JSavageReal

The article doesn't really answer the question other than stating that there's more competition for sandwiches in London. Would've been nice to at least see some data to support that.

The article mentions this in the beginning, what's your point?

I love how every time there's talk of povery, some first world beneficiary jumps in to point out how much better poor people are compared to the past. Why they think that's relevant is beyond me.

> But for a long time I pretended it was fun. That I loved it. Because there is a lot of social pressure to portray yourself that way in the industry. People hiring you will run the other way as soon as they see a crack in that facade.

Yes, having to put up this facade is one of my least favorite things about this industry. It's all a load of bullsh*t, I'm only in my technical area because there are jobs and money - if money weren't an issue I'd be working on my own FOSS projects that are way more interesting and meaningful to me.

> Because it’s not really “passion” they are looking for, but people who are merely willing to endure long hours. They aren’t really looking for the person who spends a few hours on the weekend on an open-source project, they are looking for the person who comes home from work and spends all night on it.

Yup, it's a tough pill to swallow when one realizes the exploitative nature of wage labor, and the lie we've been fed our whole lives about employers being benevolent and treating employees like family. The reality is sociopathic managers who won't hesitate to stab you in the back to cover their asses and/or get that promotion.

> It’s really hard to celebrate “women’s day” with free feminist speakers when I just found out some guy who does the same work as me is getting paid 20% more.

I agree with most of the sentiment of the article so I don't want to be arguing here, but getting underpaid isn't an issue exclusive to women. Just because you're underpaid doesn't mean that it's because of your gender.

Ultimately, this article is the perspective of a wage laborer waking up to the bullshit of the system, and the meaninglessness of 8 hours/day of mandated "ass in seat" time doing boring work for a boss and having to put a smile on your face and pretend like it's your passion.

Everything she writes, all of us but the most brainwashed lemmings already know, but we're not allowed to say it for fear of being blacklisted from the industry. I appreciate her having the courage to speak out what everyone secretly wants to say, and wish her success in her new endeavors.

If you're going to make such outrageous claims, the least you can do is provide some evidence.

What do people use to read RSS feeds? I stopped following RSS feeds ever since Google Reader shut down, and wondering what a good free replacement is.

The problem with trying to find meaningful work is that 1. the pay is generally terrible, and hours will likely be long 2. if someone is paying you, it's still a "job", with all the implications, responsibilities, and power dynamics that go with that. You still take orders from a boss all day. And if it were so damn fun, then they probably wouldn't be paying you for it.

The most fun internships/jobs I've ever had were all unpaid, because I could come and go as I please, and literally work on whatever I wanted. The second you're getting paid, your personal interests are thrown out the window, and your job is now to take orders from your boss.

Of course there are exceptions. I'd imagine that being a tenured professor would be pretty sweet (though getting a job like that these days is extremely difficult and competitive), or if you're a doctor then helping save lives in Africa or something would probably be extremely fulfilling. Being a politician seems like it would feel meaningful, and they get paid solid six figure salaries.

But overall, the search for a meaningful job that also pays decently and doesn't require crazy hours is like searching for a unicorn, so for most people with the talent/luck/opportunity of working high paying jobs, achieving financial independence first before seeking meaningful work is probably the smartest move.

I don't disagree with you, but when you said "one should find a job they're good at", what you really saying is "find a job that pays a lot that you can also do well".

I don't think working a boring high paying unfulfilling job inherently makes one happier than "saving the world", but having financial security and good work/life balance is certainly superior to working long hours, living paycheck to paycheck, and flirting with poverty.

> "If you think paying $1 for every $8 in funding for housing is too much, just move to a different city?"

What a useless, unconstructive comment. It's sad that when anyone wants to improve anything in this world, people like you come out of the bushes and say "if you don't like it, why don't you just move!"

> "There's a bunch of graphs showing rents increase, but no real reason for why that's a bad thing."

How thick and delusional can one be to say something like this? Have you taken a look at San Francisco recently? It's littered with homeless people and feces.

> Infinite high density cities aren't all necessarily the best thing

Right, because there's no medium between San Francisco and "infinite high density cities"

> "Maybe if you think too much money is disappearing in these wealthy people's vaults, raise taxes?"

