Hacker News Reader

Comment by moomoo11 | Hacker News Reader

Step 1: have a moral compass and don’t work for shit tier companies.

Is it really that hard?

I find it hilarious when people work for these garbage companies in the first place. And then I’m supposed to do what when they turn on you? Cool story?

It’s really on them imo. There are other jobs out there. Better yet you can do your own thing. But nah fam.

View on HN

Step 1: have parents rich enough to support you for a while so you don’t have to take a job with the shit company that exploits you

Is it really that hard?

I am from a third world and grew up without a bathroom and electricity. It’s not that hard to work 5-10 years as a swe and living below your means to accumulate a few 100k by the time one is 27-30.

Its not that hard to interview at multiple places and pick one that isn’t awful.

Excuses are easy though.

I’m sorry for implying that was your background, but I don’t think that blaming the worker for taking shitty jobs is remotely fair. The jobs aren’t shitty because of the workers; they’re shitty because the owner/upper hierarchy of the company, the people who make every single decision about the company’s structure and large-scale actions, want it to be shitty. Blaming people who need to work somewhere to feed their family or escape poverty for taking a job with a crap company that pays good money just seems completely backwards. Glad you could avoid that, but in the absence of good alternatives (similarly paying, non-shit companies) I don’t think we should blame the person who takes the bigger check when people have good reasons to need money.

Ex-Wayfair engineer here. Problem is that not every company is shit from the start. They were pretty cool when I joined. Not so much when they cut my entire department 7 months later. (They started getting noticeably less cool 3 mo in to my tenure, but still.)

The only constant is change. Always be selling, and always be closing.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/always-be-closing.asp

Also, Wayfair is in the business of selling low quality, low profit margin goods, competing with Aliexpress/Amazon resellers/Walmart/etc. I would not expect much from working there. If the business is earning crumbs, then workers will also likely get crumbs.

Wayfair also does not even earn crumbs, it loses them.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/W/wayfair/profit-m...

And the people who study businesses’ performance think its value has not changed in 7 years, a time period when other businesses have skyrocketed:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/W/wayfair/market-c...

All signs that workers are not going to get much. Can’t squeeze water from a stone.

Although I don't disagree with what you said, I disagree with how you said it. Some people are in a though spot and need a job fast. And not everyone else is able to create a startup and be an entrepreneur. It's never that simple.

As much as I agree that people should try to avoid companies with bad ethics, it is not always that simple. I know some junior in tech that need to send 300+ applications for even just an internship and it is not uncommon for even more seasoned people to have to send 100s of applications to just even get a decent number of interviews. It is just hard to get a perfect view of the ethics of these hundred of companies. And if you just do that check at the interview step, which I am sure quite a few people will do, it can be tough to refuse 80% of your interviews because of companies have bad practices, when you struggled badly to land these few interviews.

That’s life though. And fwiw I worked part time jobs for a few months while I interviewed to find the best first job.

So again end of the day it’s up to individuals and the choices they make.

Maybe you can’t flex on your peers as quickly or you have to live below means. But at least it always works out in the end. It did for me and my only conclusion at my age now is that people make excuses for shortcuts and bad decisions and end up in non ideal situations.

And there will always be jobs. Always. You can always make it work. And a job is just a job. If your company ends up being ass you leave and get a new job where they treat people not like commodity animals.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com