8 ms·

How committed to be to one's job is a dynamic topic. To me, the ideal dynamic is finding a place that will recognize and reward you for working hard and "owning

How committed to be to one's job is a dynamic topic. To me, the ideal dynamic is finding a place that will recognize and reward you for working hard and "owning it" - and to work hard and "own it" in that environment. In contrast, working hard in a place that doesn't reward you is sad. Slacking in a place where you can succeed more if you try harder is also sad. I find that some people will perceive themselves to be exploited and orient their life around avoiding it, regardless of the situation (vs, reserving that feeling for avoiding actually exploitive situations.) For example, it's common to see HN posts describing someone as "subjecting themselves to unpaid overtime" when they work hard - meanwhile the person saying it is making $60K while the person being talked about is making $600K. There are some cases where working hard/loyalty/etc can lead to outsized rewards - but you need to be smart and keep your eyes open for that kind of space. And then, assuming you are in the right kind of environment - allowing yourself to care and be engaged makes your work days much more fun. I think commonly in the example I described, the person that's proud of inoculating themselves from exploitation not only make 10% of what they can, but the exactly 8 hours of work they put in is a miserable drag for them. The guy working harder for 10X the comp might also be having more fun.

epups 3y ago
I really like your formulation of the issue. I am currently in a tough spot where I'm not recognised and rewarded, and after some reflection I had two choices: either I slow down to the level of everyone else, or I find somewhere else to work. I chose the latter, based on the perspective you describe here. For me, life is too short to waste it at half-power most of the day, and I actually feel bad when not working hard. Working only enough to pay the bills is probably more sane, but I cannot do it. The challenge now, of course, is to find somewhere where this attitude is adaptive.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  (I am the person you're responding to.) I think your attitude is right and will pay you in the medium or long term if not immediately. You can't control what you can't control but you CAN control a lot - how you work, how you look for job, etc. You'll be fine!
vsareto 3y ago
>There are some cases where working hard/loyalty/etc can lead to outsized rewards People are so disillusioned to "hard work == comfortable life" that they might not even recognize it when it's real, or be incredibly suspicious. There is also a separate, much bigger lesson in that if you make friends and/or play politics, you also don't have to work as hard and still get rewarded (sometimes massively). When you layer all of these facts, it's really hard to sign up to be a hard worker. It feels more like punishment once you learn how easy the rich people have it.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  > When you layer all of these facts, it's really hard to sign up to be a hard worker. It feels more like punishment once you learn how easy the rich people have it. It is very easy to become extremely bitter when you're being lectured by someone who makes more in a month than you do in a year about "hard work" Especially when you know their job is basically answering emails, giving a presentation once in a while, and golf trips with customers.
  - johnny99k 3y ago
    Do you really think that's ALL they do? My manager (who is the director of engineering of the company) does what you are describing and it may seem like a no-work job. However, he also: -manages multiple, large, multi-year projects across multiple time zones -is a filter for the shit that rains down from upper-management (the most important role of a manager) -if any of these projects fail, he gets blamed (and most likely fired)
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Okay, but imagine another Director of Engineering who - Is responsible for managing large multi-year projects across multiple timezones and basically offloads all of his responsibilities to his direct reports and just asks for status reports now and then - Is not just not filtering the shit from above but is also a source of shit from above - diffuses blame downwards instead of taking any for himself, cuts people under him and is never disciplined when projects fail. He makes as much or more than the guy you report to. Who holds him accountable? His other buddies in upper management? Maybe eventually, but let's be real here. If he ever does get fired he gets a golden parachute and worms his way in at another company in no time. Maybe this isn't true at the middle manager-y layer, but it's definitely a pattern we've seen plenty of examples of with executives and other upper management types.
gitanovic 3y ago
I totally agree. This is very on point
distract8901 3y ago
My last job was a corporate hellscape. I worked really hard to move up to assistant manager, then corporate put me in a failing store on the other side of the state and just left me to rot. I had zero employees, just me and the manager. We constantly got berated for not meeting sales targets, which meant corporate sent us less product to sell, so our numbers got worse... Then there was the mandatory unpaid overtime, the 12 hour days running the entire store solo. It nearly put me in the hospital, and I'm not exaggerating. Then I got an unbelievable offer for a tech job ten minutes from my house. It was "only" twice my corporate salary, and I'm definitely being way underpaid for essentially being the senior R&D engineer. But it pays enough that my husband doesn't have to work and we don't want for anything. My job is so much fun, and my dedication is definitely noticed and appreciated. They've already given me a raise unprompted, and once we have enough revenue, I expect I'll get a much bigger one. Not that I really care about the money, I feel respected here, and I get to use all of my talents instead of cold-calling people to sell more crap. I'll never go back to that corporate life. It was absolutely soul crushing for someone who has a lot of initiative and a lot of skills. This is where I was meant to be.
- neeleshs 3y ago
  Curious question - how did you make the transition from being a store manager to an R&D Engineer? Was this a skill you already possessed but couldn't utilize before?
