15 ms·

Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. People enter the "rat race" because it gives them something, not just a source of

Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. People enter the "rat race" because it gives them something, not just a source of money but other achievement and identity stuff. I think a lot of those incentives are changing. My take on work is that it's getting more exploitive, more administrative, less fun and less satisfying. Between politics and policies and management, work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs. It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. And it's my theory anyway that a lot of people have had enough. A simpler way to say it is that more people would rather exist outside society, in a sense, and do their own thing, than put up with all the BS that comes with working for someone else. Even if the pay is worse. I bet most Uber Eats drivers make less than fast food employees, but I also bet they have less non work corporate BS to deal with, and outside whatever algorithmic unfairness can work as they want. In corporate jobs, the situation is magnified because the requirements of conformity are much greater, but so generally are the options.

analog31 5y ago
>>>> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. I work as much as I do because I don't know what's going to happen next. Someone in my family could get sick. The economy could go into the crapper. I could live longer than normal (my parents are 90). Probably the worst corporate BS I could imagine would be commuting an hour or more, and I'm lucky that my commute is less than 1/2 hour by bike.
Swizec 5y ago
> It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. I think the industrial world would love to disagree. Working at a factory my grandma would have carefully regulated break times, food times, etc. All controlled by a central clock for everyone on shift. It makes sense when you consider factory line workers as part of the machine, but it's also kinda bullshit from a human perspective. And that was after the big wins of the labor movement in the early 1900's. Imagine how bad it was in the late 1800's. The new innovation our generation introduced is that because everyone is supposed to be following their dream and passion, you not only have to be a good worker, you also have to love it. If you don't, you are expected to perform the part of someone who does.
- vangelis 5y ago
  Scientific management and its consequences, etc.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  People don't like robotization of the workplace, but tend to forget that humans in those positions used to be treated like robots. Charlie Chaplin satirized this in his 1936 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. People enter the "rat race" because it gives them something, not just a source of money but other achievement and identity stuff. You also have less incentive to be in the race if you do not have kids/spouse, which fewer people have.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  I'm wondering... people who don't have kids/commitments outside of work could - theoretically - give more effort for their work (e.g. time to commute wouldn't be seen as quite as bad). But they also probably expect more returns from work to make it worthwhile. So if the last part is not given, they will seek out alternatives (other work or other fulfilling roles outside of work).
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I expect overtime work, evenings, nights, on call type work to get more expensive, since before, a person with dependents might have felt pressured to need to earn the extra income working a second job or extra hours, but for a single person, they might not feel the need to give up their free time.
vermilingua 5y ago
> It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. Sure we have, serfdom. Serfs were not only expected to provide labour to their “employers”, but to fight for them, believe what they believe, and pledge their fealty. Like serfs, and unlike the period from the industrial revolution to the postwar years, it’s becoming less common for people to change careers, an occupation being more than a job and becoming an identity. Sure we might change employers frequently, but it is not often (and is in fact a spectacle) when someone makes a drastic change of occupation.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  Since we’re here: https://www.amazon.com/Microserfs-Douglas-Coupland/dp/0061624268 https://www.amazon.com/Microserfs-Douglas-Coupland/dp/006162...
  - agbell 5y ago
    This book was ahead of its time. Millionaires who live like college kids. Overworked and stressed out devs working for a faceless corporation. I read it a long time ago, but I recall it was super good.
  - senkora 5y ago
    I read this recently. I thought it was okay, but it didn’t really speak to me and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the cultural distance between the 90s and today. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. I do think it covered some interesting ground and gave me a better understanding of the 90s in tech.
- flyinglizard 5y ago
  Not changing careers is an inevitable result of specialization and the state of the art getting more and more demanding. I think it’s a net positive though as this evolution also provides many opportunities. Occupation being an identity is a very long tradition though (going all the way to surnames). If anything, social media allowed ordinary people to express themselves outside of - and in disconnection from - their professional environment. Maybe this is part of why people are disassociating from their employers to some extent.
zz865 5y ago
I have a meeting today today to negotiate with another audit team that my TPS reports can be proven to be accurate. I only did this 2 months ago with external audit. Shoot me now.
paulpauper 5y ago
Hasn't work always sucked . The difference now is ppl have more ways of making money that does not involve traditional employment. Also, there is more wealth than ever flowing around., so pplcan live off inheritances or with relatives or friends who have money. Wealth is growing at 20 percent per year since 2010 in terms of stock market gains but population growth just 1 percent. Even if the gains are dispropprante to the top, that is still a lot of wealth sloshing around.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Even if the gains are dispropprante to the top, that is still a lot of wealth sloshing around. wealth, or just money?
DoreenMichele 5y ago
Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. You need to spend your time doing something. If you aren't spending a good chunk of it making money, you may be spending too much of it blowing through money out of boredom. I hypothesize that this is a significant part of why 2/3 of lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years: They quit their job and start spending like there's no tomorrow. And then, oops, the money shockingly doesn't go very far when all you do every minute of every day is spend money like a drunken sailor.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Another part might be the people who play the lottery a lot are more prone to win than those who play rarely. Those who play the lottery a lot are probably not the most financially/mathematically savvy to start with, so if they win, they’re not likely to suddenly turn into Mr Money Mustache.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    I think another major factor is that people imagine winning the lottery will solve all their problems because they feel like "money" is their single biggest problem and if that would go away, their life would work. In reality, they trade poor people problems for rich people problems and don't have rich people coping skills. They run out of money before developing them or they resist developing them because they are hesitant to be that cynical and jaded and they run out of money trying to prove to themselves that life does not boil down to "I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends, that is as long as I'm buying."
- wvh 5y ago
  > You need to spend your time doing something. Exactly. It might be hard to find peace and a sense of meaning in life without having some sort of responsibility, even if one thinks ultimate freedom is the lack of responsibility. In some ways, I imagine being rich (without that being the almost coincidental side effect of a strong passion) and especially winning the lottery is for many going to be like throwing money into a bottomless pit. Though that doesn't necessarily mean I would mind giving it a try...
slg 5y ago
>Between politics and policies and management, work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs. It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. Multiple comments have pointed out how this is wrong, but I have one more to add to the list. Look up Henry Ford's Sociological Department. Ford gets championed a lot today for his support of his workers and helping to build the middle class, but in order to qualify for his $5 per day wage you had to subject yourself to random inspections by the company's Sociological Department. This meant your employer would routinely check up on all aspects of your personal life. Your pay was docked if you weren't married, your home was too dirty, you didn't save enough of your wages, you didn't speak English well enough, your kids weren't regularly attending school, and if you got drunk after work. Nothing employers do today comes close to that.
- rayiner 5y ago
  Maybe they should do that stuff instead. If we are going to have corporate paternalism, it should at least teach you effective life behaviors.
  - slg 5y ago
    This is literally the path towards fascism. There was a reason Ford was such a big fan of Hitler. Society can be a lot more efficient when everyone is forced to comply with what our leader thinks is best for us. In comparison to that I would take today's corporate paternalism that basically amounts to "don't be an asshole" any day of the week.
    - version_five 5y ago
      Interesting to see the different takes. I think the comment you replied to was being tongue in cheek with the essential point that the (I agree horrible) interventions by Ford were at least attempting to be constructive. What we see today is something very different, and in my view much closer to "power for power's sake" control that I think you're associating with facism.
chrisin2d 5y ago
I think you're on the right trail. My take is that a highly productive globalized industrial society necessitates high abstraction of work and supply chains. Buying a chair on an e-commerce site has many layers, each with its own sublayers (shipping <- fulfillment <- e-commerce site <- payments <- warehousing <- distribution <- manufacturing <- supply chain <- design <- product research <- market research — I'm skipping a bunch). Each layer and sublayer has its own bureaucracy to keep things running and to interface with other layers. A pair of pants will be touched by fashion consumer researchers, fashion designers, textile designers, product managers, supply chain managers, marketing managers, analysts, social media managers, advertisers, merchandisers, software engineers, accountants, data scientists (clothing companies are turning to ML to assess fashion trends and demand), and many, many more. All to make it possible for you discover and buy a cheap pair of pants and have it delivered in 2 days. Because of its efficiencies, the high abstraction economy outcompeted and replaced the old low abstraction economy. The driving force is the fact that it's easy for people to indirectly 'vote' for a high abstraction economy by overwhelmingly preferring to buy cheaper and more stuff; but it's very difficult for people to 'vote' for a low abstraction economy, even if people will occasionally buy something handmade. I think that this force will endlessly drive the economy to become ever more abstract. Consumers want cheaper, better stuff. The economy will become more abstract, evolving ever narrower niche roles in order to serve consumer wants. People will find themselves in those ever narrowing roles in order to afford the good life. And there is no low abstraction economy to flee to for the simple life because it has been outcompeted and replaced.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  I think you've just illustrated the problem with laissez faire economics. It rewards only efficiency (and short term efficiency at that - resilience is often not accounted for), even if that's not what people might choose (they can choose otherwise, but not for long becauss those other modalities will be outcompeted out of existence). We could have a way out of this if we restructured our economy so that decision making power didn't solely rest with owners of capital, and taxed companies ina more strongly progessive manner to prevent winner-takes-all situations. That would enable companies to make decisions that were not solely for financial reasons and allow for more diversity in business models and practices.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> My take on work is that it's getting more exploitive, more administrative, less fun and less satisfying. Between politics and policies and management, work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs. It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I have to disagree hard with this idea that working conditions are worse in 2021 than they were in the past. Modern jobs are quite comfortable and flexible relative to what was expected a few decades ago. Companies today bend over backwards to retain employees. I’m not exactly old, but I’m old enough to have experienced a significant shift toward better treatment of workers. At the upper end (e.g. us engineers earning above-average wages), the level of employee pampering we get at modern tech companies feels unreal, even outside of the stereotypical FAANG offices. The amount of flexibility, respect, and attention showered on us (meaning tech workers) now is miles ahead of working conditions decades ago. Just ask anyone who worked through past recessions what it’s like to work in a crowded job market with far more workers than jobs and where everyone is trying to outperform each other to avoid the next round of layoffs. It’s nothing like our job market today where you can walk out of one company and into another in a matter of weeks or days.
