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We Have Luxurious Jobs but We Are Not Aware of It

• jboons 13y ago
  It's important to be reminded of this every so often. It definitely helps to get through "tougher days" if you're able to have a little perspective on how great things actually are, or how much worse they could be.
  • odonnellryan 13y ago
    I always wonder what people mean by "tough days."
    • guptaneil 13y ago
      The days you don't feel like getting out of bed. The days everything in your project goes wrong. The days you think your idea is actually worthless and you're a fraud. The days you dread your investors asking for a status update. The days Murphy's Law is a bitch. The days you have a bug that just makes no sense. The days your client is being an ass and you have no desire to deal with them. The days your boss is in a bad mood. The days that one douchey coworker just keeps getting in your face. The days that make you wish you were doing something else. I'm sure you've had "tough days"
      • fderp 13y ago
        Oh, you mean 'most days'. Now I get it.
      • odonnellryan 13y ago
        Oh yeah, I've had them - I wasn't being patronizing. I just believe, due to the problem-solving behavior of engineers/techs/programmers, we tend to tunnel-vision instead of looking at the big picture. If the big picture is going wrong, it's a problem. Now, a lot of bad days add up to a bad big picture, but if you're planning right, and you have a bit of luck, a few bad days will eventually get washed away, no matter the project.
        • Hannan 13y ago
          I think Spolsky's description[1] of working at the bakery explains best how it works for me. My bad days don't seem to be anything catastrophic going wrong, just a multitude of tiny frustrations. Basically the opposite for the good days. [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057....
• dclowd9901 13y ago
  You're right! We should be paying them to do what we're doing! I've had it all backward!
• spindritf 13y ago
  Yes, working from home is great. It is a luxury. Working at your own pace is also nice. But working "on the Internet" means you're also comparing yourself to the best, brightest, and driven. Then it seems like you're achieving maybe 10% of what you seemingly could be, because you're setting your own goals based on what you see out there. It's like getting stuck in traffic. You can point out that I'm sitting in climate-controlled car, listening to a podcast, drinking coffee, having a better time than 99% of humans throughout history. It's true. I know it's true. And I'm still frustrated that I can't go faster, and I rock in my seat every time I move ahead a little as if trying to propel the car forward. It's irrational, that's the point, no amount of explaining will make it go away.
  • vehementi 13y ago
    > no amount of explaining will make it go away Tell that to everyone who comes to terms with it and is at peace or is content and thankful for their situation?
    • herokusaki 13y ago
      Honest question: how numerous are such people? On that note, is being content a skill most can learn with effort or does it have significant biological prerequisites (genetics, prenatal environment, etc)? I'd appreciate links to studies on the matter.
      • vehementi 13y ago
        No idea, but one thing is that it's probably better to operate under the assumption that you can overcome such irrational tendencies, and have a goal or outlook to grow in that dimension, rather than resigning yourself to "welp, I'm going to act stupid now and there's nothing I can do to improve this".
      • dools 13y ago
        You can experiment with this very easily for yourself by asking yourself what problems you have right this moment. It turns out you never have problems when you have the time to ask yourself that question. The book The Power of Now is well worth reading. Most importantly, Tolle doesn't ask you to "believe" or have faith in what he says, just that you try it. And it works :)
• purplelobster 13y ago
  I never complain about recruiters. The fact that I'm being contacted spontaneously is completely a positive for me, and it gives me some confidence that if I were to look for a job again, my skills are in demand enough that I will never starve.
  • ruhruh 13y ago
    On recruiters, I think people get a pass there for bitching about it. It's all noise, no signal. It's just spam, and these poor recruiters are basically dialing for dollars (or [e]mailin' for money). However, if people are whining about actual signed/sealed/delivered job OFFERS, then they definitely should shut up & count their blessings
  • waylandsmithers 13y ago
    I've always found it a little off-putting when people complain about this. I get that it's probably annoying, and good for them for being in demand. But it still comes off as a humblebrag.
    • oacgnol 13y ago
      Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job?