  - dopidopHN 3y ago
    My previous R&D lead was a store manager just before as well. He was a stellar lead. Maybe there is some untapped potential in all the store managers of the world?
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      I actually bet your experience holding it down and getting shit done in that failing store was a good reflection of your ability and character and helped you get the next gig.
    - 3y ago
regentbowerbird 3y ago
You make very good points and I personally agree with you fundamentally, however your example is a bit exaggerated: there are very few jobs where just "working harder" will lead to a 10× jump in compensation. Making 600K$pa would put someone in the top 1% of earners in the US, obviously not something generalizable to the entire population. I do agree one must stay on the lookout for opportunities where working harder is rewarded, and also that one should try finding some joy in work. But also that one must stay realistic in their expectations, and that much joy is to be found outside of work (relationships, hobbies, discovery, leisure, etc).
- JusticeJuice 3y ago
  Yeah. You don't get paid for hard work, you get paid for experience applied to lucrative problems.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    IMO, you don't get paid for experience either. You get paid the minimum amount your employer thinks they can get away with without you leaving, capped at some fraction of the value you add,(less overheads, risks, etc).
  - orochimaaru 3y ago
    Actually you get paid and promoted for making your vp and csuite earn brownie points.
    - __xor_eax_eax 3y ago
      Thats where the experience comes in
    - nostrademons 3y ago
      ...which is the "applied to lucrative problems" part. VPs and C-suites get brownie points by making money.
      - 3y ago
ulnarkressty 3y ago
I'm curious how the rewards in the "best places" to work look like. There was a famous study that found that developers are happy when they get enough money not to care, but in real life this doesn't seem to be the case. Whenever I speak with my management buddies, they always lament about engineers who complain they're not being appreciated enough. When asked what proper appreciation would look like, they always give various answers which always boil down to money (i.e. "you could praise me in front of everyone for the great job I did, but actually want a raise / more money than the guy I perceive to be a slacker"). If we're being honest, one is employed by the company to make them money, so it will always more or less boil down to this. Would anyone be satisfied that they made their boss a million more, while getting a pat on the back and the same salary?
- eschneider 3y ago
  Praise is cheap. If a company really appreciates you, they will give you money. It's how they keep score. (Or some cash equivalent like stock, or options.)
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    to paraphrase Mad Men: "you don't appreciate me!" "that's what the money is for!"
- xyzelement 3y ago
  (I am the person you're responding to). For me personally, comp is an indicator that I am working on something important and that I am being appreciated - so yes, when I talk about being "rewarded" I am talking about comp and other tangibles like flexibility, etc. in addition to respect. And look, if a company has been good to me but there's a tough year and everyone gets small raises, I can roll with that as part of the longer term commitment, but that has to be offset by fat raises in fat years. This might be different for people who are happy to work for small comp in a non-profit or a lean startup, but I struggle to relate to that personally (doesn't mean they are wrong but its not for me.)
dasil003 3y ago
Yeah it’s funny, I’ve generally always worked hard and been rewarded. Occasionally I’ve had a bad job or a bad boss and I’ve moved on quickly. I do have an anti-authoritarian streak (got me in trouble in school), but I’ve never felt exploited in the workplace. A big part of this is the privilege of working in software where my skills are highly valued. But even here I see people with a victim complex all the time. The whole “the only reward for getting done early is more work” indicates a deep misunderstanding of both the problem-solving leverage we have as software engineers as well as how to have your value be recognized by your employer. It’s not about working more hours, it’s about understanding the business and making your own work effective. This is completely orthogonal from maintaining clear work/life boundaries, which you should also do, and most reasonable places don’t have a problem with.
TimPC 3y ago
I think the right strategy is to try and select for a place that rewards you properly for hard work in interviews. If you're in a place that doesn't slacking is generally bad for your career so my advice is mostly to move on rather than slack. It's very hard to keep your career on an upward trajectory if you put in two years of slacking somewhere. At some point that's going to hurt you in terms of the sharpness of your knowledge and what you can demo/talk about on your successful projects when interviewing.
- vsareto 3y ago
  >At some point that's going to hurt you in terms of the sharpness of your knowledge and what you can demo/talk about on your successful projects when interviewing. I don't think this is a real problem IMO. If you learned it in the first place, you can learn it again after slacking off for a bit. You might need a few months for the focused effort, which is honestly not a cost but probably what we in the industry call a sabbatical. It may add some risk to getting a job if your life is suddenly turned upside down after slacking and you need a job right this instant. That slacking might fail you some interviews, but not all of them. Even in this situation, there are financial options and temp jobs to get by with. I don't think anyone should ever be convinced that if you stop practicing something that your ability disappears completely. I'd put some faith into the idea that you can relearn it just as well or better when the need arises.
  - TimPC 3y ago
