9 ms·

What is a “Good Job?”

83 points by MaysonL 11y ago

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
Well, I'd have to say that a good job is one which pays you a lot to do comparatively little. But you know, that's because unlike most people giving career advice, I actually expect workers to have a sense of self-interest and economic rationality rather than investing their entire emotional well-being and identity in their job. > I certainly don't expect that we will ever reach a future in which jobs will be all about deep internal fulfillment, with a few giggles and some comradeship tossed in. As my wife and I remind each other when one of us has an especially tough day at the office, there's a reason they call it "work," which is closely related to the reason that you get paid for doing it. Good. So let's just get rid of work to the greatest degree we can. What is even the point of increasing productivity if it won't buy us more stuff for less work?
- DaveWalk 11y ago
  I often think about this Russelian argument about work, specifically via In Praise of Idleness.[1] Sometimes to me it feels dirty to contemplate doing nothing, being idle, without direction as a lifestyle choice. To your point, what can be done? On one hand, some argue that we've come a long way from Russel's era, and that work and life is much better off and closer to his philosophical goal than we credit. On the other hand, this discussion clearly shows a desire to look for the essense of what make a job "good." [1]http://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/?si...
- pasquinelli 11y ago
  i wonder what a policy platform would look like if it had as its first premise that work is undesirable.
buddha 11y ago
Lack of engagement is one of the reasons recruiters started hiring based on soft-skills rather then only based on hard-skills. One of the HR solutions used by recruiters is : Talentoday.com
LoSboccacc 11y ago
if you want true engagement and real passion let the worker partecipate in the company profits based on his contributions.
- rb808 11y ago
  The problem is that the companies that most people on this board work for don't make any profits.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    not a big problem, tie it to a very (very!) small percentage of the earnings.
- seren 11y ago
  Anecdotally, I have a bonus linked to my company profit that are usually between half and full month of salary. This does not motivate me at all. I actually always forget about it until I receive the amount each year. This is seems counter intuitive but I work in such a big company that I don't even understand which profits are taken into account to calculate it. Is it the global profit of my division ? or all divisions for my country or region ? (I actually believe this is the latter). So some year you deliver a project late and you get a big bonus and the next year, you are exceptionally on time and don't get anything. I am sure it works for smaller company where you can measure very directly the effect of your contribution, but past a certain point, it is hard to measure or understand your impact.
  - jwdunne 11y ago
    There's actually a lot of material out there on this I.e extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. Money is an extrinsic motivator. Interest and enjoyment are intrinsic motivators. There are healty benefits linked to working a job based on high intrinsic motivation. Using extrinsic motivators could actually harm intrinsic motivation in the long run too. Long story short, rewards based on money may not increase but actually reduce work enjoyment. Though, if you enjoy making money in of itself...
henrik_w 11y ago
In my view, programmer scores very high in the criteria mentioned: it's creative, non-repeating (to a degree) and collaborative in nature. It also pays well, and is in demand and pretty future proof. http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-developer-is-a-great-career-choice/ http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-dev... http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/ http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/
- amelius 11y ago
  Yes, but every evening you are taking all of your problems home with you. Programming has a very high load on the memory. In contrast doctors and lawyers don't even have this kind of memory load. For example, medical records are mostly sufficient; we often understand if a doctor has to look things up; however, if a programmer doesn't remember how a program is structured, things get difficult quickly.
  - mseebach 11y ago
    That's probably true for any creative work. It's difficult to imagine that, say, working on a large graphical design concept would not feel similar. But the point I want to make is that while I agree that many software engineering jobs are like this, they don't have to be: A well-structured agile project where tasks are properly broken down into sufficiently small units, you can generally achieve a kind of closure at the end of the day (tests are green, code is pushed, task is marked complete) that would allow you to reduce the memory load significantly. It's no small feat to successfully structure a process like this, and it definitely requires the support of the wider org, but know it can be done, because I worked on one. It was super-pleasant and rewarding.
    - amelius 11y ago
      That sounds like heaven, but indeed seems difficult to achieve. If you are in a one-dev operation, where the programmer cannot even quit because everything depends on him, then this is a completely different situation.
