I would like you to read the article
The Best jobs for smart, but lazy people published at
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140228-jobs-for-the-smart-but-lazy
and comment on/discuss it. Make your own list of such jobs in Poland;)
English Conversation Course-7th term
That's sad but true. As an example I take one of my friends wjo's very succesfull. He's doing almost nothing, and people pay him for that. He wrote a system for a company, and it's so vast and complicated in it's simplicity, that only he knows how it works, actually. So they cannot fire him, and they cannot say no to his raise, ha ha ha. Simple and genius.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could be that kind of a person, but I am not. Working on my own, so if I wan't something done, I have to do it, period....
Read the topic, first thought - "hey, that's something for me". But the reality isn't as bright as it's shown on paper! Of course you can be an English teacher in China or Japan - this could be a wonderful seasonal job, but there are just a few people able to do that for their whole lives. You live away from your family in a country full with people with totally different habits and behaviours than yours. Remember "Lost in Translation"? Imagine living like that for your whole life. Hard one!
ReplyDeleteNext, computer programmers. The amount of knowledge you have to obtain to become a succesful programmer is huge, first of all. Second, it's not until you're super-intelligent, creative person spitting with ideas.... then you can have some hopes of earning a lot of money for little working. Otherwise, it's a normal, well-payed, but normal job ; )
full of people*, sorry, I'm almost asleep. :)
ReplyDeleteEvery person is lazy and looks for the easiest way to earn money while doing as little as possible. It is easily explicable with an economic concept "Homo economicus" brought by John Stuart Mill. We think rationally and we try to maximize our profits and comfort our lives.
ReplyDeleteActually, yvery decision and choice in our life we make, as well a short-term or a long-term one, is explainable with "homo economicus" theory. Eg. if you wake up in the morning and eat old bread from the previous day, it means that staying in bed as long as possible represents for you higher value than waking up earlier, doing shopping and eating fresh bread.
It also applies to people who choose lower-paid jobs. They do that because of other factors, like they value their spare time more or they prefer no to have too much stress, which usually comes along with better-paid jobs.
There is also another interesting economic theory applying to scientists/specialists. It tells that salary rise is effective only to some degree - in some moment it stops working and demotivates well-trained employees. It is caused by the fact that well-educated people value their free time relatively high - and they earn money to realise their hobbies/dreams. Hence, when they earn enough money to make it possible they lose motivation to work more.
Ps. I commented on the other blogspot as well, I got confused with emails and adresses I received.;-) But I hope this is th e proper one.
The first thing I noticed was that Australian computer programmers work 7 hours a day and that's considered a lot in this article! These lazy Australians :)
ReplyDeleteI actually couldn't agree more - getting yourself in the crazy vortex of work and trying to be an overachiever is a straight way to burn out or worse - get sick, get a heart attack quickly and retire early. Unfortunately, although it's pretty obvious for most of us that working too hard is destructive for us, pressure from the society makes do it anyway or else we feel like total failures. It would be fantastic to just stick to something easy, do it and be less stressed and happy.
Fortunately for us, IT people we're apparently in lazy jobs anyway :) But I wouldn't agree with that statement as much. The job is still challenging and requires some amounts of effort. I feel that there are lazier jobs you can have - playing on-line poker for example, which can be reduced simply to memorizing statistics and clicking fast. Being a text translator also seems pretty lazy as its essentially being a dictionary mixed with editor, something an intelligent person can do without much thought.
Well, I have a friend who works from home posting news on a gossip-like website 3 times per day and she earns over twice as my earnings, while my job is several times harder, in my opinion. It's a bit annoying when she's complaining about that she has to get out of bed at 9:00 to get the job done for 11:00.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that some just don't realise how lucky they are.
