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wadavis comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 20 April 2015 12:06:02PM 5 points [-]

Thought experiment. You are doing a really boring job you dislike like data entry, but so well paid you don't want to leave it. You cannot automate it. You cannot work from home. You sit in the office 8 hours Thankfully it does not take 8 hours, you can do it in 5 and then browse the web or something.

What do you do? Trying to spend the other 3 meaningfully like studying with Anki, and trying to find challenging games in the actual job part are two obvious ones, what else? E.g. would you listen to ebooks while doing it? What else?

Comment author: wadavis 20 April 2015 02:28:50PM 8 points [-]

Plan A: Change your environment; spend three hours a day preparing a proposal for management/ownership to work as a contractor paid by entry opposed to an employee paid by the hour. Find the relevant tax and overhead savings to make this a mutually beneficial arrangement. Find out who in management/ownership can approve your proposal and who it just creates headaches for, buy beer for both.

I understand that goes against the spirit of your question, that your work environment may be to rigid, management that could approve the proposal are out of reach of the data entry staff, or one of many other arguments, but 60 hours a month is a large amount of time, it is shocking what could be done.

Plan B: Now on to things I've actually done in that situation; spend 60 hours preparing a bulletproof argument/presentation for a raise, spend 60 hours learning how to create better resumes, spend 60 hours learning how to job hunt without a resume (handshakes and recommendations), spend 60 hours job hunting, and last on the list spend the time on entertainment so that you are mentally recharged to make the most of your personal time.