    I'm not saying your ability disappears completely. I also think it depends on the job market you're in. At my current company we interview under 1 in 1000 applicants because we get over 500 applications a day for open roles. The job market right now is not the same as the job market three years ago where you easily got 10 interviews, could pass 3 of them and then have a competitive negotiation with multiple companies. If you need to be in the top 0.1% of applicants to even get an interview you're going to get far fewer interviews. This is especially true if you are trying to push the limits on compensation and applying for positions that may be a slight stretch for your current experience.
- mvncleaninst 3y ago
hashtag-til 3y ago
The employee side of it is to become the "de facto" owner of something important, and making the calculated move to "big salary raise or I'm leaving". Obviously you need to be backed up with another offer and be prepared to leave. You can't use that often, but doing it at the right time, it works. Worked for me at least :)
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  told a coworker to do the same thing recently, lol. like "bro if you get hit by a car things are gonna get ugly -- so leverage that" we'll see if he will
- xyzelement 3y ago
  // and making the calculated move to "big salary raise or I'm leaving" Even better is to be in a place that's smart enough to pay people to begin with because it hires the "best" (ie people with options.)
  - hashtag-til 3y ago
    Agree, but over the years - and being in the meetings salary raises are discussed/approved/rejected - I see this pattern that companies only act if they perceive urgency. The quiet person doing an absolutely amazing job is never seen as an urgent case. It is sad and I don't agree with this view at all, but my opinion is not enough to change the system, so I need to live with it.
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      Even in that case, I'd never do the "big raise or I am leaving" move and I wouldn't respect someone who did. If you gotta play that card, I'd do something much softer like "hey, I love working here but it's getting a little hard to keep hanging up on these recruiters offering me 3X.. can we talk?"
      - gedy 3y ago
aidenn0 3y ago
> I find that some people will perceive themselves to be exploited and orient their life around avoiding it, regardless of the situation... Right it works both ways; some people will be blind to being exploited. It really makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  // makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me. So first of all, that is the wisest perspective on life! Human perception is objectively limited and recognizing that we may not be seeing (or even capable of seeing) reality is empowering. But on the topic of exploitation vs fair compensation, I don't think it's impossible to figure out where you stand if you can move your feelings out of the way. Say you're a developer making 600K in my previous example, where an average dev is making I dunno, 150K. Being at 4X the average is a pretty good sign that you have a pretty decent gig going. Can you and should you push it to 700k? Absolutely! But probably no room to feel victimized. On the flip side, if you're making 60K and hear of someone making 600K - it's less obvious how much of that is you and how much of that is someone underpaying you because they are greedy or because they can't? To suss it out - question #1 is - can they even afford to pay more? Like if you work for a mom-and-pop whose whole profit might be 600K for the year, you're in a pretty capped situation no matter who you and and what you'd do, so in terms of pure comp you should find something else. And then - how do you know if you're "as good" as the guy making 600K? One thing to try would be to interview for those FAANG jobs and see how close or far you're to landing them. If you are capable and persistent, you find yourself there. Maybe not making 600 but not making 60 either. On the flip side, if you can't then maybe you can't and maybe 60 or something like that is fair. Still no guarantee of objectivity but this is how one would gather the data.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    > But on the topic of exploitation vs fair compensation, I don't think it's impossible to figure out where you stand if you can move your feelings out of the way... See, I'd like to think that's something I could (and already) do, but from the outside watching other people try to do this and fail utterly -- anything from "If you have a boss, they are exploiting you period" to blind loyalty to a company that clearly is exploiting people -- I do have to spend some time second guessing myself.
tetha 3y ago
An example I have from work is: We all have the idea that we're working 40 hours a week, on Monday to Friday, averaged across two weeks. This sets the normal pace, but I have no problem pulling one or two 12 hours days to put out some massive production fires. It just has to be clear: This means at least 1 day of me not working, usually - if you add in overtime rates - much rather 2. Weekend work is handled in a similar way. 3-4 hours on a weekend are 1 weekday off. If a company respects this and cooperates this way, I'm perfectly fine pulling long hours if necessary, or weekend work if the criticality explains it. But at the same time, if you start micro-managing my hours and start being picky if I organize my hours on a day around some long-running tasks I just need to wait for... I mean be happy I'm doing laundry off the clock or counting reduced time while the archive system is shoveling data towards servers, which requires minimal monitoring. And I have a phone notification setup if it does something weird.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  This has always been how I work as well. If you call me at 10pm I'll pick up the phone, if I roll in late or sneak out early or take a long lunch, I don't want to hear anything about it. quid pro quo.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
