5 ms·

> people who've dialled the give-a-shit down so low In the age of stock buy-backs, cyclical lay-offs, and record-high executive compensation I sympathize with

> people who've dialled the give-a-shit down so low In the age of stock buy-backs, cyclical lay-offs, and record-high executive compensation I sympathize with these folks. It might even be morally correct thing to do.

Jcampuzano2 2y ago
As someone who's company has gone through the constant cycle of layoffs including one that happened just a few weeks ago, I'm at this point now and I have no qualms of all the other people who are also here at this moment. I get exactly what is asked of me to do and nothing more, no longer respond to things outside of work hours and collect my paychecks. I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. Oh forgot to mention our execs bonuses and stock went up despite everyone hating it here now.
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  > I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. I’d say you’re relatively lucky. I found it soul-crushing when my work changed from something in which I took pride to something where I just wanted to coast and no longer cared. Management sucked and I was depressed at my lot in life. I didn’t have much energy to look for and apply to other positions. Layoffs came twice and getting let go was the biggest favor they could have done for me. My next (current) job is rewarding, and I’m again having fun learning new things in my downtime instead of vegging out on streaming content after work.
gtirloni 2y ago
I don't. All you mentioned have zero impact on my daily work. I could as well say that in the age of Tiktokers earning millions, why should I care about my work? I care about my work because it's my work and I don't want to just collect paychecks. If you're not happy and can leave, just leave. Go do something productive with your life that makes you proud of. Life is too short to play by others' rules.
- Jcampuzano2 2y ago
  Its a hard pill to swallow but I just want to point out that if you look around you at most jobs, including highly paid tech jobs - most people do not care about the job itself apart from the fact that it compensates them well - whether that be with salary or with time/benefits. And not everyone simply has the choice to just find another job when they are unhappy. I know you caveated that with the "if you can" but I'd say the vast majority of people can't. That and the fact that most peoples work is not actually theirs as you say. Everything you do is part of the company, and managers/execs take credit for the work all the time at many companies.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Swizec 2y ago
    > I know you caveated that with the "if you can" but I'd say the vast majority of people can't Most people have a lot more agency than they give themselves credit for. It just doesn’t hurt enough yet to face the cost of making a change. What’s really the worst that’s gonna happen? You have to do some interviewing while putting in the bear minimum at current job? Oh no.
    - cereal_cable 2y ago
      There's more to life than a job as well. I've stayed at a job for the comfort of not needing to add to my or my families plate while my wife was in grad school. It was absolutely the right choice. I've also had a job that I left because I wasn't enjoying because of a lack of challenge and lack of management backing for the projects I was working on. Life isn't purely black and white and my reasoning is pretty simplistic. There are vastly more complex situations than just my wife went to grad school.
      - Swizec 2y ago
        Exactly. All of those are choices you have the agency to make. There is no “can’t” unless you are literally a slave (and even then)
haswell 2y ago
Even if my employer doesn’t deserve my dedication, it’s the end-user impact and personal cost of not giving a shit that concerns me. People building software are often in a position to directly impact significant numbers of people: not giving a shit leads to severe software vulnerabilities, data leaks leading to identity theft, compromised systems, etc. Real disruption to the lives of normal people. And actively not giving a shit gradually changes the person doing so. I’ve seen this mindset become corrosive and has changed people who I previously respected in ways that I really don’t think could be beneficial or “good” regardless of what the company does or does not deserve. Not giving a shit is why our industry is increasingly under scrutiny by regulators - for good reason. I question a moral calculus that only accounts for the problematic business practices of an employer while ignoring the many potential downstream impacts that are unrelated to those practices. There’s a needle to thread in terms of how one handles their emotional state while working and finding a healthy balance between doing good work and not dedicating one’s life to their employer (which I’m not advocating btw). But I’m increasingly skeptical of the idgaf mindset and frustrated by people who don’t take seriously the privileged position they’re in and the world changing impact of the work they do. The only truly moral option in many cases may be to quit (if the alternative is not giving a shit). But people want/need that paycheck.
- zrail 2y ago
  > people want that paycheck In most cases people _need_ that paycheck. You can talk about morality all you want if you have the privilege to not need a paycheck, but you can't know everything about everyone's lives. You mostly only ever know about the choice someone else makes. You hardly ever know what options they had to choose from or the tradeoffs they need to think about.
  - haswell 2y ago
    That’s completely fair, and I slightly edited my comment to include the word need, because I strongly believe what I said applies to both dynamics.
- walls 2y ago
  > not giving a shit leads to severe software vulnerabilities, data leaks leading to identity theft, compromised systems, etc. Real disruption to the lives of normal people. None of this affects me. The only way to make an employee care about this kind of thing is to pay them, and treat them, well enough to care. You also need enough free time to care, which isn't nearly as common now that every team at every company is running on a skeleton crew.
tivert 2y ago
> In the age of stock buy-backs, cyclical lay-offs, and record-high executive compensation I sympathize with these folks. It might even be morally correct thing to do. Under capitalist and corporate morals, it's a sin for a worker to fail to give the best part of his efforts to the shareholders.
astrange 2y ago
Stock buybacks are good if you're paid in employer stock like tech companies are. Aside from that, they're value neutral to the company. They're not spending money, any more than you buying stocks is.
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  Cash in hand is cash. Framing it as “no money spent” is disingenuous. Especially when your entire team gets lower bonuses after a successful product launch, while the company spends $8B profit in buybacks with minimal impact on share price. Large funds and executives get rewarded (10% of millions is a nice amount), employees get shafted.
  - astrange 2y ago
    > while the company spends $8B profit in buybacks with minimal impact on share price Well, there must have been an impact of $8B, so it depends what the counterfactual was. It could've been going down at the time. > Large funds Generally speaking large funds are passive index funds, so that doesn't mean someone actually owns a lot of them - they're just in average people's retirement accounts. But it gets reported as if BlackRock (iShares) or Vanguard own the company, which leads to conspiracy theories.
    - ricardobeat 2y ago
      > there must have been an impact of $8B Buybacks don’t linearly increase share price, the stock is simply exchanging hands. If the company already has a 100B market cap, that amount is not making any huge waves, especially spread around a full year. Replace “large funds” with “large shareholders”, the point is that employees receiving relatively tiny stock compensation do not benefit much.
      - astrange 2y ago
        > Buybacks don’t linearly increase share price, the stock is simply exchanging hands Sure they do. Each repurchased share no longer exists, unless they're issuing new ones at the same time. The total value of the company stays the same, or something else might happen to change the price afterwards, but it should indeed be a linear increase.