- bsder 5y ago
  > Modern jobs are quite comfortable and flexible relative to what was expected a few decades ago. Companies today bend over backwards to retain employees. Some modern jobs. On the other end of the spectrum you have Amazon drivers pissing in bottles--something that a steel mill laborer would never have had to do.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > On the other end of the spectrum you have Amazon drivers pissing in bottles--something that a steel mill laborer would never have had to do. Are you really suggesting that laboring at a steel mill decades ago was a more comfortable job than being an Amazon worker? That's incredibly out of touch. Even modern steel mills, with all of our technology and safety regulations, are difficult jobs. That's why they pay more than being an Amazon warehouse employees or drivers. Older steel mill jobs were absolutely hellish. The struggles at modern Amazon jobs have been greatly exaggerated or cherry-picked in the news. There's no comparison between the two.
ausbah 5y ago
by the fact they make less than minimum wage in many cases, I think gig workers are struggling even more than corporate minimum wage workers to get back. not having a "corporate environment" isn't worth 60+ hours a week just to make rent and food
random314 5y ago
It could also be that one is exposed to more politics as you age and climb the ladder.
weq 5y ago
As a developer, who suffered from sudden back issues that meant i could not sit down for 1+yrs.... i came to the conclusion early in my career that my time was worth much more then the prospect of success or early retirement. I quit my job in my late 20s, sold everything, and went off to the Amazon to aim my dev skills at the study of the boto dolphins in an effort to live and work in different ways. That journey i took 10yrs ago took me all over the world eventually, and reinforced my pre-trip skeptism of what success in life was. To me, climbing the corporate ladder simply meant trading my time for more money and more stress. So while others looked at me and skoffed at the 80$k i spent travelling the world for 2 years in a search for meaning... I now look at a post-covid world and take solace that i did it. I did it, just before the world changed, forever. I saw the world, the coral reefs, the rivers, the rainforests, before climate change, people destroyed them. No matter how much money you eventually get, or how many peers you impress, you cannot get that experience that I had. And thats really what you are doing by chasing the startup dream. Your trading your life for status and money amoung your peers. I came to the realisation that what drives me in life not my peers. it was love.... as i travelled around the world and saw poor families with not much nestled into natural environments that provided for them i saw satisfaction. They had a balance. They were poor, but balanced. They took joy in the love that they could give eachother and sharing that time with eachother reinforced that. So fast forward 10 yrs since that trip. What did i learn? Money cannot by love. No matter how popular you are with your peers, without love, you go home from that recognisition into an abyss of loneliness. You are rish, respected, but alone. Eventually I came back to life and attempted one last startup venture before figuring that its time i start working Remotely and start living everyday the way i wanted. I love to code, and finding a company that is stimulating and open to this relationship means i will give them the best everyday, day or night. I thank covid for giving others that shake they all needed. Remote working is much more accessible now. Covid hasnt changed my life at all. I literly have not felt a single day in lockdown, even while the majority of people around me snarl in fear (i also gave up TV, so havnt even seen a covid-news-cast yet). I sit here watching my peers panic buy, while i never go a day without something i desire. I gave away more toilet paper then i bought. To all those who have those doubt. Dont ignore them. The risks are worth the rewards. You will be calmer inside.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
nazgulnarsil 5y ago
Moral entrepreneurs have flooded workplaces with memes that enable petty tyrants to bully people in a way that is difficult and unrewarding to fight back against.
stadium 5y ago
> more people would rather exist outside society The "society" created around the routines of most corporate jobs is artificial, inauthentic, and provides material comforts. Having death staring you down during a pandemic for this long is a good motivator for letting go of baggage, including said jobs, especially if material comforts were the main reason to stay in it.
paxys 5y ago
Another problem is that the gap between the rank-and-file worker and the top tier is ballooning out of proportion. 50 years ago you would bust your ass at work and your CEO would be driving a fancy car with the profits you made him. Today you have a slightly nicer car and your CEO has a private island.
howaboutnope 5y ago
> work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs > Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality, or as one says sometimes, our "personality package", for something. Now, this is not so true for the manual workers. The manual worker does not have to sell his personality. He doesn't have to sell his smile. But what you might call the "symbolpushers" , that is to say, all the people who deal with figures, with paper, with men, who manipulate - to use a better, or nicer, word - manipulate men and signs and words, all those today have not only to sell their service but in the bargain they're to sell their personality, more or less. There are exceptions. -- Erich Fromm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-7UDT0Xe4&t=94s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-7UDT0Xe4&t=94s
Lucadg 5y ago
For the reasons you enlist, I think we'll see a big shift towards working for DAOs or other forms of value creating decentralized and distributed organizations. They allow more independence, you only work on stuff you like and the interests are more aligned.
- Animats 5y ago
  Right. Your boss is a smart contract.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  We already have contractor's markets. There's a reason not everybody uses them.
  - Lucadg 5y ago
    That's very different
bodge5000 5y ago
> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to I see this quite a bit on HN (the other day someone was saying to no fanfair that he doesn't work because he doesn't like the corporate setting) and other parts of the internet, enough so to assume it must be true, but this notion really confuses me, as it's certainly never been a choice for myself. Genuinely interested, maybe I'm missing a trick in life, how would you pay for rent, food, electricity, ect... I do genuinely think when I read things like this or see things casually mentioned in the news that there's some alternative route in life nobodies ever told me about
