4 ms·

How does a union help you with your wrists? Why do you need help? I type every single day and I don't want your health problem placing limits on my job flexib

• 4ndrewl 2y ago
  Would you like to remove all of the benefits unions have given you?
  • echelon 2y ago
    Working nights and weekends got me a close to ten figure exit at a now publicly traded fintech. So yeah, I don't mind. Rather than retiring on that money, I'm back at it again, and I'm working even harder. I know what mediocrity and complacency is. I've worked surrounded by it, and I'll do anything to avoid it. I don't want that bullshit where coworkers strive to do the minimum and everybody plays hot potato to see who will take responsibility. I'll take responsibility. And I'll take the high comp that comes with it. Not have some union pencil in my salary band according to arbitrary rules that don't directly map to solving customer problems.
    • 4ndrewl 2y ago
      Cross-posted to LinkedIn?
      • echelon 2y ago
        As cringe as LinkedIn can sometimes be, I certainly relate more to it than to r/antiwork.
      • kulahan 2y ago
        This is funny, but not the type of comment we really want here. Comments should get more substantive the deeper down a tree you go.
    • Veserv 2y ago
      What? You claim to have gotten a nearly 10 figure exit, yet you claim you made 450 k$ TC in your last job [1]. Even a maximally conservative estimate of 100,000,001 $ for a “nearly 10 figure exit” (being literally 1 dollar over 9 figures) would get you over 4 M$ annually in risk free treasuries. Why would you work for 450 k$? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43429259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43429259
      • dmarlow 2y ago
        Maybe he's counting decimal places too?
        • echelon 2y ago
          Yeah, I fucked that up [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43431883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43431883
    • SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
      Oh, this person isn’t a worker class. They’re managerial class spreading essentially propaganda against something that would threaten them,
      • echelon 2y ago
        I've always been an IC.
        • DrillShopper 2y ago
          If you got a 10 figure exit then you're not working class.
          • echelon 2y ago
            I'm such a scatter brained dumbass sometimes. I meant "near 8 figures". I'm nowhere near "three commas" of wealth. I was emotionally responding to these pro-union comments between work and can't simple math. I still can't fathom the headspace of people wanting to do less and be entitled to more while the rest of the world is catching up and offering a better value. The lasier we get, the less likely we'll be picked to do the work. And this is such a goddamned cushy job. Are we so fucking entitled we're complaining about our career? Seriously? I also can't reason about why people think this is about money rather than building cool shit. If this is your hobby and you enjoy building, why wouldn't you want to do this? Especially if you pick your problem space? Why are there so many people like this on a startup forum? Shouldn't everyone here be hustling and working hard? I don't get this attitude, and I don't want people like that on my team to drag me down.
            • saagarjha 2y ago
              I support this because precisely because it is not everyone's hobby, even if it is mine. I have more than enough money. Some people do not. And I assure you it's not because they are lazier or dumber than I am.
            • DrillShopper 2y ago
    • diffxx 2y ago
      Imagine putting your time and energy into something other than building a bigger imaginary pile for yourself.
    • Aeolun 2y ago
      While I don’t necessarily disagree with the larger point on mediocrity, that’s a massive instance of survivorship bias. For every you there’s a hundred others that burned themselves out only for them to be fired a moment after.
    • wolrah 2y ago
      > Working nights and weekends got me a close to ten figure exit at a now publicly traded fintech. So yeah, I don't mind. It's an entirely different matter if you stand to make huge gains if the company succeeds. That is not the majority of jobs in the field. Most of us will never even have the opportunity to be involved in one of those. That's not what this discussion is about.
    • pdntspa 2y ago
      Great! But don't enforce that on your underlings. I have such a boss and let me tell you, it sucks! Your underlings have lives and passions that have nothing to do with you or your work, and more importantly they don't have that founders' equity and opportunity for a 10-figure exit. If you want that kind of excellence, be prepared to pay for it dearly. Market-rate TCO is not nearly enough.
    • latentsea 2y ago
      You made close to a billion dollars?
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• simonask 2y ago
  In normal countries, the role of unions is to ensure that your rights and livelihood are secured when your body or mind sustains damage from a work injury. It sounds like your idea about what unions are and do are deeply informed by abnormal circumstances.
  • samatman 2y ago
    Perhaps that's why I've met so many engineers from these normal countries in my own, abnormally wealthy one. In fact, they've told me so, in so many words.
    • xwolfi 2y ago
      Good one, moved from France to Hong Kong, can confirm. We all move to non-unionized countries to finally be free to make money. When we go back, ofc we're all like "oh yeah you're so right, protect your right to work 35 hours, the boss is evil anyway" :D
    • simonask 2y ago
      Engineering salaries in Europe are held back compared to the US by market forces (notably lack of investment), not unions. Unions representing highly educated workers do not typically engage in collective bargaining on salary, but rather supply legal aid and continuing education. It’s useful to have an army of lawyers on your side when the MBAs in charge try to cheat you and take away that promised equity, just to take one example. In general it’s surprisingly difficult to compare salaries, because the US is a complete anomaly here. The tech bubble, stock inflation, real estate prices in SF and NY, student debt are all contributing factors. In my anecdotal experience, there is little difference in actual disposable income for software engineers in the US and North West Europe, even when one makes $200,000/year and the other makes €100,000/year.
