't get up and workout, eat a good breakfast and go to work feeling refreshed.

Luckily im dating an icredible person and he understands this, and that the unideal arrangement is short term, so we found a comporimise and work around, but I did have to say no I can't vid chat tonight I'm going to bed.

Doing a favour is easy, giving up something of yours, of which time by the way is very expensive for busy people, at the expense of your own personal time (which people think is not a requirement but I know for a fact now it is, and even some of the busiest CEOs etc take a no compromise personal time out each day or each week reagrdless of how many emergency events are knocking at thier door. They do this because they know in the long run they suffer, and their company and employees suffer from bad decision making)

so anyways, at the expense of your own personal time, health, mental health other relationships or budget.

people who also have healthy priorities will know this and understand. For example, I'm dating someone who actually cares about me and WANTS me to be happy, well rested healthy and do well in my career. So its not hard for us to find compromises around times we would normally like to talk for a few months so I can still maintain my morning routine which sets the tone by my mental and body health for each day and in general my life, without being sickly sleep deprived, and he can still enjoy the work culture with his team who rolls in late and works late and enjoyed working late as a team. I want him to enjoy this experience and benefit from it and grab beers a couple times a week after work with his work buds. I want him to do well, so its easy for us to do favours for eachother because our personal lives and therefore our happiness together benefits from this. Neither of us would be happy together if we felt we were compromising our ability to be our best, especially at this juncture in our lives, young 20s making or breaking reaching our goals.

I've been in relationships with men who couldnt care less about my long term goals and would keep me up late, obligate me to do their chores and guilt trip me for not being arm candy at every fancy event they went to if it took away from my personal projects, working out, or me time, or guilt tripping me for staying late at work, not encouraging me to go get that new job because things are convenient if I'm unsuccessful and will be miserable enough to drop out of my career and have their kids one day.

You want to try to mostly limit expensive (in terms of time or sacrificing life goals or day to day health which can add up quickly whether its lack of sleep, personal you time, workout time, healthy food or skipping your mid day 10minute meditation or walk on your lunch break) to people who ask favours not too often, and you know there is a mutual benefit.

I don't mean that in selfish terms. I mean if someone continually doesn't do their job well and the favour is you continually give up your lunch break, which you barely take and cut down to a 15min walk in the sun to go over notes or fix another last minute repeated mistake from someone who feels entitled to your time or won't learn how to fish, and wants you to fish for them, then you should say no.

Another example, people have asked me "hey can you make an app for me, or go come meet me for a drink and listen to by business idea and give me your advice, feedback, business advice, network connections based on what I tell you."

Alot of times this person has not done their own due diligence, or knows I'm usually willing to help out and just wants my tech knowledge and connections. That's fine, but I find people who don't reach out with specific questions during a sepcific stage of development and won't send you an email about it, simply want you to meet up for a beer and let the fact you are in a conversation for an hour be free mentoring advice and social networking for them.

In regards to people asking about apps or websites and asking me to help them because they know im in tech but arent at all. I get how it could be confusing to get started or get help on an app if you run a non tech company, but the questions are so basic I now resort to basically asking them to google it.

Literally google it. If you have done all the work and have a question that you feel my specific experience/expertise could help you make a pivot point decision on a very developed situation where you have done your due diligence, and you want me to be a bouncing board, then go for it.

but I often find people like this are throwing a half assed or 20% thought 5% put in effort to idea/project, and they spend their time try to sell me on how I should be just as excited about it as they are, for the explicit purpose of me feeling its worth my time to jump in and offer more time and effort and help to advocate for their project, and always of course a good friend wanting to help people out, never a formal contract or consulting time.

Another example, I have a friend who owns a non tech company or not in the space of software, and they mentioned having a terrible time finding a good marketing firm to consult with and that at the end of the day they really just needed google analytics.

Through a very technical personal project, I was also using google analytics for something, and being that this group is run by a good friend of mine who genuinely is having a wreck of a time finding high quality marketing, I offered specifically to help out with their google analytics. Not anything else like graphic design, advertising, social media campaigns, just said yeh if you are so busy you don't even have 5 hours to go through google analytics analysis, and set up the filters you want and identify and prioritize some outliers who could be customers of worth, then I can atleast look at whats hit it already, put some security filters on it and give you a run down of what you have so far, and set up a few more things.

I figured 20 hours of work total over a month, and actually its very beneficial for me to get access to working with google analytics from a growing company perspective versus a personal website/project of mine for future.

All fine until I go to meet with their Director and find they have no financial, specific customer, demographic goals at all, much less for 1 month 3 month etc. So outside of setting up basic security, its very hard to utilize analytics if you don't know what youre analyzing or what your goals are, or the genre or even priority of customers since the potential customers span multiple industries all over the world.

if I offer to do analytics, I need to know what I'm analyzing. If google analytics is specifically analyzing people exposed to your company, then I need to know what youre interests are as far as people, targeted or widespread marketing, specific consumer groups, specific industries, specific locations, maybe atleast a profit or unit sales goal so then we could utilzie the hits to see who is most likely to provide that? Nothing...