The article cited the opinions of people who think that the job that they exchanged is easy - what can be understood as suitable for lazy people. I can’t agree with the statement that the work as a programmer is for lazy people.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to being 'an expert' in any field - I suspect not without reason this word is in quotes. Expert - a person of theoretical and practical knowledge of the topic. Unfortunately, today there is a tendency to abuse this title - someone graduated at some field of study – probably knows anything about it – so is an expert. The same situation with the expert from magazines or websites - in the short characteristics of the author we always find - 'expert in the field ..' - regardless of experience, knowledge of the person - the articles seem to be more reliable – (how many people verify this information?) after all, is written, he is an expert.
The teaching profession, in terms of our country hasn’t a lot to do with laziness. For lesson, you have to be properely prepared, to be able to answer any questions asked by the students (not always about lesson topic), to control the class, talk for a few hours to pupils or students, to be flexible, depending on the level of knowledge of the group - who has never tried, this seems to be easy for him indeed. However, It is a matter of what kind of teacher the person wants to be.
Because I don’t know the exact specifics of the various professions, it is hard for me to answer which job is most appropriate for smart but lazy people.
I think the best advice is: “Do a job you love. If you love what you do it never feels like "work" , it feels like a hobby.” by Thomas Goodwin - another member of discussion, based on which the article was created.
I have to say that I agree with what Bill Gates said. Usually when a person has to do something hard and that person is hardworking, he/she will do it using a previously thought of pattern, whereas a lazy person will first try to think of a way to do it as easily as possible, or even think of something totally different that normally is unrelated to the problem, but in the given case could help. The same thing applies to normal daily issues. For example if someone would want to grill some meat and didn't have a grill, normally he/she would go to a shop and buy it. Lazy and intelligent person will think outside the box and could come up with an idea that doesn't require him/her to move from home like in this link: http://studentpotrafi.pl/18679/Grillowanie. That being said I don't fully agree with what is written in the article. Like most of the people in the comment said, the jobs in the examples are more for smart than lazy people. The only two jobs that I can think of being good for lazy people are handing leaflets, and managing the cash register in the markets.
ReplyDeleteEverybody are agree with Bill Gates me too. It's very truth that lazy people think when they work, what is not a domain of hard working people. I think being lazy people can be very creative, when we wait we think whan we think we see more, we do better our tasks.
ReplyDeleteMany people say that the key is to surround himself with people who will be working for as. This is not bad because sometimes coordinating or building the great time is key to succes, and than we can be lazy, job is done and everybody are happy.
I think every CEO is smart and in some cases his work can be lazy.
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ReplyDeleteIn my opinion in every working field you can find possition at which you can be lazy and make big about of money, in some of them it is harder to find in other is easier. It basicaly depends on you and your degree of laziness. Dalvia gave good example wich unfortunately is very common and higly unfair. When you do your job you should make sure that your employee will be able to maintain and use it, because she/he paid you to do it as good as you can.
Actually I believe laziness can be an advantage, when properly managed. And of course I don't mean this do-nothing-all-day kind of lazy, but rather the do-everything-most-easily kind. Almost every time the easiest solution is the best, and the most reliable one. As for the actual examples in the article: I can relate to the pyjamas part, as I could never understand why companies hire programmers to work 8 hours a day at an office. It's not like the amount of work done is proportional to the time spent. And it's perfectly true that a good programmer will spent the least amount of time working on some subject, while the mediocre ones will live their life at the office, typing hundreds of lines of code, that might just work, someday.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to find a job, where you do little and earn much right from the start. I guess you can achieve it by learning and gaining experience over the years. Such gifted programmer had to learn first.
ReplyDeleteGoing to China might be a good idea, but as you wrote, Martyna, not everyone wants to be so far from their friends and loved ones...
Tomek – I agree with your statement, but I would change it a little by adding one word: Every intelligent person is lazy and looks for the easiest way to earn money.
My beloved math teacher from elementary school used to say “Laziness is the road to progress.” This sentence stayed with me, and I sometimes quote it.
In fact, some inventions, such as washing machine or dishwasher came out of laziness and the need to make life easier. Of course you have to put some effort into it at first, but then you can enjoy!
Programming, which you talk much about, is nothing else but making life easier. Each program’s main task is to help us do things easily and conveniently :)