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Comment by aj7 | Hacker News Reader

250k lifetime? So he should get another $6k. Teachers and engineers don't work for money. And there are often bad consequences for people who "don't work for money."

I worked in sales so I could afford to be an engineer later. There were plenty of ex-teachers in sales. They did well.

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>Teachers and engineers don't work for money. And there are often bad consequences for people who "don't work for money."

This is a metnarrative[0]. It is a thing that people say not because it is true but because it is useful to create a larger narrative that is perceived as useful within the social sphere. Peopl, especially engineers, are socialized to believe it and normed to say it. The result is very simply lower pay for their labor. It is a post hoc justificication.

[0] Sorry to lazy at the moment for a real cite so heres a wiki one...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative....A metanarrative (also meta-narrative and grand narrative; French: métarécit) in critical theory and particularly in postmodernism is a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience, or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealized) master idea

Dressing up a bad argument in the rhetoric of a derelict academic philosophy does not make it interesting or correct. Especially when all you are doing is describing a concept rather than telling us why it applies in this case.

Besides, if there is a fallacy in the OP's statement surely it is not the assertion that teachers don't prioritize money so much as the assertion that engineers do. At least among the software engineers I know (and I suspect the same holds for most people on HN), engineers are as multifaceted in their approach to work as anyone else. Most people would happily trade off non-trivial amounts of wealth for other social values such as work-life balance or work on projects that have personal meaning. The most unhappy workers anywhere are those who can only choose between jobs based on their salary.

So true! Case in point: people considered it "oniony" for a top teacher to leave the state for one that pays teachers better. The metanarrative has made it risible for high-star teachers to shop around for better salaries like star basketball players would! That's ridiculously unfair, press them into a kind of charity role.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/6ktzx1/teacher...

>> Teachers and engineers don't work for money.

You're right. I hit the comment button and was going to say you're damn wrong - I have done a lot to increase my pay with each new job. I wouldn't be at work if not for the money. But then I realized you're right too. I don't think about money much at all when I'm a work. I do try to make a good product, and I do worry about bill of materials and production cost, but I don't focus on money coming to me because that's already been agreed upon. Is that what you meant by that statement?

An engineer doesn't want to make a bad product, but if a company has a good product they don't even need to hire a salesperson

That's not necessarily true. There are thousands of examples of good products that failed due to lack of marketing.

Both Boeing and Airbus make good airplanes. Nevertheless, they hire expensive salespeople and pay them massive commissions. They don't just tell the airlines to download a pdf brochure of the planes' specifications and call them when they're ready to place an order.

People making statements such as "good products sell themselves" are probably thinking about gadgets like iPhones that don't require "greasy used car salesmen" with high-pressure tactics to close a sale. Yes, the Apple employees at stores are more like order takers than salespeople.

However, many well-engineered products absolutely require salespeople to close the deal. I was recently researching $100k CNC milling machines -- there are several brands with quality engineering and yet they all have salespeople to guide prospective customers about configurations and persuade me to buy. Trying to decide purely based on information posted at the manufacturers website and printed brochures would be unwise. Yes, the general "concept of a CNC machine" sells itself but a particular brand & particular model of CNC does not.

As an Account Manager, I research about my customer and reach out to them once I am convinced we can add value. Not just sell them stuff.

But you can't trust what the company says about its own product, so you really you're talking to someone who can negotiate a contract where you get your money back if it sucks.

If they get their money back, does the contract negotiator lose their commission again?

That's very true if you're selling something with a low value (most things consumers buy really), but you're dreaming if you think you can sell a technical product to a business for $10k + without salespeople. Enterprise sales is more like project management than what you probably think of when you hear "sales." Especially when you've got to pass through engineering, finance, procurement and legal to get a deal across the line.

Replacing one teacher in the bottom 5% with an average one got the student $250k more over their lifetime. So the average teacher is generating around $135,000 more than the poor teacher.

And equating teachers to engineers makes no sense, I've met dozens of people in some engineering school to make money.

That seems questionable. In a lot of school systems, the best teacher may be the difference between a kid ending up in jail or not, but kids that are flirting with that line aren't going to be particularly successful on aggregate. And American society loves sending black kids to jail. So, what's the value add there?

It's so much more complex than that.

Yes, this is talking about the "average class." Individual circumstances vary in both directions, that doesn't make it questionable. Though, the difference between going to jail or not pretty quickly adds up to the 250k number.

Yes, this is way more complex than my two minute writeup of a small chunk of a 94 page paper.

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