2 ms·
Almost? ;) I think my Silicon Valley employer has a great culture in a lot of ways, but the whole "not just your employer but your whole world" attitude still
by notacoward 9y ago
Almost? ;) I think my Silicon Valley employer has a great culture in a lot of ways, but the whole "not just your employer but your whole world" attitude still bugs me. I also threw myself into work every waking moment when I was younger. I was also happy for my coworkers to be my primary social partners as well. Those were great years, but that kind of thing stops working once you have a family. Treating people with families as exceptions to the overall company culture - even if they're pretty well tolerated exceptions - is ageist and not OK.
- syntaxing 9y agoI think the biggest reason for this is because Silicon Valley has an abundance of younger workers (relatively speaking). When you're young, you spend literally every moment working to strive for your ambitions. When I got older, I started to learn that every hour you spend at work is one less hour for you to spend on something meaningful to your personal life. At the end of the day, working long hours is just not worth it. There's literally nothing to show for it at the end of the day. You make less per hour. Your family hates you. And you have no personal life. The only people that really benefit from this mentality is the owners and investors and this is so unfair and toxic to the workers.
- notacoward 9y agoAgreed. To be fair, though, this is neither new nor limited to Silicon Valley. The most severe case of this attitude that I've encountered during my career was in Ann Arbor thirty years ago. Exploitation of young workers, both high- and low-skill, goes back much further than that. At least I didn't live in a literal company town, or work in a literal sweat shop.