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> You're describing the opposite extreme. No, I’m simply debunking the parent commenter’s assertion that “there is absolutely no motivation to be productive”.

> You're describing the opposite extreme. No, I’m simply debunking the parent commenter’s assertion that “there is absolutely no motivation to be productive”. > a large part of your toolbox and knowledge is perceived as "obsolete" within a short time (1 or 2 years) This is a major exaggeration. I do a fair number of node projects. I did my first one ~8 years ago. I don’t think I’m close to doing my last one, and it hasn’t been hard to keep up with the changes in that time. > Banks, airlines, public institutions,... don't operate on short timescales (5 or 10 years), they operate on long timescales (20 to 50 years out). They aren't interested in shiny tech I feel like you haven’t worked in a bank or airline before. Most of them have ancient tech in their core infrastructure, but a) they’re not happy about that, they just don’t know how to change it and b) a vast majority of their technical workforce will have no contact with that at all. Your average sized bank will typically employ 0 DB2 DBAs (they’ll all just be contracted from IBM), and a very small team of Cobol devs. You could work writing code in a bank for 10 years and never meet one. Banks and airlines are constantly trying to modernize (especially since they’ve realized how much money they can save by employing SREs/DevOps engineers). They love shiny new tech. A large portion of my consulting work comes from such organisations that are highly motivated to implement it. > there's still demand for COBOL and Perl programmers. You can perfectly build a career in as an expert in those areas. No you can’t. Today’s COBOL engineers are the ones that survived getting laid off when banks decided they didn’t want to invest in COBOL anymore. There’s essentially no entry level COBOL jobs on the market today. > you do not know half of this person's life and their decisions I know he got laid off, and that he’s been looking for work since then. I also know his skill set is no longer in particularly high demand. I see this happen all the time. A significant portion of my work comes from large organisations seeking to modernize their technical capabilities. They tend to be filled with people like him when I start, and a non-trivial portion of them tend to be gone a year later (all of the ones who couldn’t adapt to the new technology). > might be because he can't simply move to another area with more swing projects There is really no such place. There are still companies that use technology like that, but the number of them is shrinking every year, and people aren’t using it for new projects. The bottom line is that even in large inefficient organisations, there is still a strong incentive to be productive and to invest in developing your own skills. Most people expect their careers to last 45+ years. Even if it takes 10 years for your skills to become obsolete in a slow moving organisation, you’d still have to spend the first 35 of those years developing your skills.

CaptArmchair 7y ago
> it hasn’t been hard to keep up with the changes in that time. That depends entirely on your context. Debt, disability, dependents, other personal goals,... Not everyone can easily spend nights and weekends following what goes on in the JavaScript, Go and IoT space at the same time. > a) they’re not happy about that, they just don’t know how to change it It's called "opportunity cost" and "risk management". They rather stick with what works - the best of all the worse alternatives - instead of stepping into the unknown. Personal happiness on the part of the staff is subservient to that strategy. Don't confuse the opinions of the tech staff with the mindset upstairs. > b) a vast majority of their technical workforce will have no contact with that at all. Goes without saying. > Cobol devs I choose COBOL and Perl as random examples of niches. There is tons of legacy infrastructure to be maintained beyond COBOL and Perl as well. > They love shiny new tech. A large portion of my consulting work comes from such organisations that are highly motivated to implement it. Of course they do. But shiny tech only gets to be implemented in place where failure is factored against the potential gains. Put differently, a mobile app being unresponsive for 15 minutes is an annoyance. Banking or medical records getting corrupted or lost, is a disaster that simply can't ever happen. > A significant portion of my work comes from large organisations seeking to modernize their technical capabilities. They tend to be filled with people like him when I start, and a non-trivial portion of them tend to be gone a year later (all of the ones who couldn’t adapt to the new technology). That's bad management based on short-term thinking, and it has absolutely nothing to do with technical skills. Modernization isn't about the tech, it's about reducing costs. Employees are seen as a liability. Always. And so lay-offs and modernization go hand in hand. The hidden cost is the loss of institutional knowledge and culture. Instead, they try to cheap out by bringing in consultants, like you, to do work on a per-project basis. But that doesn't create any institutional knowledge. Instead, it makes them utterly dependent on the volatility of the consultancy market. Down the line, what you get are stories like the trainwreck which is Boeing. Even if those employees did spend time learning Node in their free time, they would still have lost their jobs. Simply because their salaries, and the protections & benefits that salaried employers enjoy, made them unattractive. And those who did learn, well, they left long before the writing was on the wall anyway, because the only reason reason to invest time and effort in your own skills is for your own sake, not the sake of your employer. Finally, working for yourself, or working as an outplaced resource comes with many drawbacks. It may work out fine if you are healthy and you're in a situation that allows you to do that type of work. But those conditions can change at any time. Private corporations and enterprises aren't charity. It's sensible to reduce costs as you go in order to stay competitive. But when corporations do that in such a way that the labour markets get stiffled, income levels stagnate or decrease and the fabric of society gets pressured, well, that's just predatory capitalism. If you can live in such an environment, then that's great for you. But judging others because they struggle? That's a hard nope right there.

