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How did we even end up here? As a greybeard, messing with computers has always been fun for me. Yet somehow, slowly the system has morphed it into a way to gri

by hazeii 7y ago

How did we even end up here? As a greybeard, messing with computers has always been fun for me. Yet somehow, slowly the system has morphed it into a way to grind talented people into the ground with impossible deadlines and insane demands - to the point where we need websites like this.

mapcars 7y ago
The system can not grind talented people unless they agree to be grinded. At least in democratic countries.
- seamyb88 7y ago
  Democratic countries which elect the billionaire star of the apprentice known for firing people as a form of entertainment. Plug your brain in.
- sodafountan 7y ago
  So naive, I hope you keep that spirit with you as long as you can! The 9-5 grind sucks A LOT of people up and if you can escape it, more power to you. But take one look at the traffic jams in LA and you'll see a much different story. All of those people had dreams, I'm sure a good amount of them never predicted they'd be stuck in a job they hate but there they are, wasting their lives away in a car that's sitting there polluting the environment on their way to a job that they hate.
52-6F-62 7y ago
> the system has morphed it into a way to grind talented people into the ground with impossible deadlines and insane demands My experience with computers has been the same. That and music. I make it a major point to watch for flags of that kind of environment with any company I speak to. I'm a realist and not every day can be the most fun ever—sometimes there's a bit of a grind—but it shouldn't be the default status. I would lose too much if they stopped being fun. I've had it happen once before and it took several years to find that fun feeling again. Life's too short for that.
- danenania 7y ago
  I think as a society and an economy, we need a more holistic view of wealth and profit. Obviously a company where everyone just focuses on having fun and forgets about making money isn’t going to do well, but on the other hand, is a company that makes billions but where everyone is stressed and miserable really doing well either? It’s profitable in monetary terms, but not in ‘real’ terms if we include wellbeing and quality of life when measuring outputs. The impact of a product on its users is also important—does it have a positive or negative impact on their wellbeing? A business that creates negative happiness should be viewed just like one that creates negative cashflow.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    I agree. The implications would be maybe that well-being wouldn't need to be so entwined with the model of our current fiscal economy if it came to which should win out (I mean in the tone of Star Trek's lack of traditional money). I'd also prefer less "product" worship—but that's probably more personal, and a different sub-topic.
- hazeii 7y ago
  > That and music Given the subject matter and I happened to be listening to Avicii at the time, there was a particular resonance.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    Haha nice. I've always come at it more from the analog side, myself. We all still get there, though.
ibejoeb 7y ago
Guess it depends on how grey. If you saw garage tinkering turn into a new industry, it was probably fantastic. If you came up in the already industrialized times, a job's a job, right? From my perspective I'd say that programmers, in general, have it pretty good, as jobs go. That doesn't mean a programmer is going to be happy. You just might not be happier doing anything else, either, and you might even dislike it more. Imagine punching a clock, which is practically unheard of in the western software industry...
- hazeii 7y ago
  It's been good to me (my first home computer was a Z80 with 768 bytes of RAM, my first pro job was to go onsite and sort a blown bulb in a paper tape reader - that should say how grey :) ). Punching in and out isn't so bad (I've done it), it's probably gone out of fashion because then people would get paid for all the hours they work :) What seems wrong nowadays is how exploited workers are (and not just programmers).
- cicciop 7y ago
  > If you saw garage tinkering turn into a new industry, it was probably fantastic. Probably, probably not. Maybe you know people who went on to became multibillionaires, whereas you're still tinkering and broke. I feel like I missed so, so many boats, and am in no position to catch the next one even if I could recognise it.
zanny 7y ago
All for profit business evolves that way. Doctors are working 20 hour shifts. Lawyers get 4 hours of sleep a night during discovery. Service workers get 3+ jobs to keep a roof over their head. There is absolutely nothing about the incentives structure of for profit corporate business to care at all about the people actually doing the work, and in isolation they will do everything they can to eek every drop of productivity out of their employees they can. Traditionally when switching jobs was less common employers would care more to maximize long term productivity over the short by not overworking people into mental illness but in todays regular turnover culture there is no long term incentives to bother with - put your employees to the grindstone and bleed them dry, then discard them for some new starry eyed ignorant youth. Its the duty of society via collective bargaining (unions) or collective action (law) to reign in the predatory behavior of the profit motive but in the US (and thus most of the world due to US economic imperialism) that hasn't been happening or has been crippled for decades.
scruple 7y ago
> Yet somehow, slowly the system has morphed it into a way to grind talented people into the ground with impossible deadlines and insane demands - to the point where we need websites like this What is old is new again... > Still more significant, authority over the freewheeling brotherhood of programmers is slipping into the paws of administrators and managers -- who try to make the work of the programmers planned, measurable, uniform, and faceless. [0] [0]: http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/Ershov/aesthetics_and_the_human_factor_in_programming_ershov1972.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/Ershov/aesthetics_and_t...