> In contrast, working hard in a place that doesn't reward you is sad. Slacking in a place where you can succeed more if you try harder is also sad. I understand the place where this comes from, but I don't agree. I think this is a very personal thing and there cannot be a single approach that works for everyone. But for me, if I'm not trying my very best I can't continue doing the job. I'm internally motivated, I know that I'm doing a great job and can be proud of the work, I don't need others to tell me. I can think of two jobs I left over these sorts of issues. One was abusive -- VP told my manager to write me up over an email I sent out asking a question about software they were using. That was on a Thursday, I was gone the following Monday. I was later told that VP was removed because she regularly made people cry (she was just mean). One because I realized the politics meant I couldn't do a good job. I had stepped into a fight between a manager and a CISO and the CISO made sure we were setup for failure. 2-3 months after I left they moved the manager directly under the CISO and he quit. but in general I've not found myself getting exploited. That doesn't mean I always agree with what management is doing but it's generally been well-meaning by earnest people and I sometimes think if people feel they're constantly running into management like this they might be mis-interpreting. Oddly enough, I've found the larger companies (multi-billion dollar companies) to be more pleasant than smaller companies where it seems tribalism is much more rampant.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I totally agree and thank you for sharing these anecdotes. I think your point is a good one - ideally you find yourself in a work environment that lets you be the kind of employee you want to be (and ideally that means a productive and engaged employee in a rewarding environment)
tshaddox 3y ago
How do you determine if a situation is "actually" exploitive? On one hand, you could say that no employment arrangement is exploitative if the employee agreed to the terms. On the other hand, you could argue that every employment arrangement is exploitative if the employer is making profit and thus could may employees more than they are.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Detrytus 3y ago
  > you could argue that every employment arrangement is exploitative if the employer is making profit and thus could may employees more than they are. Employer is also bringing in the value to the relationship: most software projects, for example require more than one person. If you was just a freelancer you wouldn't even be considered by the client, when they choose the vendor. Your company also insulates you from legal and financial risks (such as contractual penalties for not delivering the project on time). That's why they take some part of the profit. Now, what the fair split is, that's an endless debate.
brightlancer 3y ago
I suspect almost everyone on HN isn't legally bound to their employer, so I also reject the "exploitation" bit. But I do want to challenge the compensation argument: > For example, it's common to see HN posts describing someone as "subjecting themselves to unpaid overtime" when they work hard - meanwhile the person saying it is making $60K while the person being talked about is making $600K. Higher paying jobs naturally have higher expectations. OTOH, I've also had managers/ employers who used "we pay you well" an excuse for all kinds of garbage treatment, specifically _avoidable_ garbage treatment: short notice evenings, weekends, _holidays_; denying vacation to compensate for staffing; pressuring folks to return from (legally protected) medical or family leave; required to do work completely out of the job's scope; and so on. Now, some jobs are inherently like that. If the expectations are set up front and adhered to, then it's a free choice on each side. IME, lots of jobs don't have to be that way, the expectations aren't set up front, and expectations change. It takes only one jerk with a title to ruin things.
mikelevins 3y ago
I think I agree with everything you've said here, but I want to offer a caution to those who pursue hard work that is fun. I've worked in all permutations of your descriptions. If I believe in a project and can get good results on it, and much moreso if I'm having fun, I will work very hard. If I don't believe in it or have trouble getting good results or no one cares, then it's very hard for me to motivate myself. Obviously, I prefer the situations where I'm highly motivated, and in fact I've worked very hard on some projects. Too hard, in fact. The fact that a project is something you believe in, that you're highly motivated, that you can make a difference with it, or that you're having a lot of fun, doesn't make overwork healthy. I've overworked myself a couple of times in my life. I hesitate to describe the worst case; I don't think readers will believe my description of what I did. Suffice to say that I worked on a new system project at Apple and was highly motivated to make it succeed (it didn't). I owned a small non-tech business at the same time. I worked way too hard for a while. I didn't mind it. On the contrary, I was deliriously happy to do it. Nobody had to ask me to work hard. But it still did me harm. I don't know for sure that working like that caused or contributed to the chronic illnesses I now have, but I do know that the literature on one of them says that it's correlated with excessive hours worked and excessive exercise. I did both. (My side business involved a lot of intense exercise.) Oh, and if the overwork did cause or contribute to my chronic illness, then it may also have cost me a fortune. I went bankrupt in the process of getting one of those illnesses properly diagnosed and treated. So even if hard work does happen to pay really well, that doesn't necessarily make it worthwhile--not even necessarily financially worthwhile. Again, nobody made me work like that. I did it because I was motivated and having fun. It was nevertheless very bad for me. That became clear over the months after I did it, and I may still be paying for it. You might think that I would have learned my lesson from that episode, and that's true to some extent. I've never worked that hard again. I have worked too hard since then, though. It's a consequence of personality traits, I think. It's a trap I can too easily fall into, even though I know better. So I have to keep watch and listen to my loved ones and my doctors when they warn me that I'm trending that way. In short: don't think that fun and motivation make you immune to the ill effects of overwork. They don't.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  thank you for this detailed post - I believe that you and others like you became enablers for a darkside of management at Apple. However with clarity and time you are re-balancing yourself. source: directly worked at Apple in Santa Clara and Cupertino
mlinhares 3y ago
Trouble is that it is really hard to find these places and the place might be like that when you join and stop being it as it grows, so there's never a good solution other than continuing to go other places and see if they're better.