- ornornor 5y ago
  Everyone has an opinion on that matter, but if you’re making software engineer money then this might be a viable option: mrmoneymustache.com Maybe you’ve already heard of tha blog, maybe not. In a nutshell: rethink your life and your expenses so you’re able to save 50+% of your income. Put it into low cost ETFs (which particular one depends on what’s available where you live), and after a while (13 years at 50%, much less at more saving), you’ll have the option to not work anymore and still cover all your life expenses etc. Not selling anything, not looking to start a debate, just mentioning it because parent might be interested or curious.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    Huh, maybe that is it, at least here on HN. I'm perhaps a bit younger than a lot of the people on here (24), and maybe I dont earn as much, so the answer may well just be time, which is disappointingly not the bombshell I was hoping for, but does make a lot more sense. Cheers!
  - csunbird 5y ago
    Might be true for people posting here and getting paid 300-500k per year, but this is simply not possible for people working for lower salaries in non SF companies, especially for people in Europe. If you are able to spend 300k a year, you will be working until end of your days anyways.
    - 5y ago
starfallg 5y ago
>I bet most Uber Eats drivers make less than fast food employees, but I also bet they have less non work corporate BS to deal with, and outside whatever algorithmic unfairness can work as they want. From my experience of seeing grumpy Deliveroo and Uber Eats drivers mouth off at poor fast food and restaurant employees when the food isn't ready yet, and the general way they drive on the streets, I don't agree with that sentiment at all.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Large corporation really didn't do anything lately to improve their image. I opted for smaller monetary rewards for working in a smaller company with extensive freedom. Stress is mostly positive when projects get released. I have paid vacations and sick days, industry is secure that I can probably work until I get my pension if I wanted to. You also get much more invested in the company and other employees. I still recommend doing a corp run for a year or two to get to know this world. It also help to negotiate your rates. But I don't see how you would not get a dislike about how things are done. It also seem to attract a certain kind of person.
nucleogenesis 5y ago
I highly suggest you dig into Marx and economic leftist thought (Richard Wolff is a very clear modern source and a well respected Marxist economist) because this kind of exploitation has long been identified by those critical of capitalism as endemic to capitalism. Roughly, a key line of Marxist thought suggests that Capitalism is designed to alienate the worker so that they are more easily exploited by the capital owning class. People now want to live “outside society” because capitalist incentives necessarily eliminate the ability of people to even build a community or society in their own interest because nearly everything they must do to subsist robs them of the opportunity (long working hours, long commutes, a distinct lack of agency in life under exploitative management, and so on). I could never do it justice here, but you might find it valuable knowing how and when people have very legitimately been making the same point (roughly) that you’re saying here for generations.
overton 5y ago
> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. People enter the "rat race" because it gives them something, not just a source of money but other achievement and identity stuff. What? In 2020, 50-78% of Americans earned just enough to pay their bills each month. Worldwide, a poll found that 85% of people are disengaged at work. I guarantee you that most people work -- even work long hours -- because they have no real choice. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/17/breakdown-what-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-looks-like/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/17/breakdown... https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken-workplace.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken...
- overton 5y ago
  I would add that it's misleading to generalize the experience of tech workers to workers at large. We're in a weird and fortunate spot because we work as in a well capitalized industry as highly specialized skilled artisans. So often we get autonomy, leverage, and a good paycheck. This is not the experience for workers in general.
  - j-krieger 5y ago
    >I would add that it's misleading to generalize the experience of tech workers to workers at large I would add that it's misleading to generalize the experience of american tech workers to tech workers at large. Anywhere else, you're most likely just as underpaid and overworked as the rest.
- zemvpferreira 5y ago
  Being generous, OP might have been referring to plain survival. You can buy actual homes for $10-20k in the US, youtube has told me, with enough land to grow enough food to sustain yourself. It's certainly not impossible to survive on a very small amount of money (until you die of a horribly expensive health problem). That might not be the path most of us choose, but it's still there.
  - 5y ago
plutonorm 5y ago
Even as a tech worker it is only in my second decade of work that I have the chance to scale back my work hours. It's not an easy thing to do.
prawn 5y ago
I think you're partially on the right track but the replies disputing whether work is now easier or harder suggests worker dissatisfaction has changed for a different reason. I'd say that work is generally easier but people (anecdotally from people I talk to) are less interested. I wonder if part of it is exposure to alternatives. Once upon a time, your awareness of an alternate life was a movie, or newspaper article, or a friend showing you their travel photos. Now, if you are ever on social media, you face a bombardment of peers or randoms having long lunches during work hours, travelling around, in the sun, at the beach, etc - or maybe it's just my feed. Hard to feel like you have your work mix right if your daily vibe doesn't compare to the aggregated freedom.
wolfretcrap 5y ago
I used to work in US and Europe and in last decade work life balance is basically shot there. As a result I took my savings and move back to India. Now I've a small farm here, since the market is soo inefficient in India specially for farm produce and labor abundant I am able to work only 1 hour a day and enjoy rest of my day on things I like. In US and Europe proportion of smart people with access to resources is vastly more compared to India where either smart people lack resources or the ones with resources aren't smart enough.

