8 ms·

Whenever I read something like this I roll my eyes and assume the person writing it is either pretty junior or the specific founder type who has weirdly dysfunc

Whenever I read something like this I roll my eyes and assume the person writing it is either pretty junior or the specific founder type who has weirdly dysfunctional expectations about why their employees work for them. I think a lot of this stems from the bizarre culture of the SF tech world, but outside that bubble people do not really think about their jobs in this way. I emphasize _job_ here. The best devs I've worked with were not "intoxicated" with the job. They were professionals who knew what they were doing, were well paid for that knowledge, and outside of the job they had full lives with friends and personal interests. This sort of narrative is type of propaganda designed to get young, impressionable engineers to commit more of their lives to their job than the salary they are paid would justify. Do not do this if you are a young engineer. There are a lot of bosses out there who will take advantage of your excitement and naivete to utterly destroy you personal life at the expense of the business, but for every one of those there are others who will have the normal expectation of the employer/employee relationship.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
spoonfeeder006 3y ago
I am bookmarking this comment. My first job out of college was a great project for the world, but also at nearly grocery store wages. It was a small company with literally 2-3 people. The CEO was an old man "with no retirement" and also "2 million dollars in debt" Later when I offered to defer my wages until the product was released (it seemed he was "running out of money"), eventually all the trust building tactics he had used on me over the years were cashed out on as I gradually became disillusioned to realize him paying me dirt was deliberate. He could have easily paid me a decent wage for that work, but ultimately I met nothing but resistance and breadcrumbing and stonewalling when trying to get a decent pay "I don't have the money to pay you" he said at one point after the fact when I asked to be paid what he owes me. But afterwards and after I had rage quit, he simply hired someone else to start from scratch on my 2nd project after I had told the other developer that one thing I saw first hand working for him was how corporations don't care about people Granted I wasn't the fastest developer in terms of the number of hours I worked, and the new person he hired seems to have been pretty good, definitely above my level, assuming they implemented all the features I did. But I was getting my work done just fine as far as I and the other dev could tell
louwrentius 3y ago
Just browse /r/sysadmin and the sheer number of people with a Messias complex, it’s just stunning. “Yeah so three of my colleagues got fired so now I’m doing the work of four people, but my boss won’t listen to me when I say I’m overworked”. Professional people would likely been gone before the firings, but if this situation would have arisen, they would have set boundaries and negotiate what work is and isn’t done within a normal work week. They don’t let themselves get tricked or fooled like this. And the fun part is that management never even asks to take over the work. So many people are so brainwashed they care more about a company that would fire them without a single thought than their own life, it’s so insane.
- toast0 3y ago
  Depends on how everything else is going, but being one person doing the work of four is great if you handle it well. If you do what you can get done, and go home at a reasonable time, it's great. You don't have to worry about justifying your position, or trying to find work to do, you've got a bunch of stuff. You can pick from your choice of tasks, cause there's a ton of stuff. You don't have to bother with knowledge transfer, cause everyone else was fired. You can nope out of meetings because you've got a lot of stuff to do. When you leave or get fired, whatever, not your problem. No need to collaborate with other contributors becauase there are none. Not great if you're junior, obviously.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - louwrentius 3y ago
    If those other fired people did anything substantial it’s an illusion to think you can take that work on. Otherwise the firing was justified as one person can apparently do the work…
    - toast0 3y ago
      You can absolutely take that work on. Are you going to get it all done? Probably not, but like I said, pick and choose.
mattmanser 3y ago
You can find them online. Dropped out of college, became a "founding engineer" at a start up for 4 year, now 1 year in another startup. Basically, drunk the kool-aid, doesn't know what they don't know.
flappyeagle 3y ago
People have different reasons for working, different risk appetites, and different motivations. This sort of narrative is aimed at people who want to be obsessed with their work. It's pretty clear from the context that the author lays out.
doktorhladnjak 3y ago
Everyone's not the same. They don't have the same motivations. For the first decade of my job, I worked a steady, stable job that paid decently. It wasn't bad, but I was bored. Bored as in counting down the hours until the end of the work day each day, booking out all my vacation months in advance to the day. I switched over to startups and have not looked back. Yeah, I work more, but I enjoy it a lot more. I can't do it forever, but the financial rewards have been better too, so I probably won't need to work to 65 like when I had the more stable, boring job.
presentation 3y ago
There are startups that pay market wages.
corporage 3y ago
There are plenty of people that are passionate about their work. Just because it’s programming computers and not curing cancer doesn’t change this. It also doesn’t mean they don’t lead full lives. It doesn’t mean they are being taken advantage of. In my experience people that claim otherwise are just getting less out of work than they could. Kind of a waste of 40 hours a week. (Sure, bad situations exist etc. etc. but that’s just true of everything.)
renewiltord 3y ago
I don't think it's true that outside the SF bubble people don't believe in their jobs like that. My father is an orthopaedic surgeon and he definitely thinks about his job as much as I think about mine. My cousin is a cardiovascular surgeon who also does. Another cousin is a lawyer and she does too. A friend I met through another friend is a school vice-principal and he does too. All of these people have family and friends who love them and who have hobbies that they spend time on. I think people like this would just prefer to work with others like this. And so they write these things advertising that this life exists. The market for engineers is pretty hot right now. To any junior engineer who wants to love their job, I'd say go for it. You have at least 40 h a week dedicated to your vocation. That's enjoyable. Many people don't treat this 40 h as an enjoyable time of their life. But the reward is you have 40 more hours of enjoyment per week. Just remember that hard work and outcome are correlated at less than 1.
Nimitz14 3y ago
Literally every person who is the best in the world at what they do is intoxicated with their job. You don't get that good without putting in the extra effort. You need to recognize some people favor work in the work / life balance.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

