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People see it as more acceptable to make passionate employees do extra: study

190 points by whack 7y ago

JohnFen 7y ago
If I love my job, then I'm not being taken advantage of (from my perspective). If I'm being taken advantage of, that is a strong force to get me to hate my job. Whether or not my supervisors think they're taking advantage of me is a different matter, and one that is largely irrelevant to me.
- blacktonystark 7y ago
  Its like if spanking was your fetish but the person spanking you believes they are punishing you. It's irrelevant to the person being spanked as long as they enjoy it.
  - gretch 7y ago
    I feel like this entire forum demonstrates a chronic pessimism by rejecting the idea that a deal can be a 'win-win', that somehow both participants in the deal can benefit and the world is non-zero
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      I think that my comment, and the one you're directly replying to, are both describing win-win situations.
      - gretch 7y ago
        Yes you're right and I was not saying otherwise. I was trying to point out that it's more the exception than the rule. The entire other 99% of the thread, and the OP topic itself is suggesting that relationships can only be win-lose
  - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
    Hilarious, but an apt analogy. It might make more sense to say that anyone who doesn't work for themselves is being taken advantage of - that said, I prefer the simplicity of punching the clock to the scramble of running my own business, so I guess I'm a masochist too.
- indogooner 7y ago
  I used to think the same way when I was passionate about my job in my previous company. However now I feel I was exploited and may be got burnt out due to that. Also I was not working on any altruist project so my passion probably didn't help make this world better. I think it is important to balance passion with your personal and social commitments. I hope you are doing that.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > I think it is important to balance passion with your personal and social commitments. I hope you are doing that. If I'm not, then that's the fault of my own behavior and isn't related to whether or not my employer is taking advantage of me. If my employer actively prevents me from being able to live a healthy life, that's a different matter entirely -- but I wouldn't be working there for long.
- chirau 7y ago
  Not necessarily. You could love your job and compensation and all ... but that could change when you realize someone of your rank is earning double for the same work. "Loving" is not binary. There might be room to love it even more, especially if they stop taking advantage of you.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > but that could change If it changes, then I no longer love my job...
- kstenerud 7y ago
  From the article: "In one study, participants who read that an artist was strongly passionate about his job said it was more legitimate for the boss to exploit the artist than those who read the artist wasn’t as passionate. This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom." These are regular people taking part in a survey, saying that it's OK to make a passionate person cancel a family weekend outing TO CLEAN THE OFFICE BATHROOM.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > These are regular people taking part in a survey, saying that it's OK to make a passionate person cancel a family weekend outing TO CLEAN THE OFFICE BATHROOM. If I were required to do that sort of thing, then I would consider that being taken advantage of, and I would stop loving the job.
- sound1 7y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. I would rather be in a job I love and taken advantage of instead of being in a job I hate not being taken advantage of.
Spooky23 7y ago
Companies don’t care about anything that doesn’t drive the bottom line.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The goal is making it clear that keeping you happy improves their bottom line.
scardine 7y ago
If you hate your job, someone may be taking advantage of you. If you love your job, someone may be taking advantage of you. Someone may be taking advantage of you. Or not. Who knows?
- intopieces 7y ago
  You will know you are being taken advantage of when your are verbally abused, given unreasonable deadlines and being asked to do jobs far outside your job description.
- mikorym 7y ago
  I think your comment sums up my working life better than the article.
- wesammikhail 7y ago
  This is what the oppressor vs oppressed narrative will get you. A constant state of trying to identify the group that is exploiting another even when such thing does not exist.
  - cliffy 7y ago
    This thought is incredibly reductive and dismissive of abuse. Not all relationships are between oppressor and oppressed, obviously. It does not mean they do not exist. The history of capitalism is especially rife with clear examples of those in power exploiting those lacking it. Power being capital or wealth.
  - rexpop 7y ago
    Exploitation does not exist? Has it ever?
  - nathan_long 7y ago
    Your comment sounds more like a soap box than interacting with the actual article. > In one study, participants who read that an artist was strongly passionate about his job said it was more legitimate for the boss to exploit the artist than those who read the artist wasn’t as passionate. This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom. This is not normal and professional behavior.
lostmymind66 7y ago
Well, it goes both ways. I love my job because it's not that difficult, it pays really well, and it's something I've had experience with for decades. I can get most of my work done in the span of 2 hours/day and have time left over to work on my side business. My boss is extremely happy with my work and I actually have been making more progress than most of the previous developers in my position.