analog31 5y ago

>>>> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. I work as much as I do because I don't know what's going to happen next. Someone in my family could get sick. The economy could go into the crapper. I could live longer than normal (my parents are 90). Probably the worst corporate BS I could imagine would be commuting an hour or more, and I'm lucky that my commute is less than 1/2 hour by bike.

Swizec 5y ago

> It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. I think the industrial world would love to disagree. Working at a factory my grandma would have carefully regulated break times, food times, etc. All controlled by a central clock for everyone on shift. It makes sense when you consider factory line workers as part of the machine, but it's also kinda bullshit from a human perspective. And that was after the big wins of the labor movement in the early 1900's. Imagine how bad it was in the late 1800's. The new innovation our generation introduced is that because everyone is supposed to be following their dream and passion, you not only have to be a good worker, you also have to love it. If you don't, you are expected to perform the part of someone who does.

vangelis 5y ago
Scientific management and its consequences, etc.
inglor_cz 5y ago
People don't like robotization of the workplace, but tend to forget that humans in those positions used to be treated like robots. Charlie Chaplin satirized this in his 1936 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)

lotsofpulp 5y ago

Tarsul 5y ago
I'm wondering... people who don't have kids/commitments outside of work could - theoretically - give more effort for their work (e.g. time to commute wouldn't be seen as quite as bad). But they also probably expect more returns from work to make it worthwhile. So if the last part is not given, they will seek out alternatives (other work or other fulfilling roles outside of work).
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I expect overtime work, evenings, nights, on call type work to get more expensive, since before, a person with dependents might have felt pressured to need to earn the extra income working a second job or extra hours, but for a single person, they might not feel the need to give up their free time.

vermilingua 5y ago

> It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. Sure we have, serfdom. Serfs were not only expected to provide labour to their “employers”, but to fight for them, believe what they believe, and pledge their fealty. Like serfs, and unlike the period from the industrial revolution to the postwar years, it’s becoming less common for people to change careers, an occupation being more than a job and becoming an identity. Sure we might change employers frequently, but it is not often (and is in fact a spectacle) when someone makes a drastic change of occupation.

dvtrn 5y ago
Since we’re here: https://www.amazon.com/Microserfs-Douglas-Coupland/dp/0061624268 https://www.amazon.com/Microserfs-Douglas-Coupland/dp/006162...
- agbell 5y ago
  This book was ahead of its time. Millionaires who live like college kids. Overworked and stressed out devs working for a faceless corporation. I read it a long time ago, but I recall it was super good.
- senkora 5y ago
  I read this recently. I thought it was okay, but it didn’t really speak to me and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the cultural distance between the 90s and today. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. I do think it covered some interesting ground and gave me a better understanding of the 90s in tech.
flyinglizard 5y ago
Not changing careers is an inevitable result of specialization and the state of the art getting more and more demanding. I think it’s a net positive though as this evolution also provides many opportunities. Occupation being an identity is a very long tradition though (going all the way to surnames). If anything, social media allowed ordinary people to express themselves outside of - and in disconnection from - their professional environment. Maybe this is part of why people are disassociating from their employers to some extent.

zz865 5y ago

I have a meeting today today to negotiate with another audit team that my TPS reports can be proven to be accurate. I only did this 2 months ago with external audit. Shoot me now.

paulpauper 5y ago

Hasn't work always sucked . The difference now is ppl have more ways of making money that does not involve traditional employment. Also, there is more wealth than ever flowing around., so pplcan live off inheritances or with relatives or friends who have money. Wealth is growing at 20 percent per year since 2010 in terms of stock market gains but population growth just 1 percent. Even if the gains are dispropprante to the top, that is still a lot of wealth sloshing around.

gruez 5y ago
>Even if the gains are dispropprante to the top, that is still a lot of wealth sloshing around. wealth, or just money?

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. You need to spend your time doing something. If you aren't spending a good chunk of it making money, you may be spending too much of it blowing through money out of boredom. I hypothesize that this is a significant part of why 2/3 of lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years: They quit their job and start spending like there's no tomorrow. And then, oops, the money shockingly doesn't go very far when all you do every minute of every day is spend money like a drunken sailor.

sokoloff 5y ago
Another part might be the people who play the lottery a lot are more prone to win than those who play rarely. Those who play the lottery a lot are probably not the most financially/mathematically savvy to start with, so if they win, they’re not likely to suddenly turn into Mr Money Mustache.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  I think another major factor is that people imagine winning the lottery will solve all their problems because they feel like "money" is their single biggest problem and if that would go away, their life would work. In reality, they trade poor people problems for rich people problems and don't have rich people coping skills. They run out of money before developing them or they resist developing them because they are hesitant to be that cynical and jaded and they run out of money trying to prove to themselves that life does not boil down to "I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends, that is as long as I'm buying."
wvh 5y ago
> You need to spend your time doing something. Exactly. It might be hard to find peace and a sense of meaning in life without having some sort of responsibility, even if one thinks ultimate freedom is the lack of responsibility. In some ways, I imagine being rich (without that being the almost coincidental side effect of a strong passion) and especially winning the lottery is for many going to be like throwing money into a bottomless pit. Though that doesn't necessarily mean I would mind giving it a try...