• ethanwillis 2y ago
  > I type every single day and I don't want your health problem placing limits on my job flexibility and career advancement. You live in a society. All I'm hearing is I need to vote to raise taxes to bring you back down to reality. So it will be.
  • theamk 2y ago
    yes? pretty sure state-sponsored healthcare is going to be much better, both for individual and population, than the current mess that US has. You should not require unions just to get help with your health problems.
    • Buttons840 2y ago
      Having healthcare tied to employment is antithetical to the most basic principles of our economy: people should be able to freely and easily change jobs and/or pause employment--that is the "free" in free market.
      • throwaway2037 2y ago
        > pause employment What does this mean?
        • saagarjha 2y ago
          Take a break from work?
• snozolli 2y ago
  How does a union help you with your wrists? I have no idea why you replied to me with this irrelevant nonsense, but a unions regularly protect injured workers from being fired (often for fabricated reasons). This is also why companies love illegal immigrants. When José loses a finger at the cannery, management just slips him a bus ticket back to Mexico and mentions that if he comes back they'll have to call immigration about some irregularities. I was lucky enough that this happened before the modern era of cutthroat corporate behavior, and I was able to get physical therapy and ergonomic changes to fix the problem. I type every single day and I don't want your health problem placing limits on my job flexibility and career advancement. Again, WTF are you even talking about? What union? How does this imaginary union inhibit your ability to change jobs? All I did was point out that sedentary jobs still have plenty of injury risk.
  • echelon 2y ago
    > unions regularly protect injured workers from being fired (often for fabricated reasons). This is also why companies love illegal immigrants. When José loses a finger at the cannery, management just slips him a bus ticket back to Mexico and mentions that if he comes back they'll have to call immigration about some irregularities. You are describing factory work. This has no relevancy to our career. We are in one of the cushiest job sectors on the planet currently. I have literally never seen anything in my entire professional career in software that would necessitate a union to "protect" us. My last employer gave us massages at work, FFS, and I've always had flexible working hours where I can show up at the office pretty much any time I want. I had a few colleagues develop carpal tunnel and work always provided time off, medical benefits, special accommodations, standing desks, monitor risers, ergo keyboards, etc. > Again, WTF are you even talking about? What union? How does this imaginary union inhibit your ability to change jobs? Sorry, most of this thread is about unions and I accidentally roped you into that. I don't want the specter of carpel tunnel to be a rationalization for unions. Unions are a tool to prevent abuse of workers. We do not have a systemic issue with that in our field - conversely, we have one the cushiest careers on the planet. I don't want us to install unions. There's very little reason to do so, and it'll damage the incredibly cushy status quo we have going for us: 1. Union seniority often means you have to stay at the same job or within the same set of employers as your union, which fractures the labor market, leads to unnecessary job specialization, and prevents mobility. This also ossifies institutional knowledge as the free exchange of ideas slows. 2. Union seniority perks mean new employees do the drudge work and senior employees get the perks. This is the wrong incentive alignment. 3. Creating barriers to fire underperforming workers will lead to offshoring. Offshoring will happen naturally as other countries get better at labor export, but unionization will prematurely accelerate this. We shouldn't be seeking to do less than our overseas counterparts, especially when our comp levels remain higher than most other professions. (I'm not biased against folks overseas, just stating that the labor markets will not mix if we don't accelerate it ourselves.) 4. Tech sectors in countries with unions pay workers significantly less and have fewer innovative companies (by volume). The tradeoff for "job security" is not worth it. Currently "job security" is the ability to provide value to your organization, and that works pretty well. This is what I mean by I don't want unions limiting my career - I have a pretty good success rate getting the jobs I want. Unions create a check box of criteria and fence people in. 5. The correct way to mitigate injuries is disability insurance, not unions. Companies shouldn't be saddled with employees that can no longer work. Companies (and employees) should instead pay for disability insurance. There are a lot of other points, but you can see the outline of my argument. We're creating reasons to be less desirable to employers and installing barriers to career mobility. If the situation on the ground changes, I might change my mind about unions. But as things currently stand, we still have almost everything going for us. The real "anti-corporate" issue we should be fighting for is a trust-busting breakup of big tech into smaller firms. The FAANG companies control too much surface area, monopolize their platforms, and create barriers to entry for new companies and new markets - despite their high comp, this is what's putting the most downward pressure on the overall labor market.
• bb88 2y ago
  In another comment you humblebragged that you made almost a 10 figure exit. Good for you and your success. > I type every single day and I don't want your health problem placing limits on my job flexibility and career advancement. And you're punching down at someone who didn't have the genes you had?
• shove 2y ago
  > If our industry fills with unions, suddenly I won't be able to job hop to positions that look interesting to me. Huh? Says who?