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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 a

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.
- haswell 2y ago
  > None of this affects me Frankly, that’s a huge problem. > The only way to make an employee care about this kind of thing is to pay them, and treat them, well enough to care. The workforce is absolutely full of people who value their work and its impact on other people above all else regardless of how poorly they’re paid or treated. This is not an endorsement or acceptance of the status quo, but a recognition of the importance of one’s actions. If you’re a teacher, bus driver, emergency responder, nurse, transit operator, power/gas workers etc. you’re most likely not getting paid much or nearly enough, but would never dream of bringing this “idgaf, pay me” attitude to work. I suspect it’s because software is so abstract and the people building it are so far removed from its impact, but our industry seems uniquely disconnected, complacent, and entitled when discussing the impact of an individual’s actions.
  - walls 2y ago
    > The workforce is absolutely full of people who value their work and its impact on other people above all else regardless of how poorly they’re paid or treated. They're called juniors, and haven't yet been broken by the system. > If you’re a teacher, bus driver, emergency responder, nurse, transit operator, power/gas workers etc. you’re most likely not getting paid much or nearly enough, but would never dream of bringing this “idgaf, pay me” attitude to work. Have you seen the state of these professions? That's the prevailing attitude at the moment, and the reasons are obvious.
    - haswell 2y ago
      > They're called juniors I’m 20 years into this, not a junior. And the people I’m talking about certainly aren’t juniors. I’m not questioning the existence of people who stop caring. I’m saying that this is a choice, and one that many people can’t bring themselves to make. > That's the prevailing attitude at the moment Attitudes and actions are two different things. If people in many of those professions were acting like many do in the tech world, people die as a result. I’d be careful not to project your own view of this matter on the broader workforce.
rightbyte 2y ago
> 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. Ye turning into a cynic is not nice. You can rationalize all you want but the corp is eating your soul, more or less. A problem I observed is when cynics from bad places move to hardly OK places, and overestimate the amount of badness. People that think the corporation is rotten seems easier to make do rotten things, while others that "don't get it" might protest.
idunnoman1222 2y ago
The subset of software that I can’t opt out of is small. Not that the regulators are competent… but for opt in software it’s user beware
alistairSH 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. Meh, I'd question how much that is actually true. Generally, when people talk about "not giving a shit", it's not literally about half-assing everything. Instead, it's about only doing what you have capacity to do while balancing work with the rest of life.... Boss give's you 60 hours worth of info-sec tasks to complete this week. You have a social engagement Friday night through Sunday (siblings wedding, and you put it on the on-call calendar months ago). You remind boss "I can do 2/3 of that list, the rest needs to go to someone else, because 5pm Friday, I'm offline for the weekend". You do the 40 hours worth of stuff, do it properly, and go to the wedding. If your boss drops the ball, that's his problem. You did everything properly. Working through your sibling's wedding only justified your boss's under-resourcing of work.
- haswell 2y ago
  What you describe sounds more like setting healthy boundaries. But I've worked with a frustratingly large number of people who do literally half-ass everything, and clearly work hard to find the line where they can just barely get away with it. Usually this involves other team members picking up the slack. The "quiet quitting" movement is a prime example, with people regaling each other with stories of their efforts to do just enough not to get fired, which is something entirely different than finding a proper balance with one's boss and setting reasonable boundaries.
  - BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
    Are you sure the people you work with don't half ass everything because they lack skills and aren't getting proper training, or are trying to do too many tasks and fail at all of them as a result? I'm tempted to assume they bragged about it maybe, based on the rest of your comment, but it's easy to assume wrong. Quiet quitting reminds me of "greve du zele" (zeal strike) where workers do exactly what their contract requires / work by the book. It is nothing new. Often to protest employers lack of flexibility, to show that the book is absurd or to highlight that all that extra work should be compensated appropriately. I guess the main difference is one is an organised protest while the other is individual decisions. That said, everything I've read about quiet quitting sounds to me like a marketing ploy to give setting healthy boundaries a bad rep. I'm sure there is a range from folks who simply stop being proactive to people who put more work into doing the least amount of work they can get away with than they would if they just worked. And sure, that may already mean others need to pick up the slack, but really it means there's probably a systemic issue with that employer. If quiet quitting is a pain in the workplace, it probably means employers rely too much on employee zeal. Employers fully count on teams picking up each other's slack. Toyota (iirc) first figured out that bonding between team members improved productivity via slack pickupery and peer pressure. (Also that teams could find their own efficiencies and felt more motivated to work if they came up with or were involved in their own exploitation optimizations). I'd love to see a proper study done to identify causes of quiet quitting, if it is linked to burnout, I wouldn't be surprised. A simple solution to quiet quitting would be improving the workplace or giving out employment insurance when people quit, so they don't feel trapped in a bad situation. Not everyone can simply move to another job at will.