epups 3y ago

I really like your formulation of the issue. I am currently in a tough spot where I'm not recognised and rewarded, and after some reflection I had two choices: either I slow down to the level of everyone else, or I find somewhere else to work. I chose the latter, based on the perspective you describe here. For me, life is too short to waste it at half-power most of the day, and I actually feel bad when not working hard. Working only enough to pay the bills is probably more sane, but I cannot do it. The challenge now, of course, is to find somewhere where this attitude is adaptive.

xyzelement 3y ago
(I am the person you're responding to.) I think your attitude is right and will pay you in the medium or long term if not immediately. You can't control what you can't control but you CAN control a lot - how you work, how you look for job, etc. You'll be fine!

vsareto 3y ago

>There are some cases where working hard/loyalty/etc can lead to outsized rewards People are so disillusioned to "hard work == comfortable life" that they might not even recognize it when it's real, or be incredibly suspicious. There is also a separate, much bigger lesson in that if you make friends and/or play politics, you also don't have to work as hard and still get rewarded (sometimes massively). When you layer all of these facts, it's really hard to sign up to be a hard worker. It feels more like punishment once you learn how easy the rich people have it.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
> When you layer all of these facts, it's really hard to sign up to be a hard worker. It feels more like punishment once you learn how easy the rich people have it. It is very easy to become extremely bitter when you're being lectured by someone who makes more in a month than you do in a year about "hard work" Especially when you know their job is basically answering emails, giving a presentation once in a while, and golf trips with customers.
- johnny99k 3y ago
  Do you really think that's ALL they do? My manager (who is the director of engineering of the company) does what you are describing and it may seem like a no-work job. However, he also: -manages multiple, large, multi-year projects across multiple time zones -is a filter for the shit that rains down from upper-management (the most important role of a manager) -if any of these projects fail, he gets blamed (and most likely fired)
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    Okay, but imagine another Director of Engineering who - Is responsible for managing large multi-year projects across multiple timezones and basically offloads all of his responsibilities to his direct reports and just asks for status reports now and then - Is not just not filtering the shit from above but is also a source of shit from above - diffuses blame downwards instead of taking any for himself, cuts people under him and is never disciplined when projects fail. He makes as much or more than the guy you report to. Who holds him accountable? His other buddies in upper management? Maybe eventually, but let's be real here. If he ever does get fired he gets a golden parachute and worms his way in at another company in no time. Maybe this isn't true at the middle manager-y layer, but it's definitely a pattern we've seen plenty of examples of with executives and other upper management types.

gitanovic 3y ago

I totally agree. This is very on point

distract8901 3y ago

My last job was a corporate hellscape. I worked really hard to move up to assistant manager, then corporate put me in a failing store on the other side of the state and just left me to rot. I had zero employees, just me and the manager. We constantly got berated for not meeting sales targets, which meant corporate sent us less product to sell, so our numbers got worse... Then there was the mandatory unpaid overtime, the 12 hour days running the entire store solo. It nearly put me in the hospital, and I'm not exaggerating. Then I got an unbelievable offer for a tech job ten minutes from my house. It was "only" twice my corporate salary, and I'm definitely being way underpaid for essentially being the senior R&D engineer. But it pays enough that my husband doesn't have to work and we don't want for anything. My job is so much fun, and my dedication is definitely noticed and appreciated. They've already given me a raise unprompted, and once we have enough revenue, I expect I'll get a much bigger one. Not that I really care about the money, I feel respected here, and I get to use all of my talents instead of cold-calling people to sell more crap. I'll never go back to that corporate life. It was absolutely soul crushing for someone who has a lot of initiative and a lot of skills. This is where I was meant to be.

neeleshs 3y ago
Curious question - how did you make the transition from being a store manager to an R&D Engineer? Was this a skill you already possessed but couldn't utilize before?
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  My previous R&D lead was a store manager just before as well. He was a stellar lead. Maybe there is some untapped potential in all the store managers of the world?
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    I actually bet your experience holding it down and getting shit done in that failing store was a good reflection of your ability and character and helped you get the next gig.
  - 3y ago

regentbowerbird 3y ago

You make very good points and I personally agree with you fundamentally, however your example is a bit exaggerated: there are very few jobs where just "working harder" will lead to a 10× jump in compensation. Making 600K$pa would put someone in the top 1% of earners in the US, obviously not something generalizable to the entire population. I do agree one must stay on the lookout for opportunities where working harder is rewarded, and also that one should try finding some joy in work. But also that one must stay realistic in their expectations, and that much joy is to be found outside of work (relationships, hobbies, discovery, leisure, etc).