galfarragem 11y ago
A "good job" is a job that rewards you well for doing meaningful work. A job that doesn't reward you well or doesn't provide you with meaningful work will hardly ever be considered a long term "good job".
- neogodless 11y ago
  What do you mean by "reward"? If we believe what Alfie Kohn tells us about rewards and their effect on intrinsic motivation, we might argue that the job simply has to compensate sufficiently to remove certain life stresses (i.e. the $75k per household minimum), while allowing the worker to make meaningful choices, create impact and increase skills (ideally in the Flow state of learning.) http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/evidence-incentives-fail/ http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/evidence-incentives-fail/
  - galfarragem 11y ago
    By rewarding you well I mean (using your words): "compensate sufficiently to remove certain life stresses" and compensate sufficiently to add some life pleasures.
mdorazio 11y ago
Engagement is only part of the story, though. There are a tremendous number of workers in the US who: - Can't even work as many hours as they want to - Don't get benefits typically associated with full-time work (healthcare, retirement plans, etc.) - Are stuck in low-end service jobs even though they are qualified for higher-end jobs - Are doing contract work even though they want the stability of full-time work Engagement in a job becomes important after a certain point, but we're still a long way from there outside of the SV employment bubble.
m23khan 11y ago
My definition of 'good job' is: - The pay is in-line with industry standard. - Time seems to fly away when you are working (aka not bored). - When you leave the job, you leave the job as a better person and with better knowledge/skillset.
- milkytron 11y ago
  I completely agree, and what makes a great job would be walking out the door and having a sense of fulfillment that you are having a positive impact on the world and genuinely care for the work you do.
JDiculous 11y ago
"Good Job" is an oxymoron
- jpindar 11y ago
  I feel very sorry for you.
  - pasquinelli 11y ago
    when you're working a job, you're giving away the product of your labor. everything you make is owned by your boss. you're compensated with money for the time you spend working. you need money, but time is incredibly precious. if my situation changed and i didn't need it any longer, no way in hell would i keep my job. my job is good, in that the circumstances are such that the alternative is worse, but that's a pretty weak definition of good. it's a necessary evil. of course i'd rather keep the product of my own labor, and i'd rather have the freedom to use my time without suffering due to a lack of money. what's there to feel sorry for about that?
awinter-py 11y ago
Decline in on-the-job training (buried at the bottom) is the most import stat here; more important even than declining tenure. Training speaks to what employers are 'buying' when they hire someone and engages with other trending topics in econ research: the changing skills-mix of jobs (i.e. the weakness in the middle), the employability of college grads as the metric for the worth of a degree. A positive take on this is that free resources make it easier for people to self-train so jobs don't have to train you. The negative take is that 'labor alone' is of declining value and we're increasingly employing people for their 'information content', not their rote performance.
BuckRogers 11y ago
Easy answer to this one from my perspective- 'any job that respects the 8-hour workday.' Which seem to be few and far between, and in the US completely dependent on having a good manager. Nothing else to say or add. This changes everything for me, my family life, my happiness and my productivity.
- ktRolster 11y ago
  You need to respect yourself to get that. If you're willing to work more than 8 hours, managers will take it from you. There's a good book about how to prevent managers from walking all over you: http://www.amazon.com/The-Clean-Coder-Professional-Programmers/dp/0137081073 http://www.amazon.com/The-Clean-Coder-Professional-Programme... The opening chapters describe programmers in crunch time, and compare them with the lawyers at the same company who leave promptly on time. The rest of the book discusses how to achieve that for yourself.
  - BuckRogers 11y ago
    Interesting perspective. I've found that certain places I've worked, they overload you and do everything they can to keep you over time. Usually the scenario that other people lay out is that you have to stay late and put in that time your first year or two. Then you can go back to being a 9-5 (though in many orgs this shifts from 11-7 or 10-6 to give the illusion you're working later rather than walking out at 5PM). I disagree with this because then you set a standard that you'll stay late, but on the other hand you can't be let go if you have mouths to feed. I'm more than strong enough to walk out the door, but the thing I think you're missing is that it's usually NOT the manager at fault here. It's the other employees. They encourage this culture, either brainwashed or hoping it will get them ahead. American work culture is completely upside down. Bottom line is that the org and laws shouldn't force you to stand for yourself in this regard. Every 1 minute of overtime should result in severe penalties for anyone who has any employee go over. So much that they're hustling you out the door at 5PM. That's how it is in other places, like France. A place I've both lived and worked.
    - 11y ago

