patrick.net

jazz music says

Peter P says

People will be happier at work if:

1. CNM relationships are more prevalent

2. Office sex is encouraged

1. What is CNM?

2. Sex with coworkers is the road to hell.

CNM stand for consensual non-monogamous.

Office romance is the road to hell. Office sex needs not be more dramatic than playing tennis with co-workers.

thunderlips11 says

I'll take the escorts

Peter P says

2. Office sex is encouraged

Certainly was in the movie "Wolf of Wallstreet". Even IF some of those gals only worked for a couple hours or so.

The Ford Escort joke is long gone.

Rin says

What if Mary prefers Peter's peter over Paul's?

Then Paul can bang out the issue with Amy and Becca and Cindy and Daisy. :-)

And Peter's peter will eventually peter out.

Not if he has a bottle of Repeter.

Stimulative reflation?

Peter P says

This is bullshit. It obviously depend on the size of the windfall. $1M? $500M?

Probably. Most people would really just laze around a mansion if they got $500 million.

I wouldn't. I'd keep working, but not for a company. I'd work on my own with no boss. And I'd do things that I think are important to the world rather than things that make money. It would be an interesting life.

How much time can you really spend doing hookers and blow? It must get boring. Now building a Dyson ring would keep be entertained for a long time.

Dan8267 says

How much time can you really spend doing hookers and blow

Why not the hookers and leave out the controlled substances?

Ultimately, it's about having a good time and mellowing out, between running experiments and writing screenplays.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Peter P says

People will be happier at work if:

1. CNM relationships are more prevalent

2. Office sex is encouraged

What if the women in your office looked like this?

lostand confused says

What if the women in your office looked like this?

How do you know I am not fatter? ;-)

lostand confused says

What if the women in your office looked like this?

That's a case for everyone working from home.

1.) buy an awesome place with an awesome view.

2.) take up poker again.

3.) buy some badass fucking cars

4. Get pads in SF, lv, and dtla.

5.) travel everywhere.

6.) collect baseball cards to my hearts content.

1) Donate 1/3 to charity
2) Pay off all my debts
3) Pay off my parents' and brothers' debts
4) Set up trust funds for my kids and step kids
5) Invest the rest in something that would give me an income I could live off of without ever touching the remaining principal
6) Remodel my kitchen and bathrooms
7) Travel every year to somewhere really interesting
8) Become a permanent student at my local university

turtledove says

1) Donate 1/3 to charity

Hopefully that's because you're passionate about that cause and not because you feel compelled to "give back."

Turtledove seems on the right track. If the money was large enough I would set up a charity and administer or at least work in it to the extent legal to keep it charitable. Choose something you believe in and see that it is done right. Anyway it is also a way to employ decedents.
When these people found 10 million gold coins here in northern California, they were naive to take it to a road show estimator and end up giving so much to the IRS. A better strategy would be to estimate worth yourself online and if need be by 'becoming a collector'. Discreetly sell the lower value coins and slowly build your assets. Higher value coins could be sold en mass and used to create your charity. Choose something you believe in and see that it is done right

Oh...you have a "boss"?
How quaint...

Dan8267 says

I wouldn't. I'd keep working, but not for a company. I'd work on my own with no boss.

Call it Crazy says

Hmmmm... Having a boss... That explains why Dan is always so cranky...

Hmmmm.... Being owners... That explains why CIC and Strategist are so lazy and greedy.

Employees produce wealth. Owners siphon wealth. Time for a fundamentally new economic system in which all people can maximize their productivity and keep the lion's share of the wealth they produce.

Dan8267 says

Employees produce wealth. Owners siphon wealth.

Better be evil than poor. :-)

Dan8267 says

Call it Crazy says

Hmmmm... Having a boss... That explains why Dan is always so cranky...

Hmmmm.... Being owners... That explains why CIC and Strategist are so lazy and greedy.

Employees produce wealth. Owners siphon wealth. Time for a fundamentally new economic system in which all people can maximize their productivity and keep the lion's share of the wealth they produce.

Entrepreneurship and capitalism creates wealth. The third world has lots of workers but no wealth.
I hope someone steals your car.

Peter P says

2. Office sex is encouraged

Maybe even required. :)

Peter P says

turtledove says

1) Donate 1/3 to charity

Hopefully that's because you're passionate about that cause and not because you feel compelled to "give back."

Call it Crazy says

turtledove says

1) Donate 1/3 to charity

Does the portion that goes to .gov(IRS) considered a "charity"?

I just feel that if I had a substantial windfall that it was money I wasn't expecting. It's money I didn't earn. It's money I got simply for being born under the right star. I would want to use a piece of that to try to change the luck of someone else.

