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Who knew electing shitty representation leads to a shitty environment and economy? I wish those effected by the shitty government the best Forcing people to wo

Who knew electing shitty representation leads to a shitty environment and economy? I wish those effected by the shitty government the best Forcing people to work and not pay them is slavery!

tombert 1y ago
I got in trouble at a BigCo because I said "we all do this for the money", and they claimed that I had a "bad attitude". But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits. Ultimately for any job I've had, even jobs that I really loved, if they stopped paying me I'd stop showing up [1]. It's nothing personal, that's just the transaction that I agreed to. If I had some bloviating wannabe-demagogue telling me that I should keep working and to not expect backpay, I am quite confident that I would quit, or at least keep calling in sick. I am not going to blame anyone who would do the same. I have no fucking idea why half the country voted for this. [1] This has actually been tested for one job.
- imperfect_light 1y ago
  You should ask BigCo if they're only providing goods/services to their customers "for the money."
  - Ekaros 1y ago
    If they are not doing just for money. Surely you should be able to give very good discounts to customer. After all why are profits aka. money needed?
- john_moscow 1y ago
  Surviving at BigCo is all about saying one thing, and often doing quite the opposite to advance your career. If you don't like it, working at a BigCo could be quite soul-draining.
  - tombert 1y ago
    I'm very bad at that kind of dishonesty. It's not like I'm some hyper-ethical straight-edge nerd, I'm just really bad at the corporate propaganda stuff. I have worked and done well at BigCos where they were a little less intellectually dishonest, so I don't actually think it's intrinsic to big companies.
- johnfn 1y ago
  I mean, if I heard you say that, I would probably think you had a "bad attitude" as well. Yes, getting paid is an important part of your job, but presumably you could get paid at many different places, and you choose the one you work at because it has additional benefits on top of a purely transactional relationship. It's like telling your girlfriend you're dating her because she's really hot. I'm sure that factored in, but she might get annoyed if that's the only reason you can come up with.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    There are a few privileged folks that get to work a job for those other benefits. The majority take whatever they can get because they need to eat.
    - johnfn 1y ago
      Let's not pretend that HN is full of blue collar workers. Most of us here are in software development and have options.
  - cwillu 1y ago
    The company is not family, will never be family, and will chew you up and spit you out the moment it is better on net for them.
    - tombert 1y ago
      I have a friend who's a few years younger than me, and he was a coworker with me at a previous job. He was fresh out of his masters and this was his first job out of school. We became friends fairly quickly, and during lunch one day I mentioned the above "business transaction" stuff, and mentioning that corporations are not your family. It's fine if you like your job, that's a good thing, but just keep in mind that love you show the job will not be reciprocated. He thought I was being extremely cynical (and I suppose I kind of was) and he disagreed with me. About a year later, he felt screwed over by the company, and admitted that maybe I was right. I mentioned it is just a conclusion that nearly anyone comes to when working for the corporate world long enough.
- deepsun 1y ago
  It's not just wrong, if a company is registered as "commercial" (as opposed to non-profit or public-benefit), then "for the money" is a legal obligation. Shareholders can literally sue the management if they don't pursue the obligation.
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago
    Profit is not the only obligation. We all exist in a society. Poisoning the water can be very profitable, and yet shareholders cannot sue to force management to do it.
    - cogman10 1y ago
      Management is often shareholders themselves and you can bet that if the fine is lower than the money saved they'll poison the water for 1000 years. We've had rivers catch fire because poisoning the water is profitable. We all exist in a society. However, the people most likely to own businesses and be successful at it seem to have no moral qualms about harming society so long as it personally enriches themselves.
      - paulryanrogers 1y ago
        My point isn't that shareholders have pure motives. It's that they are not obligated to harm society in the name of profit.