Jcampuzano2 2y ago

As someone who's company has gone through the constant cycle of layoffs including one that happened just a few weeks ago, I'm at this point now and I have no qualms of all the other people who are also here at this moment. I get exactly what is asked of me to do and nothing more, no longer respond to things outside of work hours and collect my paychecks. I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. Oh forgot to mention our execs bonuses and stock went up despite everyone hating it here now.

alsetmusic 2y ago
> I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. I’d say you’re relatively lucky. I found it soul-crushing when my work changed from something in which I took pride to something where I just wanted to coast and no longer cared. Management sucked and I was depressed at my lot in life. I didn’t have much energy to look for and apply to other positions. Layoffs came twice and getting let go was the biggest favor they could have done for me. My next (current) job is rewarding, and I’m again having fun learning new things in my downtime instead of vegging out on streaming content after work.

gtirloni 2y ago

I don't. All you mentioned have zero impact on my daily work. I could as well say that in the age of Tiktokers earning millions, why should I care about my work? I care about my work because it's my work and I don't want to just collect paychecks. If you're not happy and can leave, just leave. Go do something productive with your life that makes you proud of. Life is too short to play by others' rules.

Jcampuzano2 2y ago
Its a hard pill to swallow but I just want to point out that if you look around you at most jobs, including highly paid tech jobs - most people do not care about the job itself apart from the fact that it compensates them well - whether that be with salary or with time/benefits. And not everyone simply has the choice to just find another job when they are unhappy. I know you caveated that with the "if you can" but I'd say the vast majority of people can't. That and the fact that most peoples work is not actually theirs as you say. Everything you do is part of the company, and managers/execs take credit for the work all the time at many companies.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Swizec 2y ago
  > I know you caveated that with the "if you can" but I'd say the vast majority of people can't Most people have a lot more agency than they give themselves credit for. It just doesn’t hurt enough yet to face the cost of making a change. What’s really the worst that’s gonna happen? You have to do some interviewing while putting in the bear minimum at current job? Oh no.
  - cereal_cable 2y ago
    There's more to life than a job as well. I've stayed at a job for the comfort of not needing to add to my or my families plate while my wife was in grad school. It was absolutely the right choice. I've also had a job that I left because I wasn't enjoying because of a lack of challenge and lack of management backing for the projects I was working on. Life isn't purely black and white and my reasoning is pretty simplistic. There are vastly more complex situations than just my wife went to grad school.
    - Swizec 2y ago
      Exactly. All of those are choices you have the agency to make. There is no “can’t” unless you are literally a slave (and even then)