So alot of people are willing to take free help, but alot of people don't know how to utilize that help to do something valuable or use it to teach themselves how to do it themselves or go find the long term help needed.

Alot of times what people are really asking just like when I've been asked to write emails is:

"Please review everything that exists currently, can be done and needs to be done, identify potential solutions, prioritize amongst existing priorities, document communicate, find the right people to do it, and of course since already noone else besides you is willing to do even this, if you want to prove your motivated, youll actually implement the solution yourself"

Thats what alot of times "favours" end up being when people say "hey, I want to go over this idea and get feedback from you" ....

<comment><USER50> I totally appreciate the effort you went to to write this.

You're quite right in that your time is valuable and a lot of people encroach on this time without any respect for just how valuable it is - it's the only resource we cannot renew, at least so far. So your taking the time and effort to write this instead of whatever else it is you could've been doing to further your success is evidence of how important this topic is to you as well. So thank you.

You are from the sound of things in a wonderful and respectful relationship that values your time and needs. This is worth keeping hold of; but many people have absolutely no respect for each others needs in this sense and so walk all over it with the expectation that their partner should be more selfless so they can be more selfish instead of both being selfless towards one anothers needs. Any affront to this perception is considered selfishness on your part.

"Oh you need time to yourself, I will make room and take on responsibility so that you can have that." returned by the favour of "Oh, you need some time to do X, Y or Z activity so you can be fulfilled, you know what, let me take A, B and C off your plate so that you can do that."

This is the difference between a selfless relationship and a one sided relationship where one partner is "You know what, I need this in order to feel fulfilled, so I need you to do X, Y and Z for me so that I can get that fulfilment." "What do you mean you don't have the capacity to do that? You think your time at the pub with your friends is more important than my mental wellbeing?" "Well, you want me to stop doing something that's good for my own mental wellbeing in order for you to satisfy yours."

From the sound of things, you've been on the receiving end of this too, so you understand both sides of this coin.

A balance definitely needs to be struck between the giving of yourself freely to those that are important to you and the expectation of payment in kind. Relationships are a two way street.

With regards to people who approach you for technical assistance in their projects - I've been burned a number of times: Kids with no due dilligence done expecting me to give my all for their success, right up to a sociopath who had done all her due dilligence and had used every developer she could get to do her bidding as stepping stones to her success while taking advantage, not paying them, setting lawyers on them to hand over code she'd not paid for and the whole 9 yards who approached me with a solid prototype, a solid business plan and an NDA that protected her and "a contract that's coming" but was never delivered who convinced me to work on good faith. She was a nasty piece of work. So I understand being taken advantage of and I'm wary of it having been stung for tens of thousands of dollars in payments I will never receive. Thankfully a solid understanding of the DMCA, Copyright Law and lucky timing saved me from her ever being able to publish my work, but that's another story for another time.

My point is: If your friends and business partners are taking advantage without any respect for your needs, they're not your friends. If any contract is too one sided without any consideration for your needs and there is resistance to your needs being met, they don't care about you, only themselves.

If your friendships aren't instrumental in your success and your success is where your personal fulfillment lies, then your friendships should be evaluated in such a way that they bring you that success, not stand in its way... and that's a two way street. You cannot expect your friends to be instrumental in your success without your willingness to be instrumental in theirs. You stand by them as you expect them to stand by you. If one or the other of you is not meeting this basic tenet of friendship, then you need to reevaluate that friendship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This reminds me a lot of the posts by burnt out open source project maintainers, like the one about turning off github issues that was on the front page just recently, or one from a while ago about ignoring most github notifications and marking old repos as unmaintained.

</comment><comment><USER53> It's important to remember what you are trying to do when you are being accommodating. You want to help others help themselves so that they are more capable in the end.

The author here took 100% of the work and pains from those around him. The people he helped were relieved of that task but are no more prepared for it should it arise again.

Personally I do try and be accommodating to those around me; but I include them in what is being done so they can learn from it. This give them back more than just result of the task and enables them to hopefully accomplish it themselves next time.

</comment><comment><USER54> _At eighteen I went away to college. [...] I had saved enough from a summer 's work to pay the fees of the first term,_

I guess college wasn't that expensive back then (or summer jobs were paying a lot).

<comment><USER55> That was true of state universities as late as the mid 1970s when I attended. It was the rise of easy credit for guaranteed loans that permitted the current runaway inflation in costs. College costs have grown faster than health care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> A lot of the points touched on in the original article and this thread are conducive to deeper, creative and more meaningful work in general. You _should_ say no to meaningless distractions. I just finished reading this book about it, so, good timing... [https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused- Success-Distracted-...](https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success- Distracted-ebook/dp/B00X47ZVXM)

</comment><comment><USER57> The blog header is Diogenes, the Cynic (by an unkonwn artist) [1]. This suggests a possible misunderstanding of historical personalities. I believe Τimon, the Misanthrope, is the role model the author was really looking for:

 _According to Lucian, Timon was the wealthy son of Echecratides who lavished his money on flattering friends. When his funds ran out, the friends deserted him and Timon was reduced to working in the fields. One day, he found a pot of gold and soon his fair-weather friends were back. This time, he drove them away with dirt clods._ [2]

I'm not being facetious: Diogenes, besides being a sarcastic old codger for which he is mostly famous, also displayed a complete lack of interest for his own person, so not quite the blazing firebrand of, the er, enlightened self- interest promulgated in the OP.