JusticeJuice 3y ago
Yeah. You don't get paid for hard work, you get paid for experience applied to lucrative problems.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  IMO, you don't get paid for experience either. You get paid the minimum amount your employer thinks they can get away with without you leaving, capped at some fraction of the value you add,(less overheads, risks, etc).
- orochimaaru 3y ago
  Actually you get paid and promoted for making your vp and csuite earn brownie points.
  - __xor_eax_eax 3y ago
    Thats where the experience comes in
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    ...which is the "applied to lucrative problems" part. VPs and C-suites get brownie points by making money.
    - 3y ago

ulnarkressty 3y ago

I'm curious how the rewards in the "best places" to work look like. There was a famous study that found that developers are happy when they get enough money not to care, but in real life this doesn't seem to be the case. Whenever I speak with my management buddies, they always lament about engineers who complain they're not being appreciated enough. When asked what proper appreciation would look like, they always give various answers which always boil down to money (i.e. "you could praise me in front of everyone for the great job I did, but actually want a raise / more money than the guy I perceive to be a slacker"). If we're being honest, one is employed by the company to make them money, so it will always more or less boil down to this. Would anyone be satisfied that they made their boss a million more, while getting a pat on the back and the same salary?

eschneider 3y ago
Praise is cheap. If a company really appreciates you, they will give you money. It's how they keep score. (Or some cash equivalent like stock, or options.)
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  to paraphrase Mad Men: "you don't appreciate me!" "that's what the money is for!"
xyzelement 3y ago
(I am the person you're responding to). For me personally, comp is an indicator that I am working on something important and that I am being appreciated - so yes, when I talk about being "rewarded" I am talking about comp and other tangibles like flexibility, etc. in addition to respect. And look, if a company has been good to me but there's a tough year and everyone gets small raises, I can roll with that as part of the longer term commitment, but that has to be offset by fat raises in fat years. This might be different for people who are happy to work for small comp in a non-profit or a lean startup, but I struggle to relate to that personally (doesn't mean they are wrong but its not for me.)

dasil003 3y ago

Yeah it’s funny, I’ve generally always worked hard and been rewarded. Occasionally I’ve had a bad job or a bad boss and I’ve moved on quickly. I do have an anti-authoritarian streak (got me in trouble in school), but I’ve never felt exploited in the workplace. A big part of this is the privilege of working in software where my skills are highly valued. But even here I see people with a victim complex all the time. The whole “the only reward for getting done early is more work” indicates a deep misunderstanding of both the problem-solving leverage we have as software engineers as well as how to have your value be recognized by your employer. It’s not about working more hours, it’s about understanding the business and making your own work effective. This is completely orthogonal from maintaining clear work/life boundaries, which you should also do, and most reasonable places don’t have a problem with.

TimPC 3y ago

I think the right strategy is to try and select for a place that rewards you properly for hard work in interviews. If you're in a place that doesn't slacking is generally bad for your career so my advice is mostly to move on rather than slack. It's very hard to keep your career on an upward trajectory if you put in two years of slacking somewhere. At some point that's going to hurt you in terms of the sharpness of your knowledge and what you can demo/talk about on your successful projects when interviewing.

vsareto 3y ago
>At some point that's going to hurt you in terms of the sharpness of your knowledge and what you can demo/talk about on your successful projects when interviewing. I don't think this is a real problem IMO. If you learned it in the first place, you can learn it again after slacking off for a bit. You might need a few months for the focused effort, which is honestly not a cost but probably what we in the industry call a sabbatical. It may add some risk to getting a job if your life is suddenly turned upside down after slacking and you need a job right this instant. That slacking might fail you some interviews, but not all of them. Even in this situation, there are financial options and temp jobs to get by with. I don't think anyone should ever be convinced that if you stop practicing something that your ability disappears completely. I'd put some faith into the idea that you can relearn it just as well or better when the need arises.
- TimPC 3y ago
  I'm not saying your ability disappears completely. I also think it depends on the job market you're in. At my current company we interview under 1 in 1000 applicants because we get over 500 applications a day for open roles. The job market right now is not the same as the job market three years ago where you easily got 10 interviews, could pass 3 of them and then have a competitive negotiation with multiple companies. If you need to be in the top 0.1% of applicants to even get an interview you're going to get far fewer interviews. This is especially true if you are trying to push the limits on compensation and applying for positions that may be a slight stretch for your current experience.
mvncleaninst 3y ago

