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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

You have to wonder if the key ingredient in this is the fact that tech jobs are booming. There's so much written about the job market, you tend to feel confident that you're in high demand.

I know a lady who was working for a startup that folded. She got told, then walked down the hallway in the same building, got hired by another startup. Boot camp grad.

There's even a person mentioned in the article who refused to work at Amazon, which I guess pays over $200k. Some people would do it out of principle regardless, but many more would find it easier to protest if they had high confidence they could find another job in that bracket.

I've seen sexual harassment suits happen in finance, and it hasn't led to any form of mass movement. People just get paid off and let out the back door.

In addition you have to ask about the effect of that hiring cartel being broken.

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You're right. It's also because we live in 1st world conditions, and once your basic needs are met, we strive to address the higher ones, like fulfillment and meaning.

I've worked with programmers who live in 3rd world countries like the Philippines, and notice a huge difference in the way they treat their job. When I give them a boring task, they don't ask what is this for, or why am I doing this? They just do it - on the flip side, they don't care about the product, or the company mission. I'm not saying this because it's good or bad, but this is just what I've noticed.

interesting. Sometimes I wish I was more like them, and things didn't bother me if they seemed boring or pointless. Seems like an innately selfish view, but one i'm having trouble rectifying.

After serving in the military (Air Force air traffic controller, so military lite) I align more with the 3rd country workers mentioned. Take the task, complete it to the best of my ability, move on to the next task. I don't care about the mission or domain. Im paid well, work from home and have relatively little stress compared to 11 years in the military. Searching for more meaning out of my work would create undue and unnecessary stress trying to find that unicorn role, which in reality doesn't exist.

I think the ‘find the unicorn role’ thing is a generational thing. So many of my peers (early 30s) are striving for the side hustle that will bring them millions while they chill on the beach. What happened to just going to a decent middle class job, doing your work, then going home and living your own life? It seems to me social media has created so much of this. It’s social media where people find the need for one-up-manship that leads them down these ridiculous paths.

Perhaps I’m delusional because I’ve been comfortable in my low stress, check out and go home, type of job for some period of time. I just don’t feel any desire to chase some kind of meaning in my work. Most of my coworkers seem to have the same outlook.

We are in the same peer group, of early 30s. Luckily, most of my peers don't have this line of thinking, although they do put great deal effort after hours into our line of work - data science / machine learning. They all want influence someone, somewhere - who are they attempting influence, I don't know.

I will admit I also an outlier for my age group. Have been married over a decade had kids in my early 20s without any debt (GI Bill helped here). Probably could have a bigger nest egg saved but traveled quite a bit before and after kids. This has resulted in different goals, and career trajectory than my peers. Both of our children will be out of the house when we are 46.

I 100% agree with you that social media has warped people's views of life. My social media presence is LinkedIn (and I guess here), just a page with one post. None of my hobbies I post about or share online, only through in-person interactions. Nor do I have smart phone, so I don't take pictures to share, thus we discuss what visiting a Nepalese village was like, instead of scanning a bunch of photos. In my opinion this creates a better relationship dynamic. I am sure there are things Im missing out on due to the extra step people need to take to invite me (a phone call) but I gladly trade it for the reduced information overload from a smart phone.

> What happened to just going to a decent middle class job, doing your work, then going home and living your own life?

I don't think that job exists any more. Or if it does, there are fewer and fewer of them out there.

I have a reasonably well-paid, low-stress developer job working on a product I believe adds value. But I don't get to go home and just switch off: I get emails at all hours of the day and night, and if the service goes down at 4 am (which has never happened yet) then I need to deal with it.

I'm not sure there are many jobs that pay middle class wages but only require 9-5/M-F levels of responsibility.

You're right. It's also because we live in 1st world conditions, and once your basic needs are met, we strive to address the higher ones, like fulfillment and meaning.

I live in the first world, in a city of about 100,000. According to numbeo it's a bit cheaper to live here than Seattle, but much more expensive than Dallas. I earn just under $60,000 USD as a developer, which is considered a good salary here.

I think you drastically over estimate the first world as a whole.

Counterpoint: "lazier" people might tend to look for smarter designs/automations more naturally. Can be valuable.

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