18 ms·

Pre-Covid much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team. Even as an introvert I enjoy interacting with coworkers, and being

Pre-Covid much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team. Even as an introvert I enjoy interacting with coworkers, and being intune with the needs of the group and generally helping other people succeed. When we transitioned to full remote, all of this was stripped away and I was left to focus purely on a product that on its own I was not passionate about (think ad-like product). I was met with a sudden loss in motivation, burnout, and decided to take 9 months off to pursue a tech unrelated hobby. 9 months after leaving, I have accepted a position with a 50% raise over to my previous job. I think covid was a splash of cold water that's caused many of the people in my circle to re-evaluate how they spend their time. Tech workers are so in demand that we can freely change jobs so it follows that many people would availing that option.

tested23 5y ago
I feel like im reading my own thoughts. The thing that got me into work was the people not the product. I also worked in ads.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mathattack 5y ago
Similar struggle. Joined the company for a group of people, who all subsequently left. Stayed on for a year of diminishing financial and psychic rewards. Now looking.
Phenomenit 5y ago
Not working in tech but this seems to make a lot of sense. If you had a socially fulfilling job pre-covid then maybe you're wage didn't matter so much because being in tech it's probably pretty good. But being stuck at home it's hard to optimize for anything else than your salary when you're considering your employment. So if you're gonna sit and stare at a screen you might as well get as much money as possible.
imiric 5y ago
Another introvert here, working fully remotely since before COVID. I couldn't imagine working on a product I wasn't passionate about and genuinely wanted to succeed. Most of my motivation is based around doing interesting and socially valuable work. This doesn't have to be groundbreaking, but knowing I'm helping put out some good in the world is a large factor in choosing and staying with a company. The team is also important, of course, but it's minor compared to the product as the way of working remotely is quite different from being in an office. To me it's mostly for the better, since everyone is focused on the product and not on some pointless team building events, company gossip or drama. I hope you chose a more fulfilling industry than advertising. It's interesting that a sibling comment also mentions working on ads. I wonder what the breakdown of resignations per industry looks like, and how relevant remote work was in that decision.
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  >To me it's mostly for the better, since everyone is focused on the product and not on some pointless team building events, company gossip or drama. It's very interesting to see how people look at relationship building with others. Many introverts on HN and Reddit see it as a mostly negative thing and equivalent people interaction and relationship building to drama, gossip, and forced friendliness.
  - yakubin 5y ago
    I like making friends outside of work. To me emulating friendship in corporate environment feels cringeworthy and I literally see people forcing themselves into it. I also like to get out of the programmer environment as much as possible. I just don't like it, even though I'm a programmer myself.
  - culopatin 5y ago
    I think there is a difference between team building through shared struggle (like new soldiers going through boot camp) and what hr comes up with as “team building activities” in the office after they went on Pinterest and searched for “team building ice breakers for meetings”. At my workplace they came up with employee appreciation day. They make a slightly better lunch and they clap for you when you walk into the cafeteria. I much rather be allowed to leave 30 min earlier. While I understand the pipeline where those ideas come from (management appoints one poor soul to quickly come up with something that looks fun on paper, is cheap, quick and doesn’t allow for any possibility of rule breaking), they don’t really help me bond with anyone. What does help me bond is being part of a team with a great leader that makes everyone want to push in the same direction and makes us a unit. For that you need solid hiring that takes into consideration what team the to-be-hired person is going to be working with at a social level
yarcob 5y ago
> much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team I think this is a seriously undervalued factor and something I was completely unaware of. I used to always judge job opportunities either by how well they pay, or how interesting the work is. But in reality, the social factor is just as important. So some time ago, I was trying to hire my first employee. I paid a lot of money for job ads, and got very little applications. I offered the same salary as the other tech companies in my city, and I really tried my best to attract people. I couldn't understand why people instead only applied to work for boring consultancies or even for an online gambling company -- why would people prefer such mind numbing or even morally questionable jobs? I realized that the social situation at work is really important. When I met people who worked at the online gambling website, they weren't talking about the actual work; they just told me about their awesome boss, and how they had fun with their team mates, etc. It didn't matter how interesting my project was, nobody wanted to sit all day in an office just alone with me.
- pfranz 5y ago
  Years ago, I remember someone talking about working in film. Ideally, you work on three movies a year; one for the pay, one for the script, and one for the people you work with. I've tried to keep this in mind when looking for full-time work and I think it lines up with what you're saying.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  I think the OPs point was that the past employer effectively leveraged the social aspect to underpay. Now that there is a hobby outside of work, the latter is suddenly not a center of life anymore. The pay raise is the ironic reality of employers catching up with the real cost of labour.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    That assumes that these social aspects are valued at zero. Money isn't everything in a job. Your compensation consists of the money, yes, but also everything else in the job. Good social aspect at work takes effort to build and maintain, so maybe, actually, those employers weren't underpaying at all. Again, money isn't everything.
ALotOfBees 5y ago
This was almost my EXACT experience ad well. differences are I took 6 months off, wasnt working on an ad-like product, and my pay boost getting back into the market was 48% instead of 50%.
MetricExpansion 5y ago
I recently landed a new job. I'm currently in the process of leaving my old job and awaiting my first day at the new one. And I think this played into it. I was pretty happy with my old position, but I did have some small desire to find something new. What always kept me back was the fact that I liked the people I worked with. But as WFH has sort of dragged on, I found that the social bonds have become a much weaker glue for me and there's a minor burnout coming from how stale it is working from home. The camaraderie that kept me at my job sort of faded away. The monotony and increasing apathy toward the people I was working with really pushed me hard into wanting some kind of change, and so almost on a whim I applied for a job at a company that I've been itching to work for. And I got it! So I'm excited about my new job. I think it'll be more impactful and interesting work where I'm going to get to grow my skills a lot. And my compensation will be doubled. I should be happy that the circumstances forced the change, but I'm also a little uncomfortable with the feeling that it was an impulsive decision due to a mental state that has been caused by temporary circumstances.

tested23 5y ago

I feel like im reading my own thoughts. The thing that got me into work was the people not the product. I also worked in ads.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mathattack 5y ago

Similar struggle. Joined the company for a group of people, who all subsequently left. Stayed on for a year of diminishing financial and psychic rewards. Now looking.

