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> Even for tech workers, the novelty has worn off, Watching most of what you build—which often wasn't exciting or very important-seeming to begin with—be disca
by ashark 10y ago
> Even for tech workers, the novelty has worn off,
Watching most of what you build—which often wasn't exciting or very important-seeming to begin with—be discarded in short order, having benefitted few (i.e. not enough to justify the effort) or no people, after all kinds of false or semi-real urgency to get it done, year after year after year, will do that. It's a testament to how much money is sloshing around that we get paid so much to spend huge amounts of time building soon-to-be digital garbage, I guess.
It feels like there's an exceptionally stupid monkey smashing shapes against one of those children's shape-in-the-correct-hole puzzles, but larger, extending forever into the distance, trying to get some of them to fit, which they mostly don't because the monkey's so damn stupid. And we're the shapes.
- tzakrajs 10y agoThis comment is so real. At the same time, those monkeys put the shape through the correct hole at a fast enough rate to keep the lights on and stay fed to starve another day.
- marcosdumay 10y agoStarve? The monkey is always growing. And the smartest monkey in town by a large margin. Yet, it's infuriating how dumb it is.
- tzakrajs 10y agoIf the monkey is the industry, then sure but I was thinking of the monkey as the company and the industry was a cacophony of failed block-thru-hole puzzlers. Either way, thanks again -- I shared this with my coworkers and they appreciated your sentiments.
- roymurdock 10y agoThe monkey image is a great analogy for what economists are currently studying as the "productivity puzzle". Low to zero productivity growth is also why our unemployment rate in the US is amazingly low (seemingly a tight labor market), but why real median income is stagnant.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y agoAlso keep in mind that the unemployment rate is highly skewed. It doesn't factor in people who have dropped out of the workforce or consider minimum wage or nearly minimum wage workers. If unemployment was truly as low as it says, then wages would be going up due to a higher demand for workers. This wage increase is not being seen.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoActually, there have been some wage increases on the bottom end over the last few years, driven by legislative pushes and worker shortages.
- astrange 10y agoThis seems like a form of the HN "middle-brow dismissal" where you claim an expert is wrong because they didn't explicitly rebut the first thing you happened to think of. Those people are called "discouraged workers" and are tracked. One reason wages don't go up is that the value of employer benefits goes up every year because of the incredible cost of providing health insurance.
- soulnothing 10y agoThis I feel like it's killing my career. A majority of the contracts I start are canned within a few weeks of me joining. Then they literally give me janitorial work. Can't leave, because you jump around to much. Can't say the job was canned, you should have chosen better. I haven't had a job where stuff was used for 6 years. The exception being a contracting gig. Where I wrote everything they canned me, outsourced it overseas. Then several months later asked me to come back, because the outsourcing firm only knew an older programming language. It's burn out just going to work every day. I'm either cleaning up others messes. Or interfacing with vendors. I'm totally aware that work will be tedium four out of the five days. I just want one freaking day, where I can stretch my mind, and actually do something useful. I have a world burning in my head I want to write. Several projects I want to program, and learn. Yet I'm so burnt out by work end. My work feels like a syndicate show at this point. I have been doing primarily the same thing for 5 years. I've constantly tried to buck this and get into some other area. But a personal mistake has ensured I constantly need money, and can't take the time to move properly.
- aswanson 10y agoThen they literally give me janitorial work. What?!?
- soulnothing 10y agoI managed the internal lab. Decomming/scrapping old servers.Breaking down card board boxes, bringing them to the loading dock/compactor etc. Finding screws that were laying about organizing them. Escort vendors onsite, help them rack. Then take care of any debris left behind. Sweep the lab etc.Air compress the servers to remove dust. That was physical. But I also extend this to. There's this project in production. Do unit tests, documentation, project planning clean up. Wiki docs, etc. Again this stuff needs to be done. This stuff is also part of any job. But if you're hired to design and lead a team to build out service X. The issue is when that project is cancelled, and your full time role now is the above. At least pivot me to be a software dev half of the week on another team. Oh wait another contracting firm owns that team, nevermind.
- Balgair 10y agoSo, (without the money sloshing about) grad school?
- hn_throwaway_99 10y ago> Watching most of what you build—which often wasn't exciting or very important-seeming to begin with—be discarded in short order That's something I find quite painful. The lifespan of tech is so short these days, and many more projects are unsuccessful or discarded than those that last, that sometimes I wish I worked in a medium (unlike software) with more permanence.