Hacker News with Generative AI: Work

Retool Agents (retool.com)
The AI industry has invested $1 trillion to build the most sophisticated reasoning engines in human history. Yet today, we use them as glorified writing assistants — copy-pasting their output into the actual systems where work happens. This isn’t AI’s failure. It’s ours.
AI, Software, Productivity, Work, Automation
18 points by conroy 30 days ago | 0 comments
Show HN: 1 min workouts for people who sit all day (shortreps.com)
Sneak in exercises to keep you powered up during your busiest days
Health, Exercise, Productivity, Work
153 points by melvinzammit 34 days ago | 85 comments
The Bargain of Working Hard and Getting a Job Simply Doesn't Hold Anymore (slate.com)
In this economy, you can do everything right and still be unemployed—and not just if you’re a recent grad.
Economy, Employment, Labor Market, Work
5 points by tekdude 34 days ago | 1 comments
JPL to Transition to Onsite Work (nasa.gov)
In an email to employees, the director’s office announced that a transition to fully onsite work will occur this year.
Work, NASA, JPL, Remote Work
7 points by cptroot 35 days ago | 0 comments
No matter what you do, always leave a breadcrumb (garrit.xyz)
This applies to work tasks just as much as it applies to hobbies. No matter what you do, always create some sort of breadcrumb that you or someone else can pick up down the line.
Productivity, Life Advice, Work, Personal Development
10 points by garritfra 38 days ago | 0 comments
Life lessons from 90-year-olds who are still working, active, financially savvy (msn.com)
Life, Retirement, Finances, Age, Work
5 points by domofutu 40 days ago | 0 comments
The Three C's of Meaningful Work (psychologytoday.com)
In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, employees are seeking more than just a paycheck—they want meaning in their work.
Work, Psychology, Meaningful Work, Career
9 points by exiguus 40 days ago | 2 comments
How AI made your life worse (miserablyemployed.com)
Look, when they told us AI was coming, we imagined something better. Not utopia exactly, but at least... easier. Fewer meetings. Less grunt work. Maybe time to see sunlight, maybe even touch grass. But instead? It’s the same bleak dystopia, just now with predictive analytics and chatbots that want your job. Welcome to the future. You still have to write reports. You still have to go to all-hands meetings.
Artificial Intelligence, Work, Technology, Dystopia
15 points by pooplic 40 days ago | 8 comments
Experience Doesn't Stack: The Myth of Collective Knowledge (joanwestenberg.com)
We treat knowledge like so much cargo. Stack it high enough, gather enough people, and surely you'll reach critical mass. Twenty smart people, each with a year of experience, must be just as good as one person with twenty years. Right?
Experience, Knowledge Management, Human Resources, Work, Myth
5 points by giardini 44 days ago | 0 comments
The cult of doing business (commonwealmagazine.org)
In his new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, historian Erik Baker calls this self-help ideology “the rot festering at the core” of our national obsession with work.
Entrepreneurship, Culture, Work, History, United States
151 points by Caiero 48 days ago | 126 comments
Miserably Employed (miserablyemployed.com)
Miserably Employed
Humor, Work, Jobs, Employment
11 points by ramijames 49 days ago | 0 comments
Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine (theregister.com)
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Serge," who, when he was just 16 years old, scored an amazing job: Working the night shift at a mainframe-for-hire company, alongside one of his friends.
Technology, Mainframes, Teenagers, Work, Retro Computing
7 points by Bender 52 days ago | 0 comments
Groundhog Day made me quit my job, move house and leave my girlfriend (theguardian.com)
When I saw Bill Murray’s classic comedy I realised that I was trapped in my own unfulfilling time loop
Life Choices, Movies, Personal Experiences, Relationships, Work
9 points by n1b0m 55 days ago | 1 comments
The coming knowledge-work supply-chain crisis (worksonmymachine.substack.com)
Remember the first time an autocomplete suggestion nailed exactly what you meant to type? Multiply that by a thousand and aim it at every task you once called “work.” AI is scaling the creation side of knowledge work at an exponential rate, but our decision-making tools and rituals remain stuck in the past. The imbalance creates bottlenecks in everything from code reviews to roadmapping and everything in between.
