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> do they care? Do you mean really care or just be good at pretending? The first thing I learned when I started working is the importance of not caring. Carin

> do they care? Do you mean really care or just be good at pretending? The first thing I learned when I started working is the importance of not caring. Caring can cause innner-team conflicts and burn out. Yes, you need to appear motivated but caring too much will just make you annoying. Also this is more about the power of influence I get over a project. If I get real ownership and the power and tools to make decisions, yeah I am going to care, if not, not, just no. I am not wasting mental energy on things I can't change. I will pretend to care about anything you want me to care though, if the pay is right.

wjnc 4y ago
Honest question: Are there things privately you care about? I take pride in parts of my work with the same emotional response as I take pride in my family. Not exactly the same magnitude, but the same emotional pathways at work. After 15 years of working I've learned to say "no", manage emotions, etc. to become at least robust in not 'caring' about office politics and such (in the emotional sense). But I do care about my work. It's the main thing I do.
- cardanome 4y ago
  Sure, there is lot's of things I care about privately. In fact I absolutely love programming languages and it took me a while to separate my excitement from my professional work. Your family comparison is super weird. There is no love and loyalty between employer and employee. The relationship is antagonistic by nature. If I find a better job, I am out. If they don't need me, they will kick me out. They pay me the minimum amount they can get away with and try to squeeze out the maximum value. They don't care about me as a human being and they should not, that is business. (It is the job of labor laws and unions to make the interaction more humane, I don't believe in idealism.) Of course, I still have professional pride and given the choice will try to do a good job but for me being a professional also means being emotionally detached from it. It is just business. I work for money. The meaningful stuff in my life happens outside of my employment.
  - wjnc 4y ago
    "Super weird" /to you/? I just ment to underline that (for me) it's the same type of caring. I'm professional, could do the same job at a dozen employers, etc. I think we feel the same about that. But I care about my work in a deep way that you don't seem to feel. If I manage to get a junior / medior to properly step up to a task and grow confident I feel pride, connection and sense of doing the right thing. The whole business layer comes second for me at that moment. Another thought is that I feel that 'in Europe' (generalisation) the antagonistic nature of employment is not felt the same way especially for professional jobs. We have no firing at will. As an manager I understand that I have a multi year relationship with people that should transcend the tasks at hand. The tasks at hand should be done and done well, but a job should be both fulfilling and manageable for the individual. Even if a hiring fails somewhat you have to make it work. The current job market creates an even bigger reason to treat people well.
    - asiachick 4y ago
      Are you saying people in Europe care more about their jobs? That's certainly not my experience. I've met just as many Europeans that hate their jobs and just do it for the money. They spend as little time as possible doing them. I'm reminded of this book https://web.archive.org/web/20090901204114/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/world/a-french-employee-s-work-celebrates-the-sloth-ethic.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090901204114/https://www.nytim...
      - 2b3a51 4y ago
        Well, didn't she do well (as the host of a popular UK TV game show used to say about contestants) https://www.corinnemaier.info/english/ https://www.corinnemaier.info/english/ Of course, you work to pay for the rest of your life but I think there is a role for craft and teamwork in all of this.
  - kubanczyk 4y ago
    > There is no love and loyalty between employer and employee. I don't think anybody here talks about employees caring about or loving their employer. It's about about worker caring about their work. Because if I don't care, this is what happens: if input == input_that_causes_bug_1948348 { return static_output_for_bug_1948348 } Add UT. Next ticket please.
- emptyfile 4y ago
  > I take pride in parts of my work with the same emotional response as I take pride in my family. Well, that's just plain wrong.
  - berkes 4y ago
    Is it? You spend a large part of your day on the job. Quite often spend most of your energy there too. At least make that worthwhile. Make this time count for you. Make it something you care about?
    - travisgriggs 4y ago
      Yeah I always struggle with the “you just need to care less, you’ll be happier that way” theme. I spend 8-10 hours on a given day exchanging my work for some revenue. That is (at least) half of my waking day. Day after day. To the tune of ~2000 hours a year. That is a massive part of one’s _life_. I think it’s reasonable to want some sort of satisfaction during at least some of those hours. Also, I find it takes active effort to actually not care. It is not a minimum energy test state for me. I actually have to work even harder to do the job and NOT care.
  - amsnl 4y ago
    Well, this is plain wrong. (Super useful comment huh?)
quickthrower2 4y ago
There is a book called the subtle art of not giving a fuck, and you summed it up. You can only give so many fucks so choose them wisely!
boffinAudio 4y ago
If you are a programmer who doesn't care about your user, you are a terrible programmer - period. Care about the user, programmers. Not the manager, not your fellow work competitors. The USER. Without a USER, nothing you do has value - at all. (Note: your manager and your fellow work competitors can be users too. Don't overlook that fact! Hopefully they care enough about the users, too, that they are willing to wear the user hat during your product development cycle. Even managers wearing users hats are users. I hope you still care even then!)
- cardanome 4y ago
  You are right in the sense that thinking from the perspective of the user is a good professional skill to have. In practice though, you a very privileged if you get to work on any software that is not user-hostile per design. In the end of the day, programmer don't make the decisions.
- lupire 4y ago
  If you care about the user but management prevents you from acting on it, you are hurting yourself for no reason, like agonizing over all the bad news across the nation and world. Your shoulders can't carry the whole world
lupire 4y ago
You are describing not a problem with caring, but a problem with bad leadership that destroys the benefits of caring and the people who care. Stopping caring is a coping strategy to help you extract funds (if you aren't getting good funds, leave!) from a company that refuses to let you do good work.
- v01dlight 4y ago
  Ouch. That last statement hits close to home.

