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I appreciate your reply, but I also feel you are too nonchalantly dismissing something like e.g. Moral Mazes, which is a significant longitudinal study of burea

by p4wnc6 10y ago

I appreciate your reply, but I also feel you are too nonchalantly dismissing something like e.g. Moral Mazes, which is a significant longitudinal study of bureaucracy and management hierarchy, using tools from academic sociology. It's not just some fly-by-night opinion. In my experience, it is extremely hard to find jobs that provide a combination of paying well, allowing you a personal life, and having reasonable enough hours to avoid excessive fatigue or burnout. I've interviewed with places top to bottom and had four post-graduate jobs, all of which failed in at least two of those categories while having appeared like they would succeed in all of them when I did interviews. All of my friends and colleagues report similar anecdotes, as do many, many commenters here. The anecdotes describing jobs in which you feel you are well paid, have a feasible work/life balance, and freedom to pursue a personal life, are unequivocally in the minority. That's not "my perspective" ... that's just collecting data in the wild. And though I think I've had it bad, my experiences have been like a dream vacation or something compared to what my mother has lived through in her job as a court reporter in a small town courthouse. Rampant sexism, ageism, uncompensated overtime which is not allowed for her position, bosses (judges) who demean her, yell at her, do illegal things like carry out their private landlord affairs in their judges chambers during work hours and force her to handle the paperwork for it. Or my brother, a factory worker in the area whose work stories almost cause me to have an aneurysm out of frustration. More uncompensated overtime, overtly insulting and demeaning bosses, sales staff who make jokes about all the catered meetings they get and how they will leave the day-old food out on the factory floor because the floor workers are so desperate for a free meal that they'll eat anything. He earns just barely over the poverty line, has no vacation, commutes around 40 miles each way plus traffic, and every single other job in the region that he could possibly get is no better. All so he can just barely service college loan debt that has been utterly useless for getting employment. The problem of finding employment that can sustain human cognitive health is massive and hearing you utterly dismiss it like this makes me feel like you reside in an incredible bubble where you've been shielded from what it's really like, and that while I appreciate your advice, it is just not applicable.

taurath 10y ago
Again, I'm just saying you're comparing the perfect vs the better than almost anyone else (by your own admission). Paying well to you might mean 400k a year, I don't know. I think its eminently possible to get 100k-150k/yr as a senior developer and not work over 40 hours a week. Maybe not where you live though, but remote I'd imagine you could easily find something for 80k at 40hrs a week or less. I do understand the drudgery of work, and how it can hold back cognitive development and just plain be unhealthy at times. I don't understand how you can compare against your mother and brother's experiences and still come out saying you won't take a job. I'm admittedly in a fine place right now, but I remember very clearly when I wasn't.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  I'm not talking about mere drudgery. Look, I've got a decent amount of work experience. I know the 40-hour grind. I know how to navigate tricky relationships with colleagues. I know how to deal with and succeed in average-case corporate politics. None of that is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about abject treatment. Being demeaned, discriminated against, yelled at, spoken to in exceedingly unprofessional ways and having no recourse to defend yourself, and being 'punished' for things that the executives may dislike, but for which it is literally illegal to punish employees (like violations of the NLRA). That's the big stuff. Smaller stuff would be the ubiquity of unhealthy working conditions, bait-and-switch jobs that require incomprehensibly higher quality work experience than what they plan to give out, severe politics, and overwork (which, seriously, I don't know where you are finding these magical 150k jobs for 40 hrs a week. The experience of literally every single software professional I know is completely at odds with that, and my own experience is as well). That you glibly throw in things like "but remote I'd imagine you could easily find something for 80k at 40hrs a week or less" is frustrating. For example, in my current rural living situation, I do not even have access to stable high-speed internet. I use 4G tethering through my phone just to browse the internet most of the time, and even that is slow and spotty. There is no way I could work remotely here, and even at that $80k would not be enough for basic cost of living plus support for the on-going family obligations (and would be a drastic pay cut for me anyway). To boot, there really isn't a large supply of remote jobs. I frequently check for them at Stack Overflow Careers, We Work Remotely, and other sites, and there's just nothing. Like most other sources, I have to filter our tons and tons of irrelevant web framework jobs, and for what's left, nothing is remote. Even finding jobs that offer adequate (or any) relocation assistance is incredibly hard. Basically, if you don't already live in a glamorous urban area, you get shit on. That's not just some angsty comment. That's just simply what has happened when I search for a job. Many of the things you say sound reasonable on a surface layer, but there isn't the substance behind them. The reality of the situation is just not within the bubble you've been able to experience. That's not your fault -- indeed it is near impossible to adequately get someone to understand my situation. Many of my friends are used to spending tons on eating out at expensive urban restaurants, buying expensive subscription services for fashion and entertainment, living with ubiquitous public transit and easily available access to high-speed internet, etc. They can't understand life in poor America when you flip all those things and live hundreds of miles from any region which could even remotely offer a relevant or minimally-well-paying job to support your immediate needs.

