It might seem OK when you're single, childless, etc. but once that time starts coming from your family you will realize what a prison you've built yourself.
STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
It might seem OK when you're single, childless, etc. but once that time starts coming from your family you will realize what a prison you've built yourself.
STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
The treadmill of re-inventing the technology wheel also looks like a prison.
I guarantee you that a talented kernel hacker, with a few weeks of reading the docs and writing some toy examples, would be just as productive in React as the front-end developer with years of experience.
I work in a pretty niche industry, where hiring people with specific experience in the tech stack is rare or impossible. So, I see this up-close and personal all the time. Fluid intelligence, an understanding of computer science fundamentals, and a demonstrated history of delivering results trumps specialized experience with the specific technology. Every. Single. Time.
Keeping this in mind relieves some of the anxiety of keeping on the treadmill. You might feel like if you don't start getting experience with Kubernetes or Typescript or Airflow that you'll be left behind. The reality is that if you're smart, then if/when you need Kubernetes/Typescript/Airflow, you'll be able to pick it up in a week or two.
I think some of the industry-wide problems with this come down to the fact that HR is too involved in the recruiting process. The typical job listing gets written by someone who's never written a line of code in their life. They just walk down to engineering, talk to the manager, hear something like "we're using Kotlin", then decide to add "5 years of Kotlin experience required".
I think that actually helps you look for generic skills and generally good people - if you're guaranteed that your interviewee doesn't have the direct skills your position requires, you look for the generic stuff. I don't know if that translates to other places, who like you said don't need someone smart who can roll with things, but instead a very particular set of skills.
After that, whatever is next on the treadmill is just some new syntactic sugar on top of the fundamentals taught in that book, which you can pick up with a minimum of time and effort.
Occasionally there is something truly new, but those are few and far between.
Also, if you are seriously worried about your earning potential, read this and learn to really apply it, before picking up another Javascript framework:
I really hope so.
I love what I do, but I don't ever want to give people the impression or example that becoming a technical leader requires working 50+, 60+ hour weeks. I maintain a work/life balance, and I want people to see that you can maintain that balance at all levels.
I hear first hand accounts of L5 to L6 employees and first level managers working unbelievably hard. The pay off is probably "worth it" if they or their kid don't end up being "a statistic". To be in this place (CEO, Founder, AppMaGooSoft) the odds were always in their favor to begin with. So why would the odds be unfavorable going forward? As a result there will always be a group of employees willing to throw themselves head first into whatever "challenge" "management" throws down.
I don't mean that it's bad to work hard, or long sometimes. But it MUST cause the employer some pain.
I'm talking about salary jobs where meetings scheduled to end at 6 routinely run past 6:30 (even though daycare closes at 6:30 too). Where you get non-actionable pages all the goddamn time because it doesn't cost the company anything. Where you say better integration tests should be a higher priority, but nah, it's all good we've got Datadog alarms set up so let's launch that bad boy! Where week-long work trips come with the assumption you'll fly on Sunday and Saturday with no time off in lieu, and people ask how they can reach you on vacation.
It's not OK even when you're single and childless as well. The fact that people think it is is revolting.
"You shouldn't work hard because if you do, it makes me look bad and I don't want to look bad or work hard."
Some people have lives and the capacity optimized towards working many long hours. You can't tell us to stop, it's not fair.
Also, it's OK to work hard. Work your ass off if you like. Just try not to get shafted. If nothing else it would help if overtime rules were meaningful.
But there's nothing wrong with solo work that involves working late.
I would argue the cowards who refuse to ever stand up to employers are the cause. If you aren't able to push back on your boss, you're fucked regardless of how many hours I choose to work.
There is a problem in thinking any one thing is "the cause". It's a multi-faceted problem of many self-reinforcing causes. The comment above talking about "shifting the culture to make it that much more acceptable" is a nod to the subtlety of what contributes to this.
All parties, employers and employees both, need to see how they do this.
I see no "nod to subtlety" as you claim. All I see is a claim that one employee's overwork is what enables the boss to force you into overwork.
For this to happen one needs 1) routine culture of overwork, 2) and employer who leans into this fact, and 3) an inability or unwillingness to push-back.
If you solve for #3 you've made #1 and #2 irrelevant.
Calling for others to stop willingly work as much reminds me of an old film I'd seen as a kid wherein a new employee starts at a loading dock, and after his first highly performant day the old-timers come along and give him a talking to about his making them look bad.
You'll only look bad if your team and boss expect the "above and beyond" to become the new norm, and this isn't a rule. It is a result of shit conditions.
Just as expecting your coworkers to go above and beyond is bad, so is chiding them for willingly working harder than you.
I have seen it in very mundane things that are not nearly of the magnitude of consequence of this topic. And also, in big things, such as expectations around working hours and standing up to unreasonable requirements.
Perhaps one aspect is that if a behavior is perceived to be a path to success in an organization, it will be emulated, rightly or wrongly, consciously or not. It's important to create an environment where many can thrive.
Your point is sound. It's also more ascerbic than it needs to be.
But if what you mean is that employees have a choice between passively accepting the status quo or trying to act collectively to improve their conditions, then yes, I agree.
It's just not true at all, and seems quite dramatic. A lot of people enjoy working on weekends or putting in long hours some days. When I was younger I would do it regularly, and I certainly don't begrudge or "hate" younger, childless colleagues who do that now, even if they involve me sometimes. Nor did I build myself a "prison". Stop demanding people live their lives how you want them to.
Who are these people? Don't extrapolate your anecdote.