slg 5y ago

>Between politics and policies and management, work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs. It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. Multiple comments have pointed out how this is wrong, but I have one more to add to the list. Look up Henry Ford's Sociological Department. Ford gets championed a lot today for his support of his workers and helping to build the middle class, but in order to qualify for his $5 per day wage you had to subject yourself to random inspections by the company's Sociological Department. This meant your employer would routinely check up on all aspects of your personal life. Your pay was docked if you weren't married, your home was too dirty, you didn't save enough of your wages, you didn't speak English well enough, your kids weren't regularly attending school, and if you got drunk after work. Nothing employers do today comes close to that.

rayiner 5y ago
Maybe they should do that stuff instead. If we are going to have corporate paternalism, it should at least teach you effective life behaviors.
- slg 5y ago
  This is literally the path towards fascism. There was a reason Ford was such a big fan of Hitler. Society can be a lot more efficient when everyone is forced to comply with what our leader thinks is best for us. In comparison to that I would take today's corporate paternalism that basically amounts to "don't be an asshole" any day of the week.
  - version_five 5y ago
    Interesting to see the different takes. I think the comment you replied to was being tongue in cheek with the essential point that the (I agree horrible) interventions by Ford were at least attempting to be constructive. What we see today is something very different, and in my view much closer to "power for power's sake" control that I think you're associating with facism.

chrisin2d 5y ago

I think you're on the right trail. My take is that a highly productive globalized industrial society necessitates high abstraction of work and supply chains. Buying a chair on an e-commerce site has many layers, each with its own sublayers (shipping <- fulfillment <- e-commerce site <- payments <- warehousing <- distribution <- manufacturing <- supply chain <- design <- product research <- market research — I'm skipping a bunch). Each layer and sublayer has its own bureaucracy to keep things running and to interface with other layers. A pair of pants will be touched by fashion consumer researchers, fashion designers, textile designers, product managers, supply chain managers, marketing managers, analysts, social media managers, advertisers, merchandisers, software engineers, accountants, data scientists (clothing companies are turning to ML to assess fashion trends and demand), and many, many more. All to make it possible for you discover and buy a cheap pair of pants and have it delivered in 2 days. Because of its efficiencies, the high abstraction economy outcompeted and replaced the old low abstraction economy. The driving force is the fact that it's easy for people to indirectly 'vote' for a high abstraction economy by overwhelmingly preferring to buy cheaper and more stuff; but it's very difficult for people to 'vote' for a low abstraction economy, even if people will occasionally buy something handmade. I think that this force will endlessly drive the economy to become ever more abstract. Consumers want cheaper, better stuff. The economy will become more abstract, evolving ever narrower niche roles in order to serve consumer wants. People will find themselves in those ever narrowing roles in order to afford the good life. And there is no low abstraction economy to flee to for the simple life because it has been outcompeted and replaced.

nicoburns 5y ago
I think you've just illustrated the problem with laissez faire economics. It rewards only efficiency (and short term efficiency at that - resilience is often not accounted for), even if that's not what people might choose (they can choose otherwise, but not for long becauss those other modalities will be outcompeted out of existence). We could have a way out of this if we restructured our economy so that decision making power didn't solely rest with owners of capital, and taxed companies ina more strongly progessive manner to prevent winner-takes-all situations. That would enable companies to make decisions that were not solely for financial reasons and allow for more diversity in business models and practices.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> My take on work is that it's getting more exploitive, more administrative, less fun and less satisfying. Between politics and policies and management, work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs. It's a new kind of exploitation we haven't really faced before. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I have to disagree hard with this idea that working conditions are worse in 2021 than they were in the past. Modern jobs are quite comfortable and flexible relative to what was expected a few decades ago. Companies today bend over backwards to retain employees. I’m not exactly old, but I’m old enough to have experienced a significant shift toward better treatment of workers. At the upper end (e.g. us engineers earning above-average wages), the level of employee pampering we get at modern tech companies feels unreal, even outside of the stereotypical FAANG offices. The amount of flexibility, respect, and attention showered on us (meaning tech workers) now is miles ahead of working conditions decades ago. Just ask anyone who worked through past recessions what it’s like to work in a crowded job market with far more workers than jobs and where everyone is trying to outperform each other to avoid the next round of layoffs. It’s nothing like our job market today where you can walk out of one company and into another in a matter of weeks or days.

