4 ms·

I can't relate to "easy mode" past the layoffs. Everything has turned into a nightmare with employer expectations. Everyone I speak to feels the same. Things ar

by conqrr 2y ago

I can't relate to "easy mode" past the layoffs. Everything has turned into a nightmare with employer expectations. Everyone I speak to feels the same. Things are not the way they are. Absurd Schedules - Yes Unrealistic Deadlines - Yes Competing Colleageues -Yes Toxic environment - Yes Hard to switch - Yes Outsourcing - Yes Training your replacements -Yes How is this easy mode? Mental labor can be as bad or even worse than Physical labor. Atleast you hit a brick wall with physical. Your enemy is inivisible when its mental.

dismalaf 2y ago
> How is this easy mode There's jobs where you work 80 hours per week to maybe make $50-60k, and are so physical your body will be shot by 40 or 50... Devs get compensated extremely well.
- malfist 2y ago
  So what? Because somebody has it worse means billionaires can exploit us without recourse? Because that's the alternative. Either we advocate or they take more and more
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    It's fine to demand more. I'm a believer in market power. But have some perspective, there's a ton of far worse jobs...
    - achenet 2y ago
      The problem with the "it could be worse" line of thinking is it ignores that it could also be better. Yes, there are far worse jobs. Yes, being a slave is infinitely worse than being a software engineer. But that's like saying "oh, using 3G isn't that bad, dial-up is worse." Sure, but if you can get fiber-optic, that's better. A lot better. And you'll do better work that way (assuming you use the internet in your work, which, if you're a dev, you probably do). "Oh, running our entire infrastructure on a 10 year old ThinkPad isn't that bad, it could be worse, we could have a PDP-11". Sure, and you could also rent a beast of a server from OVH/Hetzner/etc for relatively cheap, and that might make life a little nicer, for you, and for your customers. If you've got half your workforce burning out, that's a fucking issue, and while yes, compared to 99% of jobs that ever existed (medival peasant, prostitute, garbage man, street musician, cashier) this is quite nice, if people keep developing mental health issues as a result of it, that's an issue. And in that case, if the "market solution" is basically unionize to demand better conditions...
    - azemetre 2y ago
      The problem with saying "market power" is that it implicitly condones that those with money are correct since they have influence over the market. Workers can't influence markets like the billionaire class, that's why they need to be heavily regulated with social protections enshrined in law.

by conqrr 2y ago

dismalaf 2y ago

> How is this easy mode There's jobs where you work 80 hours per week to maybe make $50-60k, and are so physical your body will be shot by 40 or 50... Devs get compensated extremely well.

malfist 2y ago
So what? Because somebody has it worse means billionaires can exploit us without recourse? Because that's the alternative. Either we advocate or they take more and more
- dismalaf 2y ago
  It's fine to demand more. I'm a believer in market power. But have some perspective, there's a ton of far worse jobs...
  - achenet 2y ago
    The problem with the "it could be worse" line of thinking is it ignores that it could also be better. Yes, there are far worse jobs. Yes, being a slave is infinitely worse than being a software engineer. But that's like saying "oh, using 3G isn't that bad, dial-up is worse." Sure, but if you can get fiber-optic, that's better. A lot better. And you'll do better work that way (assuming you use the internet in your work, which, if you're a dev, you probably do). "Oh, running our entire infrastructure on a 10 year old ThinkPad isn't that bad, it could be worse, we could have a PDP-11". Sure, and you could also rent a beast of a server from OVH/Hetzner/etc for relatively cheap, and that might make life a little nicer, for you, and for your customers. If you've got half your workforce burning out, that's a fucking issue, and while yes, compared to 99% of jobs that ever existed (medival peasant, prostitute, garbage man, street musician, cashier) this is quite nice, if people keep developing mental health issues as a result of it, that's an issue. And in that case, if the "market solution" is basically unionize to demand better conditions...
  - azemetre 2y ago
    The problem with saying "market power" is that it implicitly condones that those with money are correct since they have influence over the market. Workers can't influence markets like the billionaire class, that's why they need to be heavily regulated with social protections enshrined in law.