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      How about management suing the shareholders that want less climate destruction? https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234358133/exxon-climate-change-oil-fossil-fuels-shareholders-investors-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234358133/exxon-climate-chan...
  - jaredklewis 1y ago
    > Shareholders can literally sue the management if they don't pursue the obligation. Anyone can sue anyone for anything. It’s not remarkable. Now cite even a single case where shareholders sued and won. In reality, the “obligation” you are referencing has basically only ever been relevant in situations where the board or management is taking bribes. I’m not aware of any cases where shareholders won because the company was too nice to customers, the environment, or whatever. For whatever reason, “shareholders” live rent free in the heads of Internet commentators, but it’s hard to understate their actual influence.
- kumarvvr 1y ago
  > "we all do this for the money" BigCo To Investors : We are in it for money. We will earn you money. It is money we dream, covet and will go to any lengths for. Ethics, Integrity, Truth, all those don't matter in the long term. To Society : We do CSR, we are a good for society, we are ethical, we have integrity, we value society, we care much more than just money. To Employees : We are family, if one of us is hurt everyone is hurt, we believe in work-life balance, we believe in fairness, equality, openness, transparency. BigCo is a liar and a hypocrite.
- hshdhdhehd 1y ago
  Bad attitude != incorrect, of course. Actually good attitude often == not honest.
  - tombert 1y ago
    It was one of those things, I didn't even consider that it would upset people. Like, maybe it's something on the spectrum for me, but when I said it I assumed it was effectively a truism and I didn't think I'd get any pushback because everyone already knew and agreed with it. It didn't occur to me that people would say I had a bad attitude because I did think that literally everyone I was talking to would agree and I didn't see why they'd be bothered.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  If they don't do it for the money, then presumably the execs won't mind if you swap your pay package with theirs.
- mancerayder 1y ago
  >But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits. On the one hand, I've been saying this for two decades, in small and large cos. I've never been promoted in title, but I've also never been fired and generally been given more and more people to manage. I'm too direct and honest, but as I got older I learned to own it and do it smoothly without disrupting too much. But the 'consultant mentality' helps me maintain my sanity, sleep a little better at night and never get married to a company. I wish I put my money where my mouth is, though, because peers who move every 2-3 years make significantly more than me despite being more junior. On the one hand, the FounderSpeak about internalizing the job, loving what you do, and work life balance being bad business nauseates me... On the other hand, some of my high performing workaholic friends are not only richer than me, they seem like they're more purpose driven in their lives as their corporate jobs give meaning it doesn't give me. It seems then that, for me, self-honesty and work life separation achieve less satisfaction and a lot less pay (and perhaps delayed early retirement).
cogman10 1y ago
We almost certainly could have floated through this had Reagan not gutted the ATC union (while firing a huge amount of staff) with congress neutering their negotiation power. We never really fully recovered from that. We took away the power of employees in a high stress job to voice their concerns and needs which, as a result, made the job extra hard to hire for.
SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
It is a failed state, and we have seemingly overnight given Russia and China the biggest beautiful gift they could have asked for. Our military is over extended, science has been flipped over and defunded, and that alone will settle it. Now add unreasonable volatility from tariffs, and wait, give it time, wait some more until it’s impossible to unwind, then if we’re not in a major war, economy crashes, chaos ensues.
- collingreen 1y ago
  Mix in telling people the news is the enemy of the state and everything bad is because of their neighbors and you have quite a lot of opportunity for chaos.
dang 1y ago
I know many people have reason to be frustrated, but please don't post like this to HN. It's not what the site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Who knew electing shitty representation leads to a shitty environment and economy? I wish those effected by the shitty government the best Forcing people to work and not pay them is slavery!