- willio58 7y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what line of work are you in? Sounds like a great set up you have there.
anovikov 7y ago
Of course. I long developed that inner rule: whenever i am going to execute any business transaction and know i will not feel guilty as a result, i am going to be taken advantage of and should not do it.
- deleted 7y ago
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- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  That assumes zero-sum, and one-time transactions. Two parties can have a transaction where both go away happy, neither was taken advantage of, and both would like to do it again. If you push to have a transaction that's to your advantage, you might get one, and you might also make someone less inclined to do business with you again.
  - anovikov 7y ago
    Not really! It even pertains to long-term relationship. If you are not hard enough on your clients, they perceive you as cheap labor. And you become cheap labor.
    - JoshTriplett 7y ago
      I'm not suggesting letting yourself get cheated. I'm suggesting not pushing so hard that the person you're dealing with feels cheated, either. You shouldn't feel guilty about making a good deal, and neither should the person you're dealing with.
- nathan_long 7y ago
  "Always violate your conscience" does not sound like good advice. Maybe you're working on the assumption that you "feel guilty" about deals that are actually fair? Besides which, economics is all based on the fact that two parties in a trade can both win because they want different things. Eg, you have a surplus of oranges, I have a surplus of apples. I value my first apple highly (I like apples!) but my ten thousandth apple is nearly worthless to me. I'd happily trade that last apple for a tenth of an orange. And you'd gladly trade your last orange for a tenth of an apple. We trade some of our fruit 1:1 and we both got a deal 10x better than what we'd accept.
2819b 7y ago
Outside of tech, there are certainly industries that thrive on low-paid junior workers and get away with it because there are so many desperate for a "foot in the door" that they don't have to pay more e.g. entertainment, most D.C. gov jobs.
- sq_ 7y ago
  Even inside of tech, I think one can safely say that there are certain areas that do the same. Game development for instance.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    In certain companies, unpaid (or poorly paid) interns are in a similar situation.
  - Animats 7y ago
    NASA was once like that. A long time ago. Game development is hell if you're not at the top. Dealing with Hollywood is a pain if you're not dazzled by the industry. Either they're in development and their credit cards bounce, or they're in production and they want a new feature yesterday.
duxup 7y ago
I've worked jobs where I loved that exact job and I was willing to compromise and make less money than I otherwise might elsewhere to stay in that situation. Everyone understood that to be the case, me, employer. I don't think the employer was taking advantage of me, they were creating the exact environment that I really enjoyed.... that was the trade. I was also involved in a situation where we had some inters we hired who put in a TON of extra work (the other interns very much not so...). These guys didn't have to but they put in a lot of work as interns and kept at it after that. They were paid less than those around them (granted still paid quite well) with more experience, but in return they got to start in a position that they otherwise would not start in (more experience required), and that took extra work on their part to get caught up. They loved the work, their careers got a pretty big boost and after a while they were making roughly the same as everyone else (ballpark). I think half the battle here is communication. Talk to your boss and get on the same page if you can. Sitting in your cube and convincing yourself you're being taken advantage of doesn't mean you are.
- rexpop 7y ago
  > Sitting in your cube and convincing yourself you're being taken advantage of doesn't mean you are. This is a condescending attitude verging on gaslighting. "Just because you believe it, doesn't make it true." A low-power truism used to dismiss real pain.
  - duxup 7y ago
    I don't think I understand what you mean. I've known plenty of people who imagine they're being taken advantage of, but aren't working with their employer on it, and don't know the lay of the land. I'm not convinced many people really know their value in the market / what their employer really thinks / is doing, but you'd have to know those things to really know if you're being taken advantage of.
    - bena 7y ago
      The situation is vastly more complicated than people appreciate. Because you can have people who: Know their value and are being taken advantage of. Don't know their value and are being taken advantage of. Know their value and aren't being taken advantage of. Don't know their value and aren't being taken advantage of. Not to mention the cases where the employer isn't aware of the value their employee is providing and would adjust their compensation if they were aware. Or the employee is taking advantage of the employer. Or many other things I haven't thought of. I don't understand the mindset that the simple existence of a disparity means that someone is being taken for a ride.
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BrainInAJar 7y ago
