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Wow that sounds rough. I assume you've looked for other jobs? Would be interesting to hear that part of your story also and your decision to stick with this pos

Wow that sounds rough. I assume you've looked for other jobs? Would be interesting to hear that part of your story also and your decision to stick with this position for the foreseeable future

ryanmercer 8y ago
>I assume you've looked for other jobs? I'm 33, have a GED. Despite what the internet says, most companies want minimum 4 year degrees. My own primary employer, will flat out tell you bachelors minimum if you want to move up and even then you need to be willing to move to another state to move up 1 or 2 positions. My current manager had to move from Indiana to California to become a manager, then some years later when a management position opened up here she was able to move back. Someone else I know has now lived in 4 states for the company in the 12 and a half year she has also worked for the company, we also recently had someone here in our office take a management position in another state and her husband still lives here because financially it made the most sense. This year alone I've had 3 companies outright refuse to even talk to me purely because I don't have a degree, in anything. I don't want one, I don't want to spend another 4-6 years spending every minute of my free time outside of work pursuing a degree, taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt, so I can what... start entry level in a new field making 5-10k more a year, competing against people literally half my age, needing to tack on another 10-15 years on how long I'll need to work because of the added debt? We need AGI so bad. Hey AGI, figure out fusion. Hey AGI, figure out food. Hey AGI, figure out how to automate most industry so people can pursue things they want to with little worry of income, so they can live to work instead of work to live. You know, the thing that makes it the worst is. I had the occasion to go out to San Francisco this summer and visit some companies. It was a massive shock, people just doing their thing, no absurd dress codes, no concertina wire, no barbwire, no micromanaging people, no team lead or manager able to see every employee under their command at every moment, people having quiet conversations instead of being glared at if god forbid they spoke, drinks and catered food instead of "you have 30 minutes for lunch, you must prepare your food off the clock and can not eat at your desk", no sign on the bathroom door telling you to clean up after yourself, to wash your hands, etc (I shit you not, at one point the bathroom situation got to the point where we were threatened like children to have a bathroom pass/monitor system implemented if we didn't get it together). I mostly tolerated my work situation until I started meeting and talking to people in Silicon Valley and in tech in general. Until I saw how Silicon Valley-types work. Now I come to work and it absolutely feels like I'm working in some Soviet office in the height of the cold war, where you have to be paranoid about every single thing you do because you're being monitored every minute you're on the clock for pay. I totally feel these Foxconn workers. I know in general factory workers in China have it at least an order of magnitude worse, but damn do I relate.
- eloff 8y ago
  Don't let the lack of a degree hold you back. I'm a college dropout, and I've done just fine (better actually than most of those who graduated.) So has my brother, who also dropped out. Some of the most successful people I know don't have a degree - but they did all have to learn to hustle and do things differently. Many did not have a conventional career. Yeah it's a disadvantage, but that doesn't mean you have zero possibilities - but you will have to try harder and be more creative in searching for a career for yourself than those with a degree.
- jordache 8y ago
  I feel for you, but I also think it's not correct to compare yourself against work conditions in China. In a country of 1bil + people, there is hyper competition, esp for cheap labor at a degree that one can not even imagine here in the US. Relatively speaking, you (being a worker in the U.S.) Have tons more opportunities to improve your career conditions, provided you establish the baseline needed for that particular career. Software development, given how hot of a market it is, does not require traditional 4 yr degrees. You maybe looking at the wrong companies....
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    >Software development You do realize not everyone does software development for a living, right?
    - MoBattah 8y ago
      How did you find out about this website?
    - jordache 8y ago
      hackernews + data entry. The plinko board routed me directly to the software dev slot.

Wow that sounds rough. I assume you've looked for other jobs? Would be interesting to hear that part of your story also and your decision to stick with this position for the foreseeable future

ryanmercer 8y ago

>I assume you've looked for other jobs? I'm 33, have a GED. Despite what the internet says, most companies want minimum 4 year degrees. My own primary employer, will flat out tell you bachelors minimum if you want to move up and even then you need to be willing to move to another state to move up 1 or 2 positions. My current manager had to move from Indiana to California to become a manager, then some years later when a management position opened up here she was able to move back. Someone else I know has now lived in 4 states for the company in the 12 and a half year she has also worked for the company, we also recently had someone here in our office take a management position in another state and her husband still lives here because financially it made the most sense. This year alone I've had 3 companies outright refuse to even talk to me purely because I don't have a degree, in anything. I don't want one, I don't want to spend another 4-6 years spending every minute of my free time outside of work pursuing a degree, taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt, so I can what... start entry level in a new field making 5-10k more a year, competing against people literally half my age, needing to tack on another 10-15 years on how long I'll need to work because of the added debt? We need AGI so bad. Hey AGI, figure out fusion. Hey AGI, figure out food. Hey AGI, figure out how to automate most industry so people can pursue things they want to with little worry of income, so they can live to work instead of work to live. You know, the thing that makes it the worst is. I had the occasion to go out to San Francisco this summer and visit some companies. It was a massive shock, people just doing their thing, no absurd dress codes, no concertina wire, no barbwire, no micromanaging people, no team lead or manager able to see every employee under their command at every moment, people having quiet conversations instead of being glared at if god forbid they spoke, drinks and catered food instead of "you have 30 minutes for lunch, you must prepare your food off the clock and can not eat at your desk", no sign on the bathroom door telling you to clean up after yourself, to wash your hands, etc (I shit you not, at one point the bathroom situation got to the point where we were threatened like children to have a bathroom pass/monitor system implemented if we didn't get it together). I mostly tolerated my work situation until I started meeting and talking to people in Silicon Valley and in tech in general. Until I saw how Silicon Valley-types work. Now I come to work and it absolutely feels like I'm working in some Soviet office in the height of the cold war, where you have to be paranoid about every single thing you do because you're being monitored every minute you're on the clock for pay. I totally feel these Foxconn workers. I know in general factory workers in China have it at least an order of magnitude worse, but damn do I relate.

eloff 8y ago
Don't let the lack of a degree hold you back. I'm a college dropout, and I've done just fine (better actually than most of those who graduated.) So has my brother, who also dropped out. Some of the most successful people I know don't have a degree - but they did all have to learn to hustle and do things differently. Many did not have a conventional career. Yeah it's a disadvantage, but that doesn't mean you have zero possibilities - but you will have to try harder and be more creative in searching for a career for yourself than those with a degree.
jordache 8y ago
I feel for you, but I also think it's not correct to compare yourself against work conditions in China. In a country of 1bil + people, there is hyper competition, esp for cheap labor at a degree that one can not even imagine here in the US. Relatively speaking, you (being a worker in the U.S.) Have tons more opportunities to improve your career conditions, provided you establish the baseline needed for that particular career. Software development, given how hot of a market it is, does not require traditional 4 yr degrees. You maybe looking at the wrong companies....
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >Software development You do realize not everyone does software development for a living, right?
  - MoBattah 8y ago
    How did you find out about this website?
  - jordache 8y ago
    hackernews + data entry. The plinko board routed me directly to the software dev slot.