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My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have iss

My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have issues, and these issues are not "Company" issues but PEOPLE issues. Once you're large enough, you are going to have people with differing opinions, beliefs and values. These are going to clash. If you happen to be on the losing side and don't learn to accept it, you will find yourself miserable. Accept it and solider on to change if you truly believe in your fight. There are folks out there working minimum wage jobs who are truly miserable, back breaking labor, standing on their feet all day, standing in the hot sun or out in the cold weather, avoiding dangerous machinery and avoiding trying to be maimed or worse loose their life. Dealing with stupid harassment and constant abuse from their boss who makes a $1 more above minimum wage. Folks out there are really going through it. It doesn't mean that we don't have tough challenges in tech, but we have become spoiled and a bunch of whiners. The majority of the population are outside the industry and they roll their eyes when these type of articles come out and these incessant complaints don't endear them to us.

wruza 7y ago
In developer words, it’s zeroth world problems.
high_derivative 7y ago
My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's performance really affects the money printing machine. They blatantly view the company and its resources as a means to further their political goals. They come across as incredibly entitled and tone-deaf against the actual working class or people actually suffering from oppression (say, women being incarcerated in Iran for decades for taking off their veils, or protesters in HK). No matter how petty and entitled the request, anything denied is interpreted as some larger act of "violence" against them. What I didn't/don't understand is why management allowed that to happen. Either they actually believe in the political goals themselves, are afraid of the conflict, or believe it just does not matter for the company. I think what management fails to understand often is that giving in to a demand is not viewed with gratitude but merely as accepting what's naturally right and good. In other words, giving in to demands 1..n does not give you credit when demand n+1 is posed. The ultimate conflict is just delayed.
- joelx 7y ago
  I agree completely with this. Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive. Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.
  - cj 7y ago
    Did you just compare Google's advertising business to assassination, murder, and war crime?
    - NeonVice 7y ago
      He was contrasting them.
    - shrikant 7y ago
      He literally said they do not even compare.
  - CoolGuySteve 7y ago
    Yes and no, some of the projects mentioned in the article, like Project Dragonfly, involved developing the kind of censorship tools necessary to prop up dictators like the ones you mentioned. That’s not whining imo, that’s standing up to exactly the breed of ‘True Evil’ you define here. We have seen this before in tech: Nazi Germany was probably IBM’s second largest customer at the time. There is a moral imperative to not let something like that happen again. We should all be disturbed that the executive team at Google felt that Project Dragonfly was appropriate.
    - andonisus 7y ago
      My opinion is that someone is going to be providing that service, so it might as well be me (better the devil you know than the devil you don't).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tnolet 7y ago
I regularly have chuckles with friends about entitled tech workers. Complaining about the type of bottled water, the gym compensation plan, the type of company laptop. It's really sad.
- NikolaNovak 7y ago
  Oh, don't joke about the type of laptop Our boss knows that having TrackPoint is a "conditions of employment" issue. Yes, it's a privilege... at the same time, it's what we spend 50+hrs of week on, so it needs to not cause ergonomic and usability issues every second of every minute of the day ️
  - tnolet 7y ago
    I get people get all riled up about this. Even more when they are young and have no real perspective. But it gives tech workers in general a really bad vibe. Pompous, spoiled brats. Of course, most of these people are nice human beings, but somehow they get lost in minutiae and 0th world problems the moment they join some hot startup.
    - unethical_ban 7y ago
      Yes, we can have discussions about 1st world problems of work conditions that don't involve hazardous machinery or manual labor, or have poor wages. But that whole "don't complain, people have it worse" vibe extends to almost anyone living in the United States vs other countries where money means nothing, rule of law doesn't exist, or the mother country is about to slaughter thousands of people for wanting democracy. The point is: Maintain perspective, but still continue bitching about the uncomfortable chairs.
- esoterica 7y ago
  Why is it "entitled" to make demands of your employer if you are in a position to make demands? Do you also "chuckle" at people who try and negotiate pay raises or more vacation days?
trevyn 7y ago
>There are folks out there working minimum wage jobs who are truly miserable, back breaking labor, standing on their feet all day, standing in the hot sun or out in the cold weather, avoiding dangerous machinery and avoiding trying to be maimed or worse loose their life. And that is also very unacceptable.
jey 7y ago
puts on international hat Actually, all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners. You have consistent access to clean water that comes straight to your house, you even have a house, with insulation and carpets no less. You have a cornucopia of diverse and nutritious foods, and your social institutions will even feed you if you're poor! Not only do you have all these necessities, even your poor people have opulent expensive toys like cars, TVs and cell phones! 1. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/westerner https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/west...
- username90 7y ago
  > all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners This is provably wrong, many people are not whiners no matter which country you look at.
- asdff 7y ago
  A $2000 rusty car, a $40 used tv, and any cellphone made in the last 10 years do not equal opulent expensive toys in my eyes. There are homeless people with these three things. The 'welfare queen' of your conservative fantasies does not actually exist.
  - jey 7y ago
    It's written from the perspective of someone living in a mud hut and probably not on your continent.
  - ummonk 7y ago