Labor is the source of value. The managerial and owner class is paid and gets rich through the surplus of your labor. If your boss stops working, value is still created. If you stop working, everything grinds to a halt. You are being taken advantage of.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  Yes Marx, you are right, and that model not only explains everything but it has been successful in modeling the future, public policy and to organize labor.
- mrkstu 7y ago
  Do you have any awareness that this is just a framing, not objective truth? Applying a set of labels to match a predetermined story with two dimensional pre set roles. If an owner closes a company and stops paying any salaries just because he has enough money already, is that good or bad for the wage earner? If the labor has inherent value why does he need a boss/owner in the first place? Marxist or any other framing devolves to drivel when you use it mindlessly by rote- painting by the numbers won’t create any new art and mouthing platitudes creates no new information.
- bcheung 7y ago
  Labor is only one of many sources of value. Some other sources are technology, machinery, relationships, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources. A business, by necessity, brings much more to table than the mere sum of the labor. The managerial class is paid to efficiently organize human resources (hiring, motivating, growing, conflict resolution, scheduling, removing obstacles to labor) and non-human resources (budgeting, purchasing, etc). The owner is paid for making sure a company is aligned with a vision, investing resources, securing funding, assuming liability, and taking risks. Labor is worth very little without the above mentioned things. This is why people often work for others rather than themselves.
  - opportune 7y ago
    >technology, machinery, relationships, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources Literally all of these are a result of labor. Maybe not relationships per se but in a business context, yes. The rest of your comment also seems very ignorant of basic Marx
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daenz 7y ago
One of the most difficult challenges for me during my career is establishing boundaries to curb when I am being exploited. I am passionate about writing awesome, powerful software, so I am willing to put in long hours and grind because I genuinely love it. However, it's important to step back now and again and look at your value more objectively from your employer's standpoint, and negotiate compensation, hours, etc from that perspective. Otherwise you will burn out. You'll always be "exploited" to some degree, since it's the nature of a business making money, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it can be.
- awkward 7y ago
  A metric I've found useful: Is your boss directing what you're working on right now? Software is a profession, and like any profession it requires that you put in time to practice and expand your skills. Keep what you need to do for work separate from what you want to do to grow.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  If you have a lot of passion and overwork yourself you will still burn out. It's good to establish boundaries with yourself and take some time for other things outside your passion bubble. That will make you more productive too.
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ljm 7y ago
> If someone is passionate about what they do, we see it as more legitimate to exploit them That, to me, is a lot different than taking advantage. There are plenty of reasons you would take advantage of your job too... it’s not a negative thing, it’s making the best of it. It’s a much better title.
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mrbonner 7y ago
Yeah, I know. I am loving what I do and my boss knows it. So, he lets me run loose to do whatever I think necessary for the business. In a way, I am taking more responsibilities than he asks for my role. But at the same time, I am also taking advantage of this by learning and applying interesting stuffs to help me advance.
itsgrimetime 7y ago
This seems to be regularly happening in "passion" fields like human space flight, or bleeding edge tech spaces like self driving cars, medical technology, etc. For an example, just look at salaries between places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic where total comp for a software engineer is between ~100-140K vs any FAANG company where equivalent experience will pull in upwards of ~200K TC. The disparity is even larger for non-software roles (EE, HDE, ME). I acknowledge that there are more than likely other forces here, but I highly doubt that the labor supply for these specialized skills is higher than that for general software engineering. Perhaps this is a place where unionization could be helpful.
- justfor1comment 7y ago
  When you can't offer salaries, offer them dreams.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  You've mentioned fields that are more to do with hardware and physical/scientific innovation, like SDC's using all sorts of different sensors/predictive modeling, rockets that use physics/materials science/sensors, medical tech which draws heavily from many diff STEM fields. R&D in these fields is expensive and riskier than FAANG companies who use advertising/privacy exploitation to squeeze profits from the masses of users. IMO, we need to create an economic/regulatory environment which more heavily penalizes/taxes those negative aspects of ads/social media while pouring more into R&D in the sciences.
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kstenerud 7y ago