tombert 1y ago

I got in trouble at a BigCo because I said "we all do this for the money", and they claimed that I had a "bad attitude". But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits. Ultimately for any job I've had, even jobs that I really loved, if they stopped paying me I'd stop showing up [1]. It's nothing personal, that's just the transaction that I agreed to. If I had some bloviating wannabe-demagogue telling me that I should keep working and to not expect backpay, I am quite confident that I would quit, or at least keep calling in sick. I am not going to blame anyone who would do the same. I have no fucking idea why half the country voted for this. [1] This has actually been tested for one job.

imperfect_light 1y ago
You should ask BigCo if they're only providing goods/services to their customers "for the money."
- Ekaros 1y ago
  If they are not doing just for money. Surely you should be able to give very good discounts to customer. After all why are profits aka. money needed?
john_moscow 1y ago
Surviving at BigCo is all about saying one thing, and often doing quite the opposite to advance your career. If you don't like it, working at a BigCo could be quite soul-draining.
- tombert 1y ago
  I'm very bad at that kind of dishonesty. It's not like I'm some hyper-ethical straight-edge nerd, I'm just really bad at the corporate propaganda stuff. I have worked and done well at BigCos where they were a little less intellectually dishonest, so I don't actually think it's intrinsic to big companies.
johnfn 1y ago
I mean, if I heard you say that, I would probably think you had a "bad attitude" as well. Yes, getting paid is an important part of your job, but presumably you could get paid at many different places, and you choose the one you work at because it has additional benefits on top of a purely transactional relationship. It's like telling your girlfriend you're dating her because she's really hot. I'm sure that factored in, but she might get annoyed if that's the only reason you can come up with.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  There are a few privileged folks that get to work a job for those other benefits. The majority take whatever they can get because they need to eat.
  - johnfn 1y ago
    Let's not pretend that HN is full of blue collar workers. Most of us here are in software development and have options.
- cwillu 1y ago
  The company is not family, will never be family, and will chew you up and spit you out the moment it is better on net for them.
  - tombert 1y ago
    I have a friend who's a few years younger than me, and he was a coworker with me at a previous job. He was fresh out of his masters and this was his first job out of school. We became friends fairly quickly, and during lunch one day I mentioned the above "business transaction" stuff, and mentioning that corporations are not your family. It's fine if you like your job, that's a good thing, but just keep in mind that love you show the job will not be reciprocated. He thought I was being extremely cynical (and I suppose I kind of was) and he disagreed with me. About a year later, he felt screwed over by the company, and admitted that maybe I was right. I mentioned it is just a conclusion that nearly anyone comes to when working for the corporate world long enough.
deepsun 1y ago
It's not just wrong, if a company is registered as "commercial" (as opposed to non-profit or public-benefit), then "for the money" is a legal obligation. Shareholders can literally sue the management if they don't pursue the obligation.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  Profit is not the only obligation. We all exist in a society. Poisoning the water can be very profitable, and yet shareholders cannot sue to force management to do it.
  - cogman10 1y ago
    Management is often shareholders themselves and you can bet that if the fine is lower than the money saved they'll poison the water for 1000 years. We've had rivers catch fire because poisoning the water is profitable. We all exist in a society. However, the people most likely to own businesses and be successful at it seem to have no moral qualms about harming society so long as it personally enriches themselves.
    - paulryanrogers 1y ago
      My point isn't that shareholders have pure motives. It's that they are not obligated to harm society in the name of profit.
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    How about management suing the shareholders that want less climate destruction? https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234358133/exxon-climate-change-oil-fossil-fuels-shareholders-investors-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234358133/exxon-climate-chan...
- jaredklewis 1y ago
  > Shareholders can literally sue the management if they don't pursue the obligation. Anyone can sue anyone for anything. It’s not remarkable. Now cite even a single case where shareholders sued and won. In reality, the “obligation” you are referencing has basically only ever been relevant in situations where the board or management is taking bribes. I’m not aware of any cases where shareholders won because the company was too nice to customers, the environment, or whatever. For whatever reason, “shareholders” live rent free in the heads of Internet commentators, but it’s hard to understate their actual influence.
kumarvvr 1y ago
> "we all do this for the money" BigCo To Investors : We are in it for money. We will earn you money. It is money we dream, covet and will go to any lengths for. Ethics, Integrity, Truth, all those don't matter in the long term. To Society : We do CSR, we are a good for society, we are ethical, we have integrity, we value society, we care much more than just money. To Employees : We are family, if one of us is hurt everyone is hurt, we believe in work-life balance, we believe in fairness, equality, openness, transparency. BigCo is a liar and a hypocrite.
hshdhdhehd 1y ago
Bad attitude != incorrect, of course. Actually good attitude often == not honest.
- tombert 1y ago
  It was one of those things, I didn't even consider that it would upset people. Like, maybe it's something on the spectrum for me, but when I said it I assumed it was effectively a truism and I didn't think I'd get any pushback because everyone already knew and agreed with it. It didn't occur to me that people would say I had a bad attitude because I did think that literally everyone I was talking to would agree and I didn't see why they'd be bothered.
ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
If they don't do it for the money, then presumably the execs won't mind if you swap your pay package with theirs.
mancerayder 1y ago
>But I don't think I was wrong. Work is fundamentally a business transaction; I sell my time and expertise and they give me money and benefits. On the one hand, I've been saying this for two decades, in small and large cos. I've never been promoted in title, but I've also never been fired and generally been given more and more people to manage. I'm too direct and honest, but as I got older I learned to own it and do it smoothly without disrupting too much. But the 'consultant mentality' helps me maintain my sanity, sleep a little better at night and never get married to a company. I wish I put my money where my mouth is, though, because peers who move every 2-3 years make significantly more than me despite being more junior. On the one hand, the FounderSpeak about internalizing the job, loving what you do, and work life balance being bad business nauseates me... On the other hand, some of my high performing workaholic friends are not only richer than me, they seem like they're more purpose driven in their lives as their corporate jobs give meaning it doesn't give me. It seems then that, for me, self-honesty and work life separation achieve less satisfaction and a lot less pay (and perhaps delayed early retirement).

cogman10 1y ago

We almost certainly could have floated through this had Reagan not gutted the ATC union (while firing a huge amount of staff) with congress neutering their negotiation power. We never really fully recovered from that. We took away the power of employees in a high stress job to voice their concerns and needs which, as a result, made the job extra hard to hire for.

SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago

It is a failed state, and we have seemingly overnight given Russia and China the biggest beautiful gift they could have asked for. Our military is over extended, science has been flipped over and defunded, and that alone will settle it. Now add unreasonable volatility from tariffs, and wait, give it time, wait some more until it’s impossible to unwind, then if we’re not in a major war, economy crashes, chaos ensues.

collingreen 1y ago
Mix in telling people the news is the enemy of the state and everything bad is because of their neighbors and you have quite a lot of opportunity for chaos.

dang 1y ago

I know many people have reason to be frustrated, but please don't post like this to HN. It's not what the site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html