    That's exactly the point. Even homeless Westerners have access to expensive toys. And opulent wealth is taken for granted so much that Westerners don't even see owning a rusty car, used tv, and cellphone as noteworthy.
- kevin_b_er 7y ago
  We have safe potable water for now. As public investment continues to lag we will see more Flints in the US.
rinchik 7y ago
But think about the starving children in [insert some county here]! Quite common fallacy and useless misdirection. Article is not about minimum wage work struggles but about a struggle of people with particular skill set in particular environment. Not sure how your inappropriate outburst and lack of focus is relevant here?
pjc50 7y ago
The thing is, much of this is not about their own conditions. Much of it is about the way the company treats other people, either within or outside the company. If worker-boss relationships can't be fixed at a company where the workers are economically valuable and highly educated, how can that be propagated downwards to the rest of the economy? Do people actually want it fixed, or are they more afraid of their fellow workers than their abusive boss?
MiroF 7y ago
I find this argument so facile. You can agitate for greater labor rights - I don't see why anyone would be convinced by: "but look how much more shitty these other workers lives are." Exactly - and managers would do that to tech workers in a second if they could. Let's make the best of our negotiating position while we can.
CydeWeys 7y ago
This is a really bad take. It's not a valid argumentative tactic to dismiss legitimate concerns as "whining", especially since you haven't addressed the substance of the issue at all, and it's pure what-aboutism and crab mentality to suggest that because somewhere there exist people who have it worse, you shouldn't try to make things better.
tropicalia 7y ago
My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Multiple easily findable sources suggest that the median tech salary at Google is well below $150k -- probably more like around $130k. I get your point about the "whining" -- but while the average Google definitely does better than someone with a non-tech salary -- it most cases they aren't bulge-bracket either, or anywhere near it.
- mrep 7y ago
  Lol, let me guess, you are citing glassdoor which still uses data from a decade ago in their average. 150k is new grad rates these days and senior engineers are making on average 350k [0]. [0]: https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/ https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/
- mdorazio 7y ago
  I think you're looking at pay minus stock options. True median comp at Alphabet is closer to $250k [1], which if you have two workers in a household puts you in the 1%. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/08/median-tech-salary-fb-goog-intc-nflx-csco-crm-msft.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/08/median-t...
  - tropicalia 7y ago
    Not disputing that I may be horribly wrong -- but the same source puts Larry Page's (obviously symbolic) compensation at $1 (ignoring equity) - so I'm not sure what to make of it.
gjsman-1000 7y ago
To these employees: GROW UP. Your "misery" is better than 99.9% of humanity has ever lived in.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
What is your point ? you seem to be objecting that some googlers have politics (which would be considered mainstream in many countries and companies) which disagrees with yours.
deminature 7y ago
Of course people with minimum wage jobs have it worse. That doesn't negate problems experienced by people at FAANG-level companies. It's especially interesting to hear about problems at these companies, as they're usually considered paradise, when in actuality they have problems like everywhere else, usually just different ones. The average tenure at these companies is ~2yrs, so clearly the money isn't worth it for most people. It's interesting to hear why that is without dismissing any possible problem out of hand.
rmellow 7y ago
Suffering is always relative and it's a slippery slope to dismiss as whining. By this logic, 99% of issues in the US are "whining" because other countries have it much worse. Anyone in Sierra Leone could claim to a US citizen: "Sugar lobbies are meddling with public school meals and making children diabetic? Lucky you, my country doesn't have public schools and children are starving". This of course doesn't invalidate the issue. Having lived in a third world country it would be very easy for me to dismiss "they refuse to call me by my preferred pronoun" as whining. After immigrating into the first world, it's a clear realization to me that suffering is relative and that's necessary for civilization to continue progressing through time.
- 9q9 7y ago
  Talmudic question: what's the average fertility rate of the clientele worrying about misgendering, and how does that average relate to civilization progressing through time?
  - rmellow 7y ago
    (please google Talmudic questions before downvoting parent - they're asking for consistency in my example and that's fair) The utility of the example I gave depends on your moral values [1], which admittedly was crafted for the perceived majority of the HN crowd. The example for me is a sign of respect for the freedom to be who you want to be, in contrast of imposing your morals on others. It's a sign of advancement to me that individuals feel comfortable with themselves, instead of wasting energy hiding trying to conform to an arbitrary standard. I spend less energy calling people how they like to be called than they would spend by being uncomfortable with themselves their whole lives. I won't get into the accounting of energy wasted, take my argument or leave it. I'm sorry you're being downvoted without explanation - cold shoulders divide people even further. [1] Moral values change according to time and place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mores https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mores
    - 9q9 7y ago
      The M/F/Congenitally-Infertile distinction is not an "arbitrary standard", but rather a natural kind, and the essence of reproduction of the species. Morality is something we impose upon ourselves and others precisely to coordinate the polity, in order avoid or manage conflicts (e.g. driving on the left vs driving on the right).
ErotemeObelus 7y ago
Yes it is miserable to work in Google but you're getting proportionately compensated for your misery so you can't complain of injustice.
didibus 7y ago
I'm not really getting your point. Is it: There are people who have it worst, so we need to stop trying to have it better? Because if so, that's a logical fallacy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as Or are you saying that, this kind of article will not win us sympathy from the greater populace, and we should adopt a different strategy in that regard? Or something else?