Since nobody is actually reading the article, let me sum it up: In a survey of regular people (not EvilCorp CEOs), "people consider it more legitimate to make passionate employees leave family to work on a weekend, work unpaid, and handle unrelated tasks that were not in the job description." "This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom." "Participants read about a Ph.D. student’s working relationship with their graduate advisor. Those who read a scenario in which the student was being exploited – verbally abused and given unreasonable deadlines – rated the student as likely to be more passionate than students who weren’t being exploited." What this study finds is that regular people, you and me, say that exploiting passionate people and mistreating them is OK. That we're so willing to make compensatory justifications of abuse is not a good sign.
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- fhood 7y ago
  Hopefully the title change will encourage fewer knee jerk comments.
- mc32 7y ago
  So that’s why companies want “passionate” workers, so the non passionate ones have someone to offload problems to... I rue this era when HR mimics the tactics of marketing... we want passionate “ninjas,” (whatever the term of the day is) who “share our vision” “to make a better world”. You know what. Hire people to do the job description you post. All the other frills are just image marketing.
  - Arubis 7y ago
    There's some nuance and complication there, of course--putting aside the marketspeak for "ninjas" (which has been bullshit since it was first termed; I think that, and similar terms, are at last dead and buried, no?), if you're a mission- or social impact-oriented organization, a fair number of your potential hires are actively seeing a source of fulfillment in their work, and providing them with an outlet for that can benefit everybody involved. I don't say that as justification for taking advantage of people's passions to load them up unfairly; more to acknowledge that there's sometimes more to it than a straight exchange of skills * time for cash.
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jweir 7y ago
There is an EconTalk with a Broadway producer. And he talks about the history of why Broadway unionized but essentially people were so willing to work that producers wouldn’t even pay them. The fashion industry is much the same today. Models, photographers, hair and make up artists working very hard for free or nearly for free - hoping to make it. http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broadway/ http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broad...
Animats 7y ago
That's the startup business model. Fill them with dreams, overwork them, and discard them when the dream fails. WeWork has a series of motivational articles to do just that.[1] That's part of WeWork's business case for charging more for their office space. [1] https://www.wework.com/creator/personal-profiles/turn-career-passion/ https://www.wework.com/creator/personal-profiles/turn-career...
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ltbarcly3 7y ago
So to sum up: "If you love what you do, your employer won't make you stop doing it, and might encourage you to do it more." and this means they are taking advantage of you.
cscheid 7y ago
When I was in a less-than-ideal job situation a few years ago, I found myself saying "... but I love my job" to a friend. I'll never forget the reply: "... you may love your job, but the job doesn't love you back". It was tough to hear it, but in hindsight I'm very thankful for that jolt.
tibiahurried 7y ago
I have learned the hard way not to fall in "love" with any job and it is paying very well! After having been let down from pretty much all my managers and companies I have worked for, I decided to radically change my attitude. I only stick around a company for as long as: - I can constantly learn and improve my skills - I can work with smart people - Salary, benefits, and bonuses match the market As soon as one of these conditions no longer holds I start looking for a new job. A job is a contract where a company pays you in exchange for your services nothing more nothing less. It is not worth it to buy into the company X.Y.Z hype of changing the world. Company social events etc.. I have a simple rule, If I stay up all night fixing s..t I do expect that to be rewarded $$ and not just in beers, chocolates or just thank you. At the end of the day when you leave your job, no one is gonna care for all the non-rewarded hard work that you did it to save the day. No one is gonna remember that, especially your boss. Make yourself a favor: always keep in mind that the most important thing is yourself and your family. So always do what's best for you. A job is just a job even if they provide massages and fancy perks in the office ;)
paulcole 7y ago
Do the extra work nobody else wants to do and you can get away with so much. Definitely worth the tradeoff IMO.
b_tterc_p 7y ago
I don’t think this study means much. It’s not “it’s ok to make passionate people endure bad conditions”, but rather “it’s more ok to make passionate people endure bad conditions than non-passionate people”. I don’t particularly agree with this, but if I was asked if it’s ok to ask for overtime from people who hate their jobs and then people who love their jobs, I wouldn’t be surprised if I answered slightly better for those who love their jobs. Survey design imo. Or perhaps more retroactive Protestant work ethic bias.
OrgNet 7y ago
Do extra work for same pay... that is usually how it goes for me... I suck at salary negotiations.
hosh 7y ago
I remember there are arguments that motherhood is seen as unpaid work. I wonder if there is a connection here with that. There seems to be a stronger shift in the past ten years or so where mothers are increasingly called out on being a "bad mother". Is there some relation there with the cultural attitudes on exploiting passion?
sjg007 7y ago
I think people should have a sense of ownership over their jobs.
msiyer 7y ago
There is no difference between alcoholism and workaholism. Both are manifestations of lack of control over self.