83 points by MaysonL 11y ago

Well, I'd have to say that a good job is one which pays you a lot to do comparatively little. But you know, that's because unlike most people giving career advice, I actually expect workers to have a sense of self-interest and economic rationality rather than investing their entire emotional well-being and identity in their job. > I certainly don't expect that we will ever reach a future in which jobs will be all about deep internal fulfillment, with a few giggles and some comradeship tossed in. As my wife and I remind each other when one of us has an especially tough day at the office, there's a reason they call it "work," which is closely related to the reason that you get paid for doing it. Good. So let's just get rid of work to the greatest degree we can. What is even the point of increasing productivity if it won't buy us more stuff for less work?

DaveWalk 11y ago
I often think about this Russelian argument about work, specifically via In Praise of Idleness.[1] Sometimes to me it feels dirty to contemplate doing nothing, being idle, without direction as a lifestyle choice. To your point, what can be done? On one hand, some argue that we've come a long way from Russel's era, and that work and life is much better off and closer to his philosophical goal than we credit. On the other hand, this discussion clearly shows a desire to look for the essense of what make a job "good." [1]http://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/?si...
pasquinelli 11y ago
i wonder what a policy platform would look like if it had as its first premise that work is undesirable.

buddha 11y ago

Lack of engagement is one of the reasons recruiters started hiring based on soft-skills rather then only based on hard-skills. One of the HR solutions used by recruiters is : Talentoday.com

LoSboccacc 11y ago

if you want true engagement and real passion let the worker partecipate in the company profits based on his contributions.

rb808 11y ago
The problem is that the companies that most people on this board work for don't make any profits.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  not a big problem, tie it to a very (very!) small percentage of the earnings.
seren 11y ago
Anecdotally, I have a bonus linked to my company profit that are usually between half and full month of salary. This does not motivate me at all. I actually always forget about it until I receive the amount each year. This is seems counter intuitive but I work in such a big company that I don't even understand which profits are taken into account to calculate it. Is it the global profit of my division ? or all divisions for my country or region ? (I actually believe this is the latter). So some year you deliver a project late and you get a big bonus and the next year, you are exceptionally on time and don't get anything. I am sure it works for smaller company where you can measure very directly the effect of your contribution, but past a certain point, it is hard to measure or understand your impact.
- jwdunne 11y ago
  There's actually a lot of material out there on this I.e extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. Money is an extrinsic motivator. Interest and enjoyment are intrinsic motivators. There are healty benefits linked to working a job based on high intrinsic motivation. Using extrinsic motivators could actually harm intrinsic motivation in the long run too. Long story short, rewards based on money may not increase but actually reduce work enjoyment. Though, if you enjoy making money in of itself...

henrik_w 11y ago

In my view, programmer scores very high in the criteria mentioned: it's creative, non-repeating (to a degree) and collaborative in nature. It also pays well, and is in demand and pretty future proof. http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-developer-is-a-great-career-choice/ http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-dev... http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/ http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/

amelius 11y ago
Yes, but every evening you are taking all of your problems home with you. Programming has a very high load on the memory. In contrast doctors and lawyers don't even have this kind of memory load. For example, medical records are mostly sufficient; we often understand if a doctor has to look things up; however, if a programmer doesn't remember how a program is structured, things get difficult quickly.
- mseebach 11y ago
  That's probably true for any creative work. It's difficult to imagine that, say, working on a large graphical design concept would not feel similar. But the point I want to make is that while I agree that many software engineering jobs are like this, they don't have to be: A well-structured agile project where tasks are properly broken down into sufficiently small units, you can generally achieve a kind of closure at the end of the day (tests are green, code is pushed, task is marked complete) that would allow you to reduce the memory load significantly. It's no small feat to successfully structure a process like this, and it definitely requires the support of the wider org, but know it can be done, because I worked on one. It was super-pleasant and rewarding.
  - amelius 11y ago
    That sounds like heaven, but indeed seems difficult to achieve. If you are in a one-dev operation, where the programmer cannot even quit because everything depends on him, then this is a completely different situation.

galfarragem 11y ago

A "good job" is a job that rewards you well for doing meaningful work. A job that doesn't reward you well or doesn't provide you with meaningful work will hardly ever be considered a long term "good job".

