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The problem with all this is that you’ve only shown that socializing is fun, not that the amount of ROI you or the company is getting from events is positive.
by dangus 1y ago
The problem with all this is that you’ve only shown that socializing is fun, not that the amount of ROI you or the company is getting from events is positive.
I’d rather have fun and socialize in ways that have nothing to do with work, and I think younger generations feel even more strongly about that.
The way I see it is that corporate cultures have completely given up on investment in employees. No more tuition reimbursement, no more certification reimbursement, you’re a hired mercenary. They are telling employees straight to their face that they are replaceable temp workers who had better start using AI as much as possible or else they’ll get fired and be replaced with AI anyway.
Why would I want to spend my time going to an industry conference when the industry treats me like shit?
And on this note, how many companies are actually investing in sending employees to conferences? My company even gave up on any sort of team building budget to have my team meet in person, they’re not even willing to pay to have us meet in person once a year. Never mind paying for conference fees and sponsorships.
Conferences that aren’t sales tools have no value to the modern corporation.
From the article:
> I’ve actually talked to folks who decided, “I’ve only got a few years left – I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, the same way, at the same company, until they let me go or until I decide to quit.” LLMs like ChatGPT made it easier to get by without actually knowing what you’re doing – at least in the short term – and that’s all these kinds of people care about.
This is what has been incentivized by companies. Again, they have told us to our face that we are throwaway employees who are not worth investment. We should just use AI and work faster, please.
Where does socializing fit into that world view? Hell, employees who socialize do pesky things like unionize.
- bonoboTP 1y agoI think it's a broader social problem. People also socialize less in private as well. Atomization, mobile entertainment etc. > The way I see it is that corporate cultures have completely given up on investment in employees. No more tuition reimbursement, no more certification reimbursement, you’re a hired mercenary. They are telling employees straight to their face that they are replaceable temp workers who had better start using AI as much as possible or else they’ll get fired and be replaced with AI anyway. Chicken-or-egg of course, but employees also tend to job hop much more than before (again, understandable if they can't get a raise otherwise), making investment less rational for companies. It's a self-feeding cycle. People used to work for multiple decades in the same place before that. But probably some MBA books derived that this is bad, because they become too crucial and too unique, bus factor things, you need more fungible cogs than that. Even in friend groups people are flakier, romantic relationships are treated as more disposable etc. Of course all these have a flipside, they didn't happen without reason. A general shift away from a "high-trust society" model.
- ghaff 1y agoI suspect that outside of executive ranks and probably some other exceptions, staying with the same company mostly didn't result in huge year-to-year raise. BUT jumping companies mostly didn't either. The tech job hop for 2x the money after a couple years is a relatively recent phenomenon for the most part.
- dangus 1y agoIt was also never a move that did anything beyond early career even back in the “good old days.” The whole benefit is that you could convince your next employer that you had senior level experience after spending a short few years as a practitioner.