As for the IRS, any donation or charitable foundation you started would be tax deductible. You're still going to pay the money, but in this case, you would get to decide how that money is spent.

Yes, you're giving money away... but what's left over is still more money than you ever thought you'd have for doing nothing more than picking six lucky numbers, for example.

turtledove says

I just feel that if I had a substantial windfall that it was money I wasn't expecting. It's money I didn't earn. It's money I got simply for being born under the right star. I would want to use a piece of that to try to change the luck of someone else.

Not trying to talk you out of giving back, but luck is random and everywhere. Anyone with an open mind who think positively can "make" his own luck.

Money doesn't have to be earned. It is ethically neutral.

Dan8267 says

Employees produce wealth.

Pareto principle is that 20% of the best workers do 80% of the work.

And unfortunately, MBA-ologists and passive income owners tend to not be among that top 20%, which is why corporate America is such a joke.

But yes, an active owner of a small to midsize company can do a lot of good work.

The whole purpose of my science/engineering welfare state is to give that slice of STEM workers, a chance to break free of corporate life.

http://patrick.net/?p=1240106

Rin says

Pareto principle is that 20% of the best workers do 80% of the work.

Having been in a few situations where the hyper-competitive top workers were blowing through tasks which the other workers would then have to revisit when their sloppy work failed, I'm not sure I buy this principle.

But point taken about the MBA folks.

HydroCabron says

hyper-competitive top workers were blowing through tasks which the other workers would then have to revisit when their sloppy work failed

I'd actually put those individuals in the 15-25% category, as much of their effort is about speed and not being systematic.

The ones I'm talking about are those who plan ahead, are conscientious, and communicate their work well. Whenever I see a cadre of them, I can tell that the team is extremely effective.

Rin says

HydroCabron says

hyper-competitive top workers were blowing through tasks which the other workers would then have to revisit when their sloppy work failed

I'd actually put those individuals in the 15-25% category, as much of their effort is about speed and not being systematic.

The ones I'm talking about are those who plan ahead, are conscientious, and communicate their work well. Whenever I see a cadre of them, I can tell that the team is extremely effective.

It should be noted that an MBA these days is not a recipe for automatic wealth anymore - quite a few entry level MBAs work in marketing or other agencies for $20-25/hour to get some accolades.

Since your time is not scalable the only sensible work philosophy is to reap the most doing the least.

Most MBAs I came across suck. The ones that are good would have done well in life anyway.

Peter P says

Dan8267 says

Employees produce wealth. Owners siphon wealth.

Better be evil than poor. :-)

Not by my principles.

Money is important. It is a tool that allows you to do things. But only a fool makes money an end goal. Material wealth hardly makes a life fulfilling, comfortable yes, but not fulfilling.

Given the 14 billion years of existence already passed and the countless trillions to go, I'd like my tiny sliver of the time line to be about something more significant than acquiring cars, mansions, and diamonds.

Now using one's wealth to solve important problems and making a lasting, positive impact on the world, that would be quite fulfilling.

Strategist says

Entrepreneurship and capitalism creates wealth.

Bullshit. Actual work creates wealth. Capitalism does not reward the creation of wealth. Capitalism rewards only one thing, bargaining power. All of history disproves your dogma.

Peter P says

luck is random and everywhere

There are opportunities everywhere for a person to play a role in that cycle. It doesn't just have to be money. You have the power to be someone else's random good luck at any given moment.

Over the summer, we were shopping for a house. One of the houses we looked at is owned by a woman in her 70s. She was selling the house because she had had brain surgery recently and she needed to be closer to her doctors and hospital.

Obviously, she survived the surgery (which was to remove a tumor), but she's no longer able to drive. I learned that she doesn't have any family near her... And she, apparently, didn't have any neighbors who were able/willing to help. She has one son who lives in Northern, CA. So, she needed to sell her house so she could move 10 miles up the road to be closer to her medical care.

Before we left, I gave her my phone number and asked her to call me if she needed a ride somewhere while she was trying to sell her house. She gave me her number, but I could tell that she wasn't the type of person to ask someone else for help. So a few days later, I called her. I told her that I was going to the grocery store and asked her if she would like to come with me. She did.

Now, once a week, I pick her up and take her grocery shopping. I took her for her flu and shingles shots. It's not a big deal, but it makes a huge difference in her life. It costs me nothing. I'm going anyway and she lives two minutes away.

She recently sold her house and will be moving in the next week. So, it cost me one hour a week for a few months to be "random luck" for someone else. Why? Because I can't change the world, but I can do a nice, random thing for one person. What did she do to deserve it? Who knows? She was in the right place at the right time. She was just lucky that day.

Turns out, she's a pretty neat person. I have fun, too. She ended up spending the holidays with us.

