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You might be right about the hours the teachers work, but they're not doing it to avoid being fired. It is entirely self-imposed stress. Teachers have unions an

You might be right about the hours the teachers work, but they're not doing it to avoid being fired. It is entirely self-imposed stress. Teachers have unions and tenure. I'll help people, but I won't martyr myself in a hospital, let alone a frickin' tech company. I don't consider 60 hour work weeks a privilege to be coveted, especially if I'm capturing less than 1% of the value I produce. I'm sorry man, but white collar serfdom is still serfdom. If you're really going to keep begging this hard to be a serf on someone else's fiefdom, I'll tell you what: you can keep overworking yourself as serf on fiefdoms in which I might own shares, and increase the value of my portfolio for me, so I can draw even more passive income every month. I formally withdraw my protest to your "Protestant" work ethic. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I'm just hoping you take what I'm saying burns into your subconscious and something in you changes: that work into which you've placed so much of your self-esteem is just funding other peoples' passive income to either not work or live ostentatiously. If that's a great privilege to you, God bless you. I'm sure my wife would love it if I just retired- please make it happen, she would love me even more for it. EDIT: P.S. Your "privilege" of working for Jeff Bezos' portfolio sounds a lot like a biblical curse. Specifically, 1 Samuel 8:10-18 and Psalm 105:44. "He gave them the lands of the nations, that they might inherit the fruit of others’ labor"

Arainach 1y ago
>You might be right about the hours the teachers work, but they're not doing it to avoid being fired. It is entirely self-imposed stress. Teachers have unions and tenure. No, and no. Your perception of modern labor markets is dated and disconnected from reality. Schools are constantly facing budget cuts and a huge chunk of teachers aren't even full time (instead getting things like a 60% time position - less pay, no security, but enough hours that good luck working a second job). Those that get full time positions still face the elimination of their positions.
- president_zippy 1y ago
  I guess I just assumed teachers have the same protections in deep blue Washington state that they have in Illinois and Minnesota. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. However, there's a fix for that: move to a state where the job prospects are better. That sounds like "let them eat cake", except that moving to another state as an American citizen is a lot easier than what of people went through fleeing the Sicilian Mafia or the Irish Potato Famine, let alone WW2 European front or the fall of Saigon.
  - sethammons 1y ago
    I was a teacher in blue California for four years. You don't know what you are talking about.
    - president_zippy 1y ago
      Where in all of this discussion did I say anything about California?
      - Arainach 1y ago
        >assumed teachers have the same protections in deep blue Washington state California is just as "blue" as Washington. >move to a state where the job prospects are better. That sounds like "let them eat cake", except that moving to another state as an American citizen is a lot easier than what of people went through fleeing the Sicilian Mafia or the Irish Potato Famine, let alone WW2 European front or the fall of Saigon. There is no such state. Nearly every state is in budget crisis and cutting school funds, and a certain vocal segment of them are actively attacking the entire concept of education, banning books, prosecuting teachers who provide support to their students or talk about how the world works, and more.
        president_zippy 1y ago
        Illinois and Massachusetts are definitely not slashing public school spending. Deep-red Florida is also increasing its educational budget, and so is deep-red Texas. It's not like I have family or friends with kids going to public school or anything in those states, what do I know?
        Arainach 1y ago
        Florida and Texas are spending because they make life for educators utter hell and there are plenty of other good reasons no teacher wants to go there. Illinois may be a single counterexample, but this is akin to saying "if you watch Craigslist for a few weeks you can get an amazing deal on one car" - the plan does not scale, and if a non-trivial number of the people in the market for [a used car / a better education job] tried to go for that target it would instantly dry up as there aren't enough to go around by many orders of magnitude.
globnomulous 1y ago
> It is entirely self-imposed stress. Teachers have unions and tenure. You don't have the first idea what teachers do or what their jobs require. If you really think all teachers have tenure and are supported by unions, you also have not the faintest, foggiest inkling of a clue about the job market or professional environment of most teaching in the US. I think it's also worth pointing out that, even as you repeatedly label others "arrogant," your comments in this thread are themselves breathtaking in their arrogance. I rarely run across HN comments so condescending, dismissive, self-righteous, or self-congratulatory.
- geodel 1y ago
  Very true. You are right. I also felt those comments about teachers being in union , job safety and all sounds like it is frozen in 1960s America. To think software jobs (forget even Amazon for a moment ) are horrible compare to tons of teaching, medical, legal and so on is indeed arrogance of first rate.
  - president_zippy 1y ago
    Evidently, I'm just imagining all the times my teachers went on strike in Illinois in the 2000s. There have not been any "right to work" laws in Illinois passed affecting teachers or firefighters since then. Evidently, it's all in my head that most blue states like IL, MN, MA, and NY have legal protections for public schoolteachers. I never said I was opposed to it, either. Quite the contrary. In fact, I think public schoolteachers and firefighters have a great idea about unions, and software engineers should follow their example and unionize. I can't tell if you're honestly misguided or if you're an HR employee at Amazon trying to derail the thread, because you completely missed my point. I don't care who has it worse. I care about who is making it bad, and what we as software engineers are going to do to make it right.
    - globnomulous 1y ago
      > Evidently, I'm just imagining all the times my teachers went on strike in Illinois in the 2000s. There have not been any "right to work" laws in Illinois passed affecting teachers or firefighters since then. Evidently, it's all in my head that most blue states like IL, MN, MA, and NY have legal protections for public schoolteachers. > I can't tell if you're honestly misguided or if you're an HR employee at Amazon trying to derail the thread This isn't productive. It's belittling, snotty, and disrespectful. You're also clearly more than intelligent enough to recognize that you're putting in people's mouths claims they haven't made.
akdev1l 1y ago
> you can keep overworking yourself as serf on fiefdoms in which I might own shares, and increase the value of my portfolio for me, so I can draw even more passive income every month Yeah, I guarantee you that the guy who worked at Amazon as a Principal Engineer for 10 years has a bigger portfolio than you. levels.fyi says $967k/yr average compensation at that level.
- president_zippy 1y ago
  Yeah, but I didn't have to work at Amazon to do it. No micromanagement, no verbal abuse, no work calls at 3am, no PIPs, no door desks, no cult indoctrination. More importantly, the time I spent managing my portfolio taught me how to better manage my portfolio. If Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos is richer than Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch, it does not change the fact that Warren Buffett and Peter Lynchs' path to success is much more reproducible and reliable with a much lower barrier to entry. If you made that kind of money working for Amazon, then good for you. I wish more members of the middle class would make FU money and save their money so they can hold greater leverage and take home a much larger portion of the value they add to society. "The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will." -Henry George P.S. FWIW, I don't need that much to be happy. Last March, I visited my wife (then fiancee) in Hiroshima and spent 3 weeks in a 250sqft weekly-rental apartment in sharing a twin bed, living off of Ogura toast and miso soup for breakfast, < $5 meals at Ramen and Udon shops, making Katsu curry together, and going on walks, and it was the best time in my entire life. Pardon me if you thought I was trying to convince you I'm rich or humblebrag about it. Far from it, I'm just finally financially independent and happy about it. I never wanted to be rich, just rich enough to say "fuck you" to growing someone else's grapes and pressing someone else's wine so that someone else can wear fine silk. I achieved my goal of no longer needing to be a software engineer to maintain a lower middle class life. That's all.

