Pay, sure, but pay doesn't make happiness. Working conditions? I doubt that. But that's a subjective thing, so it's hard to really measure.
Yet pay is the point of work, wouldn't you say?
> Working conditions? I doubt that.
As I noted, work conditions vary. But non-physical labor, remote possible, pushing the upper boundaries on vacation (unlimited vacation which isnt a scam), family leave, health insurace, etc. I think you really have to cherry pick to beat tech.
That doesn't mean we can't be miserable (and I've gone through a few bouts myself) but it's a great field right now.
Unlimited vacation would mean that you go to work never yet you remain on the payroll.
Obviously this is impossible. So “unlimited vacation” really means that there is a limit, but your employer either doesn’t know what it is or won’t tell you, and you don’t know what it is. So you have to worry about how much vacation to take because there is a limit, it’s just not definitized.
Always a 100% complete scam.
If someone actually thinks unlimited means working is optional, that's on them.
"Unlimited" means "without limit", which obviously can't be the case with vacation time, so it's deceptive to call it that. "Generous" would be better.
It has deceptive potential if someone has no knowledge beyond the literal words, and assumes that there are no other restrictions, which I don't think is the appropriate reference. Anyone actually involved with unlimited vacation is provided the full context on operation.
A policy name not being self contained and fully self explanatory does not constitute deception.
I think it is reasonably descriptive. There is no policy limit to the number of vacation days. It is discretionary. I think it is a bad deal for most, but don't think anyone is being tricked
“Unlimited vacation” is wantonly and aggressively inaccurate and is, therefore, a scam.
If that's what I thought about work, I would be quite depressed.
Fortunately, I find meaning in my work that has nothing to do with pay.
Of course, if I didn't get paid, it would be a problem -- but pay is very much not the point. (Especially because my needs are met.)
However, I don't think it says anything definitive about if the job sucks or not- There are far too many other factors. It says a lot more about life choices , priorities, and compromise.
Don't get me wrong, some jobs suck, but a lot of people also work great jobs they personally hate. For example, some people hate programing, corporate environments, and living in the bay area but do it for the $$$. That doesnt mean the job sucks, just that they have traded money for work they don't like. No amounts of employee perks is going to turn a programing job into being an artist, or whatever, if that is what someone actually enjoys.
Well, yes. I don't think there are many jobs that objectively suck. For almost all jobs, there are people who will be miserable doing them and there are other people who live for it. I should have said the "job sucks for them".
I could and would happily fill the rest of the week with a fire hose of my other obsessions.
Outside of that, I find my work to be meaningful in and of itself.
I wonder if many of the ills in our society are related to this: Many people don't see any dignity or meaning in their work. Maybe they're right. Maybe not. Either way, that's a big problem.
>I wonder if many of the ills in our society are related to this: Many people don't see any dignity or meaning in their work. Maybe they're right. Maybe not. Either way, that's a big problem.
I tend to think it is a central problem too. I think a big part of it is driven by individual overoptimization around the wrong the wrong parameters and a culture of commodification. The general sense I get is that most people spend their life doing meaningless work that makes them unhappy in hopes that they buy enough crap to net happiness. Im guilty of it too, but the older I get, the more confident I am that this simply doesnt work. You can't buy enough crap to break even. Moreover, I'm pretty suspicious of hedonism and the pursuit of happiness in general. I dont think happiness can be sought directly, but is only a byproduct of living with other objectives.
I had to take like 45 of those (the rest way convertible into money). I usually like time off more than money, but I couldn't find the time to plan those 60+ days (and I also was obese and on a very bad ankle, so hiking and 'cheap' vacations were harder to plan :/)
It is one of the purposes of work, but not the only one (if the job is a good one, anyway). But that's orthogonal to the point. An income is necessary to live, but it isn't what brings happiness.
> I think you really have to cherry pick to beat tech.
I think it depends on what you value. I've had plenty of low-wage manual labor jobs, and a couple of those had far better working conditions than most of what I experienced as a developer.
Previous job I was an Army officer in a tank unit. It's certainly not a bad job. National surveys consistently showed military officer as the second most respected profession behind medical doctors by the general American public. Camaderie is great. Sense of purpose is there. But the material work conditions? I regularly worked 100 hour weeks, got an hour or two of sleep a night, sometimes outdoors when it was -14 degrees, sometimes outdoors when it was 130 degrees (both Fahrenheit). Inhaling diesel fumes all the time. Doing ridiculous nonsense like carrying telephone poles up and down a bunch of hills at 1 AM for 20 km to earn the right to wear silver spurs on my boots on Fridays. Couldn't see my family for months at a time. Ended up with ten screws in my spine from all the bodily damage. You think stack ranking is bad in the tech industry? In the military, you have a hard deadline that puts you in a cohort where you're up for promotion, and depending on personnel requirements at the time, you either get one chance or two to get promoted, and you're out of a career otherwise. There is no other military you can apply to if you get laid off. People are fired if they get fat. Your boss is not only allowed to verbally abuse and publicly humiliate you, it's basically expected and normal as a motivational tactic.
It's very hard for me to imagine considering what I'm going through now to be bad working conditions.
>I regularly worked 100 hour weeks, got an hour or two of sleep a night, sometimes outdoors when it was -14 degrees, sometimes outdoors when it was 130 degrees (both Fahrenheit). Inhaling diesel fumes all the time. Doing ridiculous nonsense like carrying telephone poles up and down a bunch of hills at 1 AM for 20 km to earn the right to wear silver spurs on my boots on Fridays. Couldn't see my family for months at a time. Ended up with ten screws in my spine from all the bodily damage.
Surely you understand that this anecdote is the worst possible evidence of your thesis. Describing your before-vs-after delta as "statistically extreme" would be an understatement. This is like the most hyperbolic possible version of the "how can you complain when kids are starving in Africa" fallacy.
Personal experience as well as talking to other devs. I will caveat my assertion, though, by acknowledging that different people prefer different working conditions.
When I say that working conditions as a dev are poor, it's mostly because of the requirement to work in cube farms (or, worse, in an open-office layout) where you're constantly having to struggle to get things done amid a sea of interruptions and distractions.
> What other jobs have you held?
I've been a janitor, a hotel maid, a roofer, a ditch-digger, and various fast food positions.
As it is, I'm almost 100% in-office which I prefer, but that also goes to liking my co-workers and company as well.
Yes, I absolutely have, on multiple occasions. It's truly no fun.
Of the dozen people I know affected by the layoffs, only the ones without degrees are still without work. In fact two of them have not had a single interview beyond HR phone screen in months of looking, even with 7-10 years experience.
Note also that most of these people don't have CS or other relevant degrees, just degrees at all. Programming now seems to fall under the same rules as other white collar professions.
In fact, it may be the opposite - that huge tech companies are more likely to drop that requirement.
Building a network is absolutely key, people who enjoy working with you remember you and at some point you just become set
Yep, having a sibling working in healthcare who’s having to take classes now so they can keep doing what they’ve been doing. The classes of course have no direct relevance to the job being done.
Which government? That is manifestly not the case at any of the national governments I've worked with. I know engineers that didn't even finish high school that have done business with the US government in almost every employment arrangement possible.
If you're talking about the US government, this isn't true. It is true for certain specific types of contracts, but not most of them.
IME, >50% focus on what they don't have - which is why they complain so much.
Maybe we should find some spiritual leaders or other to hear from. At least Oprah might at least have some distant memory of what it was like to be poor I suppose.
Oprah is arguably the single most self-made billionaire in the history of the US.
She was almost literally dirt poor for her entire childhood, and was basically poor until her late 20s.
I think she gets a free pass here.