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You people need to get some self-respect and stop working for free. They only get away away with this because you allow them to. Next time you're asked to work

You people need to get some self-respect and stop working for free. They only get away away with this because you allow them to. Next time you're asked to work for free, this is what you do: you say, "Fuck you, pay me". If you want to be a little less blunt, have ready a template contract to write up the job they've requested, with your price, ready for them to sign. If they laugh in your face, laugh in theirs and walk away. If you're in a position of desperation, first get out of that position before you go to these interviews. You cannot negotiate when you're hungry. Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff.

jrootabega 4y ago
> Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff. Many? Billions.
- samhw 4y ago
  I assume they meant "many tech workers / job hunters / the kind of people on this forum", not orphans in darkest Africa or Christian Bale losing weight for a role.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    And hungry in the sense of hungry for money, achievements and career, not literally hungry. I mean some SF folk live in such luxury that they think eating is a nuisance not worth their attention, so they take on subscriptions or all-in-one meal replacements at 10x the cost and 0.1x the flavor of normal food (think Soylent, Juicero, etc). If your company or colleagues glorify that lifestyle, run away.
    - samhw 4y ago
      That's become me, to be honest. Money has reached the point where it doesn't mean anything any more. For the last year or so I've taken cabs everywhere I've gone, even down the road to go to the shops. This sounds like a brag, but it's really not: I'm not rich, and it means I'm pinioned to my job and can't quit. I was addicted to heroin before, but I think quality-of-life addiction is possibly worse in some ways.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    Perhaps, but I meant to emphasize the latter. There is a globe full of desperately hungry (perhaps physically but at least psychologically) people that can out-obey other applicants, and a certain percentage of them will have at least some knowledge and skill. Hiring strategies will look to build orgs with very few charismatic and influential tech leaders and a huge group of obedient implementors.
- mattcwilson 4y ago
  > An estimated 821 million people are still undernourished (high confidence). > Changes in consumption patterns have contributed to about two billion adults now being overweight or obese (high confidence). We’re trending away from undernourishment. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/# https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/# - section A.1.4
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>If you're in a position of desperation, first get out of that position before you go to these interviews. You're contradicting yourself here. If you're hungry, you don't have the leverage to get out of that position without first accepting some jobs you won't find ideal, unless you're incredibly lucky or talented or have huge savings, but if you were, you probably wouldn't be hungry in the first place.
- VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  I agree it's probably a contradiction to many people, as a job may be their only ticket out of desperation, especially if they're knee-deep in debt or living paycheck to paycheck. But I would wager many others do have options they can exercise such as becoming more frugal, cutting out rent by living with family, taking no-bullshit (no free work) wage jobs temporarily, etc.
  - mattcwilson 4y ago
    Sure. Except it’s the easier, more impulsive choice to just do the take home work on the off chance it gets you the job and lets you skip all the austerity. Path of least resistance is a powerful predictor of human behavior.
- Ancapistani 4y ago
  I've done a couple of these. Once, I did the take-home assignment, which took around six hours. I submitted it by linking to a public GitHub repo titled "Company X Take Home Assignment". I ended up taking a different position and the original company asked that I take down the repo. I told them that since I did the work on my own time, I own the resultant code and declined to take it down. They sent me a nastygram from their in-house lawyer. I responded with an invoice for $900 - six hours at $150 / hour. That got me a phone call scheduled with their lawyer. I figured they either owned the code (in which case, they should pay for it) or I owned the code (in which case, they had no legal right to demand that I take it down). The next day they sent me $500 over PayPal and I took it down.
  - 4y ago
leto_ii 4y ago
> You people need to get some self-respect and stop working for free. "You people" need to unionize. That's the only way you get some negotiating power. Alas, that won't happen until tech workers (and white collar workers in general) realize they're workers and not capital owners. We're closer to really well paid plumbers than to Bezos & co.
- gedy 4y ago
  > "You people" need to unionize. Hiring would just be some other set of hoops and process to jump through. There's no silver bullet. I love take home projects as I don't have a CS degree (EE) and usually flop leet code whiteboard quizzes.
  - leto_ii 4y ago
    Unions could insure that you get some sort of compensation for the work you put in during your application. If you just try to ask for the money on your own they'll laugh in your face and show you the door.
- ianleeclark 4y ago
  > Alas, that won't happen until tech workers (and white collar workers in general) realize they're workers and not capital owners. Workers though they may be, it is within reach for most programmers to jump on the real estate ladder, heavily invest, and retire comfortably. > That's the only way you get some negotiating power. For the duration of this bull market, Software Jobs have been easy to come by. Negotiating power, while never completely in employees favor, has given most programmers the chance to live _far more comfortable lives than anyone else they know or went to school with_. That's what your message is up against.
  - TimPC 4y ago
    Unions in general are overly focused on job security and fairness in pay at the expense of other things like total salary. While there may be a place in tech for unions the last place that would want to unionize is a big tech employer. A grift mill that churns through underpaid consultants needs a union.
formerkrogemp 4y ago
Management and executives are DEFINITELY underpaying us relative to what we bring to the table for them. This is true of every industry going on decades of increasing productivity and stagnating pay. What's new here besides greater awareness and labor churn? Will there be an actual change going forward? Of course the demographics favor workers now, but the laws and politics often don't. Immigration and outsourcing and automation can change that power dynamic very quickly. What're you going to do? Form a union? Start a company? Vote? Quit and work elsewhere? Interesting times we live in. Maybe that is one of the reason headcounts have ballooned and complexity has increased so much -- an attempt to minimize individual impact. All of my friends and aquaintinces in nursing, tax, retail, and trucking have a few people who are trying to break into programming because of the benefits and pay. Outsourcing, scope creep, and automation exist and are expanding in my industry as well. How long until this drags down programmers as well?
- xyzzy4747 4y ago
  The nature of every job is you are paid less than the value you produce. Otherwise, there would be no point in hiring you.
- mattcwilson 4y ago
  I’m confused - are we underpaid? If people from all those other industries are scrambling to break into tech because it’s so lucrative, what is it you or I are bringing to the table that they couldn’t?
  - cumshitpiss 4y ago
    You're underpaid by definition if the company reports a revenue >0. If your labor was compensated for the actual value it produced, no company could turn a profit. Thats the fundamental problem of capitalism
    - bluGill 4y ago
      You fail to appreciate the value provided by capital. The work I do today will earn my company zero this year, since the code won't be released to production yet. (in embedded we don't have the luxury of releasing on each push). Capital provides the pay I need to work today and will recover it over the next few years.