Arainach 1y ago

>You might be right about the hours the teachers work, but they're not doing it to avoid being fired. It is entirely self-imposed stress. Teachers have unions and tenure. No, and no. Your perception of modern labor markets is dated and disconnected from reality. Schools are constantly facing budget cuts and a huge chunk of teachers aren't even full time (instead getting things like a 60% time position - less pay, no security, but enough hours that good luck working a second job). Those that get full time positions still face the elimination of their positions.

president_zippy 1y ago
I guess I just assumed teachers have the same protections in deep blue Washington state that they have in Illinois and Minnesota. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. However, there's a fix for that: move to a state where the job prospects are better. That sounds like "let them eat cake", except that moving to another state as an American citizen is a lot easier than what of people went through fleeing the Sicilian Mafia or the Irish Potato Famine, let alone WW2 European front or the fall of Saigon.
- sethammons 1y ago
  I was a teacher in blue California for four years. You don't know what you are talking about.
  - president_zippy 1y ago
    Where in all of this discussion did I say anything about California?
    - Arainach 1y ago
      >assumed teachers have the same protections in deep blue Washington state California is just as "blue" as Washington. >move to a state where the job prospects are better. That sounds like "let them eat cake", except that moving to another state as an American citizen is a lot easier than what of people went through fleeing the Sicilian Mafia or the Irish Potato Famine, let alone WW2 European front or the fall of Saigon. There is no such state. Nearly every state is in budget crisis and cutting school funds, and a certain vocal segment of them are actively attacking the entire concept of education, banning books, prosecuting teachers who provide support to their students or talk about how the world works, and more.
      - president_zippy 1y ago
        Illinois and Massachusetts are definitely not slashing public school spending. Deep-red Florida is also increasing its educational budget, and so is deep-red Texas. It's not like I have family or friends with kids going to public school or anything in those states, what do I know?
        Arainach 1y ago
        Florida and Texas are spending because they make life for educators utter hell and there are plenty of other good reasons no teacher wants to go there. Illinois may be a single counterexample, but this is akin to saying "if you watch Craigslist for a few weeks you can get an amazing deal on one car" - the plan does not scale, and if a non-trivial number of the people in the market for [a used car / a better education job] tried to go for that target it would instantly dry up as there aren't enough to go around by many orders of magnitude.

