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Hard, disgusting, dangerous jobs are needed for society to work. You need to pay for those, otherwise nobody will do them. Easy, motivating, well perceived by
by vasco 3y ago
Hard, disgusting, dangerous jobs are needed for society to work. You need to pay for those, otherwise nobody will do them.
Easy, motivating, well perceived by society jobs are very appealing, and if they got the same money as the others, society would collapse as nobody would do the first ones.
That is unless you force people to do the hard jobs and pay them the same as the people you assign to the nice jobs.
- acover 3y agoHard, disgusting, dangerous jobs still often pay poorly. Good paying jobs have high barriers to entry and sufficient demand for the services provided.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoLet's not pretend that stuff like software development or finance, some of the best paying careers there are, are "hard, disgusting or dangerous". Jobs are simply paid on the value they create vs the supply of workers available to do those jobs.
- cultofmetatron 3y ago> some of the best paying careers there are, are "hard, disgusting or dangerous". In these cases, there is still something choking the supply side. In the case of software, its having the curiosity, intelligence and discipline to actually learn the skillset to the point where they can create the value. I've met plenty of people who wanted to learn to code that fell apart as soon as they tried writing anything past "hello world"
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThe education can be grueling, you have to spend lots of time in the computer lab while your friends in other majors are drinking/partying. A lot of people claim we develop bad mental health and social skills. That definitely limits supply somewhat.
- koolba 3y agoThe idea that you have to be social recluse to be good at programming is beyond laughable. There’s definitely the opportunity for it and there’s definitely plenty of people in that category. But there’s plenty of us who are experts in the field, yet still know how to sit down for a cold beer on a hot day.
- marpstar 3y agoWent to school is Wisconsin. Lots of beer. A lot less after-hours computer lab. Had above-average career trajectory. Checks out.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoI didn’t go to a party school, so maybe my experience is biased. Also, the period I went was before CS was a mainstream major, so maybe things are different now.
- nate_meurer 3y agoI don't think so. I got my CS degree twenty five years ago. "Grueling" is pretty much the last word I'd use to describe my journey. I never went to class, spent the whole time smoking weed and gaming. I'm essentially a self-taught programmer, and if I can do it, almost anyone else could do it better and faster.
- gloryjulio 3y agoFrom my understanding in faang, this probably only applies to levels below senior. From senior onwards, coding is no longer a priority. U will need to work with multiple ppl and teams. Delegate the work. Communicate and champion ur projects. Interpersonal skills becomes as important as your technical skills
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vasco 3y agoSoftware development or finance tend to be hard, lacking meaning, and not well seen by society. You're not going to come across as virtuous to anyone if you're in finance, as opposed to if you decide to be a firefighter. When you have multiple variables, coming up with examples that stretch just one will not give you a right answer. I agree ultimately supply is the main driver, I have another comment in the thread about it.
- V__ 3y agoCreating “value” for shareholders, “value” for your clients… I started to really dislike the use of value without a descriptor. It often feels like it implies the work of nurses, teachers, first-responders isn't as valuable as the work of software development or finance. Just because some jobs have a higher monetary value, doesn't mean its societal value is also high.
- photonbeam 3y agoSoftware development is hard, just this is a forum full of people who are good at it
- vasco 3y agoI didn't have to do any test to sign-up!
- janejeon 3y agoIt's supply and demand - the whole idea is that the high pay will encourage people to move into where supply of labour is needed. It's just that, as some people are finding out, not everyone can code, and especially, not everyone can engineer.
- sangnoir 3y ago> Jobs are simply paid on the value they create Even sillier jobs mostly pay on first order value. That is why I refuse to work in any department that the larger organization deems a cost-center: in my experience such jobs consistently pay less!
- mjhay 3y agoYou have this completely backwards. The lower a job pays, the more likely it is to be dangerous or disgusting. Some of the very lowest paying jobs are the most dangerous (lumberjacks) or the most disgusting (janitors).
- JackMorgan 3y agoAlso volunteer fire fighters are often totally unpaid (which make up the majority of US based fire protection)
- martindbp 3y agoIn the end it's all supply and demand, there is no causal connection between low pay and dangerous/disgusting work, quite the opposite. If a job is dangerous or disgusting and still low paid, it just means that the barrier to entry is even lower. Anyone with two arms and legs can be a janitor.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoPlenty of jobs are hard and disgusting but don’t pay well e.g emergency services This is often because they are a monopoly and their pay is artificially restricted such as by having only one employer
- generic92034 3y agoTrue. Also, there are definitely traditions and notions about better and worse jobs which play a role, besides supply and demand. In some countries salaries for some jobs do not rise even though there is a clear lack of supply. But they just cannot move the salaries up (by much), for not disturbing their artificial salary hierarchy. You cannot pay the nurse better than the physician, even if you are direly lacking nurses and have a surplus on the physician side. Well, you could, but nobody actually does it.