by hazeii 7y ago

mapcars 7y ago

The system can not grind talented people unless they agree to be grinded. At least in democratic countries.

seamyb88 7y ago
Democratic countries which elect the billionaire star of the apprentice known for firing people as a form of entertainment. Plug your brain in.
sodafountan 7y ago
So naive, I hope you keep that spirit with you as long as you can! The 9-5 grind sucks A LOT of people up and if you can escape it, more power to you. But take one look at the traffic jams in LA and you'll see a much different story. All of those people had dreams, I'm sure a good amount of them never predicted they'd be stuck in a job they hate but there they are, wasting their lives away in a car that's sitting there polluting the environment on their way to a job that they hate.

52-6F-62 7y ago

> the system has morphed it into a way to grind talented people into the ground with impossible deadlines and insane demands My experience with computers has been the same. That and music. I make it a major point to watch for flags of that kind of environment with any company I speak to. I'm a realist and not every day can be the most fun ever—sometimes there's a bit of a grind—but it shouldn't be the default status. I would lose too much if they stopped being fun. I've had it happen once before and it took several years to find that fun feeling again. Life's too short for that.

danenania 7y ago
I think as a society and an economy, we need a more holistic view of wealth and profit. Obviously a company where everyone just focuses on having fun and forgets about making money isn’t going to do well, but on the other hand, is a company that makes billions but where everyone is stressed and miserable really doing well either? It’s profitable in monetary terms, but not in ‘real’ terms if we include wellbeing and quality of life when measuring outputs. The impact of a product on its users is also important—does it have a positive or negative impact on their wellbeing? A business that creates negative happiness should be viewed just like one that creates negative cashflow.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  I agree. The implications would be maybe that well-being wouldn't need to be so entwined with the model of our current fiscal economy if it came to which should win out (I mean in the tone of Star Trek's lack of traditional money). I'd also prefer less "product" worship—but that's probably more personal, and a different sub-topic.
hazeii 7y ago
> That and music Given the subject matter and I happened to be listening to Avicii at the time, there was a particular resonance.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Haha nice. I've always come at it more from the analog side, myself. We all still get there, though.

ibejoeb 7y ago

Guess it depends on how grey. If you saw garage tinkering turn into a new industry, it was probably fantastic. If you came up in the already industrialized times, a job's a job, right? From my perspective I'd say that programmers, in general, have it pretty good, as jobs go. That doesn't mean a programmer is going to be happy. You just might not be happier doing anything else, either, and you might even dislike it more. Imagine punching a clock, which is practically unheard of in the western software industry...

hazeii 7y ago
It's been good to me (my first home computer was a Z80 with 768 bytes of RAM, my first pro job was to go onsite and sort a blown bulb in a paper tape reader - that should say how grey :) ). Punching in and out isn't so bad (I've done it), it's probably gone out of fashion because then people would get paid for all the hours they work :) What seems wrong nowadays is how exploited workers are (and not just programmers).
cicciop 7y ago
> If you saw garage tinkering turn into a new industry, it was probably fantastic. Probably, probably not. Maybe you know people who went on to became multibillionaires, whereas you're still tinkering and broke. I feel like I missed so, so many boats, and am in no position to catch the next one even if I could recognise it.

zanny 7y ago

All for profit business evolves that way. Doctors are working 20 hour shifts. Lawyers get 4 hours of sleep a night during discovery. Service workers get 3+ jobs to keep a roof over their head. There is absolutely nothing about the incentives structure of for profit corporate business to care at all about the people actually doing the work, and in isolation they will do everything they can to eek every drop of productivity out of their employees they can. Traditionally when switching jobs was less common employers would care more to maximize long term productivity over the short by not overworking people into mental illness but in todays regular turnover culture there is no long term incentives to bother with - put your employees to the grindstone and bleed them dry, then discard them for some new starry eyed ignorant youth. Its the duty of society via collective bargaining (unions) or collective action (law) to reign in the predatory behavior of the profit motive but in the US (and thus most of the world due to US economic imperialism) that hasn't been happening or has been crippled for decades.

scruple 7y ago

> Yet somehow, slowly the system has morphed it into a way to grind talented people into the ground with impossible deadlines and insane demands - to the point where we need websites like this What is old is new again... > Still more significant, authority over the freewheeling brotherhood of programmers is slipping into the paws of administrators and managers -- who try to make the work of the programmers planned, measurable, uniform, and faceless. [0] [0]: http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/Ershov/aesthetics_and_the_human_factor_in_programming_ershov1972.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/Ershov/aesthetics_and_t...