by p4wnc6 10y ago

taurath 10y ago

Again, I'm just saying you're comparing the perfect vs the better than almost anyone else (by your own admission). Paying well to you might mean 400k a year, I don't know. I think its eminently possible to get 100k-150k/yr as a senior developer and not work over 40 hours a week. Maybe not where you live though, but remote I'd imagine you could easily find something for 80k at 40hrs a week or less. I do understand the drudgery of work, and how it can hold back cognitive development and just plain be unhealthy at times. I don't understand how you can compare against your mother and brother's experiences and still come out saying you won't take a job. I'm admittedly in a fine place right now, but I remember very clearly when I wasn't.

p4wnc6 10y ago
I'm not talking about mere drudgery. Look, I've got a decent amount of work experience. I know the 40-hour grind. I know how to navigate tricky relationships with colleagues. I know how to deal with and succeed in average-case corporate politics. None of that is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about abject treatment. Being demeaned, discriminated against, yelled at, spoken to in exceedingly unprofessional ways and having no recourse to defend yourself, and being 'punished' for things that the executives may dislike, but for which it is literally illegal to punish employees (like violations of the NLRA). That's the big stuff. Smaller stuff would be the ubiquity of unhealthy working conditions, bait-and-switch jobs that require incomprehensibly higher quality work experience than what they plan to give out, severe politics, and overwork (which, seriously, I don't know where you are finding these magical 150k jobs for 40 hrs a week. The experience of literally every single software professional I know is completely at odds with that, and my own experience is as well). That you glibly throw in things like "but remote I'd imagine you could easily find something for 80k at 40hrs a week or less" is frustrating. For example, in my current rural living situation, I do not even have access to stable high-speed internet. I use 4G tethering through my phone just to browse the internet most of the time, and even that is slow and spotty. There is no way I could work remotely here, and even at that $80k would not be enough for basic cost of living plus support for the on-going family obligations (and would be a drastic pay cut for me anyway). To boot, there really isn't a large supply of remote jobs. I frequently check for them at Stack Overflow Careers, We Work Remotely, and other sites, and there's just nothing. Like most other sources, I have to filter our tons and tons of irrelevant web framework jobs, and for what's left, nothing is remote. Even finding jobs that offer adequate (or any) relocation assistance is incredibly hard. Basically, if you don't already live in a glamorous urban area, you get shit on. That's not just some angsty comment. That's just simply what has happened when I search for a job. Many of the things you say sound reasonable on a surface layer, but there isn't the substance behind them. The reality of the situation is just not within the bubble you've been able to experience. That's not your fault -- indeed it is near impossible to adequately get someone to understand my situation. Many of my friends are used to spending tons on eating out at expensive urban restaurants, buying expensive subscription services for fashion and entertainment, living with ubiquitous public transit and easily available access to high-speed internet, etc. They can't understand life in poor America when you flip all those things and live hundreds of miles from any region which could even remotely offer a relevant or minimally-well-paying job to support your immediate needs.