bsder 5y ago
> Modern jobs are quite comfortable and flexible relative to what was expected a few decades ago. Companies today bend over backwards to retain employees. Some modern jobs. On the other end of the spectrum you have Amazon drivers pissing in bottles--something that a steel mill laborer would never have had to do.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > On the other end of the spectrum you have Amazon drivers pissing in bottles--something that a steel mill laborer would never have had to do. Are you really suggesting that laboring at a steel mill decades ago was a more comfortable job than being an Amazon worker? That's incredibly out of touch. Even modern steel mills, with all of our technology and safety regulations, are difficult jobs. That's why they pay more than being an Amazon warehouse employees or drivers. Older steel mill jobs were absolutely hellish. The struggles at modern Amazon jobs have been greatly exaggerated or cherry-picked in the news. There's no comparison between the two.

ausbah 5y ago

by the fact they make less than minimum wage in many cases, I think gig workers are struggling even more than corporate minimum wage workers to get back. not having a "corporate environment" isn't worth 60+ hours a week just to make rent and food

random314 5y ago

It could also be that one is exposed to more politics as you age and climb the ladder.

weq 5y ago

As a developer, who suffered from sudden back issues that meant i could not sit down for 1+yrs.... i came to the conclusion early in my career that my time was worth much more then the prospect of success or early retirement. I quit my job in my late 20s, sold everything, and went off to the Amazon to aim my dev skills at the study of the boto dolphins in an effort to live and work in different ways. That journey i took 10yrs ago took me all over the world eventually, and reinforced my pre-trip skeptism of what success in life was. To me, climbing the corporate ladder simply meant trading my time for more money and more stress. So while others looked at me and skoffed at the 80$k i spent travelling the world for 2 years in a search for meaning... I now look at a post-covid world and take solace that i did it. I did it, just before the world changed, forever. I saw the world, the coral reefs, the rivers, the rainforests, before climate change, people destroyed them. No matter how much money you eventually get, or how many peers you impress, you cannot get that experience that I had. And thats really what you are doing by chasing the startup dream. Your trading your life for status and money amoung your peers. I came to the realisation that what drives me in life not my peers. it was love.... as i travelled around the world and saw poor families with not much nestled into natural environments that provided for them i saw satisfaction. They had a balance. They were poor, but balanced. They took joy in the love that they could give eachother and sharing that time with eachother reinforced that. So fast forward 10 yrs since that trip. What did i learn? Money cannot by love. No matter how popular you are with your peers, without love, you go home from that recognisition into an abyss of loneliness. You are rish, respected, but alone. Eventually I came back to life and attempted one last startup venture before figuring that its time i start working Remotely and start living everyday the way i wanted. I love to code, and finding a company that is stimulating and open to this relationship means i will give them the best everyday, day or night. I thank covid for giving others that shake they all needed. Remote working is much more accessible now. Covid hasnt changed my life at all. I literly have not felt a single day in lockdown, even while the majority of people around me snarl in fear (i also gave up TV, so havnt even seen a covid-news-cast yet). I sit here watching my peers panic buy, while i never go a day without something i desire. I gave away more toilet paper then i bought. To all those who have those doubt. Dont ignore them. The risks are worth the rewards. You will be calmer inside.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

nazgulnarsil 5y ago

Moral entrepreneurs have flooded workplaces with memes that enable petty tyrants to bully people in a way that is difficult and unrewarding to fight back against.

stadium 5y ago

> more people would rather exist outside society The "society" created around the routines of most corporate jobs is artificial, inauthentic, and provides material comforts. Having death staring you down during a pandemic for this long is a good motivator for letting go of baggage, including said jobs, especially if material comforts were the main reason to stay in it.

paxys 5y ago

Another problem is that the gap between the rank-and-file worker and the top tier is ballooning out of proportion. 50 years ago you would bust your ass at work and your CEO would be driving a fancy car with the profits you made him. Today you have a slightly nicer car and your CEO has a private island.

howaboutnope 5y ago

> work is asking much more, not physically but in terms of behaviors and beliefs > Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality, or as one says sometimes, our "personality package", for something. Now, this is not so true for the manual workers. The manual worker does not have to sell his personality. He doesn't have to sell his smile. But what you might call the "symbolpushers" , that is to say, all the people who deal with figures, with paper, with men, who manipulate - to use a better, or nicer, word - manipulate men and signs and words, all those today have not only to sell their service but in the bargain they're to sell their personality, more or less. There are exceptions. -- Erich Fromm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-7UDT0Xe4&t=94s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-7UDT0Xe4&t=94s

Lucadg 5y ago

For the reasons you enlist, I think we'll see a big shift towards working for DAOs or other forms of value creating decentralized and distributed organizations. They allow more independence, you only work on stuff you like and the interests are more aligned.