190 points by whack 7y ago

If I love my job, then I'm not being taken advantage of (from my perspective). If I'm being taken advantage of, that is a strong force to get me to hate my job. Whether or not my supervisors think they're taking advantage of me is a different matter, and one that is largely irrelevant to me.

blacktonystark 7y ago
Its like if spanking was your fetish but the person spanking you believes they are punishing you. It's irrelevant to the person being spanked as long as they enjoy it.
- gretch 7y ago
  I feel like this entire forum demonstrates a chronic pessimism by rejecting the idea that a deal can be a 'win-win', that somehow both participants in the deal can benefit and the world is non-zero
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I think that my comment, and the one you're directly replying to, are both describing win-win situations.
    - gretch 7y ago
      Yes you're right and I was not saying otherwise. I was trying to point out that it's more the exception than the rule. The entire other 99% of the thread, and the OP topic itself is suggesting that relationships can only be win-lose
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Hilarious, but an apt analogy. It might make more sense to say that anyone who doesn't work for themselves is being taken advantage of - that said, I prefer the simplicity of punching the clock to the scramble of running my own business, so I guess I'm a masochist too.
indogooner 7y ago
I used to think the same way when I was passionate about my job in my previous company. However now I feel I was exploited and may be got burnt out due to that. Also I was not working on any altruist project so my passion probably didn't help make this world better. I think it is important to balance passion with your personal and social commitments. I hope you are doing that.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > I think it is important to balance passion with your personal and social commitments. I hope you are doing that. If I'm not, then that's the fault of my own behavior and isn't related to whether or not my employer is taking advantage of me. If my employer actively prevents me from being able to live a healthy life, that's a different matter entirely -- but I wouldn't be working there for long.
chirau 7y ago
Not necessarily. You could love your job and compensation and all ... but that could change when you realize someone of your rank is earning double for the same work. "Loving" is not binary. There might be room to love it even more, especially if they stop taking advantage of you.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > but that could change If it changes, then I no longer love my job...
kstenerud 7y ago
From the article: "In one study, participants who read that an artist was strongly passionate about his job said it was more legitimate for the boss to exploit the artist than those who read the artist wasn’t as passionate. This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom." These are regular people taking part in a survey, saying that it's OK to make a passionate person cancel a family weekend outing TO CLEAN THE OFFICE BATHROOM.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > These are regular people taking part in a survey, saying that it's OK to make a passionate person cancel a family weekend outing TO CLEAN THE OFFICE BATHROOM. If I were required to do that sort of thing, then I would consider that being taken advantage of, and I would stop loving the job.
sound1 7y ago
Exactly my thoughts. I would rather be in a job I love and taken advantage of instead of being in a job I hate not being taken advantage of.

Spooky23 7y ago

Companies don’t care about anything that doesn’t drive the bottom line.

saagarjha 7y ago
The goal is making it clear that keeping you happy improves their bottom line.

scardine 7y ago

If you hate your job, someone may be taking advantage of you. If you love your job, someone may be taking advantage of you. Someone may be taking advantage of you. Or not. Who knows?

intopieces 7y ago
You will know you are being taken advantage of when your are verbally abused, given unreasonable deadlines and being asked to do jobs far outside your job description.
mikorym 7y ago
I think your comment sums up my working life better than the article.
wesammikhail 7y ago
This is what the oppressor vs oppressed narrative will get you. A constant state of trying to identify the group that is exploiting another even when such thing does not exist.
- cliffy 7y ago
  This thought is incredibly reductive and dismissive of abuse. Not all relationships are between oppressor and oppressed, obviously. It does not mean they do not exist. The history of capitalism is especially rife with clear examples of those in power exploiting those lacking it. Power being capital or wealth.
- rexpop 7y ago
  Exploitation does not exist? Has it ever?
- nathan_long 7y ago
  Your comment sounds more like a soap box than interacting with the actual article. > In one study, participants who read that an artist was strongly passionate about his job said it was more legitimate for the boss to exploit the artist than those who read the artist wasn’t as passionate. This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom. This is not normal and professional behavior.

lostmymind66 7y ago

Well, it goes both ways. I love my job because it's not that difficult, it pays really well, and it's something I've had experience with for decades. I can get most of my work done in the span of 2 hours/day and have time left over to work on my side business. My boss is extremely happy with my work and I actually have been making more progress than most of the previous developers in my position.

willio58 7y ago
Just out of curiosity, what line of work are you in? Sounds like a great set up you have there.

anovikov 7y ago

Of course. I long developed that inner rule: whenever i am going to execute any business transaction and know i will not feel guilty as a result, i am going to be taken advantage of and should not do it.