___________

[1] [https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/new-year-new- head...](https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/new-year-new-header/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timon_of_Athens_(person)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timon_of_Athens_\(person\))

</comment><comment><USER58> Great writeup. It hits on age old wisdom - how do we strike a balance between saying 'yes' or 'no'?

The arguments for yes are obvious, probably best summarized by Wallace Stevens' saying: "After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs." (had to google for the exact saying :).

Logically and intuitively speaking, the degree to which our lives work is the degree to which we keep our agreements - it is the 'yes' (action) that moves us forward, shapes us as a person, far more than the 'no' (passivity).

In an infinite world of possibilities, what should one say 'yes' or 'no' to? This brings into the picture something we all struggle with finding for the better, if not the most part of our lives - _purpose_ and _meaning_.

I've no idea where your purpose and meaning come from - I know where mine do, however, if you want to be able to quickly sift through the infinite possibilities and readily come up with a 'yes' or a 'no' for what you commit to versus what you don't, then it is imperative that you seek out your purpose in life.

Generally speaking, the purpose has to be larger than what you can accomplish on your own, sometimes it might even span your life, or multiple life spans if your purpose is worth following by others.

Another way to achieve purpose or meaning is to surrender to another person, hopefully someone better than you. No, this doesn't mean becoming a door mat - it just means becoming vulnerable and coachable toward this person, whomever that is for you - could be a spouse, a higher being, whatever....

I'm starting to like HN even more when I see posts like this make it up to the first spot.

</comment><comment><USER41> " _People never trust an accommodating man with important things._ "

This is (a) incredibly true (in the original sense of incredible) and (b) a difficult and painful lesson to learn.

Being the one to go to with problems means that all you will see are other's problems---no one will look for you when they succeed. Being the one who makes crap work means that you will always be making crap work.

 _But saying 'no' isn't the biggest part of the problem._ Saying no just means you do nothing. You need to have a positive plan. Something that you _want_ enough to push for.

More importantly, you need to push yourself forward. Brag. Sell yourself. Advertise. Mock other people to their faces, even if you know they're right and you're wrong. The world is not a kind and gentle place. It does not reward humility and the meek are not going to inherit anything.

</comment><comment><USER59> If you liked the writing/ideas here you'll love Seneca's On the Shortness of Life.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97412.On_the_Shortness_o...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97412.On_the_Shortness_of_Life)

<comment><USER60> Or the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Both are fantastic...

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> As a counterpoint, I am also one of those people who spends a lot of time helping people out, both at work and in the community.

I do it for two reasons: firstly, to be frank - I enjoy it, I enjoy the social stroking it confers. I work with clever, talented people - but they have different skill sets to me. If I can do something in 5 minutes that would take them an hour - and _show_ them how to do it - I get a buzz and they are grateful.

Secondly, getting a reputation for people capable, people come to me with _interesting_ problems, which increase my skill sets.

Yes, sometimes I have just too much on, and sometimes they come to me with dull stuff.

But in general, the combination, of making people happy, recognition and interesting problems makes being accommodating worth it for me.

</comment><comment><USER62> This was really good and most of it held up really well. I too was far too accommodating and when I thought I had it licked I got brought back in. It's a tough thing to avoid. In some ways you want to help _everyone_. In other ways that hurts yourself and, depending on how bad it is, maybe your family or career (like in this story).

People should certainly try not to be accommodating to everyone. It's something I still struggle with but no longer being a part of a start-up with unrealistic expecations has certainly toned down this significantly for me.

A little here and there can still be good, however.

</comment><comment><USER63> Ref: Original article with lovely typesetting - [https://books.google.com/books?id=kstZAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA13#v...](https://books.google.com/books?id=kstZAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false)

The whole issue is full of gems, like this one just a few pages away: "You do not have to like a job to succeed in it!"

[https://books.google.com/books?id=kstZAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA16#v...](https://books.google.com/books?id=kstZAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA16#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER64> Couldn't help but recall Peter Thiel's ideas on competition and why it's good business to avoid it. The author's father was stuck in competition and it drove a lot of what he did.

<comment><USER25> The idea in the article was that the competition was "imaginary" as in the salesman across the street didn't bother to try to do everything for everyone correct? Maybe the lesson is more about ignoring what others might be doing and focusing on what you need to do for success yourself. EDIT: mistake was as suggested below.

<comment><USER64> "lesson is more about what others might be doing"

You mean less, right?

<comment><USER65> Alternately the word "ignoring" might have been mistakenly omitted:

> "the lesson is more about _ignoring_ what others might be doing and focusing > on what you need to do for success yourself"

<comment><USER64> Gotcha. I'm always doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Reading this article was great for me. It provided a perspective that I needed with a compelling argument for it.

Reading the comments was a huge mistake. It mired the previous sense of insight with contradictory perspectives supported by compelling anecdotes but, crucially, no analysis more rigorous than the original article.