wruza 7y ago

In developer words, it’s zeroth world problems.

high_derivative 7y ago

My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's performance really affects the money printing machine. They blatantly view the company and its resources as a means to further their political goals. They come across as incredibly entitled and tone-deaf against the actual working class or people actually suffering from oppression (say, women being incarcerated in Iran for decades for taking off their veils, or protesters in HK). No matter how petty and entitled the request, anything denied is interpreted as some larger act of "violence" against them. What I didn't/don't understand is why management allowed that to happen. Either they actually believe in the political goals themselves, are afraid of the conflict, or believe it just does not matter for the company. I think what management fails to understand often is that giving in to a demand is not viewed with gratitude but merely as accepting what's naturally right and good. In other words, giving in to demands 1..n does not give you credit when demand n+1 is posed. The ultimate conflict is just delayed.

joelx 7y ago
I agree completely with this. Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive. Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.
- cj 7y ago
  Did you just compare Google's advertising business to assassination, murder, and war crime?
  - NeonVice 7y ago
    He was contrasting them.
  - shrikant 7y ago
    He literally said they do not even compare.
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  Yes and no, some of the projects mentioned in the article, like Project Dragonfly, involved developing the kind of censorship tools necessary to prop up dictators like the ones you mentioned. That’s not whining imo, that’s standing up to exactly the breed of ‘True Evil’ you define here. We have seen this before in tech: Nazi Germany was probably IBM’s second largest customer at the time. There is a moral imperative to not let something like that happen again. We should all be disturbed that the executive team at Google felt that Project Dragonfly was appropriate.
  - andonisus 7y ago
    My opinion is that someone is going to be providing that service, so it might as well be me (better the devil you know than the devil you don't).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tnolet 7y ago

I regularly have chuckles with friends about entitled tech workers. Complaining about the type of bottled water, the gym compensation plan, the type of company laptop. It's really sad.

