Comment by Damogran6 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Damogran6 | Hacker News Reader

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I’m coming to the uncomforable conclusion that we’re ALL doing a dance. Programmers make a product, Managers manage the people, HR protects the company, Legal protects HR, the Shareholders leverage the Executive Staff to make their profit margins.

But in all of this, very little ACTUAL STUFF happens.

(I say this as a security guy, who’s line on the balance sheet is ALWAYS in the cost column.)

So much of what we do is bullshitgrinding that it doesn’t really pay to look at the whole thing too closely. So refactor for the 99th time, and review the 12th latest greatest web server or database connector or infrastructure as a service solution and try not to get too hung up on it…

On any given day, fewer than half of people with jobs really need to work. A lot of people attend their job and don't really do work -- not because they're lazy -- but because deep down they know it doesn't really matter.

We (collectively) invent work to slow ourselves down, or create jobs that don't really need to exist. We know that people who want jobs need to have things to do, but maybe that there just isn't that much that needs doing. George Jetson pushed a single red button for a living. There's a certain truth behind why the show's creators gave him that.

This has been the case at least long enough before the movie Office Space came out to have been well understood by then.

https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/

Your final sentence nails the fact of our work (and by proxy, business investment) is short-lived. So many apps that I've contributed to in the business world end up getting tossed after a few years. It's often because of some change in the business - like some new manager wants to deliver some fancy project so they can put it on their CV.

So long as this is going on, there will be a need for developers

It's why it's called busyness ;)

costs don't go on the balance sheet :p

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