jrootabega 4y ago

> Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff. Many? Billions.

samhw 4y ago
I assume they meant "many tech workers / job hunters / the kind of people on this forum", not orphans in darkest Africa or Christian Bale losing weight for a role.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  And hungry in the sense of hungry for money, achievements and career, not literally hungry. I mean some SF folk live in such luxury that they think eating is a nuisance not worth their attention, so they take on subscriptions or all-in-one meal replacements at 10x the cost and 0.1x the flavor of normal food (think Soylent, Juicero, etc). If your company or colleagues glorify that lifestyle, run away.
  - samhw 4y ago
    That's become me, to be honest. Money has reached the point where it doesn't mean anything any more. For the last year or so I've taken cabs everywhere I've gone, even down the road to go to the shops. This sounds like a brag, but it's really not: I'm not rich, and it means I'm pinioned to my job and can't quit. I was addicted to heroin before, but I think quality-of-life addiction is possibly worse in some ways.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  Perhaps, but I meant to emphasize the latter. There is a globe full of desperately hungry (perhaps physically but at least psychologically) people that can out-obey other applicants, and a certain percentage of them will have at least some knowledge and skill. Hiring strategies will look to build orgs with very few charismatic and influential tech leaders and a huge group of obedient implementors.
mattcwilson 4y ago
> An estimated 821 million people are still undernourished (high confidence). > Changes in consumption patterns have contributed to about two billion adults now being overweight or obese (high confidence). We’re trending away from undernourishment. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/# https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/# - section A.1.4