Artificial Intelligence, Work, Technology, Automation
259 points by Stwerner 61 days ago | 163 comments
Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad? (annehelen.substack.com)
A Bed Assembly Drama
Work, Job Satisfaction, Social Commentary
289 points by moonka 86 days ago | 309 comments
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019) (newyorker.com)
Open-plan offices offer few pleasures; one of them is snooping on other people’s browsing habits.
Moderation, Hacker News, Work, Social Media
20 points by flypunk 86 days ago | 1 comments
The April Fools joke that might have got me fired (blogspot.com)
Everyone should pull one great practical joke in their lifetimes. This one was mine, and I think it's past the statute of limitations. The story is true. Only the names are redacted to protect the guilty.
Humor, Work, Personal Stories
528 points by goldenskye 87 days ago | 252 comments
Ask HN: Best and worst jobs of your career and why? (ycombinator.com)
Ask HN: Best and worst jobs of your career and why?
Jobs, Career Advice, User Experience, Work
17 points by ronbenton 92 days ago | 5 comments
Microsoft introduce two reasoning agents for work: Researcher and Analyst (microsoft.com)
Today, we’re excited to introduce two first-of-their-kind reasoning agents for work: Researcher and Analyst.
Microsoft, Reasoning Agents, Artificial Intelligence, Work, Productivity
5 points by prestonlau 93 days ago | 1 comments
Sell yourself, sell your work (solipsys.co.uk)
Doing technically brilliant work may be enough for your personal gratification, but you should never think it's enough. If you lock yourself in a room and do the most marvellous work but don't tell anyone, then no one will know, no one will benefit, and the work will be lost. You may have derived personal satisfaction from it, but as far as the wider world is concerned, you may as well not have bothered.
Marketing, Self-Promotion, Career, Work
449 points by ColinWright 94 days ago | 173 comments
5 years after Covid, the return-to-office push is stronger than ever (cnbc.com)
Work, Business, COVID-19, Remote Work, Trends
7 points by alinajan 95 days ago | 0 comments
Show HN: I made a little tool called "Break Me" to help you cool off at work (breakme.now)
Productivity, Work, Stress Management, Tools
13 points by egretfx 95 days ago | 2 comments
The Tyranny of Work or Why Are We Still Measured by Our Productivity? (anticapitalistmusings.com)
The idea that work is a moral duty rather than a means of survival is so deeply ingrained we rarely question it. But as technology advances and work becomes more precarious, exhausting, and intrusive, it is worth asking why productivity remains the measure of a person’s worth.
Work, Productivity, Philosophy, Capitalism, Technology
13 points by robtherobber 105 days ago | 8 comments
Federal employees begin to receive second work accomplishment email (thehill.com)
Federal employees on Friday began receiving a second email asking them to list bullet points on what they did during the past week, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to recommend cuts to the workforce.
Government, Work, Efficiency, Politics
22 points by jarsin 118 days ago | 5 comments
DOGE will use AI to assess the responses of federal workers (nbcnews.com)
Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they had accomplished in the last week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary, according to three sources with knowledge of the system.
Artificial Intelligence, Government, Work, Automation
122 points by doener 122 days ago | 185 comments
Freelancing: How I found clients, part 1 (crocspace.substack.com)
It took me 2 years to get my first client as an independent freelancer.
Freelancing, Business, Work, Entrepreneurship
418 points by lzr_mihnea 123 days ago | 117 comments
Borrowing from a tactic at X, Elon Musk says government workers must (nytimes.com)
Elon Musk deepened the confusion and alarm of workers across the federal government Saturday by ordering them to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that a failure to do so would be taken as a resignation.
Elon Musk, Government, Federal Employees, Work, Resignation
14 points by jpster 124 days ago | 6 comments
Ask HN: Who's regularly using LLMs at work? (ycombinator.com)
For those of you that are, what do you do and what are you using them for?
Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Work, Industry Use
9 points by Graviscalar 133 days ago | 20 comments
Decisions are temporary, so make the call and move on (basecamp.com)
Done. Start to think of it as a magical word. When you get to done it means something’s been accomplished. A decision has been made and you can move on. Done means you’re building momentum.
Productivity, Decision Making, Psychology, Work
3 points by notpushkin 135 days ago | 0 comments
All federal agencies ordered to terminate remote work–ideally within 30 days (arstechnica.com)
All federal agencies received a memo Wednesday requiring the termination of remote work options, with return-to-office plans due by end of day Friday.
Government, Work, Remote Work, Policy
80 points by ralphsebastian 154 days ago | 134 comments