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JoshTriplett 7y ago
That assumes zero-sum, and one-time transactions. Two parties can have a transaction where both go away happy, neither was taken advantage of, and both would like to do it again. If you push to have a transaction that's to your advantage, you might get one, and you might also make someone less inclined to do business with you again.
- anovikov 7y ago
  Not really! It even pertains to long-term relationship. If you are not hard enough on your clients, they perceive you as cheap labor. And you become cheap labor.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    I'm not suggesting letting yourself get cheated. I'm suggesting not pushing so hard that the person you're dealing with feels cheated, either. You shouldn't feel guilty about making a good deal, and neither should the person you're dealing with.
nathan_long 7y ago
"Always violate your conscience" does not sound like good advice. Maybe you're working on the assumption that you "feel guilty" about deals that are actually fair? Besides which, economics is all based on the fact that two parties in a trade can both win because they want different things. Eg, you have a surplus of oranges, I have a surplus of apples. I value my first apple highly (I like apples!) but my ten thousandth apple is nearly worthless to me. I'd happily trade that last apple for a tenth of an orange. And you'd gladly trade your last orange for a tenth of an apple. We trade some of our fruit 1:1 and we both got a deal 10x better than what we'd accept.

2819b 7y ago

Outside of tech, there are certainly industries that thrive on low-paid junior workers and get away with it because there are so many desperate for a "foot in the door" that they don't have to pay more e.g. entertainment, most D.C. gov jobs.

sq_ 7y ago
Even inside of tech, I think one can safely say that there are certain areas that do the same. Game development for instance.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  In certain companies, unpaid (or poorly paid) interns are in a similar situation.
- Animats 7y ago
  NASA was once like that. A long time ago. Game development is hell if you're not at the top. Dealing with Hollywood is a pain if you're not dazzled by the industry. Either they're in development and their credit cards bounce, or they're in production and they want a new feature yesterday.

duxup 7y ago

I've worked jobs where I loved that exact job and I was willing to compromise and make less money than I otherwise might elsewhere to stay in that situation. Everyone understood that to be the case, me, employer. I don't think the employer was taking advantage of me, they were creating the exact environment that I really enjoyed.... that was the trade. I was also involved in a situation where we had some inters we hired who put in a TON of extra work (the other interns very much not so...). These guys didn't have to but they put in a lot of work as interns and kept at it after that. They were paid less than those around them (granted still paid quite well) with more experience, but in return they got to start in a position that they otherwise would not start in (more experience required), and that took extra work on their part to get caught up. They loved the work, their careers got a pretty big boost and after a while they were making roughly the same as everyone else (ballpark). I think half the battle here is communication. Talk to your boss and get on the same page if you can. Sitting in your cube and convincing yourself you're being taken advantage of doesn't mean you are.

rexpop 7y ago
> Sitting in your cube and convincing yourself you're being taken advantage of doesn't mean you are. This is a condescending attitude verging on gaslighting. "Just because you believe it, doesn't make it true." A low-power truism used to dismiss real pain.
- duxup 7y ago
  I don't think I understand what you mean. I've known plenty of people who imagine they're being taken advantage of, but aren't working with their employer on it, and don't know the lay of the land. I'm not convinced many people really know their value in the market / what their employer really thinks / is doing, but you'd have to know those things to really know if you're being taken advantage of.
  - bena 7y ago
    The situation is vastly more complicated than people appreciate. Because you can have people who: Know their value and are being taken advantage of. Don't know their value and are being taken advantage of. Know their value and aren't being taken advantage of. Don't know their value and aren't being taken advantage of. Not to mention the cases where the employer isn't aware of the value their employee is providing and would adjust their compensation if they were aware. Or the employee is taking advantage of the employer. Or many other things I haven't thought of. I don't understand the mindset that the simple existence of a disparity means that someone is being taken for a ride.

