5 ms·

Not all jobs can offer growth. It's in everybody's best interests if you just move on from such jobs once you outgrow them. I spent two and a half years at my

Not all jobs can offer growth. It's in everybody's best interests if you just move on from such jobs once you outgrow them. I spent two and a half years at my current job maintaining a legacy codebase. I looked for, and explored, growth opportunities at that job. In the end, I had to find them myself. Nobody at the company could really put in the effort it would have taken to keep me fulfilled, so I did it myself. I did lots of reading, experimenting, diving deep into fundamentals. I am a much, much better programmer than I was when I started the job. The company did not give that to me, it couldn't have given it to me. I eventually convinced the company to move off of the old legacy platform, that it was holding them back. I wanted to build them a new platform, but they decided to go with Magento. They're giving me a pretty sweet severance deal while I go out looking for a job. I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. It's nice when the company can help you do that, but your own growth is your responsibility, and nobody else's.

crimsonalucard 11y ago
>I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. It's nice when the company can help you do that, but your own growth is your responsibility, and nobody else's. I'm not talking about personal growth. I'm talking about growth in benefits, like salary or working environment. People leave companies or learn new skills to get more benefits. The company needs to provide better benefits, continuously, or the employee leaves. Simply buying a ping pong table or giving an employee "engaging work" isn't enough.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  > The company needs to provide better benefits, continuously, or the employee leaves. This smacks of entitlement. The employee won't necessarily leave, there are many reasons why they wouldn't. There's a whole world of jobs out there that aren't tech, these fields don't have the luxury of an expanding industry propping up salaries, providing a social ladder. Even in tech, I don't see anything wrong with the decision to keep the same compensation, and turn over staff every few years. This only contributes to a thriving job market, and means more opportunity for people at the bottom to make their way into the field. More people coming in at the bottom means more demand for services, meaning more opportunity at the top for organizing and directing. It would be wonderful to have the benefits of industry growth along with the security of one job for life, but we don't live in that world.
  - afterburner 11y ago
    "keep the same compensation" Not even inflation? Sounds like you're driving the benefits down. Or at least want to.
    - vinceguidry 11y ago
      That's the nature of a growth-fueled economy. Everybody has to keep up, or they fall behind. The same work, the same roles, get less valuable over time.
      - afterburner 11y ago
        Certainly no need to care about your concerns...
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    >This smacks of entitlement. Employees should feel entitled. They generate 99% of our GDP while 50% of that GDP goes to the top 1% of the population. The capitalist employer / employee relationship is designed to screw over the employee. The word "entitlement" is a classic guilt tripping technique used by either employee or employer. Ignore it, because as an employee you will never get a high enough salary that can tip the scales. With 50% of the worlds wealth in the hands of the 1% (aka the employers), the metrics say one thing and one thing only: you are always entitled to more. >The employee won't necessarily leave, there are many reasons why they wouldn't. There's a whole world of jobs out there that aren't tech, these fields don't have the luxury of an expanding industry propping up salaries, providing a social ladder. If the employee isn't leaving and their isn't any growth, than the employee stays out of desperation or fear. The employee is essentially too afraid to take the risk to create growth. This is not the definition of employee satisfaction. Many employees are in this situation and many employees aren't satisfied because of it. It is very rare for a man to feel 100% satisfied without any continuous growth. Additionally, I am not talking about whether this situation is wrong or right, I am talking about what an employer needs to do to satisfy an employee. Whether the employer wants to do that is a different issue. >It would be wonderful to have the benefits of industry growth along with the security of one job for life, but we don't live in that world. Sure. I never said anything to the contrary. We don't live in an ideal world. But the context for my comment is "How to satisfy an employee" and I answer the question with what is required. The conversation is sidetracking from my initial comment about the true nature of employment satisfaction into a technical argument on why such an idealist endeavor isn't executed. So what? Do you agree with me on what makes an employee satisfied or do you have evidence/logic to falsify my reasoning?
vonmoltke 11y ago
> I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. You've obviously never worked on a large DOD program.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Well, I was in the Air Force, does that count? Learned a lot there. Not so much about technical topics, but about how to deal with bureaucracies.
st3v3r 11y ago
"Not all jobs can offer growth. It's in everybody's best interests if you just move on from such jobs once you outgrow them." Problem is, no one offering those jobs is willing to say so up front. There are plenty of people who would have no problem taking such a job, knowing it's only for a few years, and then moving on.