CaptArmchair 7y ago

> it hasn’t been hard to keep up with the changes in that time. That depends entirely on your context. Debt, disability, dependents, other personal goals,... Not everyone can easily spend nights and weekends following what goes on in the JavaScript, Go and IoT space at the same time. > a) they’re not happy about that, they just don’t know how to change it It's called "opportunity cost" and "risk management". They rather stick with what works - the best of all the worse alternatives - instead of stepping into the unknown. Personal happiness on the part of the staff is subservient to that strategy. Don't confuse the opinions of the tech staff with the mindset upstairs. > b) a vast majority of their technical workforce will have no contact with that at all. Goes without saying. > Cobol devs I choose COBOL and Perl as random examples of niches. There is tons of legacy infrastructure to be maintained beyond COBOL and Perl as well. > They love shiny new tech. A large portion of my consulting work comes from such organisations that are highly motivated to implement it. Of course they do. But shiny tech only gets to be implemented in place where failure is factored against the potential gains. Put differently, a mobile app being unresponsive for 15 minutes is an annoyance. Banking or medical records getting corrupted or lost, is a disaster that simply can't ever happen. > A significant portion of my work comes from large organisations seeking to modernize their technical capabilities. They tend to be filled with people like him when I start, and a non-trivial portion of them tend to be gone a year later (all of the ones who couldn’t adapt to the new technology). That's bad management based on short-term thinking, and it has absolutely nothing to do with technical skills. Modernization isn't about the tech, it's about reducing costs. Employees are seen as a liability. Always. And so lay-offs and modernization go hand in hand. The hidden cost is the loss of institutional knowledge and culture. Instead, they try to cheap out by bringing in consultants, like you, to do work on a per-project basis. But that doesn't create any institutional knowledge. Instead, it makes them utterly dependent on the volatility of the consultancy market. Down the line, what you get are stories like the trainwreck which is Boeing. Even if those employees did spend time learning Node in their free time, they would still have lost their jobs. Simply because their salaries, and the protections & benefits that salaried employers enjoy, made them unattractive. And those who did learn, well, they left long before the writing was on the wall anyway, because the only reason reason to invest time and effort in your own skills is for your own sake, not the sake of your employer. Finally, working for yourself, or working as an outplaced resource comes with many drawbacks. It may work out fine if you are healthy and you're in a situation that allows you to do that type of work. But those conditions can change at any time. Private corporations and enterprises aren't charity. It's sensible to reduce costs as you go in order to stay competitive. But when corporations do that in such a way that the labour markets get stiffled, income levels stagnate or decrease and the fabric of society gets pressured, well, that's just predatory capitalism. If you can live in such an environment, then that's great for you. But judging others because they struggle? That's a hard nope right there.