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.

haswell 2y ago
> None of this affects me Frankly, that’s a huge problem. > The only way to make an employee care about this kind of thing is to pay them, and treat them, well enough to care. The workforce is absolutely full of people who value their work and its impact on other people above all else regardless of how poorly they’re paid or treated. This is not an endorsement or acceptance of the status quo, but a recognition of the importance of one’s actions. If you’re a teacher, bus driver, emergency responder, nurse, transit operator, power/gas workers etc. you’re most likely not getting paid much or nearly enough, but would never dream of bringing this “idgaf, pay me” attitude to work. I suspect it’s because software is so abstract and the people building it are so far removed from its impact, but our industry seems uniquely disconnected, complacent, and entitled when discussing the impact of an individual’s actions.
- walls 2y ago
  > The workforce is absolutely full of people who value their work and its impact on other people above all else regardless of how poorly they’re paid or treated. They're called juniors, and haven't yet been broken by the system. > If you’re a teacher, bus driver, emergency responder, nurse, transit operator, power/gas workers etc. you’re most likely not getting paid much or nearly enough, but would never dream of bringing this “idgaf, pay me” attitude to work. Have you seen the state of these professions? That's the prevailing attitude at the moment, and the reasons are obvious.
  - haswell 2y ago
    > They're called juniors I’m 20 years into this, not a junior. And the people I’m talking about certainly aren’t juniors. I’m not questioning the existence of people who stop caring. I’m saying that this is a choice, and one that many people can’t bring themselves to make. > That's the prevailing attitude at the moment Attitudes and actions are two different things. If people in many of those professions were acting like many do in the tech world, people die as a result. I’d be careful not to project your own view of this matter on the broader workforce.

rightbyte 2y ago

> 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. Ye turning into a cynic is not nice. You can rationalize all you want but the corp is eating your soul, more or less. A problem I observed is when cynics from bad places move to hardly OK places, and overestimate the amount of badness. People that think the corporation is rotten seems easier to make do rotten things, while others that "don't get it" might protest.

idunnoman1222 2y ago

The subset of software that I can’t opt out of is small. Not that the regulators are competent… but for opt in software it’s user beware

alistairSH 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. Meh, I'd question how much that is actually true. Generally, when people talk about "not giving a shit", it's not literally about half-assing everything. Instead, it's about only doing what you have capacity to do while balancing work with the rest of life.... Boss give's you 60 hours worth of info-sec tasks to complete this week. You have a social engagement Friday night through Sunday (siblings wedding, and you put it on the on-call calendar months ago). You remind boss "I can do 2/3 of that list, the rest needs to go to someone else, because 5pm Friday, I'm offline for the weekend". You do the 40 hours worth of stuff, do it properly, and go to the wedding. If your boss drops the ball, that's his problem. You did everything properly. Working through your sibling's wedding only justified your boss's under-resourcing of work.

haswell 2y ago
What you describe sounds more like setting healthy boundaries. But I've worked with a frustratingly large number of people who do literally half-ass everything, and clearly work hard to find the line where they can just barely get away with it. Usually this involves other team members picking up the slack. The "quiet quitting" movement is a prime example, with people regaling each other with stories of their efforts to do just enough not to get fired, which is something entirely different than finding a proper balance with one's boss and setting reasonable boundaries.
- BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
  Are you sure the people you work with don't half ass everything because they lack skills and aren't getting proper training, or are trying to do too many tasks and fail at all of them as a result? I'm tempted to assume they bragged about it maybe, based on the rest of your comment, but it's easy to assume wrong. Quiet quitting reminds me of "greve du zele" (zeal strike) where workers do exactly what their contract requires / work by the book. It is nothing new. Often to protest employers lack of flexibility, to show that the book is absurd or to highlight that all that extra work should be compensated appropriately. I guess the main difference is one is an organised protest while the other is individual decisions. That said, everything I've read about quiet quitting sounds to me like a marketing ploy to give setting healthy boundaries a bad rep. I'm sure there is a range from folks who simply stop being proactive to people who put more work into doing the least amount of work they can get away with than they would if they just worked. And sure, that may already mean others need to pick up the slack, but really it means there's probably a systemic issue with that employer. If quiet quitting is a pain in the workplace, it probably means employers rely too much on employee zeal. Employers fully count on teams picking up each other's slack. Toyota (iirc) first figured out that bonding between team members improved productivity via slack pickupery and peer pressure. (Also that teams could find their own efficiencies and felt more motivated to work if they came up with or were involved in their own exploitation optimizations). I'd love to see a proper study done to identify causes of quiet quitting, if it is linked to burnout, I wouldn't be surprised. A simple solution to quiet quitting would be improving the workplace or giving out employment insurance when people quit, so they don't feel trapped in a bad situation. Not everyone can simply move to another job at will.