Of course, you can make a compelling case for anything if you have rhetoric and evidence isn't demanded of you, but I think there's a point where analysis is of negative value.

In a way, learning this lesson has been valuable in and of itself.

</comment><comment><USER67> >Read the life of a great scientist like Agassiz. Was he forever at the world's beck and call? Not for a single day.

Agassiz refers to "Louis Agassiz" a creationist scientific racist that believed the races had been created by God in separate events. Not the best example to use.

Edit: He believed this in the late 1800 and the author of the submitted article apparently considered him a "great scientist" as late as 1922.

<comment><USER68> Agassiz, who is still remembered for his contributions to geology & fossil taxonomy, can't possibly be a great scientist as he committed wrongthink over a century ago.

Eventually, the only great scientists will be ones who are still available to have their opinions policed by modern progressives.

<comment><USER69> Hey, man, if you want to believe in frauds, go right ahead. Discrimination between useful hypotheses and rubbish ones is how knowledge advances. If you want to hold up losers as your heroes, don't be surprised when no one follows.

<comment><USER68> Unfortunately for you, Agassiz's hypotheses about a great many things were useful and correct.

But look on the bright side, if a putative belief in creationism would prevent anyone from hearing about a given researcher's other & more defensible work; we would all be laughing at that silly creationist Issac Newton.

<comment><USER69> Hey, I can use his results while still decrying him. And I intend to. I call it standing on the shoulders of giants while chipping off their faces.

Seriously, though, you're right. One shouldn't dismiss all of people's work just because they were wrong about some things. But whether someone is a 'great scientist' is a bit unimportant in that sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Nothing worse than people who say "yes" but underneath, they really don't want to, and play out their resentment passive aggressively.

<comment><USER20> Mmm, I can think of worse things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> To summarize the entirety of the lesson: Sometimes saying "no" is better than saying "yes". By saying "no" you give time otherwise wasted to things that are beneficial to yourself. When and how you decide to say "no" should be based on whether the person that is requesting is perfectly capable of doing the task themselves according to the nature of the article.

<comment><USER67> And sometimes it's better to say nothing at all...

<comment><USER24> Very _very_ true. The greater your ability to conceal your thoughts, especially in the case of escalating provocations, the more information your interlocutor will reveal until the strategic balance shifts.

<comment><USER72> "Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Has anyone seen the documentary Supermensch?

I wonder what the fine line is between being a mensch like Shep Gordon, with the kind of legend and grandeur that comes with such a title, and being an over-accommodating person to a pathetic degree, as described in the article.

It's tough to describe, but somehow a mensch has all the traits of an over- accommodating person without the sign on their back that says "use me."

</comment><comment><USER74> Every time you give someone theoretically everything they want, they will not value you.

It's a simple supply and demand rule. _Everything offered in abundance loses its value._ What are you offering? Your time, your resources, your care, your attention.

To people realize your valor, offer less, invest less. Give them space to miss you and run after you.

We do not respect or admire worthless things.

</comment><comment><USER67> > "You are thirty-five years old," I said to myself. "More than half of your > life has already been spent.

Well, the age of the document is showing.

<comment><USER3> How many years are really worth it, though? Is an extra 20 years of miserable old age worth 5 years of youth? I'm not wholly certain that's the case.

<comment><USER75> That's why one should exercise and eat right. There is a strong correlation between regular exercise/healthy body weight and a productive old age. It amazes me how cavalier people are about their bodies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Related to this I'd recommend Adam Grant's Bestseller _Give and Take_. The surprising conclusion is while some "Givers" end up at the bottom, other "Givers" also end up at the top. The key to doing good and doing well is to practice what he calls "generous tit for tat".

</comment><comment><USER77> Having read through this, it strikes me as a version of the change that takes place in Pierre Bezhukov in _War and Peace_ after his captivity. One saves time by not having to read a thousand pages to get to it; one loses something also, given that those thousand pages are of _War and Peace_.

</comment><comment><USER78> Saying "no" sometimes (genuinely, everyone has shit to do) is the best way to know for sure who really enjoys your company and who just keeps you near for the easy "yes" you always carry around.

</comment><comment><USER79> Previous discussion from 4 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041)

</comment><comment><USER80> Seems similar to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, depicted in her novels (for example Atlas Shrugged). She does take the "selfish" theme a touch more radically though.

</comment><comment><USER81> Could be observing effect rather than cause. People that are very good at <whatever> get a lot of business. Which cuts into the time you have to be accommodating.

</comment><comment><USER60> Evan Williams of Twitter/Blogger I think said that the CEO's job is to say No No No!!

No to new features, to partnerships, to things that lose focus from the core mission.

</comment><comment><USER82> Do favors for money. Money is an IOU ticket for bartering.

<comment><USER83> You have a point there. Using money removes the arduous pontification of whether the favor was worth doing, aka "helper's guilt".

Especially when both parties enjoy some sort of prior established trust (long friends or acquaintances), it's even easier to use money even if it won't compensate for a comparable market rate service.

E.g. "Would you mind helping me with X, Y or Z and I'll buy you lunch(es)?"

<comment><USER84> This entirely depends on the culture one is used to.