spoonfeeder006 3y ago

I am bookmarking this comment. My first job out of college was a great project for the world, but also at nearly grocery store wages. It was a small company with literally 2-3 people. The CEO was an old man "with no retirement" and also "2 million dollars in debt" Later when I offered to defer my wages until the product was released (it seemed he was "running out of money"), eventually all the trust building tactics he had used on me over the years were cashed out on as I gradually became disillusioned to realize him paying me dirt was deliberate. He could have easily paid me a decent wage for that work, but ultimately I met nothing but resistance and breadcrumbing and stonewalling when trying to get a decent pay "I don't have the money to pay you" he said at one point after the fact when I asked to be paid what he owes me. But afterwards and after I had rage quit, he simply hired someone else to start from scratch on my 2nd project after I had told the other developer that one thing I saw first hand working for him was how corporations don't care about people Granted I wasn't the fastest developer in terms of the number of hours I worked, and the new person he hired seems to have been pretty good, definitely above my level, assuming they implemented all the features I did. But I was getting my work done just fine as far as I and the other dev could tell

louwrentius 3y ago

Just browse /r/sysadmin and the sheer number of people with a Messias complex, it’s just stunning. “Yeah so three of my colleagues got fired so now I’m doing the work of four people, but my boss won’t listen to me when I say I’m overworked”. Professional people would likely been gone before the firings, but if this situation would have arisen, they would have set boundaries and negotiate what work is and isn’t done within a normal work week. They don’t let themselves get tricked or fooled like this. And the fun part is that management never even asks to take over the work. So many people are so brainwashed they care more about a company that would fire them without a single thought than their own life, it’s so insane.

toast0 3y ago
Depends on how everything else is going, but being one person doing the work of four is great if you handle it well. If you do what you can get done, and go home at a reasonable time, it's great. You don't have to worry about justifying your position, or trying to find work to do, you've got a bunch of stuff. You can pick from your choice of tasks, cause there's a ton of stuff. You don't have to bother with knowledge transfer, cause everyone else was fired. You can nope out of meetings because you've got a lot of stuff to do. When you leave or get fired, whatever, not your problem. No need to collaborate with other contributors becauase there are none. Not great if you're junior, obviously.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- louwrentius 3y ago
  If those other fired people did anything substantial it’s an illusion to think you can take that work on. Otherwise the firing was justified as one person can apparently do the work…
  - toast0 3y ago
    You can absolutely take that work on. Are you going to get it all done? Probably not, but like I said, pick and choose.

mattmanser 3y ago

You can find them online. Dropped out of college, became a "founding engineer" at a start up for 4 year, now 1 year in another startup. Basically, drunk the kool-aid, doesn't know what they don't know.

flappyeagle 3y ago

People have different reasons for working, different risk appetites, and different motivations. This sort of narrative is aimed at people who want to be obsessed with their work. It's pretty clear from the context that the author lays out.

doktorhladnjak 3y ago

Everyone's not the same. They don't have the same motivations. For the first decade of my job, I worked a steady, stable job that paid decently. It wasn't bad, but I was bored. Bored as in counting down the hours until the end of the work day each day, booking out all my vacation months in advance to the day. I switched over to startups and have not looked back. Yeah, I work more, but I enjoy it a lot more. I can't do it forever, but the financial rewards have been better too, so I probably won't need to work to 65 like when I had the more stable, boring job.

presentation 3y ago

There are startups that pay market wages.

corporage 3y ago

There are plenty of people that are passionate about their work. Just because it’s programming computers and not curing cancer doesn’t change this. It also doesn’t mean they don’t lead full lives. It doesn’t mean they are being taken advantage of. In my experience people that claim otherwise are just getting less out of work than they could. Kind of a waste of 40 hours a week. (Sure, bad situations exist etc. etc. but that’s just true of everything.)

renewiltord 3y ago

I don't think it's true that outside the SF bubble people don't believe in their jobs like that. My father is an orthopaedic surgeon and he definitely thinks about his job as much as I think about mine. My cousin is a cardiovascular surgeon who also does. Another cousin is a lawyer and she does too. A friend I met through another friend is a school vice-principal and he does too. All of these people have family and friends who love them and who have hobbies that they spend time on. I think people like this would just prefer to work with others like this. And so they write these things advertising that this life exists. The market for engineers is pretty hot right now. To any junior engineer who wants to love their job, I'd say go for it. You have at least 40 h a week dedicated to your vocation. That's enjoyable. Many people don't treat this 40 h as an enjoyable time of their life. But the reward is you have 40 more hours of enjoyment per week. Just remember that hard work and outcome are correlated at less than 1.

Nimitz14 3y ago

Literally every person who is the best in the world at what they do is intoxicated with their job. You don't get that good without putting in the extra effort. You need to recognize some people favor work in the work / life balance.