hashtag-til 3y ago

The employee side of it is to become the "de facto" owner of something important, and making the calculated move to "big salary raise or I'm leaving". Obviously you need to be backed up with another offer and be prepared to leave. You can't use that often, but doing it at the right time, it works. Worked for me at least :)

red-iron-pine 3y ago
told a coworker to do the same thing recently, lol. like "bro if you get hit by a car things are gonna get ugly -- so leverage that" we'll see if he will
xyzelement 3y ago
// and making the calculated move to "big salary raise or I'm leaving" Even better is to be in a place that's smart enough to pay people to begin with because it hires the "best" (ie people with options.)
- hashtag-til 3y ago
  Agree, but over the years - and being in the meetings salary raises are discussed/approved/rejected - I see this pattern that companies only act if they perceive urgency. The quiet person doing an absolutely amazing job is never seen as an urgent case. It is sad and I don't agree with this view at all, but my opinion is not enough to change the system, so I need to live with it.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    Even in that case, I'd never do the "big raise or I am leaving" move and I wouldn't respect someone who did. If you gotta play that card, I'd do something much softer like "hey, I love working here but it's getting a little hard to keep hanging up on these recruiters offering me 3X.. can we talk?"
    - gedy 3y ago

aidenn0 3y ago

> I find that some people will perceive themselves to be exploited and orient their life around avoiding it, regardless of the situation... Right it works both ways; some people will be blind to being exploited. It really makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me.

xyzelement 3y ago
// makes me doubt that I have anything even remotely close to an objective view of things that are close to me. So first of all, that is the wisest perspective on life! Human perception is objectively limited and recognizing that we may not be seeing (or even capable of seeing) reality is empowering. But on the topic of exploitation vs fair compensation, I don't think it's impossible to figure out where you stand if you can move your feelings out of the way. Say you're a developer making 600K in my previous example, where an average dev is making I dunno, 150K. Being at 4X the average is a pretty good sign that you have a pretty decent gig going. Can you and should you push it to 700k? Absolutely! But probably no room to feel victimized. On the flip side, if you're making 60K and hear of someone making 600K - it's less obvious how much of that is you and how much of that is someone underpaying you because they are greedy or because they can't? To suss it out - question #1 is - can they even afford to pay more? Like if you work for a mom-and-pop whose whole profit might be 600K for the year, you're in a pretty capped situation no matter who you and and what you'd do, so in terms of pure comp you should find something else. And then - how do you know if you're "as good" as the guy making 600K? One thing to try would be to interview for those FAANG jobs and see how close or far you're to landing them. If you are capable and persistent, you find yourself there. Maybe not making 600 but not making 60 either. On the flip side, if you can't then maybe you can't and maybe 60 or something like that is fair. Still no guarantee of objectivity but this is how one would gather the data.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  > But on the topic of exploitation vs fair compensation, I don't think it's impossible to figure out where you stand if you can move your feelings out of the way... See, I'd like to think that's something I could (and already) do, but from the outside watching other people try to do this and fail utterly -- anything from "If you have a boss, they are exploiting you period" to blind loyalty to a company that clearly is exploiting people -- I do have to spend some time second guessing myself.

tetha 3y ago

An example I have from work is: We all have the idea that we're working 40 hours a week, on Monday to Friday, averaged across two weeks. This sets the normal pace, but I have no problem pulling one or two 12 hours days to put out some massive production fires. It just has to be clear: This means at least 1 day of me not working, usually - if you add in overtime rates - much rather 2. Weekend work is handled in a similar way. 3-4 hours on a weekend are 1 weekday off. If a company respects this and cooperates this way, I'm perfectly fine pulling long hours if necessary, or weekend work if the criticality explains it. But at the same time, if you start micro-managing my hours and start being picky if I organize my hours on a day around some long-running tasks I just need to wait for... I mean be happy I'm doing laundry off the clock or counting reduced time while the archive system is shoveling data towards servers, which requires minimal monitoring. And I have a phone notification setup if it does something weird.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
This has always been how I work as well. If you call me at 10pm I'll pick up the phone, if I roll in late or sneak out early or take a long lunch, I don't want to hear anything about it. quid pro quo.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

> In contrast, working hard in a place that doesn't reward you is sad. Slacking in a place where you can succeed more if you try harder is also sad. I understand the place where this comes from, but I don't agree. I think this is a very personal thing and there cannot be a single approach that works for everyone. But for me, if I'm not trying my very best I can't continue doing the job. I'm internally motivated, I know that I'm doing a great job and can be proud of the work, I don't need others to tell me. I can think of two jobs I left over these sorts of issues. One was abusive -- VP told my manager to write me up over an email I sent out asking a question about software they were using. That was on a Thursday, I was gone the following Monday. I was later told that VP was removed because she regularly made people cry (she was just mean). One because I realized the politics meant I couldn't do a good job. I had stepped into a fight between a manager and a CISO and the CISO made sure we were setup for failure. 2-3 months after I left they moved the manager directly under the CISO and he quit. but in general I've not found myself getting exploited. That doesn't mean I always agree with what management is doing but it's generally been well-meaning by earnest people and I sometimes think if people feel they're constantly running into management like this they might be mis-interpreting. Oddly enough, I've found the larger companies (multi-billion dollar companies) to be more pleasant than smaller companies where it seems tribalism is much more rampant.

