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I want to thank everyone who hates work, is mentally checked out of their jobs and quiet quitting etc. It makes it much easier for me to distinguish myself as
by beastman82 7mo ago
I want to thank everyone who hates work, is mentally checked out of their jobs and quiet quitting etc.
It makes it much easier for me to distinguish myself as a hard worker who cares about the business being successful. It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed.
When you are old and have lots of formative experiences that are not work-based, we can shake hands and mutually appreciate each other's motives and respective outcomes.
- Arainach 7mo ago> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed. If you believe the managers who interact with you have any say in who gets laid off, then your understanding of how business works isn't nearly as good as you seem to believe it is.
- asveikau 7mo ago> worker who cares about the business being successful In most cases, this is a sucker mentality that makes you vulnerable to abusive employers. You will stress yourself out making your boss richer. They won't care or make reciprocal gestures. They'd be happy to replace you should you become inconvenient.
- yurishimo 7mo agoIt’s not about stressing yourself out; that’s something you can ultimately control (though admittedly, many people are bad at separating the two) but more about _how good you are at putting on a show_ of giving a shit. There is a non zero chance that the company I work for pivots into some weird crypto niche (low, but we’re already fintech-y). If that happens, I’m out, but no way in hell am I gonna pivot my work personality overnight because of a business decision made by the company’s board and investors. If I need to put on a happy face for my boss to keep my job, then I’m gonna do it because I can’t afford not to at the moment. That’s not to say there is no line, but being a generally positive person in the workplace is a role I’m fine with playing. It costs me very little personally and opens a lot of doors because let’s face it, nobody likes working with a loathsome human being, even if they’re right. Am I a sucker? Maybe by your definition, but I don’t feel like one currently.
- asveikau 7mo ago> Am I a sucker? Maybe by your definition, but I don’t feel like one currently. Part of being a sucker is not thinking you're a sucker. > more about _how good you are at putting on a show_ of giving a shit. > If I need to put on a happy face for my boss to keep my job, OK, this is an entirely different thing. This is being dishonest.
- garciasn 7mo agoI am arguably a successful employee in a tech-focused role. I enjoy my job and others seem to feel I'm good at what I do. That said: I am NOT at all interested in identifying myself in social situations by my job. When someone asks what I do, I respond that I work in tech. I am not interested in giving more details nor talking in-depth about what I do to others I have just met. Why? Because that's not at all what makes me...me. I am far more interested in what I do outside of work (reading...a lot, listening to music, spending as much time w/my family as possible, traveling, spending time at my lake home, etc). That is what I work to do; enjoy my life. I realize this is an uncommon opinion, but I find it SO VERY ODD that folks are OBSESSED about their jobs and make it a central point of their existence to those outside of their specific industry. I do NOT care what someone does for their day-to-day; it's unlikely it will have any impact on me or my friendship with them. I want to know what they bring to the table in our current or potential social situation and the fact that they make PowerPoint presentations for whomever to look at, ask a few questions answered in the presentation's appendix, and never think about again doesn't do anything to further any of that.
- jazz9k 7mo agoDo you have any friends? Your job is a good topic that allows you to find something in common with another person.
- fcarraldo 7mo agoNot if they work outside of tech…
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- galleywest200 7mo agoI prefer to ask people what they do for fun when looking for something in common, as opposed to what they do for work. Some people are recently laid off, and asking what they do for work might sting a bit.
- reactordev 7mo agoUntil you get fired…
- alpha_squared 7mo agoSomething tells me you haven't been laid off before. I think the overconfidence you're displaying here will be shattered if that were to happen. I hope it doesn't happen to you, but if it does I hope you remember that you are not your job.
- cj 7mo agoI think it has a lot to do with the size of the organization. If you're at a relatively small company, it's not that hard to identify and retain the top performers. If you're at a faceless megacorp, that's a different story.
- alpha_squared 7mo agoYou can be laid off at small companies too. For example, a company may be running out of runway and it's looking increasingly likely the next round of funding will not materialize in time. It needs to control expenses and extend runway an extra 6 months, but everyone's a "top-performer". Who gets laid off? It's likely going to be those adding features (e.g. product folks), not those maintaining the business (accounting, devops). We can get into whether it's a good idea to kick off the death spiral for a company in that way, but my point is that no one is immune to layoffs, not at any scale, except maybe the founders.
- Tade0 7mo agoThis approach makes huge sense when you're a contractor who is aiming to graduate into a staff engineer.
- testing22321 7mo ago> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed. Sounds like you’re young and early in your career. Wait till you’re part of a layoff where an entire division or arm of the company is axed in a 750 person headcount reduction. Doesn’t matter how good you are, how many years of service you have or even if the CEO loves you. You’ll be out.
- ThrowawayR2 7mo agoIt does matter because it's your network that gets you your next job and colleagues remember who was doing a good job and helping meet goals and those who didn't.
- testing22321 7mo agoWe were talking about keeping a job, not finding a new one.
- sodapopcan 7mo agoHate to say it but very appropriate username.
- dolebirchwood 7mo agoI've known people who survived multiple rounds of layoffs, not because they were "distinguished", but because they were the cheapest. Meanwhile, their more talented counterparts got the ax for being too expensive. Simple as that.
- noisy_boy 7mo ago> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed. I can assure you that when they are laying off to cut costs, which is most of the time, what they notice is A) the old/expensive ones who can be let go without any major disruptions and B) the "expendables" such as contractors or those they have a personal dislike of - the latter usually has not much to do with hard work and a lot more to do with perception. Category A is to meet cost targets while category B can also help with number targets. If you think your hard work alone will save you, I pray that life spares you that rude shock.
- dgxyz 7mo agoYeah that. I don’t put any effort in now. Still get paid the same. Now have more time for better stuff.
- lm28469 7mo ago[flagged]
- dang 7mo agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. You can't do this here, no matter how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- oncallthrow 7mo ago> It also helps me keep my job during layoffs because I can assure you the managers have noticed. I got to this bit before realising this is satire
- Arainach 7mo agoI have no faith that this is satire since America is full of people who underestimate the impact of luck and privilege in the course of their life in favor of a view that everything is due to their own personal efforts and the suffering of others is obviously due to their personal defects. These people will relentlessly defend any actions by the owner class without realizing that they themselves are not in that class and never will be. They say things like this a lot.
- ThrowawayR2 7mo agoI mostly agree with the parent post. There certainly are roles where the entire scope of the job is to convert Jira tickets to code and nothing else and nobody will blame you for being a checked out 9-5er in such places but that isn't the audience of HN. Most here are software engineers who get fairly broad latitude to exercise judgment and expertise/education in furtherance of business goals and that's they get the FAANG-sized paycheck and RSUs/stock grants for. And you better believe colleagues in those roles notice who is just doing the minimum and who is helping to achieve goals.
- paganel 7mo agoYou only care about “business goals” under a certain age, I’d say 35-ish, afterwards, if you hadn’t realized by that point that it’s just a paycheck and nothing more then no mindfulness trickery not any “let’s-experience-things”-consoomerism is going to fill the spiritual void inside of you. Could be 35-ish of age, like in my case, could be later, could be earlier, but at some point that realization will have to come otherwise you’ll remain an empty corpse throughout the rest of it all.
- ThrowawayR2 7mo agoYou care for business goals because that's what you're being paid to do. The "nuh-uh, I'm being paid to code and that's it" are the ones who wonder why their career stalled early. Nobody's saying you should care about business goals personally; that would indeed be dumb.