Animats 5y ago
Right. Your boss is a smart contract.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
We already have contractor's markets. There's a reason not everybody uses them.
- Lucadg 5y ago
  That's very different

bodge5000 5y ago

> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to I see this quite a bit on HN (the other day someone was saying to no fanfair that he doesn't work because he doesn't like the corporate setting) and other parts of the internet, enough so to assume it must be true, but this notion really confuses me, as it's certainly never been a choice for myself. Genuinely interested, maybe I'm missing a trick in life, how would you pay for rent, food, electricity, ect... I do genuinely think when I read things like this or see things casually mentioned in the news that there's some alternative route in life nobodies ever told me about

ornornor 5y ago
Everyone has an opinion on that matter, but if you’re making software engineer money then this might be a viable option: mrmoneymustache.com Maybe you’ve already heard of tha blog, maybe not. In a nutshell: rethink your life and your expenses so you’re able to save 50+% of your income. Put it into low cost ETFs (which particular one depends on what’s available where you live), and after a while (13 years at 50%, much less at more saving), you’ll have the option to not work anymore and still cover all your life expenses etc. Not selling anything, not looking to start a debate, just mentioning it because parent might be interested or curious.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Huh, maybe that is it, at least here on HN. I'm perhaps a bit younger than a lot of the people on here (24), and maybe I dont earn as much, so the answer may well just be time, which is disappointingly not the bombshell I was hoping for, but does make a lot more sense. Cheers!
- csunbird 5y ago
  Might be true for people posting here and getting paid 300-500k per year, but this is simply not possible for people working for lower salaries in non SF companies, especially for people in Europe. If you are able to spend 300k a year, you will be working until end of your days anyways.
  - 5y ago

starfallg 5y ago

>I bet most Uber Eats drivers make less than fast food employees, but I also bet they have less non work corporate BS to deal with, and outside whatever algorithmic unfairness can work as they want. From my experience of seeing grumpy Deliveroo and Uber Eats drivers mouth off at poor fast food and restaurant employees when the food isn't ready yet, and the general way they drive on the streets, I don't agree with that sentiment at all.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Large corporation really didn't do anything lately to improve their image. I opted for smaller monetary rewards for working in a smaller company with extensive freedom. Stress is mostly positive when projects get released. I have paid vacations and sick days, industry is secure that I can probably work until I get my pension if I wanted to. You also get much more invested in the company and other employees. I still recommend doing a corp run for a year or two to get to know this world. It also help to negotiate your rates. But I don't see how you would not get a dislike about how things are done. It also seem to attract a certain kind of person.

nucleogenesis 5y ago

I highly suggest you dig into Marx and economic leftist thought (Richard Wolff is a very clear modern source and a well respected Marxist economist) because this kind of exploitation has long been identified by those critical of capitalism as endemic to capitalism. Roughly, a key line of Marxist thought suggests that Capitalism is designed to alienate the worker so that they are more easily exploited by the capital owning class. People now want to live “outside society” because capitalist incentives necessarily eliminate the ability of people to even build a community or society in their own interest because nearly everything they must do to subsist robs them of the opportunity (long working hours, long commutes, a distinct lack of agency in life under exploitative management, and so on). I could never do it justice here, but you might find it valuable knowing how and when people have very legitimately been making the same point (roughly) that you’re saying here for generations.

overton 5y ago

> Most people work but most dont necessarily have to, at least as much as we do. People enter the "rat race" because it gives them something, not just a source of money but other achievement and identity stuff. What? In 2020, 50-78% of Americans earned just enough to pay their bills each month. Worldwide, a poll found that 85% of people are disengaged at work. I guarantee you that most people work -- even work long hours -- because they have no real choice. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/17/breakdown-what-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-looks-like/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/17/breakdown... https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken-workplace.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken...

overton 5y ago
I would add that it's misleading to generalize the experience of tech workers to workers at large. We're in a weird and fortunate spot because we work as in a well capitalized industry as highly specialized skilled artisans. So often we get autonomy, leverage, and a good paycheck. This is not the experience for workers in general.
- j-krieger 5y ago
  >I would add that it's misleading to generalize the experience of tech workers to workers at large I would add that it's misleading to generalize the experience of american tech workers to tech workers at large. Anywhere else, you're most likely just as underpaid and overworked as the rest.
zemvpferreira 5y ago
Being generous, OP might have been referring to plain survival. You can buy actual homes for $10-20k in the US, youtube has told me, with enough land to grow enough food to sustain yourself. It's certainly not impossible to survive on a very small amount of money (until you die of a horribly expensive health problem). That might not be the path most of us choose, but it's still there.
- 5y ago

plutonorm 5y ago

Even as a tech worker it is only in my second decade of work that I have the chance to scale back my work hours. It's not an easy thing to do.

prawn 5y ago

I think you're partially on the right track but the replies disputing whether work is now easier or harder suggests worker dissatisfaction has changed for a different reason. I'd say that work is generally easier but people (anecdotally from people I talk to) are less interested. I wonder if part of it is exposure to alternatives. Once upon a time, your awareness of an alternate life was a movie, or newspaper article, or a friend showing you their travel photos. Now, if you are ever on social media, you face a bombardment of peers or randoms having long lunches during work hours, travelling around, in the sun, at the beach, etc - or maybe it's just my feed. Hard to feel like you have your work mix right if your daily vibe doesn't compare to the aggregated freedom.

wolfretcrap 5y ago

I used to work in US and Europe and in last decade work life balance is basically shot there. As a result I took my savings and move back to India. Now I've a small farm here, since the market is soo inefficient in India specially for farm produce and labor abundant I am able to work only 1 hour a day and enjoy rest of my day on things I like. In US and Europe proportion of smart people with access to resources is vastly more compared to India where either smart people lack resources or the ones with resources aren't smart enough.