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Comment by eloff | Hacker News Reader

Job progression up the ladder is mostly inferior to lateral progression to a new company. That's partly why people stay such a short time in a role.

You'll get no loyalty, humanity, or recognition from the company. Give them the minimum to keep them happy and keep your job and focus the rest of your energy on something that will benefit you.

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If you are inclined to give your minimum at something you spend time on everyday, it essentially means you shouldn't have started it in the first place.

Unless you are forced to do work you don't enjoy (work is what brings food to the table etc.), you should obviously find better work. Also, even if you are stuck, try to get out of it as soon as possible.

Choosing to do work you don't care about is simply bad decision making due to lack of understanding. In the long run it may even reduce the quality of your life.

I wouldn’t even say in the long run. I mean even at 22 if you hate your job so much that you’re going to the bar every night (been there), that isn’t a long term detriment, it’s an immediate one. Maybe you can excuse it and avoid thinking about it at that age because “everyone does it”, but that is exactly the kind of thinking that gets you into trouble with pretty much anything.

You can take pride in your work, you can do a good job, you can even enjoy it (I don't usually). But when it's quitting time, unless it's an emergency, you're done. And if I overwork some days because of deadlines or emergencies, I will underwork when the dust settles. That's fair.

I'll spend my time after work contracting or working on my own projects. Both of which benefit me more than over achieving in my day job.

And this is if you're working for someone else. If you have a stake - if it's something you are an equal partner with your collaborators on, something you believe in and stand to draw immensely from and have true decision-making ability - then of course it's reasonable to push more. You've already placed your stake, you want to be able to hold onto it.

But if you've been broughton to a project and you're not offerd that kind of stake, if you're there just for your labor, it's unreasonable to be asked for more than what was initially agreed upon, and it's also unreasonable for that initial offer to have included some kind of expectation of open-ended practice when compensation was defined and finite.

Exactly. I work 50-60 hours a week if I get paid by the hour. More if it's my own company. If it's a standard 40 hour week, then that's all I work. That's the deal we agreed to. The company doesn't give me anything for going that extra mile, so I just do regular hours and I save my energy for me.

I've never got a raise or a promotion, except by changing jobs. I got a bonus once. I've also been let go with 0 days notice the day before my birthday, without so much as a thank you. Companies treat you as an expendable cog, and that's what I give them in exchange. It's fair.

> Give them the minimum to keep them happy and keep your job and focus the rest of your energy on something that will benefit you.

In my experience this is the type of person in your team that - instead of consulting colleagues to arrange holidays cooperatively and ensure there's cover available, and that parents do ok given the extra encumbrances they're subject to etc. etc. - goes ahead and books out a whole year's leave at the earliest opportunity to maximise their own benefit.

Some of the least pleasant people I've had to work with were the ones that saw it as an inconvenience.

You may think they are unpleasant, but they may be happier for it. Perhaps they prioritize their time with friends and family above their relationships at work. They're turning other people's loyalty to the company and solidarity with colleagues to their advantage. It's not an irrational strategy if it maximizes happiness.

Have you worked in HR or management where these career paths are created?

Why doesn't it make sense to keep really good employees? If you know they are really good? Why does it make more sense to let that person go and pay some "maybe good" person up front much more?

Conventional wisdom, plus a few studies, has shown that if you want to get 15% or more of a raise, you need to jump somewhere else. Since they're hiring from the market, they have to offer (decent) market rates, while your current job is going to keep paying you at whatever rate you agreed to.

After a while it becomes a self-fulling prophecy -- they know you're jumping in 2-3 years, so they're not even going to try to keep you.

The talent pool isn't shrinking, either, so there will be more devs, and more IT guys -- be they in Seattle, or India -- as things more forward. This means they can probably find someone to replace you, and while it may be a loss of productivity, the lower salary (relative to increasing yours) may offset the costs.

Plus inside threats are big -- a senior dev-ops guy who has been there for 8 years knows how to break things just right, skim things off the top, or just take a "agent fee" from some vendors to push for their product to be rolled out. Keep em under a 3-4 years and they can't get their roots in enough to damage things.

That didn't answer my question at all. You said "if you want to get a 15% or more raise, you need to jump somewhere else". That's just coming out of thin air or based on "other companies do it". If you do work in HR or as a manager, what's the rational basis deciding just that number?

The grass is greener where you water it.

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