Yes, luck is random, but if no one is willing to put it out there then how can it be everywhere? We make luck. It doesn't exist without people who are giving it, as well as receiving it.

Peter P says

Most MBAs I came across suck. The ones that are good would have done well in life anyway.

When I was getting my MBA (accounting), the joke was that the only ones who knew how to work were the accountants.

mell says

It should be noted that an MBA these days is not a recipe for automatic wealth anymore - quite a few entry level MBAs work in marketing or other agencies for $20-25/hour to get some accolades.

I'm more talking about the ppl who did let's say 4-5 years at a Cap Gemini and left for Northwestern business school. Usually, these guys return to the management consulting industry in a low-to-mid 6 figure income with a bonus structure and feasible partnership track. And then, other C-levels at client firms, recruit these folks into their companies later in life. Basically, it's a clubhouse effect.

Those other MBAs, however, were folks who simply went to a graduate program, blindly believing that the school in itself, was the door opener. In reality, that's seldom the case.

Peter P says

Most MBAs I came across suck. The ones that are good would have done well in life anyway.

MBAs succeed by virtue of a self-generating steering committee. They appoint each other and then, prop up one another's achievements. This is how one can go from being let's say a senior research analyst to let's say a CTO role. Usually, one exec moves into the target company and then, little by little, bring all his cronies in afterwards with executive titles.

Call it Crazy says

80% of employees are slugs and cost the business money, not make the business money. The owners provide jobs for these slugs, this is why YOU work for a boss.

The vast majority of Americans work for an employer, either government or a corporation. You are essentially saying that 80% of Americans are "slugs". If this is true, then America sucks. America is the sum of Americans, not some government incorporation papers.

Seems like you have far less respect for America than I do. I don't think that 80% of Americans are worthless, parasitic scum.

Oh, and the reason people work as employees is because our economic system simply does not support everyone, or even a majority of people, owning their own productivity. The existence of a capital class requires the existence of a worker (wealth-producing) class.

If everyone was in the capital class, no one could employee anyone else and everyone would have to do the actual work from which they profited. For example, if you wanted to make money in the mine you owned, you'd have to do the actual mining. If you wanted to be a rich farm owner, you'd have to do all the farming yourself. That may very well be a great economic system, but it sure as hell isn't capitalism.

Of course, your comments do illustrate the great divide in our country. Our country is full of makers (the workers who create wealth) and the parasites who produce nothing and siphon the wealth creation of the makers. You parasites have to be in a constant state of fear that the makers will revolt, violently or peacefully. That is why you fear people like Elizabeth Warren. That is why you fear unions. That is why you fear any kind of accountability.

The fact is that the makers could live easily without you parasites, but you parasites would starve to death without the makers.

Rin says

Pareto principle is that 20% of the best workers do 80% of the work.

For various values of 20 and 80... This is called the 20/80 rule or the 10/90 rule.

And yes, I agree with it. However, the bigger picture is that the owning class, often referred to by the euphemisms entrepreneurs , do 0% of the work and more importantly produce 0% of the wealth while taking 80% of the wealth produced by everyone else.

Given the virtuous cycle of productivity, everyone, even the parasites if they switched to be workers, would be exponentially better off if the wealth producers kept most of their wealth production and parasites got none.

turtledove says

Yes, luck is random, but if no one is willing to put it out there then how can it be everywhere? We make luck. It doesn't exist without people who are giving it, as well as receiving it.

But sometimes opportunities arise simply other people are minding their business.

There are instances I want to be nice simply because I like the person.

Luck does not have to be deliberate.

Rin says

But yes, an active owner of a small to midsize company can do a lot of good work.

A Straw Man even though you probably did not intend it as such...

No one has ever complained about the small business owner who does the work himself and keeps the benefit to himself. He is precisely the example of a worker who owns his productivity. He's what Marx envisioned as communism. The worker owning his production. [Yes, the Soviet Union did not implement communism anything like what Marx envisioned, but that's a whole different matter.]

What people complain about, and what Elizabeth Warren has fought against, is the owner of large businesses who make their money not from producing wealth or even from being necessary overhead, but rather from exploiting the workers and siphoning off the wealth they create.

The only way a useless at best and destructive at worst parasite can have a cushy, wealthy lifestyle is by taking that wealth from others. He's different from a welfare queen in only one way: he siphons vastly more wealth than all welfare queens put together.

Dan8267 says

The fact is that the makers could live easily without you parasites, but you parasites would starve to death without the makers.

Rin says

MBAs succeed by virtue of a self-generating steering committee. They appoint each other and then, prop up one another's achievements.

Not just MBA. Every politically savvy employee engages in empire-building. You want people you understand (aka have dirt on). Organizations do not emerge out of altruism or competence.