wjnc 4y ago

Honest question: Are there things privately you care about? I take pride in parts of my work with the same emotional response as I take pride in my family. Not exactly the same magnitude, but the same emotional pathways at work. After 15 years of working I've learned to say "no", manage emotions, etc. to become at least robust in not 'caring' about office politics and such (in the emotional sense). But I do care about my work. It's the main thing I do.

cardanome 4y ago
Sure, there is lot's of things I care about privately. In fact I absolutely love programming languages and it took me a while to separate my excitement from my professional work. Your family comparison is super weird. There is no love and loyalty between employer and employee. The relationship is antagonistic by nature. If I find a better job, I am out. If they don't need me, they will kick me out. They pay me the minimum amount they can get away with and try to squeeze out the maximum value. They don't care about me as a human being and they should not, that is business. (It is the job of labor laws and unions to make the interaction more humane, I don't believe in idealism.) Of course, I still have professional pride and given the choice will try to do a good job but for me being a professional also means being emotionally detached from it. It is just business. I work for money. The meaningful stuff in my life happens outside of my employment.
- wjnc 4y ago
  "Super weird" /to you/? I just ment to underline that (for me) it's the same type of caring. I'm professional, could do the same job at a dozen employers, etc. I think we feel the same about that. But I care about my work in a deep way that you don't seem to feel. If I manage to get a junior / medior to properly step up to a task and grow confident I feel pride, connection and sense of doing the right thing. The whole business layer comes second for me at that moment. Another thought is that I feel that 'in Europe' (generalisation) the antagonistic nature of employment is not felt the same way especially for professional jobs. We have no firing at will. As an manager I understand that I have a multi year relationship with people that should transcend the tasks at hand. The tasks at hand should be done and done well, but a job should be both fulfilling and manageable for the individual. Even if a hiring fails somewhat you have to make it work. The current job market creates an even bigger reason to treat people well.
  - asiachick 4y ago
    Are you saying people in Europe care more about their jobs? That's certainly not my experience. I've met just as many Europeans that hate their jobs and just do it for the money. They spend as little time as possible doing them. I'm reminded of this book https://web.archive.org/web/20090901204114/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/world/a-french-employee-s-work-celebrates-the-sloth-ethic.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090901204114/https://www.nytim...
    - 2b3a51 4y ago
      Well, didn't she do well (as the host of a popular UK TV game show used to say about contestants) https://www.corinnemaier.info/english/ https://www.corinnemaier.info/english/ Of course, you work to pay for the rest of your life but I think there is a role for craft and teamwork in all of this.
- kubanczyk 4y ago
  > There is no love and loyalty between employer and employee. I don't think anybody here talks about employees caring about or loving their employer. It's about about worker caring about their work. Because if I don't care, this is what happens: if input == input_that_causes_bug_1948348 { return static_output_for_bug_1948348 } Add UT. Next ticket please.
emptyfile 4y ago
> I take pride in parts of my work with the same emotional response as I take pride in my family. Well, that's just plain wrong.
- berkes 4y ago
  Is it? You spend a large part of your day on the job. Quite often spend most of your energy there too. At least make that worthwhile. Make this time count for you. Make it something you care about?
  - travisgriggs 4y ago
    Yeah I always struggle with the “you just need to care less, you’ll be happier that way” theme. I spend 8-10 hours on a given day exchanging my work for some revenue. That is (at least) half of my waking day. Day after day. To the tune of ~2000 hours a year. That is a massive part of one’s _life_. I think it’s reasonable to want some sort of satisfaction during at least some of those hours. Also, I find it takes active effort to actually not care. It is not a minimum energy test state for me. I actually have to work even harder to do the job and NOT care.
- amsnl 4y ago
  Well, this is plain wrong. (Super useful comment huh?)

quickthrower2 4y ago

There is a book called the subtle art of not giving a fuck, and you summed it up. You can only give so many fucks so choose them wisely!

boffinAudio 4y ago

If you are a programmer who doesn't care about your user, you are a terrible programmer - period. Care about the user, programmers. Not the manager, not your fellow work competitors. The USER. Without a USER, nothing you do has value - at all. (Note: your manager and your fellow work competitors can be users too. Don't overlook that fact! Hopefully they care enough about the users, too, that they are willing to wear the user hat during your product development cycle. Even managers wearing users hats are users. I hope you still care even then!)

cardanome 4y ago
You are right in the sense that thinking from the perspective of the user is a good professional skill to have. In practice though, you a very privileged if you get to work on any software that is not user-hostile per design. In the end of the day, programmer don't make the decisions.
lupire 4y ago
If you care about the user but management prevents you from acting on it, you are hurting yourself for no reason, like agonizing over all the bad news across the nation and world. Your shoulders can't carry the whole world

lupire 4y ago

You are describing not a problem with caring, but a problem with bad leadership that destroys the benefits of caring and the people who care. Stopping caring is a coping strategy to help you extract funds (if you aren't getting good funds, leave!) from a company that refuses to let you do good work.

v01dlight 4y ago
Ouch. That last statement hits close to home.