haswell 2y ago

Even if my employer doesn’t deserve my dedication, it’s the end-user impact and personal cost of not giving a shit that concerns me. People building software are often in a position to directly impact significant numbers of people: not giving a shit leads to severe software vulnerabilities, data leaks leading to identity theft, compromised systems, etc. Real disruption to the lives of normal people. And actively not giving a shit gradually changes the person doing so. I’ve seen this mindset become corrosive and has changed people who I previously respected in ways that I really don’t think could be beneficial or “good” regardless of what the company does or does not deserve. Not giving a shit is why our industry is increasingly under scrutiny by regulators - for good reason. I question a moral calculus that only accounts for the problematic business practices of an employer while ignoring the many potential downstream impacts that are unrelated to those practices. There’s a needle to thread in terms of how one handles their emotional state while working and finding a healthy balance between doing good work and not dedicating one’s life to their employer (which I’m not advocating btw). But I’m increasingly skeptical of the idgaf mindset and frustrated by people who don’t take seriously the privileged position they’re in and the world changing impact of the work they do. The only truly moral option in many cases may be to quit (if the alternative is not giving a shit). But people want/need that paycheck.

zrail 2y ago
> people want that paycheck In most cases people _need_ that paycheck. You can talk about morality all you want if you have the privilege to not need a paycheck, but you can't know everything about everyone's lives. You mostly only ever know about the choice someone else makes. You hardly ever know what options they had to choose from or the tradeoffs they need to think about.
- haswell 2y ago
  That’s completely fair, and I slightly edited my comment to include the word need, because I strongly believe what I said applies to both dynamics.
walls 2y ago
> not giving a shit leads to severe software vulnerabilities, data leaks leading to identity theft, compromised systems, etc. Real disruption to the lives of normal people. None of this affects me. The only way to make an employee care about this kind of thing is to pay them, and treat them, well enough to care. You also need enough free time to care, which isn't nearly as common now that every team at every company is running on a skeleton crew.

tivert 2y ago

> In the age of stock buy-backs, cyclical lay-offs, and record-high executive compensation I sympathize with these folks. It might even be morally correct thing to do. Under capitalist and corporate morals, it's a sin for a worker to fail to give the best part of his efforts to the shareholders.

astrange 2y ago

Stock buybacks are good if you're paid in employer stock like tech companies are. Aside from that, they're value neutral to the company. They're not spending money, any more than you buying stocks is.

ricardobeat 2y ago
Cash in hand is cash. Framing it as “no money spent” is disingenuous. Especially when your entire team gets lower bonuses after a successful product launch, while the company spends $8B profit in buybacks with minimal impact on share price. Large funds and executives get rewarded (10% of millions is a nice amount), employees get shafted.
- astrange 2y ago
  > while the company spends $8B profit in buybacks with minimal impact on share price Well, there must have been an impact of $8B, so it depends what the counterfactual was. It could've been going down at the time. > Large funds Generally speaking large funds are passive index funds, so that doesn't mean someone actually owns a lot of them - they're just in average people's retirement accounts. But it gets reported as if BlackRock (iShares) or Vanguard own the company, which leads to conspiracy theories.
  - ricardobeat 2y ago
    > there must have been an impact of $8B Buybacks don’t linearly increase share price, the stock is simply exchanging hands. If the company already has a 100B market cap, that amount is not making any huge waves, especially spread around a full year. Replace “large funds” with “large shareholders”, the point is that employees receiving relatively tiny stock compensation do not benefit much.
    - astrange 2y ago
      > Buybacks don’t linearly increase share price, the stock is simply exchanging hands Sure they do. Each repurchased share no longer exists, unless they're issuing new ones at the same time. The total value of the company stays the same, or something else might happen to change the price afterwards, but it should indeed be a linear increase.