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Comment by kaiabwpdjqn | Hacker News Reader

I find this post to be relatively unimpressive. He spends a great amount of time complaining about how the company was shit in a way that implies he was personally offended, but the title says he got a generous salary for little expected work. It’s not clear to me why he is bitter about anything. I have no doubt that the company was genuinely poorly run. His observations about problems in the sales culture are likely true. But he could have left any time and instead chose to stay there for 3 years. And I get that leaving a job isn’t always an option for people but those reasons don’t feel relevant for his situation.

Author reads as overly entitled and arrogant imo.

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I don't read it as bitterness over his personal situation. Clearly it was pretty comfortable for him. It seemed to me more like bewilderment and amusement over the whole Kafkaesque abomination.

If I were in his position, I would've kept taking the paycheck without complaints, but once I was no longer there, I'd definitely consider writing something like this.

The fact that he turned down $50k to write this post makes me think it's more than just out of amusement

If he had another job lined up, the $50k was $0. He wrote about the other conditions which you are ignoring.

Is severance contingent on unemployment? I thought it was usually a flat amount.

It was an explicit condition of the contract. Not sure if it is legal though.

The author is experiencing cognitive dissonance because he was expecting professional life to push him to his limits, in an environment designed for maximal productivity and innovation, working with people who care about doing the best work of their life. A lot of overachievers in school have that outlook.

There are some jobs that are like this, but they are very few and far between. There are far more companies that claim to be like this when really it’s just a convenient excuse for treating their employees poorly.

The reality is that if you care about your craft a tiny bit more than average, you will most likely end up feeling that you are overpaid for trivial work, that you could do so much more for the company, that your coworkers and hierarchy are apathetic to things that do not directly affect them (and will seek to avoid any change as much as possible). The more you stay in this situation, the likelier you are to burn out.

If you are that kind of person, then you need to GTFO and start your own thing - have your own skin in the game - or accept that that’s the reality of being a mere employee. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do good work, btw - just that you’ll have to find your sources of life fulfillment elsewhere.

> The reality is that if you care about your craft a tiny bit more than average, you will most likely end up feeling that you are overpaid for trivial work, that you could do so much more for the company, that your coworkers and hierarchy are apathetic to things that do not directly affect them (and will seek to avoid any change as much as possible).

Damn, I've never read a better articulation of how I feel at work haha. I'm in cybersecurity and the box checking "just need to get through the next audit" mentality is RAMPANT.

This has to stop, or we'll never progress as a civilization.

See all this incompetence revealed across the entire economy and governance in the wake of COVID-19? Apathetic people ticking boxes is a big component of the cause.

Thank you for saying this. It’s much-needed food for thought in my current situation.

While I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop. This is not the way most of the world works and many people are "stuck" in very shitty situations that don't have many opportunities, out.

But with regard to the rest of your comment, absolutely. This guy is a knob.

> this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop

I don't think this applies when you are pulling down nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year - then I think you probably have quite a lot of freedom to just walk out the door anytime you want.

If the mortage/rental and family expense is in the same order of magnitude as the salary, it's little different than everywhere else.

Does this really apply to people earning as much as a quarter of a million? Surely at that point most of your money is disposable income?

>Surely at that point most of your money is disposable income?

Not if you're living in a major city with wife, kids, and a mortgage.

It doesn't matter what your salary is, if you've got a big old mortgage and a wife and kids then losing your income is really scary. What if the job search takes longer than you expected? What if it takes much longer? He's already remote working, that massively narrows down his options. It's not as simple as just "get another job" and every day he doesn't have a job, bills are piling up.

I feel like all of those concerns are nullified if you just don’t quit your job before lining up another... which is what people usually do.

The market is still desperate for developers so you can get away with it here. Technical interviews mean you have an alternative to your work history, so you can get jobs if you have skill but have some gaps or sudden departures. If anything, we've learned that finding the right fit is difficult. This is just knowing the market. If the market changes, then yes, people won't be able to suddenly quit as often.

There are some crazy boring jobs out there that will absolutely be fatal to any real passion and some people want to see where that takes them.

> this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop

On the contrary, when my friends/family complain about employment I'll usually ask them why they stay. While sometimes people just want to vent (and that's totally okay) there have been various instances where they realized that their notion that they need that particular employer was flawed and they've been able to move on to other gainful employment.

While the idea that people should just leave their job is overused and probably unrealistic for some individuals if you stop saying it you may miss a chance to help someone realize that they may be their own best bet for getting out of their current plight and move forward to something (hopefully) better.

I’m not sure what “most of the world” has to do with a guy making more than $200k a year. At $200k per year, you are in a very good position to change your circumstances.

Imagine going down to your local watering hole and lamenting about your circumstances that “stuck” you in your $200k job. Probably a pretty good way to get punched in the face.

I feel like I acknowledged that in my post. Most relevant concerns for “why don’t you just leave” are around having enough money to pay for basic needs, having other jobs, or finding a place that works for your geographic situation.

This guy got a huge salary in a market with tons of demand while working from home. There was no particular urgency to leave, so he could have casually looked. It also seems like he would have stayed there if he wasn’t let go.

And from the look of it was still writing about it years later.

Ditto. Taking into consideration average salary in US it is just asking for rather uncharitable read.

And that is not taking into consideration in demand skill set that could land him another like job with relative ease.

I don't often go for dismissive, but cry mich ein river.

> cry mich ein river

That should be "cry mir ein river". You want the dative case, because you are requesting that the river be cried for you.

"cry mir einen river" since river is masculine

"People called Romanes, they go, the house?"

Right. Now don't do it again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3gNdGHsEIk

I mean, sure Fluss is masculine... But it seems like borrowed English nouns generally end up masculine also. So sure, why not!

Thank you for that. I haven't used German since HS so I am a little rusty. I can still order a beer though.

With that said, I picked that particular version of the phrase from zero punctuation. I did not intend for it to be grammatically correct.

No worries... It's been almost 15 years for myself. Even when I was much better, I used to describe myself as competent enough to get into trouble, but not back out again.

Agreed. My work had a six month period where they wouldn’t really let me do anything meaningful while they were in analysis paralysis (other than keeping the ship steady) so I found other useful things to do and trained myself on some new tech. Clearly this is not the worst thing that has ever happened to a worker.

It is an interesting story and I can relate. I don't think anyone should feel sorry for the author or me though. In the grand scheme of things it is a good job, just a shitty company. I find Warren Buffet's commentary to be interesting as well but I don't feel sorry for him when he makes a mistake or has a problem.

I regret to inform you people can become weary of work/dollar as a metric, and can become enchanted with hands-on work or what they perceive as meaningful contributions.

Yeah that's fine, but it's informative to more junior people who might consider employment at pivotal so they can go in with more (if biased) information.

It’s a symptom of our dysfunctional industry. We are stuck in that old Annie Hall joke: “A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs”

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