I've seen two cultures:

\- In one it works the way you describe it and it's considered odd if the favour were not 'compensated' in some way

\- In another, the question of 'compensation' of a favour is an insult and seen as a statement of no investment in the relationsip

When people from one culture go to the other, it's bound to cause discomfort. I've experienced this and also seen it happen to others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> "You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm"

</comment><comment><USER86> The most common annoyance is the social ritual demand of being in a coffee shop and some fool asks others to watch their computer. Refuse by saying "No I may have to leave soon. Invest in a laptop lock."

</comment><comment><USER87> Reminds me of "It's a Wonderful Life".

</comment><comment><USER51> yeh, as a female this has been a long learning experience for me. Raised in the deep south, our job is to ease political and social tensions and be as accomodating as possible, literally waiting around to see how we can pitch in and help to advertise our hospitality.

Obviously the hypocrisy came to light a long time ago, but I still see this in myself and often amongst women in the workplace.

We are asked to do more public speaking on behalf of our company. The intentions are good, and I want more women in technology so I'm happy to be a role model though I'm far from perfect, but I won't let it take me away from my job and I've turned down being a public speaker.

I've turned down running a SWE "Society of Women Engineers" Chapter at work.

I turn down running social events on behalf of the company.

My favorite two I've learned to say no to are

"Well I never learned how to write well and you take really good notes, so can you document this meeting and send a summary email out to everyone with the conversation, highlights, and action items"

I'm not a secretary, I'm an engineer, and if you have a PhD from MIT and never learned how to write, and in fact its so difficult you can't take meeting notes or you need meeting notes because you can't remember the takeaway items, then thats your problem/opportunity for growth, not a place where I turn into a secretary.

if I'm going to be writing priorities, deciding what the priorities are based on the conversation, documenting them and communicating them and following up for troubleshooting follow through, then make me your Manager.

The other one is "yeh well this is really complicated. It's kind of a mess. Noones looked at this process in a long time, lots of old documentation. Would be really great if someone could come in a organize all this for us..."

That's the part where I'm supposed to enthusiastically volunteer to reorganize the half assed work of people who never understood APIs, who additionally still work at this company and have not fixed it, who are ok with half assed work, and people who will make condescending comments about the lack of ability to pick up quickly on things as I'm rewriting the mess of documentation left behind.

I used to feel obligated to all of those things. I don't. It's really too easy for people to expect women to come in at tech companies and

1\. Be a part time poster child for women in tech including but not limited to taking time away from the team to go to public speaking events and organize work events.

2\. Spend your time documenting things that nooone has bothered documenting before

3\. Be expected to "show enthusiasm" and "contribute" by basically cleaning out the closet of men who havn't opened the drawer to realize how disorganized things are until they have a new person trying to learn under them.

I don't do any of these things anymore, and I make it clear I am not interested in those things when I am asked. I spend time learning technical work, and continually filter my tasks of extraneous things that are not focused on addressing the core issues of my work.

Your job is to do your job and be good at it, and you will naturally be accomodating by the benefits that brings.

On a personal level, I've learned the same thing. huge guilt trips from men to hang out and call me a bitch for basically having standards, being an introvert, and not making dating my hobby outside of work. It's expected of me actually still even in tech.

Huge guilt trips from girls who expect me to be an extrovert, or take it personally that I dont want to be constantly social or go shopping or talk about boys with them, again, even in tech.

Women have a lot of pressure to be socially accomodating, and people will have subconscious expectations of you to do be that way inside and outside of work, and not realize how entitled they actually feel in regards to having a say in your own personal life decisions.

I'm 26 now, but I really wish another women would have given me this advice at 20.

Learn to say no. Focus on you and your job. You accomodate so many people when you take care of yourself and are good at your job and genuinely contribute.

</comment><comment><USER67> >Three things were very clear to me in that night of self-examination five years ago. First: A man's chief loyalty must be to the woman who has joined her life to his; to the children who call him father; and to the business which feeds and clothes and houses them all

No. A man's chief loyalty must be to himself. This guy didn't take the lesson to its final conclusion.

<comment><USER88> Which benefits society more?

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I'm new to ycomb and I'm loving it so far. Thanks for all the good post. I look forward to more.</comment>


Thinking bigger: a free engineering school - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thecodepath.com/2013/08/19/thinking-bigger-a-free-engineering-school/?u=hn

<comment><USER2> Ok, so this blog post is spot on. Very insightful.

The problem is the punchline. iOS and Android programming is low on the list of topics that I see as really extending your abilities as a software engineer and thinker, are not deeply challenging, nor do they require close mentorship to learn. Mobile application design, yes, but mobile application implementation, not so much. (Yes I realize these are sometimes inseparable, but this does not seem to be a design-focused offering.) The shelf life for mobile APIs and design patterns is really measured in months, and StackOverflow actually fits the bill nicely for most of it since you have to throw out most of what you know every 6-12 months.