Phenomenit 5y ago

Not working in tech but this seems to make a lot of sense. If you had a socially fulfilling job pre-covid then maybe you're wage didn't matter so much because being in tech it's probably pretty good. But being stuck at home it's hard to optimize for anything else than your salary when you're considering your employment. So if you're gonna sit and stare at a screen you might as well get as much money as possible.

imiric 5y ago

Another introvert here, working fully remotely since before COVID. I couldn't imagine working on a product I wasn't passionate about and genuinely wanted to succeed. Most of my motivation is based around doing interesting and socially valuable work. This doesn't have to be groundbreaking, but knowing I'm helping put out some good in the world is a large factor in choosing and staying with a company. The team is also important, of course, but it's minor compared to the product as the way of working remotely is quite different from being in an office. To me it's mostly for the better, since everyone is focused on the product and not on some pointless team building events, company gossip or drama. I hope you chose a more fulfilling industry than advertising. It's interesting that a sibling comment also mentions working on ads. I wonder what the breakdown of resignations per industry looks like, and how relevant remote work was in that decision.

Cookingboy 5y ago
>To me it's mostly for the better, since everyone is focused on the product and not on some pointless team building events, company gossip or drama. It's very interesting to see how people look at relationship building with others. Many introverts on HN and Reddit see it as a mostly negative thing and equivalent people interaction and relationship building to drama, gossip, and forced friendliness.
- yakubin 5y ago
  I like making friends outside of work. To me emulating friendship in corporate environment feels cringeworthy and I literally see people forcing themselves into it. I also like to get out of the programmer environment as much as possible. I just don't like it, even though I'm a programmer myself.
- culopatin 5y ago
  I think there is a difference between team building through shared struggle (like new soldiers going through boot camp) and what hr comes up with as “team building activities” in the office after they went on Pinterest and searched for “team building ice breakers for meetings”. At my workplace they came up with employee appreciation day. They make a slightly better lunch and they clap for you when you walk into the cafeteria. I much rather be allowed to leave 30 min earlier. While I understand the pipeline where those ideas come from (management appoints one poor soul to quickly come up with something that looks fun on paper, is cheap, quick and doesn’t allow for any possibility of rule breaking), they don’t really help me bond with anyone. What does help me bond is being part of a team with a great leader that makes everyone want to push in the same direction and makes us a unit. For that you need solid hiring that takes into consideration what team the to-be-hired person is going to be working with at a social level

yarcob 5y ago

> much of my job satisfaction came from the sense of comradery of working on a team I think this is a seriously undervalued factor and something I was completely unaware of. I used to always judge job opportunities either by how well they pay, or how interesting the work is. But in reality, the social factor is just as important. So some time ago, I was trying to hire my first employee. I paid a lot of money for job ads, and got very little applications. I offered the same salary as the other tech companies in my city, and I really tried my best to attract people. I couldn't understand why people instead only applied to work for boring consultancies or even for an online gambling company -- why would people prefer such mind numbing or even morally questionable jobs? I realized that the social situation at work is really important. When I met people who worked at the online gambling website, they weren't talking about the actual work; they just told me about their awesome boss, and how they had fun with their team mates, etc. It didn't matter how interesting my project was, nobody wanted to sit all day in an office just alone with me.

pfranz 5y ago
Years ago, I remember someone talking about working in film. Ideally, you work on three movies a year; one for the pay, one for the script, and one for the people you work with. I've tried to keep this in mind when looking for full-time work and I think it lines up with what you're saying.
nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
I think the OPs point was that the past employer effectively leveraged the social aspect to underpay. Now that there is a hobby outside of work, the latter is suddenly not a center of life anymore. The pay raise is the ironic reality of employers catching up with the real cost of labour.
- gambiting 5y ago
  That assumes that these social aspects are valued at zero. Money isn't everything in a job. Your compensation consists of the money, yes, but also everything else in the job. Good social aspect at work takes effort to build and maintain, so maybe, actually, those employers weren't underpaying at all. Again, money isn't everything.

ALotOfBees 5y ago

This was almost my EXACT experience ad well. differences are I took 6 months off, wasnt working on an ad-like product, and my pay boost getting back into the market was 48% instead of 50%.

MetricExpansion 5y ago

I recently landed a new job. I'm currently in the process of leaving my old job and awaiting my first day at the new one. And I think this played into it. I was pretty happy with my old position, but I did have some small desire to find something new. What always kept me back was the fact that I liked the people I worked with. But as WFH has sort of dragged on, I found that the social bonds have become a much weaker glue for me and there's a minor burnout coming from how stale it is working from home. The camaraderie that kept me at my job sort of faded away. The monotony and increasing apathy toward the people I was working with really pushed me hard into wanting some kind of change, and so almost on a whim I applied for a job at a company that I've been itching to work for. And I got it! So I'm excited about my new job. I think it'll be more impactful and interesting work where I'm going to get to grow my skills a lot. And my compensation will be doubled. I should be happy that the circumstances forced the change, but I'm also a little uncomfortable with the feeling that it was an impulsive decision due to a mental state that has been caused by temporary circumstances.