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>If you're in a position of desperation, first get out of that position before you go to these interviews. You're contradicting yourself here. If you're hungry, you don't have the leverage to get out of that position without first accepting some jobs you won't find ideal, unless you're incredibly lucky or talented or have huge savings, but if you were, you probably wouldn't be hungry in the first place.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago
I agree it's probably a contradiction to many people, as a job may be their only ticket out of desperation, especially if they're knee-deep in debt or living paycheck to paycheck. But I would wager many others do have options they can exercise such as becoming more frugal, cutting out rent by living with family, taking no-bullshit (no free work) wage jobs temporarily, etc.
- mattcwilson 4y ago
  Sure. Except it’s the easier, more impulsive choice to just do the take home work on the off chance it gets you the job and lets you skip all the austerity. Path of least resistance is a powerful predictor of human behavior.
Ancapistani 4y ago
I've done a couple of these. Once, I did the take-home assignment, which took around six hours. I submitted it by linking to a public GitHub repo titled "Company X Take Home Assignment". I ended up taking a different position and the original company asked that I take down the repo. I told them that since I did the work on my own time, I own the resultant code and declined to take it down. They sent me a nastygram from their in-house lawyer. I responded with an invoice for $900 - six hours at $150 / hour. That got me a phone call scheduled with their lawyer. I figured they either owned the code (in which case, they should pay for it) or I owned the code (in which case, they had no legal right to demand that I take it down). The next day they sent me $500 over PayPal and I took it down.
- 4y ago

leto_ii 4y ago

> You people need to get some self-respect and stop working for free. "You people" need to unionize. That's the only way you get some negotiating power. Alas, that won't happen until tech workers (and white collar workers in general) realize they're workers and not capital owners. We're closer to really well paid plumbers than to Bezos & co.

gedy 4y ago
> "You people" need to unionize. Hiring would just be some other set of hoops and process to jump through. There's no silver bullet. I love take home projects as I don't have a CS degree (EE) and usually flop leet code whiteboard quizzes.
- leto_ii 4y ago
  Unions could insure that you get some sort of compensation for the work you put in during your application. If you just try to ask for the money on your own they'll laugh in your face and show you the door.
ianleeclark 4y ago
> Alas, that won't happen until tech workers (and white collar workers in general) realize they're workers and not capital owners. Workers though they may be, it is within reach for most programmers to jump on the real estate ladder, heavily invest, and retire comfortably. > That's the only way you get some negotiating power. For the duration of this bull market, Software Jobs have been easy to come by. Negotiating power, while never completely in employees favor, has given most programmers the chance to live _far more comfortable lives than anyone else they know or went to school with_. That's what your message is up against.
- TimPC 4y ago
  Unions in general are overly focused on job security and fairness in pay at the expense of other things like total salary. While there may be a place in tech for unions the last place that would want to unionize is a big tech employer. A grift mill that churns through underpaid consultants needs a union.

formerkrogemp 4y ago

Management and executives are DEFINITELY underpaying us relative to what we bring to the table for them. This is true of every industry going on decades of increasing productivity and stagnating pay. What's new here besides greater awareness and labor churn? Will there be an actual change going forward? Of course the demographics favor workers now, but the laws and politics often don't. Immigration and outsourcing and automation can change that power dynamic very quickly. What're you going to do? Form a union? Start a company? Vote? Quit and work elsewhere? Interesting times we live in. Maybe that is one of the reason headcounts have ballooned and complexity has increased so much -- an attempt to minimize individual impact. All of my friends and aquaintinces in nursing, tax, retail, and trucking have a few people who are trying to break into programming because of the benefits and pay. Outsourcing, scope creep, and automation exist and are expanding in my industry as well. How long until this drags down programmers as well?

xyzzy4747 4y ago
The nature of every job is you are paid less than the value you produce. Otherwise, there would be no point in hiring you.
mattcwilson 4y ago
I’m confused - are we underpaid? If people from all those other industries are scrambling to break into tech because it’s so lucrative, what is it you or I are bringing to the table that they couldn’t?
- cumshitpiss 4y ago
  You're underpaid by definition if the company reports a revenue >0. If your labor was compensated for the actual value it produced, no company could turn a profit. Thats the fundamental problem of capitalism
  - bluGill 4y ago
    You fail to appreciate the value provided by capital. The work I do today will earn my company zero this year, since the code won't be released to production yet. (in embedded we don't have the luxury of releasing on each push). Capital provides the pay I need to work today and will recover it over the next few years.