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I'm from Italy, very similar country, very similar work ethic. I agree that, if anything, it's people like me who are weirdly obsessive about their jobs to be
by qsort 5y ago
I'm from Italy, very similar country, very similar work ethic.
I agree that, if anything, it's people like me who are weirdly obsessive about their jobs to be the odd ones out.
I have a couple drifts about that, though:
- I spend 40+ hours a week in front of a terminal. That is a lot of time. Trying to do a good job and finding interest in what I do is at least in part a self-defense mechanism: if I'm invested in what I do, I'm more likely to be happy at work and have positive relations with coworkers.
- It mustn't become a way to fend off productive change. Refusing new good practices "because we don't want to learn" or "because it's good enough as it is" is incredibly stupid and self-destructive. Unfortunately, there's overlap between "it's just a job" and "different = bad" attitudes.
It's certainly okay if one is just in for the money, it's none of my business to investigate people's motivations. But if you want to do this job for the rest of your life, 35 years times 48 weeks a year times 40 hours a week is a lot of time, so it's not an attitude I'd necessarily encourage.
- mmarq 5y ago> I spend 40+ hours a week in front of a terminal. Italians work way more than Northern Europeans, but their salaries are significantly lower because of low productivity. This is true for any occupation, including software development.
- goldorak 5y agoI need to see those "Low productivity" numbers. I worked with ppl all around the work and I'd never seen that, what I see is companies offering lower salaries because the can in some countries, period. Anecdata: My previous team mate was Italian, a guy in his 50, former co-founder of an small Italian ISP super productive, bast amount of knowledge and working for 55k€ so.. please cut that "you get what you deserve".
- mmarq 5y agoProductivity doesn’t only depend on hard work, but also on many other factors, such as capital intensity and institutions. One example that comes to mind is that in the UK I get a new laptop every other year and whatever software licence or training I may need. My brother in Italy was given a 5 year old laptop that would crash every other hour and his budget for software and training was 0. The result is that he used to work twice as hard as me, while being half productive. EDIT: if you want data, compare the GDP for hour worked in Italy with Germany or the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_...
- goldorak 5y ago> EDIT: if you want data, compare the GDP for hour worked in Italy with Germany or the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_... That's what they get paid, not what they produce
- mmarq 5y agoNo: > Labor productivity is the gross domestic product generated per hour of working time.
- linspace 5y ago> Trying to do a good job and finding interest in what I do is at least in part a self-defense mechanism This. Gamification, but for real prizes.