✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

If you are useful, it doesn't mean you are valued | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com · 28,404 words · saved by 1 readers

-Useful, Not Valued: Could be useful at non-strategic stuff, or does good work without self-marketing, or has bad management and needs to leave. - Useful, Valued: Ideal situation. reply reply Probably 5% of the time I'll get stuck completely and those days are immensely stressful but on the flip side, the 5% of the time I actually am able to silence the procrastination demon in my ear, those days are so satisfyingly productive. reply Advice would be to try to find a job or role doing something you’re interested it. A lot of the subject matter of my work is not that interesting to me, and the politics and lack of any sort of vision or leadership at most organizations these days makes project work sometimes stressful. But (maybe as a survival mechanism?) I’ve found that focusing on improving how I do my work and taking pride in my output (even if no one else notices) is a way for me to have some control over my work day. This way it’s about me and I’m not looking for external validation

If you are useful, it doesn't mean you are valued | Hacker News Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login If you are useful, it doesn't mean you are valued ( betterthanrandom.substack.com ) 850 points by weltview on June 2, 2025 | hide | past | favorite | 354 comments hn_throwaway_99 on June 2, 2025 | next [–] I feel like "useful" and "valued" are very poor terms for the situations described in the article. I think a much better explanation is that just because you may excel in one role (and be recognized as such) does not necessarily mean you'll excel in another rol

Explore this link on the map →

related reading