
The Oversimplification of Results and Hard Work - CodeLikeAJedi
https://code.likeagirl.io/the-over-simplification-of-results-and-hard-work-48a78b0ed4a6
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sulam
There are going to be some people who read this and assume she must have
interviewed poorly, or have really bad grades or something. I read this and go
“yep, luck is a huge factor in whether or not your hard work will pay off”.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard — you’re essentially playing the
lottery otherwise. You also have to decide how much of an asshole you’re
willing to be (hate to say it, but if you’re willing to behave without morals,
your chances of making money go up in the short term). I’m personally not
wired to behave like an asshole, so it’s been hard work and a few lucky breaks
that could be parlayed into more opportunities that in turn paid off,
sometimes handsomely.

Looking back over 25 years, I can point at exactly where and how I got lucky
many times. I needed to be in position to take advantage of those lucky
breaks, and I needed to make the most of them (I didn’t always succeed at
that!), but some essentially stochastic event has almost always been straight-
line connected to an eventual outcome.

~~~
gcr
Sure. Luck plays a big part in this. But we also have to acknowledge that
someone who carries less privilege than you do is going to have both less of
those opportunities to get lucky, and less luck when those opportunities _do_
arrive.

After all, luck favors the privileged.

~~~
sulam
True in general. In my case I have the privilege of being white, male, and
being born in the US. Pretty good stuff, but also: homeless, single mom
without a high school education, living in crappy parts of the country for
that kind of thing (Texas). There are (as the British would say) knock-on
effects from that -- it took me a long time to learn effective spending
habits. When you're poor, you spend money when you have it, because it will be
going away somehow regardless of what you do. Also bad teeth, which, you know,
I shouldn't be sensitive about, but I sometimes am. :)

Anyway, you're right, the privileges we're born into affect a lot of potential
success. At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I'm trying to give my
children all the advantages I didn't have, and genetically they're picking up
the ones I did. They'd better damn well solve hunger or figure out world
peace! :)

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pjc50
> "I said no because their new team lead said during the interview, “I know
> Indians, I have worked with them. One thing I cannot take from Indians is
> dishonesty. If you lie to me, I will not bear you. I am only taking you on
> the team because the company says you did a very exceptional job!”"

This is what people mean by intersectionality; despite having "a Masters in
Power Engineering with an honors in Digital Technology Management from a very
well known German university", being a woman and being an Indian immigrant
means that the odds are stacked against her.

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ThrowAway3456
I am not sure where you pulled your definition of intersectionality, but
doesn't sound like anything related. I am not sure neithee why you added the
fact that she was a woman to the equation when the comment clearly was
targeted at her race / culture. It's annoying cause it somewhat implies that
the million of immigrant men don't go through so similar if not worst
experiences

~~~
pjc50
That's the opposite of what I was trying to say: that she gets comments
targeted at race / culture, _and also_ the discrimination against women in
engineering.

~~~
ThrowAway3456
Again I am not sure that's how social intersectionality is supposed to work.
You seems to see it as a relatively simple algebra : women have it worst than
men , Immigrant worst than non immigrant so immigrant women have it "super
worst". IMHO this is too simplistic, the way social identities blend together
can't be predict thsst way. The authors decided to relate her experience as an
immigrant, let's just respect that and not try to pull gender into when we d
ont have enough information to have a meaningful conclusion

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WalterBright
"No matter how much you try, things will sometimes not work at all, and some
other times, things will work with no effort."

If you keep flipping a coin, eventually you'll get 3 heads in a row. That
particular instance will be luck. But if you don't flip the coin at all, 3
heads in a row will never happen.

"I got the job."