If you're really "thinking bigger", why not offer a class that focuses on applications of cutting edge but _fundamental_ computer science research, topics _informed_ by the current trend of mobile applications? Or research in other domains altogether (robotics, materials, mecheng, etc) as applied to software? Build something with a mobile component, sure, but that is an implementation detail and anyone who has "plateau"'ed and is looking to climb the next hill is going to be bored by a class focused exclusively on the sausage making part of writing mobile apps. People like that have already seen 5 or 6 generations of platform-hopping, can pick up the basics in a weekend, and instead want to learn how to think about things differently and learn things they can use for the rest of their careers regardless of the latest platform or API. In other words, focused education should provide _massive, long term leverage_ , not a short term boost to the resume. There is no shortage of topics out there right now that fit the bill. Just browse Coursera to see for yourself.

Learning how to hack together an iOS app to market yourself to the "most competitive mobile startups" seems completely at odds with the mission of CodePath outlined in this post. This type of topic surely belongs in there in the long run for practical reasons, but having it as the "launch offering" is weird.

<comment><USER3> I like your style and your sentiment here. We are committed to exactly the ideals you outlined here. Tim and I are both startup founders and very product-minded engineers. Our program is less about "whipping together a cheesy iPhone app" and more about helping people learn design, product development, et al. Every engineer is put onto a team which involves planning, designing and building a product idea of their choice with plenty of mentorship along the way. We have big plans to expand curriculum in all sorts of directions. Mobile happens to be in demand and highly sought after in the valley but this is bigger than iOS training.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the reply! I'm sure you guys will learn a ton with these initial pilot offerings. Sans the API hackery part your students will certainly learn a lot of timeless skills about practical product development and design, which is great.

There is always going to be a lot of pressure to teach surface-level skills that are in high demand due to companies who want more warm bodies to hack stuff out. Not even top universities are immune to this, just look at the spread of Java throughout top computer science schools and the proliferation of classes on OOP that are now largely irrelevant just a few years later.

I think what you are doing is great. Don't lose sight of the big picture :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really cool. A lot of his analysis on the learning process (and what separates a good one from an unhelpful one) are spot-on. These are pretty much the same reasons why I'm doing Hack Reactor (Learning the right way with useful things to show for it in a very selective environment). In fact I'd say this program pretty closely mirrors what Hack Reactor (and some of the other top-tier bootcamps) are trying to do. The main difference of course being that this one would be free, and that it's for experienced developers, as opposed to new developers. But the principle is pretty much the same.

Looks like a great idea!

Only question I have is how they plan to attract the best simply by offering the highest quality classes. Does highest quality mean most difficult, or will they have some sort of standard for admission? For instance, admission at Hack Reactor is pretty selective (under 3%). I'd be interested to see what their specific plan is to prevent developers who may not be the best or who may turn out to have limited commitment from claiming some of what I assume are limited spots in the class.

<comment><USER3> We are big fans of Hack Reactor and similar programs. I think they fill a real need for aspiring engineers who want to jump into the field.

The key differences for us are we are very focused on existing experienced engineers that want to learn new technologies in a hands-on accelerated way amongst peers. We offer our courses in the evenings around a job schedule and the courses are free of charge. Our business depends on helping those interested find jobs they love. See [http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/26/job- recruiting-in-silicon-v...](http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/26/job-recruiting- in-silicon-valley-is-broken-and-these-guys-are-trying-to-fix-it/) for more information.

"Highest quality" is a complicated thing to define but suffice to say it is in part about creating ultra high quality. We provide detailed videos, extensive wikis, hands-on projects, open-source and closed-source libraries, and extensive mentorship. We also have a process for selection of our candidates that involves a phone screen and a short in-person interview to assess background and commitment to the program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unrelated to the OP, but I thought "Oh like Olin College." It was an engineering college founded in 1997 that had free tuition until recently. (It still is half price.) It attracts the best and brightest. Great school.

<comment><USER6> This is actually related to the OP. They were concerned that being free might signal the wrong things to top talent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Think of a place like Tiger's Nest Monastery[1] or some remote place on a hill in India/China/Vietnam/Cambodia.

A monastery like environment, complete with places like dojos where there would be practice and sparring sessions, prayer and contemplation halls where the young and old from various schools of thoughts (Mac/*nix/MS, anything) mingle and discuss their ideas. A place where rank/wealth/ethnicity/gender doesn't matter; and where judgements would be of the work and not of people. A truly jedi-esque order of programmers, helping younger and able programmers realise their true potentials. The place would have volunteers who teach for free and those who truly want to learn. The Internet bandwidth, though limited, would be used judiciously. The gates of the monastery would be open for all those who wish to learn. And not just for programmers. The place would be open for the curious from any background.

Wouldn't such a thing be wonderful!

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_Taktsang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_Taktsang)

</comment><comment><USER8> Sound too good to be true, they could charge half the 'normal' price or something, what is going on here? has communism arrived in CA already after so many years' socialism there ? :)

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing they plan to charge referral fees for their graduates. Even so, this sounds unsustainable.

<comment><USER3> This article might help clarify: [http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/26/job- recruiting-in-silicon-v...](http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/26/job-recruiting- in-silicon-valley-is-broken-and-these-guys-are-trying-to-fix-it/) we see this as an opportunity to fix talent development and placement in a big way. Put it this way: consider the difference between an "engineering referral" from two experienced engineers who have spent weeks with each carefully selected candidate versus other models today. We have spent quite a bit of time exploring the sustainability of this. All I ask is you reserve judgement, we have a lot of ideas of how we can make this work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I applied for the iOS dev course a few weeks back and never heard from you guys. When should I expect to know if I'm in or not?

