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aaomidi

If you're an h1b worker you literally don't have a choice.

You obey or get yourself and your family kicked out of the country.

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How many companies seriously start revoking visa sponsorship the moment an employee pushes back on a Jira ticket?

Really the issue is being fired over it isn't it? The visa just makes being fired worse for employees requiring one.

I would hate to work at a company where a bit of debate on 'is this really a good idea' were a firable offence; sounds like the 'believe it or not - jail' scene from Parks & Recreation! That's satirising a visiting delegation from a developing country under military rule.

>I would hate to work at a company where a bit of debate on 'is this really a good idea' were a firable offence

Right, and you don't have to because your continued existence in a country isn't dependent on it. Companies with attitudes like that don't reveal it until it's too late.

I just think the existence/prevalence of such places is being wildly overstated... Especially without any sort of 'hey, stop pushing back on every issue, shut up and do your job or you won't have one' type warning.

But then I've never lived or worked in the land of the free, so what do I know.

As someone on a Visa - even a 0.0001% chance of being fired for saying something like this would shut me up.

So you walk on your toes all the time? That seems like a really unhappy way to live.

What's the alternative?

It just seems even less likely to be such an issue to me than unavoidable things like personality clashes, or getting stuck on some work that someone you report to thinks should be quick and easy, etc.

I hear you.

Same for if you’re disabled, your partner has a medical condition… moving between jobs can be cost less for some, but changing jobs is not cost less universally.

Which means in a given developer pool, there’s usually at least one person who “won’t put up a fuss about implementing industry standard code”.

You absolutely do have a choice. You just have to decide where your line is.

If you are asked to commit a crime by your employer, do you go ahead and do it for the sake of keeping your job? What about something legal yet highly questionable on moral grounds? Going ahead with an annoying UI feature you don't agree with is probably justified if the alternative is getting deported, but there's a threshold somewhere and it's different for everyone.

I've already explained this in the thread.

Not going to argue about how each person defines literally.

Yes because America, not China has exacerbated the conditions in India to make it so you have no choice to come to America. There won't be a timeline where the US relaxes their immigration laws to make something like this possible.

What in your opinion has America done to India?

Or if your employer is paying for your family's healthcare, or your school tuition.

> if your employer is paying for your family's healthcare

Isn't this true of every full-time job? But people quit and get new full-time jobs all the time.

Maybe in the US, but not in Europe. Health care and the education of your children is largely not dependent on your job. Shades of grey of course, I don't think university education is free in the UK anymore (it was when I was at university) and private health care does exist

Medical Feudalism is just how things work in the United States.

So you literally do have a choice. There’s just a consequence (There are worse things than not living in America, hard as that might be for you to imagine.)

You're going to say no to writing a timeout code and risk your entire family going back to your country?

What if you have kids who were born here? You're now going to take them back to a place they don't know? Or are you going to let them go to foster care here?

How about if you've bought a house here? You're going to have just a few months to settle everything before you can go.

Why would anyone contemplate leaving their children behind in foster care? That seems an absurdly hyperbolic suggestion. People move countries for work and take their children with them all the time. I mean, if the country was Syria and you literally risk death, then I could understand, but people in that situation are refugees, not on work visas.

Perhaps I’m finding this hard to understand since I have no desire to live in the US whatsoever and have turned down several offers from companies that wanted me to move there. Nice place to visit, but I can think of dozens of places I would rather live.

What country are you based in? Have you ever lived in a country with extreme poverty or an oppressive government?

The kid is a US citizen and doesn't know any language other than English. Depending on the home country that might be a huge huge obstacle for the kid.

I was once that kid who had to go back to Iran without knowing Persian. It was fucking terrible.

Yes, moving to a country is hard when you don’t speak the language. Can I ask, why did your Iranian parents not ensure you learned Persian if moving back was a possibility?

Because it was something I resisted and made me miserable trying to learn in another country.

They did the right thing because I was able to still have a childhood that wasn't bogged down with learning Persian.

Why would you risk all of those things on the whim of an employer.

I swear the US must be the worst possible country in the world to emigrate to.

(Right, like returning to a country you were trying to escape.)

If you're here from a country that you had to escape, then you're a refugee, and unlike H-1B immigrants, refugees don't have to leave just because they lost their job.

There's a ton of people who had to (or really wanted to, makes no difference in this case) escape a country that did it using their skills as a programmer.

But the vast majority moved because they could make more money in the US. They behave unethically because they don’t want to give up that income. It’s a purely mercenary calculation. And it does make a difference whether it’s a want rather than a need. I want lots of things, but if I behave in a shitty way to get them I should be condemned.

I’m sure there are some people in the unfortunate position you describe, and in their case it’s understandable. But it’s not the general case.

People who moved for the money likely went to FAANG instead.

Actually, I got interested in this and checked trustarc's careers page and it seems most technical positions are in Philippines/Canada with a mention of "global team" so I'm convinced now all this thread is arguing about strawmen and in reality the product is being written by some remote contractors from third world country who will be easily replaced by a million others if they refuse.

The corporate leaders that make the decisions are the ones that should resign on principle. Not the theoretical H1B employee who would uproot their family, derail their career, distress-sell their house, leave the country, etc., over the setTimeout line.

Because US employment laws are terrible. For everyone, not just h1b workers.

Land of the free, they say!

Why do you assume it’s an H1B worker? I don’t see where you get this baseless accusation from.

What if 3 US citizens said "fuck no", and it was someone on much shakier ground who felt the pressure to say yes? Not a given at all, just makes it more likely.

It really seems horribly racist to just assume that it must be the “lesser moral” H1B employee who made this dark pattern happen. You have zero evidence, no indication that’s the case, and are speculating wildly.

It isn't even slightly racist. It isn't a comparison of morals between the H1B worker and U.S. citizen; the employer simply has more leverage over the H1B worker.

But where is this assumption of a H1B worker causing this coming from? Literally zero indication of this, just a racist strawman.

What a depressing thread this has been.

I am a brown immigrant. I am critiquing America's system.

Uh, immigrants from Europe are also on a H1B as far as I understand it. How do you associate it with racism?

Europeans on h1b have a very easy path to citizenship so it's not really the same.

I'm not seeing any claim that an H1B employee is less moral, only that a person (regardless of visa status) can be coerced into doing something they would rather not do.

Also, there is no inherent racial component to an H1B or other status.

The example of an H1B person seems to have been provided only as a sample to further illustrate the point that "Just quit on principle, rather than implement this thing!" is often not an acceptable action due to other effects.

This whole thread has nods to moral high ground US citizens, versus the immoral scared H1B workers, who are /obviously/ the only ones who would implement such a dark pattern. Mind you we’re discussing an American company, working with American clients.

You seem to be one of those “assume good faith” people, who knows exactly what the others actually mean.

>Mind you we’re discussing an American company, working with American clients.

And everyone in this thread is discussing how that company could be using American laws to pressure workers. This thread is an indictment of an American system, no one is blaming the H1B workers.

Is being an H1B worker now an accusation? This was me pointing out that our VISA system forces a huge chunk of our workforce to not have a strong ability to stand up to their employer.

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