A Land Value Tax would be a great idea. Further burdening the working class laborers who are already being raped by landlords with tax increases would only be more destructive.

> Congressmen are "experts at politics": the ability to make a decision WITHOUT being an expert in a subject.

Congressmen are experts at getting people to vote for them. The problem is that the people who step up to the challenge of winning this popularity contest aren't necessarily most qualified to be calling the shots.

I'd like to see more STEM workers in general running for office. They'd certainly pique my interest more than yet another lawyer.

Luddite. Electronic voting is inevitable, and far superior if done in a transparent untamperable way (eg. utilizing a publicly verifiable blockchain). I don't know why you guys have so much faith in paper voting when there are many instances of it being tampered with in even first world countries.

How anyone can do productive work developing software in an open office is beyond me

Well yea, that's why I eventually quit both jobs.

This has basically been the story of every job I've had, except instead of being 100% remote I was wfh once or twice per week.

I'd join a company under the condition that they allowed flexible hours and wfh. Then 6 months later managers would change and all of a sudden the way we'd been operating would no longer be acceptable. Always the person leading the charge towards eliminating wfh and remote work is some non-technical idiot who wants to make his mark by demonstrating his "leadership skills" and has no idea what engineers actually do.

So D don't even take promises for flexible hours and remote work seriously anymore unless it's a fully distributed team. I hope the trend of increasingly distributed workforces continues to rise so that developers don't have to deal with this "ass-in-seat" nonsense anymore.

Try working outside of your home, perhaps in a co-working space or coffee shop.

How is staring at a computer for 8 hours in an office any different from staring at a computer for 8 hours in a co-working space or coffee shop? I prefer the freedom to choose where I'll work from today.

Possible solutions:

* Rent a co-working space

* Work out of coffee shops

* Make an effort to have a social life outside of your job.

Loved this article. Entertaining and informative (as someone not very informed on WeWork).

> Ms. Neumann created controversy when she went on CNBC and said: “A big part of being a woman is to help men [like Adam] manifest their calling in life.”

In what kind of twisted society does a statement like that create "controversy"? I'm a man, and I've always felt that in my relationship it is my duty to bring out the best of my woman and enable her to reach her full potential. Are my fellow men outraged as well? Only in America does an innocuous statement like that generate controversy (unless of course this is just a couple random tweets that the media is trying to turn into a big controversy to generate ad revenue).

> not made for *common people

If you're rich, it's never been a better time to be alive. Higher wealthy inequality than ever, financially desperate unattached workers to take advantage of. Increasing wealth inequality/concentration is simply the default nature of any capitalist system without policies in place to redistribute wealth.

Blows my mind that non-compete clauses in these trivial instances are legal and actually enforced. Let's not forget that humans created these laws, and humans can change them.

This is the best explanation. As much as managers pretend like lead/senior engineers are on the same rung of the hierarchy, they're not. Engineers are seen as "resources", a cost center, an input that produces an output, a more differentiated assembly line worker (engineers have higher status at tech companies obviously, but it's still the same dynamic).

Managers report to the executives / upper management, and have all the relationships, political capital, and power.

Is it fair? That's a separate question, but not a question the company cares about. Remember a company isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship/oligarchy, probably led by someone non-technical who's goal is to maximize business profits, not please engineers.

As an engineer I wish it was different.

Was going to mention this as well. Vice deliberately misrepresenting the point of his memo and explicitly mentioning that it's "unscientific". Well no sh, it's a memo. I wonder if there's an agenda there?

You like being micromanaged and told what time you need to be in and out of the office everyday?

How is this even legal? Is there a movement to ban stacking ranking? If we don't voice our concerns as employees, then nobody will.

Also the fact that "meets expectations" is concern for firing makes absolutely no sense. A plumber who "meets expectations" in fixing my toilet is a good plumber. I don't expect a plumber to go "above and beyond" and give me a Thai massage too.

Absolutely unreal some of the crap we put up with in this industry. Blows my mind that there are actually humans out there in management positions advocating for and implementing this totalitarian dystopian garbage, throwing away their employees for "meeting expectations" as if they're disposable "widgets".