</comment><comment><USER11> "It's a good thing that engineers enjoy self-teaching because it's the only option available currently."

LOL because he says so. I used to participate in the IEEE video conference series in the 90s and they were pretty awesome. And reasonably well attended, although expensive.

As for the lack of mentors the original problem of fire all the old expensive engineers and only hire cheap inexperienced ones means the theoretical mentors will have plenty of time for their mentoring duty; they'll be unemployed. Or the purpose of this is to get them jobs; in which case they'll be mentoring the kids at work instead of at the hackerspace?

A huge part of engineering unfortunately involves some expensive gear. As ham radio guys have known for decades, stuff thats a generation or two old does exactly the same job as cutting edge for about 1/1000th the cost. My POS oscilloscope at home is about two generations out of date, luckily I don't have the skill or other gear to do cutting edge work from the 90s so I'm all good. Thats just EE which is fairly easy to do at home... don't get me started on my previous career plan of ChemEng. Anyway a decent hackerspace Can help, although in my chosen fields of electronics and machining I generally have better gear at home than any hackerspace has (hey, they pay us well in tech, non-computer hardware doesn't depreciate as fast as computer video cards, and I'm not a kid anymore so spend a grand a year on gear and none of it goes obsolete and by the time you're "old" you have quite a basement indeed)

One oddity is the only two engineering classes they mention by name are Android and IOS and those are typically code monkey topics, not say, MechEng or CivEng. I would think theoretical MechEng would be pretty cheap to teach as would CivEng.

<comment><USER12> Just as the scientists and tinkerers of yester-year once appropriated the term Engineer from the well respected steam engine operators, today's programmers have grabbed the still respectable term and ran off with it.

<comment><USER13> >scientists and tinkerers of yester-year once appropriated the term Engineer from the well respected steam engine operators,

engineer (n.) early 14c., "constructor of military engines," from Old French engigneor, from Late Latin ingeniare (see engine); general sense of "inventor, designer" is recorded from early 15c.; civil sense, in reference to public works, is recorded from c.1600. Meaning "locomotive driver" is first attested 1832, American English. A "maker of engines" in ancient Greece was a mekhanopoios. [1]

It looks like the steam engine operator meaning of the word didn't show up until the 19th century.

[1] [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=engineer](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=engineer)

<comment><USER14> Siege engine:

[http://ozarkmedievalfortress.com/images/95.jpg](http://ozarkmedievalfortress.com/images/95.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Wow.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why category theory matters in programming - <AUTHOR> https://tech.iheart.com/f585d17b01d3 <comment><USER2> Eh, as someone who works in scala day-to-day, and has studied actual category theory, I think the emphasis on category theory itself is silly. And in fact, most of the time, more category theory and more monads will make your code worse (e.g. MonadTransformers are D: )

Future, which is really a souped up promise abstraction, is the main star, and for-comprehensions are nice syntactic sugar. Being a "Monad" doesn't help you do anything with it though. And Future technically doesn't even truly obey the Monad laws, because of exceptions.

It's useful that a couple of container classes in scala use implement this trait:

        trait ChainableContainer[A] {
          def map(fn: A => B): ChainableContainer[B]
          def flatten(nested: ChainableContainer[ChainableContainer[A]]):ChainableContainer
        }

But beyond making it a little easier to guess what's going on, the underlying math isn't useful in actual programming.

<comment><USER3> That has a little to do with Scala just being a pretty bad place to implement most of these things. E.g., Monad transformers work just great in Haskell but are terrible in Scala due to the sort of terrible ways type parameters and inference work together.

Future also doesn't obey the monad laws for not being RT and that causes a lotttt of complexity.

<comment><USER4> It's not just monad transformers, monads themselves are pretty awkward to use in any language that's not Haskell. And actually, a lot of FP languages simply don't even have monads at all (OCaml, F#).

Monads should never have escaped Haskell.

<comment><USER5> Isn't a Monad just the fancy name for a type/structure that implements map and flatMap in a lawful manner?

<comment><USER4> Close: the required operations are `flatMap` and bind/pure/point/lift/return/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

You can derive `map` from these two other functions so it doesn't need to be part of the interface.

<comment><USER2> Bind is flatMap (>>=)

Confusingly, map in scala is fmap in Haskell

<comment><USER4> Oops you're right of course. And I can't edit my post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Functional Programming and Category Theroy are great, there's a strong level of robustness in the whole approach to programming.

The author slams imperative programming, it isn't backboned on a robust compositional system, as is often done by FPers

BUT :)

there's lots of good programs in both styles....to me, this implies that there are more important things that matter to programming, the design to achieve a purpose. It's nice to express your designs in a robust system ( and be influenced by it), but what matters most is the design choices you make. When I look at well programmed things it's always the design choices that impress me.