NikolaNovak 7y ago
Oh, don't joke about the type of laptop Our boss knows that having TrackPoint is a "conditions of employment" issue. Yes, it's a privilege... at the same time, it's what we spend 50+hrs of week on, so it needs to not cause ergonomic and usability issues every second of every minute of the day ️
- tnolet 7y ago
  I get people get all riled up about this. Even more when they are young and have no real perspective. But it gives tech workers in general a really bad vibe. Pompous, spoiled brats. Of course, most of these people are nice human beings, but somehow they get lost in minutiae and 0th world problems the moment they join some hot startup.
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    Yes, we can have discussions about 1st world problems of work conditions that don't involve hazardous machinery or manual labor, or have poor wages. But that whole "don't complain, people have it worse" vibe extends to almost anyone living in the United States vs other countries where money means nothing, rule of law doesn't exist, or the mother country is about to slaughter thousands of people for wanting democracy. The point is: Maintain perspective, but still continue bitching about the uncomfortable chairs.
esoterica 7y ago
Why is it "entitled" to make demands of your employer if you are in a position to make demands? Do you also "chuckle" at people who try and negotiate pay raises or more vacation days?

trevyn 7y ago

>There are folks out there working minimum wage jobs who are truly miserable, back breaking labor, standing on their feet all day, standing in the hot sun or out in the cold weather, avoiding dangerous machinery and avoiding trying to be maimed or worse loose their life. And that is also very unacceptable.

jey 7y ago

puts on international hat Actually, all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners. You have consistent access to clean water that comes straight to your house, you even have a house, with insulation and carpets no less. You have a cornucopia of diverse and nutritious foods, and your social institutions will even feed you if you're poor! Not only do you have all these necessities, even your poor people have opulent expensive toys like cars, TVs and cell phones! 1. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/westerner https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/west...

username90 7y ago
> all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners This is provably wrong, many people are not whiners no matter which country you look at.
asdff 7y ago
A $2000 rusty car, a $40 used tv, and any cellphone made in the last 10 years do not equal opulent expensive toys in my eyes. There are homeless people with these three things. The 'welfare queen' of your conservative fantasies does not actually exist.
- jey 7y ago
  It's written from the perspective of someone living in a mud hut and probably not on your continent.
- ummonk 7y ago
  That's exactly the point. Even homeless Westerners have access to expensive toys. And opulent wealth is taken for granted so much that Westerners don't even see owning a rusty car, used tv, and cellphone as noteworthy.
kevin_b_er 7y ago
We have safe potable water for now. As public investment continues to lag we will see more Flints in the US.

rinchik 7y ago

But think about the starving children in [insert some county here]! Quite common fallacy and useless misdirection. Article is not about minimum wage work struggles but about a struggle of people with particular skill set in particular environment. Not sure how your inappropriate outburst and lack of focus is relevant here?

pjc50 7y ago

The thing is, much of this is not about their own conditions. Much of it is about the way the company treats other people, either within or outside the company. If worker-boss relationships can't be fixed at a company where the workers are economically valuable and highly educated, how can that be propagated downwards to the rest of the economy? Do people actually want it fixed, or are they more afraid of their fellow workers than their abusive boss?

MiroF 7y ago

I find this argument so facile. You can agitate for greater labor rights - I don't see why anyone would be convinced by: "but look how much more shitty these other workers lives are." Exactly - and managers would do that to tech workers in a second if they could. Let's make the best of our negotiating position while we can.