globnomulous 1y ago

> It is entirely self-imposed stress. Teachers have unions and tenure. You don't have the first idea what teachers do or what their jobs require. If you really think all teachers have tenure and are supported by unions, you also have not the faintest, foggiest inkling of a clue about the job market or professional environment of most teaching in the US. I think it's also worth pointing out that, even as you repeatedly label others "arrogant," your comments in this thread are themselves breathtaking in their arrogance. I rarely run across HN comments so condescending, dismissive, self-righteous, or self-congratulatory.

geodel 1y ago
Very true. You are right. I also felt those comments about teachers being in union , job safety and all sounds like it is frozen in 1960s America. To think software jobs (forget even Amazon for a moment ) are horrible compare to tons of teaching, medical, legal and so on is indeed arrogance of first rate.
- president_zippy 1y ago
  Evidently, I'm just imagining all the times my teachers went on strike in Illinois in the 2000s. There have not been any "right to work" laws in Illinois passed affecting teachers or firefighters since then. Evidently, it's all in my head that most blue states like IL, MN, MA, and NY have legal protections for public schoolteachers. I never said I was opposed to it, either. Quite the contrary. In fact, I think public schoolteachers and firefighters have a great idea about unions, and software engineers should follow their example and unionize. I can't tell if you're honestly misguided or if you're an HR employee at Amazon trying to derail the thread, because you completely missed my point. I don't care who has it worse. I care about who is making it bad, and what we as software engineers are going to do to make it right.
  - globnomulous 1y ago
    > Evidently, I'm just imagining all the times my teachers went on strike in Illinois in the 2000s. There have not been any "right to work" laws in Illinois passed affecting teachers or firefighters since then. Evidently, it's all in my head that most blue states like IL, MN, MA, and NY have legal protections for public schoolteachers. > I can't tell if you're honestly misguided or if you're an HR employee at Amazon trying to derail the thread This isn't productive. It's belittling, snotty, and disrespectful. You're also clearly more than intelligent enough to recognize that you're putting in people's mouths claims they haven't made.

akdev1l 1y ago

> you can keep overworking yourself as serf on fiefdoms in which I might own shares, and increase the value of my portfolio for me, so I can draw even more passive income every month Yeah, I guarantee you that the guy who worked at Amazon as a Principal Engineer for 10 years has a bigger portfolio than you. levels.fyi says $967k/yr average compensation at that level.

president_zippy 1y ago
Yeah, but I didn't have to work at Amazon to do it. No micromanagement, no verbal abuse, no work calls at 3am, no PIPs, no door desks, no cult indoctrination. More importantly, the time I spent managing my portfolio taught me how to better manage my portfolio. If Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos is richer than Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch, it does not change the fact that Warren Buffett and Peter Lynchs' path to success is much more reproducible and reliable with a much lower barrier to entry. If you made that kind of money working for Amazon, then good for you. I wish more members of the middle class would make FU money and save their money so they can hold greater leverage and take home a much larger portion of the value they add to society. "The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will." -Henry George P.S. FWIW, I don't need that much to be happy. Last March, I visited my wife (then fiancee) in Hiroshima and spent 3 weeks in a 250sqft weekly-rental apartment in sharing a twin bed, living off of Ogura toast and miso soup for breakfast, < $5 meals at Ramen and Udon shops, making Katsu curry together, and going on walks, and it was the best time in my entire life. Pardon me if you thought I was trying to convince you I'm rich or humblebrag about it. Far from it, I'm just finally financially independent and happy about it. I never wanted to be rich, just rich enough to say "fuck you" to growing someone else's grapes and pressing someone else's wine so that someone else can wear fine silk. I achieved my goal of no longer needing to be a software engineer to maintain a lower middle class life. That's all.