<comment><USER7> Coming from HPC, I think imperative programming will stay as long as we don't have an AGI that does the actual programming for us, as it's the model with the highest possible abatraction that still gives you the whole truth about the underlying memory operations (and thus allows you to optimize for it without having your hands tied behind your back and just trusting the compiler gods). Not saying that this is how one should usually program in a context where performance is not the highest goal, but there's always going to be these usecases.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. That said, the problem is that imperative programming is still used widely in contexts (eg, 95% of web programming) where performance is not an issue and high-level abstractions such as those used in FP are more appropriate. This is almost entirely due, imo, to the paradigm's inertia and to bad education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Category theory is fine, I guess, but there's no need to invoke a sledge- hammer when talking about 99% of most work here.

It's a little like saying, yes, fine we can reference the hyperreals to derive infinitesimal calculus in a beautiful way, but it's mostly abstract and highly involved, even to just understand the foundational aspects (which one may argue is the case for normal calculus, but the notion of local linearity I believe is much more obvious than an extension to the reals). Though it's a nice academic exercise, which may even yield some insights, it's rather obscure and unintuitive for almost all purposes.

This is the way I view category theory and functional programming; though I'd love to be corrected if I'm wrong. There's no need to invoke almost all of it, since most things can be expressed quite clearly in the language of set theory need there be rigour.

<comment><USER10> But infinitesimal calculus is all about local linearity, in the analytic formulation you're taking the closest linear approximation to the function at that point. Using the dual numbers approach, there is an infinitesimal (nilpotent) region around each point which is linear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Category theory matters to programming because, among other things, it teaches us how to abstract over programming languages. What better definition of abstract programs than "things with types which compose"?

Now consider categories with various types of constructions (products, limits, exponentials, etc.) and you'll notice they correspond to requiring certain features in your language.

</comment><comment><USER12> That's nice, but form a hard-nosed engineering perspective, not just sometimes, but _in general_ 19 lines of yucky procedural code that pretty much anyone can understand (and debug) are usually way, way better than 9 lines of "elegant" functional code comparatively far fewer people can (really) understand - and which can be comparatively far more sinister and nefarious to debug.

Given that, after all, it's just _posting likes_ we're talking about. You'd think that with such a bold proposition as "Why category theory matters -- no really, it does!" this would be about hot-synching whole data centers, or getting drones to deliver medicine in Africa, or something like that. You know, something perhaps _unthinkable_ (or maybe just far less tractable) with procedural (or just less sophistical functional) code.

But no, in this case apparently it's about... updating your FB likes.

<comment><USER13> > and which can be comparatively far more sinister and nefarious to debug.

This is kind of a false dichotomy as well written fp, type code is tends to have fewer bugs. Also your argument that more people understand it doesn't mean much as few people understand something they haven't been exposed to.

> hot-synching whole data centers

It actually does. There was a podcast with Paul Chiusano who is a big proponent of this type of programming [http://futureofcoding.org/episodes/10-unisons-paul- chiusano-...](http://futureofcoding.org/episodes/10-unisons-paul-chiusano-on- how-abstraction-will-save-distributed-computing.html). IIRC Spark is based on Algebird which is somewhat close to this type of programming. Commutativity is a life saver for distributed computing.

<comment><USER14> In my experience FP code is more buggy, but I imagine there's a lot that goes into it

<comment><USER13> What particular language are you talking about?

<comment><USER14> Mainly scala, but I've used some clojure as well. Ever since learning Go, I just haven't looked back. I think FP does well with streaming problems, but outside of that it seems to have a cognitive overhead that doesn't pay

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b Er... I think that people tend to use the if then else approach, because it is actually more flexible, in the sense that you may actually _want_ to do something else than return false when something wrong happens in one of the functions in the composition chain...

</comment><comment><USER15>
      category*

<comment><USER16>
      category * -> *

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > So, is there a simple and universal way to compose these functions?

 _proceeds to add layers of complexity_

Why not just write a function to compose them? Argue against the competition, not strawmen.

<comment><USER18> _Most_ code that is written has effects - null returns, error returns, exceptions, IO, etc., etc. We can write a custom function to compose every pair of functions we write, but some clever people figured out there were patterns to this madness - map, flatMap, lift, return, etc. - and it's far more efficient to write those patterns once and reuse them.

Essentially, it's DRY at a higher level of abstraction.

<comment><USER17> You still have to write each composition operator separately; writing the code to compose null returns doesn't give you the code to compose IO. Only difference is whether they have separate names.

<comment><USER19> That's not the only difference. You get to reuse any code written using only those names (that interface).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What language are these coffee examples written in?

The article doesn't give me a reference for what syntax I'm trying to parse, and while most of it is easy to guess, it would be helpful to have an explicit reference.

<comment><USER21> That would be Scala. ([http://www.scala-lang.org/](http://www.scala- lang.org/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This kind of contribution always make me hesitate betweeen two reactions:

1.Man I must be dumb I can't even begin to understand what matter

2.Can't we achieve/explain the same goal by keeping it simple stupid

<comment><USER23> > 2.Can't we achieve/explain the same goal by keeping it simple stupid

We should keep it "as simple as possible but no simpler". Sometimes "as simple as possible" is actually somewhat challenging ...</comment></comment>