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BrainInAJar 7y ago

Labor is the source of value. The managerial and owner class is paid and gets rich through the surplus of your labor. If your boss stops working, value is still created. If you stop working, everything grinds to a halt. You are being taken advantage of.

conanbatt 7y ago
Yes Marx, you are right, and that model not only explains everything but it has been successful in modeling the future, public policy and to organize labor.
mrkstu 7y ago
Do you have any awareness that this is just a framing, not objective truth? Applying a set of labels to match a predetermined story with two dimensional pre set roles. If an owner closes a company and stops paying any salaries just because he has enough money already, is that good or bad for the wage earner? If the labor has inherent value why does he need a boss/owner in the first place? Marxist or any other framing devolves to drivel when you use it mindlessly by rote- painting by the numbers won’t create any new art and mouthing platitudes creates no new information.
bcheung 7y ago
Labor is only one of many sources of value. Some other sources are technology, machinery, relationships, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources. A business, by necessity, brings much more to table than the mere sum of the labor. The managerial class is paid to efficiently organize human resources (hiring, motivating, growing, conflict resolution, scheduling, removing obstacles to labor) and non-human resources (budgeting, purchasing, etc). The owner is paid for making sure a company is aligned with a vision, investing resources, securing funding, assuming liability, and taking risks. Labor is worth very little without the above mentioned things. This is why people often work for others rather than themselves.
- opportune 7y ago
  >technology, machinery, relationships, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources Literally all of these are a result of labor. Maybe not relationships per se but in a business context, yes. The rest of your comment also seems very ignorant of basic Marx

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daenz 7y ago

One of the most difficult challenges for me during my career is establishing boundaries to curb when I am being exploited. I am passionate about writing awesome, powerful software, so I am willing to put in long hours and grind because I genuinely love it. However, it's important to step back now and again and look at your value more objectively from your employer's standpoint, and negotiate compensation, hours, etc from that perspective. Otherwise you will burn out. You'll always be "exploited" to some degree, since it's the nature of a business making money, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it can be.

awkward 7y ago
A metric I've found useful: Is your boss directing what you're working on right now? Software is a profession, and like any profession it requires that you put in time to practice and expand your skills. Keep what you need to do for work separate from what you want to do to grow.
onemoresoop 7y ago
If you have a lot of passion and overwork yourself you will still burn out. It's good to establish boundaries with yourself and take some time for other things outside your passion bubble. That will make you more productive too.

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ljm 7y ago

> If someone is passionate about what they do, we see it as more legitimate to exploit them That, to me, is a lot different than taking advantage. There are plenty of reasons you would take advantage of your job too... it’s not a negative thing, it’s making the best of it. It’s a much better title.

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mrbonner 7y ago

Yeah, I know. I am loving what I do and my boss knows it. So, he lets me run loose to do whatever I think necessary for the business. In a way, I am taking more responsibilities than he asks for my role. But at the same time, I am also taking advantage of this by learning and applying interesting stuffs to help me advance.

itsgrimetime 7y ago

This seems to be regularly happening in "passion" fields like human space flight, or bleeding edge tech spaces like self driving cars, medical technology, etc. For an example, just look at salaries between places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic where total comp for a software engineer is between ~100-140K vs any FAANG company where equivalent experience will pull in upwards of ~200K TC. The disparity is even larger for non-software roles (EE, HDE, ME). I acknowledge that there are more than likely other forces here, but I highly doubt that the labor supply for these specialized skills is higher than that for general software engineering. Perhaps this is a place where unionization could be helpful.

justfor1comment 7y ago
When you can't offer salaries, offer them dreams.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
You've mentioned fields that are more to do with hardware and physical/scientific innovation, like SDC's using all sorts of different sensors/predictive modeling, rockets that use physics/materials science/sensors, medical tech which draws heavily from many diff STEM fields. R&D in these fields is expensive and riskier than FAANG companies who use advertising/privacy exploitation to squeeze profits from the masses of users. IMO, we need to create an economic/regulatory environment which more heavily penalizes/taxes those negative aspects of ads/social media while pouring more into R&D in the sciences.

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kstenerud 7y ago

Since nobody is actually reading the article, let me sum it up: In a survey of regular people (not EvilCorp CEOs), "people consider it more legitimate to make passionate employees leave family to work on a weekend, work unpaid, and handle unrelated tasks that were not in the job description." "This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom." "Participants read about a Ph.D. student’s working relationship with their graduate advisor. Those who read a scenario in which the student was being exploited – verbally abused and given unreasonable deadlines – rated the student as likely to be more passionate than students who weren’t being exploited." What this study finds is that regular people, you and me, say that exploiting passionate people and mistreating them is OK. That we're so willing to make compensatory justifications of abuse is not a good sign.

