Five Pillars of Work
Evaluating how dope a job is or is not
I’ve been in a bit of a “transition period” with work for the last six months, mostly doing a variety of freelancing, while I spend some time figuring out what’s next. Whether or not this strategy of “figuring out what’s next” is effective or not remains to be seen. One thing I have figured out is a fairly simple mental model for approaching potential work opportunities. This is certainly an ever-evolving work in progress, but it has been a helpful lens to evaluate “transition period” exit routes.
What you work on (field)
”Is this something you will enjoy working on?”
Not to be confused with “What is your dream job?”Where you work on it (location)
Is this job in the place you want to live (or remote, if that’s your preference)?How much time you spend on it (hours)
Is the time commitment something you are comfortable with?
Absent other factors, very few people want to work more hours on something.Who you work on it with (people)
Are you cool spending 2,000 hours per year with these folks?
You will spend more time with these people in two weeks than the average adult will spend with their parents in a year.How much you get paid (money)
Does the compensation meet your financial needs?
This may seem like a surprise to some, but everyone has different requirements/lifestyles/preferences. So for simplicity, the answer to each of the italicized questions should be binary (yes or no), which allows everyone to weigh each pillar according to their preferences.
Hitting “yes” on five out of the five pillars is a dream job and you should thank your lucky stars that you were born tall enough and talented enough to be an NBA player, for example. Four out of five is an incredible job and you should be grateful you get to design apps for Lord Zuckerberg for a quarter-million dollars per year.
Three out of five is where most people will find themselves, likely missing on the field (you may not be sure what you will enjoy) and the money (they are not paying you enough to do this job you don’t enjoy, forever). Two or less, you need to get out now. Please.
One caveat to this made-up eval system is the sixth “learning” pillar. At various points in your career, you may be able to justify not hitting more of the other points if it’s a great learning opportunity. In other words, Are you going to learn more in this role than you would in a role that hits more of the five pillars? Learning, in this case, is only valuable if what you’re learning helps you open more doors at your next step.
Being honest with myself about work and my desires, through this framework, has been really helpful in making an educated guess about just how green the grass is on the other side. By the next time I write for Just a Thought, I’ll have a better idea of how I’m going to spend my next six+ months, and will report back on how many of the five pillars are being hit.
Nathan Florence Takes New York
It is often noted that the weather in New York is glorious on September 11, just as it was on that horrific day in 2001. What is less commented upon is that there tend to be amazing waves in the New York area on that day as well, just as there were in 2001. This is not another 9/11 post (don’t think I have it in me), but rather a surfing one. Hurricane Larry brought some amazing waves to New York last week, and Nathan Florence made the trip from Hawaii to get in on the action. I always love watching pros catch great waves in New York. East coast surfing is extremely fickle so many people outside of the area don’t believe that the swell gets as decent as it does. So seeing Florence make the trip and score just a month after riding some of the heaviest waves ever in Tahiti felt like nice validation.
—Justin
His Basketball Camp Made Hall of Famers. Now He’s One, Too.
Scouting high school basketball is a big (and oftentimes, seedy) business. But Howard Garfinkel combined a gentlemanly nature with the right amount of grandfatherly crank as he patrolled sidelines at his Five Star Basketball Camp. Garfinkel was recently inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame albeit posthumously. This Times story does a nice job of describing why that was a much-deserved accolade. I used to cover high school hoops a bit when LeBron was at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s and enjoyed watching Garf confab with insiders from afar. He always came off more as a mentor than a profiteer, which is very rare in that business.
—Justin
Death by Ross Ulbrecht
Ross Ulbrecht, the infamous founder of the Silk Road, is as polarizing a figure as the morality of a life without parole sentence, of which he is currently serving. For the full Ross Ulbrecht story, I highly highly recommend Nick Bilton’s American Kingpin – it’s remarkable that that man is the one who penned this 5 minute essay on death. Whether or not you know the Silk Road story and how Ross Ulbrecht ended up “condemned to die in a cage,” this is likely to force a little self-reflection in a way that most things you read cannot.
—Andrew
The case against "perfect" jawns
I think Justin and I feel similarly about superstar “sletter,” Blackbird Spyplane: the content is good, but the writing style can be a lot. I really love their pitches to get people to subscribe (few examples in this piece). As a pre-paywall-Wirecutter-loyalist, I really loved this case against the optimization of everything. Optimization in how I dress is more from a versatility standpoint, given the whole nomad carry-on thing, but I’m fully on-board with what they’re pushing here.
—Andrew