xyzelement 3y ago
I totally agree and thank you for sharing these anecdotes. I think your point is a good one - ideally you find yourself in a work environment that lets you be the kind of employee you want to be (and ideally that means a productive and engaged employee in a rewarding environment)

tshaddox 3y ago

How do you determine if a situation is "actually" exploitive? On one hand, you could say that no employment arrangement is exploitative if the employee agreed to the terms. On the other hand, you could argue that every employment arrangement is exploitative if the employer is making profit and thus could may employees more than they are.

deleted 3y ago
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Detrytus 3y ago
> you could argue that every employment arrangement is exploitative if the employer is making profit and thus could may employees more than they are. Employer is also bringing in the value to the relationship: most software projects, for example require more than one person. If you was just a freelancer you wouldn't even be considered by the client, when they choose the vendor. Your company also insulates you from legal and financial risks (such as contractual penalties for not delivering the project on time). That's why they take some part of the profit. Now, what the fair split is, that's an endless debate.

brightlancer 3y ago

I suspect almost everyone on HN isn't legally bound to their employer, so I also reject the "exploitation" bit. But I do want to challenge the compensation argument: > For example, it's common to see HN posts describing someone as "subjecting themselves to unpaid overtime" when they work hard - meanwhile the person saying it is making $60K while the person being talked about is making $600K. Higher paying jobs naturally have higher expectations. OTOH, I've also had managers/ employers who used "we pay you well" an excuse for all kinds of garbage treatment, specifically _avoidable_ garbage treatment: short notice evenings, weekends, _holidays_; denying vacation to compensate for staffing; pressuring folks to return from (legally protected) medical or family leave; required to do work completely out of the job's scope; and so on. Now, some jobs are inherently like that. If the expectations are set up front and adhered to, then it's a free choice on each side. IME, lots of jobs don't have to be that way, the expectations aren't set up front, and expectations change. It takes only one jerk with a title to ruin things.

mikelevins 3y ago

I think I agree with everything you've said here, but I want to offer a caution to those who pursue hard work that is fun. I've worked in all permutations of your descriptions. If I believe in a project and can get good results on it, and much moreso if I'm having fun, I will work very hard. If I don't believe in it or have trouble getting good results or no one cares, then it's very hard for me to motivate myself. Obviously, I prefer the situations where I'm highly motivated, and in fact I've worked very hard on some projects. Too hard, in fact. The fact that a project is something you believe in, that you're highly motivated, that you can make a difference with it, or that you're having a lot of fun, doesn't make overwork healthy. I've overworked myself a couple of times in my life. I hesitate to describe the worst case; I don't think readers will believe my description of what I did. Suffice to say that I worked on a new system project at Apple and was highly motivated to make it succeed (it didn't). I owned a small non-tech business at the same time. I worked way too hard for a while. I didn't mind it. On the contrary, I was deliriously happy to do it. Nobody had to ask me to work hard. But it still did me harm. I don't know for sure that working like that caused or contributed to the chronic illnesses I now have, but I do know that the literature on one of them says that it's correlated with excessive hours worked and excessive exercise. I did both. (My side business involved a lot of intense exercise.) Oh, and if the overwork did cause or contribute to my chronic illness, then it may also have cost me a fortune. I went bankrupt in the process of getting one of those illnesses properly diagnosed and treated. So even if hard work does happen to pay really well, that doesn't necessarily make it worthwhile--not even necessarily financially worthwhile. Again, nobody made me work like that. I did it because I was motivated and having fun. It was nevertheless very bad for me. That became clear over the months after I did it, and I may still be paying for it. You might think that I would have learned my lesson from that episode, and that's true to some extent. I've never worked that hard again. I have worked too hard since then, though. It's a consequence of personality traits, I think. It's a trap I can too easily fall into, even though I know better. So I have to keep watch and listen to my loved ones and my doctors when they warn me that I'm trending that way. In short: don't think that fun and motivation make you immune to the ill effects of overwork. They don't.

mistrial9 3y ago
thank you for this detailed post - I believe that you and others like you became enablers for a darkside of management at Apple. However with clarity and time you are re-balancing yourself. source: directly worked at Apple in Santa Clara and Cupertino

mlinhares 3y ago

Trouble is that it is really hard to find these places and the place might be like that when you join and stop being it as it grows, so there's never a good solution other than continuing to go other places and see if they're better.