You also completely changed your attitude in the job interview. There are
things in my life that I repeatedly and inexplicably (to me) failed at, and
when I changed my attitude, suddenly it started working. Was it randomness, or
was it my attitude change? Hard to say.

~~~
monocasa
The ability to continue to flip the coin is generally it's own kind of luck,
though.

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ccallebs
The article makes an extraordinarily valuable point: It's never going to be
only about hard work. But as an outside observer I also look at what she's
done and think "This is such a good example of perseverance and grit."

As Seneca supposedly said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets
opportunity". Sometimes opportunity is shy and you have to look a lot longer
than you'd prefer. But I fully believe that if someone keeps at it, they can
find their luck.

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WalterBright
> It's never going to be only about hard work.

The hard work idea is another manifestation of the Labor Theory of Value.
Working hard at the wrong thing will get one absolutely nowhere. It's really
about working smart, not necessarily hard.

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diegoserranoa
> I am still here at this job, and I love it a lot. I love the people and the
> work I do a lot. And my mom is fine. I still am in Germany, I have a
> wonderful boyfriend and I live in a very cute house. All of this, despite my
> effort, may have never happened, who knows?

So hard work did pay off...

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keyboardhitter
Completely relatable about going into interviews stone cold after having an
emotional meltdown. I often wonder if this forced emotional distance is
favorable to interviewers, and perhaps, the successful interviews i have in
this mindset appear to be luck/chance _because_ of the distance itself.

The more emotionally detached i am from an opportunity, the less i am thinking
about all the work ive done and the associated emotional/mental stress that
surmounted to each moment. As a result i probably appear less desperate, less
anxious, more confident, and more easygoing.

I also consider the fact that displaying less emotion is more relatable to
men. It's a tough spot to be in, but very interesting to reflect on
nonetheless.

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jastingo
I do believe that hard work is not always sufficient for professional success,
but I think the author here actually makes a pretty good case for why hard
work pays off. Yes, timing is so important, but being ready to take advantage
of when the right time comes can be just as crucial as having "good luck".

The reality is there are always externalities that are not under one's
control. That's a given. Being prepared, for the good and the bad, is all we
can really do to increase our chances of succeeding.

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hprotagonist
fortune favors the prepared mind. The converse is not guaranteed.

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ska
Luck, privilege, talent[1], and hard work - all typically contribute to
success. Any one alone is very unlikely (but not impossible) to lead to it.

Obviously you can only have direct impact on some of these, so it's worth
concentrating effort there.

[1] "talent" here is somewhat hand-wavy mix of skill and experience

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thisisit
One of things I feel which should be covered in colleges are interviewing
skills. Lot of times I see people who have the right mindset but their answers
doesn't reflect their abilities too well.

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pricetag
I can attest to perseverance and luck having been crucial to my success as a
developer. Getting in the door for an internship was a numbers game, as I was
still in community college and most companies don’t take candidates like that
seriously.

After getting in though, personality and hard work factored more in carrying
me through to better opportunities (luck was still involved though).

I suspect your journey will be the same from here on out, and you don’t seem
to lack perseverance and personality. So good luck!

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trabant00
The oversimplification of cancer and smoking:

Smoking has been overly simplified to “If you smoke hard, you will achieve
cancer.” But I've been smoking hard for 20 years and no cancer yet! My
grandfather smoked his lungs till he was 82 and never had any cancer either.
Whenever I hear that smoking kills I get triggered!

~~~
polotics
Well the P53 gene is kind of know, as long as all your lungs cells' chromosome
17 don't get hit you will be fine. Good luck with your habit.

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slack3r
__I am average at my studies, what seemed to be super easy to my peers seemed
strenuous for me.__

This is probably going to controversial, but her core problem seems to be an
insufficiently high g-factor. She could have contributed to a prominent open
source project like the Linux kernel or the C++ compiler. The only barriers to
entry are technical competency and ability to focus.

__Hard work has been overly simplified to “If you work hard, you will achieve
your dreams.”__

This is true assuming your dreams are calibrated to your capabilities. I
presume the problem was her map was not in sync with the territory. Elon Musk
can dream about going to Mars. I can't because I simply lack the
willpower/drive/intelligence to achieve that.

We need to stop perpetuating the egalitarian fantasy. All men are not created
equal.

~~~
cc81
So you think someone with Masters in Power Engineering and Digital Technology
Management should contribute to the Linux kernel as a way to improve their
chance for work?

Really?

~~~
slack3r
No. I simply pointed out that someone with sufficiently high intellect would
have found other ways to get a job. Unless she is a statistical anomaly people
in her situation would have similar experiences. I see no evidence that she
was particularly unlucky, and even if she was ― bad things happen to people
all the time.

The central point I was trying to make was that hard work pays off, if you are
smart enough.

For example, Jeff Dean currently heads Google Brain despite having not having
a PhD in machine learning (his PhD was on whole program optimization of object
oriented languages). Or John Carmack starting Armadillo Aerospace would be
another example.

I expect to be downvoted again, but I stand by what I said.