neogodless 11y ago
What do you mean by "reward"? If we believe what Alfie Kohn tells us about rewards and their effect on intrinsic motivation, we might argue that the job simply has to compensate sufficiently to remove certain life stresses (i.e. the $75k per household minimum), while allowing the worker to make meaningful choices, create impact and increase skills (ideally in the Flow state of learning.) http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/evidence-incentives-fail/ http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/evidence-incentives-fail/
- galfarragem 11y ago
  By rewarding you well I mean (using your words): "compensate sufficiently to remove certain life stresses" and compensate sufficiently to add some life pleasures.

mdorazio 11y ago

Engagement is only part of the story, though. There are a tremendous number of workers in the US who: - Can't even work as many hours as they want to - Don't get benefits typically associated with full-time work (healthcare, retirement plans, etc.) - Are stuck in low-end service jobs even though they are qualified for higher-end jobs - Are doing contract work even though they want the stability of full-time work Engagement in a job becomes important after a certain point, but we're still a long way from there outside of the SV employment bubble.

m23khan 11y ago

My definition of 'good job' is: - The pay is in-line with industry standard. - Time seems to fly away when you are working (aka not bored). - When you leave the job, you leave the job as a better person and with better knowledge/skillset.

milkytron 11y ago
I completely agree, and what makes a great job would be walking out the door and having a sense of fulfillment that you are having a positive impact on the world and genuinely care for the work you do.

JDiculous 11y ago

"Good Job" is an oxymoron

jpindar 11y ago
I feel very sorry for you.
- pasquinelli 11y ago
  when you're working a job, you're giving away the product of your labor. everything you make is owned by your boss. you're compensated with money for the time you spend working. you need money, but time is incredibly precious. if my situation changed and i didn't need it any longer, no way in hell would i keep my job. my job is good, in that the circumstances are such that the alternative is worse, but that's a pretty weak definition of good. it's a necessary evil. of course i'd rather keep the product of my own labor, and i'd rather have the freedom to use my time without suffering due to a lack of money. what's there to feel sorry for about that?

awinter-py 11y ago

Decline in on-the-job training (buried at the bottom) is the most import stat here; more important even than declining tenure. Training speaks to what employers are 'buying' when they hire someone and engages with other trending topics in econ research: the changing skills-mix of jobs (i.e. the weakness in the middle), the employability of college grads as the metric for the worth of a degree. A positive take on this is that free resources make it easier for people to self-train so jobs don't have to train you. The negative take is that 'labor alone' is of declining value and we're increasingly employing people for their 'information content', not their rote performance.

BuckRogers 11y ago

Easy answer to this one from my perspective- 'any job that respects the 8-hour workday.' Which seem to be few and far between, and in the US completely dependent on having a good manager. Nothing else to say or add. This changes everything for me, my family life, my happiness and my productivity.

ktRolster 11y ago
You need to respect yourself to get that. If you're willing to work more than 8 hours, managers will take it from you. There's a good book about how to prevent managers from walking all over you: http://www.amazon.com/The-Clean-Coder-Professional-Programmers/dp/0137081073 http://www.amazon.com/The-Clean-Coder-Professional-Programme... The opening chapters describe programmers in crunch time, and compare them with the lawyers at the same company who leave promptly on time. The rest of the book discusses how to achieve that for yourself.
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  Interesting perspective. I've found that certain places I've worked, they overload you and do everything they can to keep you over time. Usually the scenario that other people lay out is that you have to stay late and put in that time your first year or two. Then you can go back to being a 9-5 (though in many orgs this shifts from 11-7 or 10-6 to give the illusion you're working later rather than walking out at 5PM). I disagree with this because then you set a standard that you'll stay late, but on the other hand you can't be let go if you have mouths to feed. I'm more than strong enough to walk out the door, but the thing I think you're missing is that it's usually NOT the manager at fault here. It's the other employees. They encourage this culture, either brainwashed or hoping it will get them ahead. American work culture is completely upside down. Bottom line is that the org and laws shouldn't force you to stand for yourself in this regard. Every 1 minute of overtime should result in severe penalties for anyone who has any employee go over. So much that they're hustling you out the door at 5PM. That's how it is in other places, like France. A place I've both lived and worked.
  - 11y ago