crimsonalucard 11y ago

>I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. It's nice when the company can help you do that, but your own growth is your responsibility, and nobody else's. I'm not talking about personal growth. I'm talking about growth in benefits, like salary or working environment. People leave companies or learn new skills to get more benefits. The company needs to provide better benefits, continuously, or the employee leaves. Simply buying a ping pong table or giving an employee "engaging work" isn't enough.

vinceguidry 11y ago
> The company needs to provide better benefits, continuously, or the employee leaves. This smacks of entitlement. The employee won't necessarily leave, there are many reasons why they wouldn't. There's a whole world of jobs out there that aren't tech, these fields don't have the luxury of an expanding industry propping up salaries, providing a social ladder. Even in tech, I don't see anything wrong with the decision to keep the same compensation, and turn over staff every few years. This only contributes to a thriving job market, and means more opportunity for people at the bottom to make their way into the field. More people coming in at the bottom means more demand for services, meaning more opportunity at the top for organizing and directing. It would be wonderful to have the benefits of industry growth along with the security of one job for life, but we don't live in that world.
- afterburner 11y ago
  "keep the same compensation" Not even inflation? Sounds like you're driving the benefits down. Or at least want to.
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    That's the nature of a growth-fueled economy. Everybody has to keep up, or they fall behind. The same work, the same roles, get less valuable over time.
    - afterburner 11y ago
      Certainly no need to care about your concerns...
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  >This smacks of entitlement. Employees should feel entitled. They generate 99% of our GDP while 50% of that GDP goes to the top 1% of the population. The capitalist employer / employee relationship is designed to screw over the employee. The word "entitlement" is a classic guilt tripping technique used by either employee or employer. Ignore it, because as an employee you will never get a high enough salary that can tip the scales. With 50% of the worlds wealth in the hands of the 1% (aka the employers), the metrics say one thing and one thing only: you are always entitled to more. >The employee won't necessarily leave, there are many reasons why they wouldn't. There's a whole world of jobs out there that aren't tech, these fields don't have the luxury of an expanding industry propping up salaries, providing a social ladder. If the employee isn't leaving and their isn't any growth, than the employee stays out of desperation or fear. The employee is essentially too afraid to take the risk to create growth. This is not the definition of employee satisfaction. Many employees are in this situation and many employees aren't satisfied because of it. It is very rare for a man to feel 100% satisfied without any continuous growth. Additionally, I am not talking about whether this situation is wrong or right, I am talking about what an employer needs to do to satisfy an employee. Whether the employer wants to do that is a different issue. >It would be wonderful to have the benefits of industry growth along with the security of one job for life, but we don't live in that world. Sure. I never said anything to the contrary. We don't live in an ideal world. But the context for my comment is "How to satisfy an employee" and I answer the question with what is required. The conversation is sidetracking from my initial comment about the true nature of employment satisfaction into a technical argument on why such an idealist endeavor isn't executed. So what? Do you agree with me on what makes an employee satisfied or do you have evidence/logic to falsify my reasoning?

vonmoltke 11y ago

> I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. You've obviously never worked on a large DOD program.

vinceguidry 11y ago
Well, I was in the Air Force, does that count? Learned a lot there. Not so much about technical topics, but about how to deal with bureaucracies.

st3v3r 11y ago

"Not all jobs can offer growth. It's in everybody's best interests if you just move on from such jobs once you outgrow them." Problem is, no one offering those jobs is willing to say so up front. There are plenty of people who would have no problem taking such a job, knowing it's only for a few years, and then moving on.