CydeWeys 7y ago

This is a really bad take. It's not a valid argumentative tactic to dismiss legitimate concerns as "whining", especially since you haven't addressed the substance of the issue at all, and it's pure what-aboutism and crab mentality to suggest that because somewhere there exist people who have it worse, you shouldn't try to make things better.

tropicalia 7y ago

My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Multiple easily findable sources suggest that the median tech salary at Google is well below $150k -- probably more like around $130k. I get your point about the "whining" -- but while the average Google definitely does better than someone with a non-tech salary -- it most cases they aren't bulge-bracket either, or anywhere near it.

mrep 7y ago
Lol, let me guess, you are citing glassdoor which still uses data from a decade ago in their average. 150k is new grad rates these days and senior engineers are making on average 350k [0]. [0]: https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/ https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/
mdorazio 7y ago
I think you're looking at pay minus stock options. True median comp at Alphabet is closer to $250k [1], which if you have two workers in a household puts you in the 1%. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/08/median-tech-salary-fb-goog-intc-nflx-csco-crm-msft.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/08/median-t...
- tropicalia 7y ago
  Not disputing that I may be horribly wrong -- but the same source puts Larry Page's (obviously symbolic) compensation at $1 (ignoring equity) - so I'm not sure what to make of it.

gjsman-1000 7y ago

To these employees: GROW UP. Your "misery" is better than 99.9% of humanity has ever lived in.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

What is your point ? you seem to be objecting that some googlers have politics (which would be considered mainstream in many countries and companies) which disagrees with yours.

deminature 7y ago

Of course people with minimum wage jobs have it worse. That doesn't negate problems experienced by people at FAANG-level companies. It's especially interesting to hear about problems at these companies, as they're usually considered paradise, when in actuality they have problems like everywhere else, usually just different ones. The average tenure at these companies is ~2yrs, so clearly the money isn't worth it for most people. It's interesting to hear why that is without dismissing any possible problem out of hand.

rmellow 7y ago

Suffering is always relative and it's a slippery slope to dismiss as whining. By this logic, 99% of issues in the US are "whining" because other countries have it much worse. Anyone in Sierra Leone could claim to a US citizen: "Sugar lobbies are meddling with public school meals and making children diabetic? Lucky you, my country doesn't have public schools and children are starving". This of course doesn't invalidate the issue. Having lived in a third world country it would be very easy for me to dismiss "they refuse to call me by my preferred pronoun" as whining. After immigrating into the first world, it's a clear realization to me that suffering is relative and that's necessary for civilization to continue progressing through time.

9q9 7y ago
Talmudic question: what's the average fertility rate of the clientele worrying about misgendering, and how does that average relate to civilization progressing through time?
- rmellow 7y ago
  (please google Talmudic questions before downvoting parent - they're asking for consistency in my example and that's fair) The utility of the example I gave depends on your moral values [1], which admittedly was crafted for the perceived majority of the HN crowd. The example for me is a sign of respect for the freedom to be who you want to be, in contrast of imposing your morals on others. It's a sign of advancement to me that individuals feel comfortable with themselves, instead of wasting energy hiding trying to conform to an arbitrary standard. I spend less energy calling people how they like to be called than they would spend by being uncomfortable with themselves their whole lives. I won't get into the accounting of energy wasted, take my argument or leave it. I'm sorry you're being downvoted without explanation - cold shoulders divide people even further. [1] Moral values change according to time and place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mores https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mores
  - 9q9 7y ago
    The M/F/Congenitally-Infertile distinction is not an "arbitrary standard", but rather a natural kind, and the essence of reproduction of the species. Morality is something we impose upon ourselves and others precisely to coordinate the polity, in order avoid or manage conflicts (e.g. driving on the left vs driving on the right).

ErotemeObelus 7y ago

Yes it is miserable to work in Google but you're getting proportionately compensated for your misery so you can't complain of injustice.

didibus 7y ago

I'm not really getting your point. Is it: There are people who have it worst, so we need to stop trying to have it better? Because if so, that's a logical fallacy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as Or are you saying that, this kind of article will not win us sympathy from the greater populace, and we should adopt a different strategy in that regard? Or something else?