Comment by incepted | Hacker News Reader

Comment by incepted | Hacker News Reader

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> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company

Any citation about this claim? Because in my experience, it's completely incorrect.

Outside of the US, lifetime employment is a heavily coveted goal, because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%.

Inside the US, except for white collar workers in major cities, long time employment remains the holy grail of most of the workforce, even though the US economy is in a pretty good shape overall.

Interestingly, even though Dan Lyons technically belongs to the white collar community that is probably not interested in lifetime employment, it's pretty obvious to me that when he joined that semi-startup, his goal was a lot more to write a book about it than embracing the party line and planning a long career there.

I mean... you're hiring Fake Steve Jobs and when he's out of the company, your executives try to illegally get a copy of the book with the futile hope that it won't get published... Seriously? What did you expect?

I think it's overwhelmingly a generational thing, not a "white collar" thing. Older white collar workers still want/expect lifetime employment, while young workers of all kinds are more comfortable with labor fluidity.

The vast majority of my young friends are uninterested in jobs which would provide lifetime employment. (As am I.)

Honestly, it was incredibly risky for HubSpot to hire Lyons and the outcome seems predestined. He came in with completely mismatched expectations and an ax to grind.

This is also a huge contributory factor to ageism in tech. Of course you won't hire older people when they expect lifetime employment at a startup which might not even exist in a few years.

Sure, it's a generational thing.

However, I'm not sure if that's a matte of preference or realism. Our generation knows that "lifetime employment" at a single company does not exist any more. The only way to remain sane is to accept the reality.

I'm a student know, and repeating the same summer job search process every spring is stressful. I don't look forward to future with joy, but what alternatives there are?

While true lifetime employment might be extinct, there are still gradations in job security. Your tenure at a large corporation or government job will generally be much longer that a startup. But you don't see people lining up to work in the government.

That's because job security isn't the only factor, obviously.

It's not exitinct per se, there are millions of jobs in government with great retirement packages. Some university jobs are basically for life too.

People don't want fluidity. A few moths of unemployment every few years wrecks most people's long term savings.

Now if you have no kids or major bills and a high paying job then sure it can feel like a vacation. But there is a reason unemployment is often considered one of the most stressful periods in someone's life.

I think there are still plenty of people who would be willing to sign up for a lifelong job with a single organization, but it's nearly impossible for any organization to actually fulfill their end of the bargain. How many companies are likely to last the 40-50 years of a person's career?

I don't think we are more comfortable with it, the people I know think it sucks and would usually love to stick with the same company if they are given stuff they like to work on. It's great when I get to work with someone who has been with a company for 10 or 12 years. We do have an understanding though that the jerks that are running most of these startups don't think that way and we have to just put up with it.

We strongly believe that longer-term relationships are generally better; how often is your first 6 months on the job the most productive? And if you look at successful companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, they tend to have low turnover among their key people.

This is why many people, even today, take government jobs... not for massive pay, perks or fun offices but to build a stable life.

Have you ever left the US?

There is no way not wanting lifetime employment is something unique to the US, it seems far more likely that it would be connected to status than nationality (and that has been my experience for what it's worth)

> Have you ever left the US?

Please don't do the personal-swipe-as-a-question thing. Your comment would be good without that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm not American... so that's a yes. I'm not arguing about the desire for lifetime employment, I'm criticizing the previously quoted nonsense generalization.

I spent the first thirty years of my life in a European country.

"because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%."

Nice stats you just pulled out of your ass

I think it's pretty clear that we're talking about white-collar, US-based, urban workers and not about a rural Argentinian engine mechanic

That is a total misreading of the comments you are replying to. First of all, it's not at all clear that only white collar employees are what is being referred to in that book. Secondly, the book appears to be not just targeted to the U.S. market, but globally.

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