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fhood 7y ago
Hopefully the title change will encourage fewer knee jerk comments.
mc32 7y ago
So that’s why companies want “passionate” workers, so the non passionate ones have someone to offload problems to... I rue this era when HR mimics the tactics of marketing... we want passionate “ninjas,” (whatever the term of the day is) who “share our vision” “to make a better world”. You know what. Hire people to do the job description you post. All the other frills are just image marketing.
- Arubis 7y ago
  There's some nuance and complication there, of course--putting aside the marketspeak for "ninjas" (which has been bullshit since it was first termed; I think that, and similar terms, are at last dead and buried, no?), if you're a mission- or social impact-oriented organization, a fair number of your potential hires are actively seeing a source of fulfillment in their work, and providing them with an outlet for that can benefit everybody involved. I don't say that as justification for taking advantage of people's passions to load them up unfairly; more to acknowledge that there's sometimes more to it than a straight exchange of skills * time for cash.

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jweir 7y ago

There is an EconTalk with a Broadway producer. And he talks about the history of why Broadway unionized but essentially people were so willing to work that producers wouldn’t even pay them. The fashion industry is much the same today. Models, photographers, hair and make up artists working very hard for free or nearly for free - hoping to make it. http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broadway/ http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broad...

Animats 7y ago

That's the startup business model. Fill them with dreams, overwork them, and discard them when the dream fails. WeWork has a series of motivational articles to do just that.[1] That's part of WeWork's business case for charging more for their office space. [1] https://www.wework.com/creator/personal-profiles/turn-career-passion/ https://www.wework.com/creator/personal-profiles/turn-career...

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ltbarcly3 7y ago

So to sum up: "If you love what you do, your employer won't make you stop doing it, and might encourage you to do it more." and this means they are taking advantage of you.

cscheid 7y ago

When I was in a less-than-ideal job situation a few years ago, I found myself saying "... but I love my job" to a friend. I'll never forget the reply: "... you may love your job, but the job doesn't love you back". It was tough to hear it, but in hindsight I'm very thankful for that jolt.

tibiahurried 7y ago

I have learned the hard way not to fall in "love" with any job and it is paying very well! After having been let down from pretty much all my managers and companies I have worked for, I decided to radically change my attitude. I only stick around a company for as long as: - I can constantly learn and improve my skills - I can work with smart people - Salary, benefits, and bonuses match the market As soon as one of these conditions no longer holds I start looking for a new job. A job is a contract where a company pays you in exchange for your services nothing more nothing less. It is not worth it to buy into the company X.Y.Z hype of changing the world. Company social events etc.. I have a simple rule, If I stay up all night fixing s..t I do expect that to be rewarded $$ and not just in beers, chocolates or just thank you. At the end of the day when you leave your job, no one is gonna care for all the non-rewarded hard work that you did it to save the day. No one is gonna remember that, especially your boss. Make yourself a favor: always keep in mind that the most important thing is yourself and your family. So always do what's best for you. A job is just a job even if they provide massages and fancy perks in the office ;)

paulcole 7y ago

Do the extra work nobody else wants to do and you can get away with so much. Definitely worth the tradeoff IMO.

b_tterc_p 7y ago

I don’t think this study means much. It’s not “it’s ok to make passionate people endure bad conditions”, but rather “it’s more ok to make passionate people endure bad conditions than non-passionate people”. I don’t particularly agree with this, but if I was asked if it’s ok to ask for overtime from people who hate their jobs and then people who love their jobs, I wouldn’t be surprised if I answered slightly better for those who love their jobs. Survey design imo. Or perhaps more retroactive Protestant work ethic bias.

OrgNet 7y ago

Do extra work for same pay... that is usually how it goes for me... I suck at salary negotiations.

hosh 7y ago

I remember there are arguments that motherhood is seen as unpaid work. I wonder if there is a connection here with that. There seems to be a stronger shift in the past ten years or so where mothers are increasingly called out on being a "bad mother". Is there some relation there with the cultural attitudes on exploiting passion?

sjg007 7y ago

I think people should have a sense of ownership over their jobs.

msiyer 7y ago

There is no difference between alcoholism and workaholism. Both are manifestations of lack of control over self.