      • logfromblammo 13y ago
        It's more akin to the "job offers" that a woman might get when walking down the wrong sort of street. The basal level of respect for me as a professional with skills and preferences distinct from those of my peers is typically not present from the recruiter shotgunning spam all over the network.
  • wnevets 13y ago
    the problem is if you think about it for longer than a minute you realize the recruiters are simply doing keyword searches and blind spamming as many people as possible.
• CmonDev 13y ago
  "We shouldn’t forget that there is life outside our communities." - yes, let's not forget there are lawyers, doctors, actors, pilots, CEOs and other occupations that earn much more without having to re-learn a new API every year... Let's not forget that major companies in e.g. Silicon Valley are known for actively suppressing the salary growth. IMHO we are still underpaid and under-appreciated.
  • genericuser 13y ago
    I view the constant learning and changing requirements of careers in software development to be one of its largest advantages and draws over, how I imagine some of those careers you listed are (others like lawyers and doctors I am certain have their own knowledge bases they have to learn constantly). I get to learn a new or modified API, language, or project domain every year if not more frequently, and I love it. You viewing it as 'having to re-learn a new API every year' indicates to me that you view it as a negative. In regards to the under appreciated part, I also was well aware this wasn't a job like fire fighting or being a doctor where I was going to be appreciated on a daily basis, or even a job like teaching where I would get the occasional student that appreciated me making all the thankless bastards I had to deal with hopefully worth it. I mean there is no reason you shouldn't try to find a place where you personally don't have to re-learn stuff every year, and are appreciated. But I like learning and being appreciated adds no value to me, I assume at least some others feel the same. I am always in favor of being paid more, but I would be hard pressed to argue why I should be.
    • logfromblammo 13y ago
      The ability to continue learning new things (and also implementing them) over the course of your entire career may be less common than you think. Doctors and lawyers have a large body of working knowledge that they must learn, but the portion relevant to their specific practice might not change that much over their entire career. Software writers can get started on a tiny corpus of knowledge, but a huge portion of it has to be updated on a nearly constant basis. It's like accelerating over the entire length of a foot race, except instead of sprinting the 50m dash, you are running an ultramarathon. By the time you retire, you have already forgotten more things than most people have ever bothered to learn. I have already written software for doctors and nurses, lawyers and paralegals, rocket scientists, aircraft pilots, and other software writers like me. Every job required learning a significant amount of domain knowledge, even if only on a temporary basis. As a result, that quote by Heinlein from Time Enough for Love--the one about specialization being for insects--definitely applies. I can now convincingly bullshit any non-expert on practically any topic after only about 2 days of Internet research. That's because I have learned to identify and focus upon the core elements of a problem and discard all irrelevancies. It may be odd to you, since you probably have the same skill now, but the vast majority of humanity is completely incapable of viewing a problem objectively. That is why we are valuable. We are the Professors surrounded by billions of Gilligans. We are the MacGyvers in a world of ticking time bombs. Bunsen and Beeker to a bunch of talking animals. Lisa Simpsons beset by Homers. Farnsworths (and Wernstroms) babysitting Benders and Frys. That's why we get paid the big bucks.
• sspiff 13y ago
  I have the option to work from home, but I dislike doing so, specifically because it makes it easy for me to slack and procrastinate, and because I dislike bringing my work into my home environment. I can use the prying eyes of my peers to guilt me into getting work done, sometimes. I also much prefer to be able to stand up, walk over to someones desk, and discuss a problem (or some newly discovered exoplanet, or the price of bitcoins, ...). Picking up a phone, sending an instant message or email just isn't the same thing. However, I'm very much aware about what a luxurious situation I'm in. I live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, get to do a job I love (most of the time), and get paid plenty. Compared to most places in the world, this place 50 years ago or even to other professions in the same country, I'm a lucky bastard. Doesn't mean I sometimes have a hard time concentrating, or would like to be doing something other than the work assigned to me though, but I think that's normal and would happen to anyone in any situation. First world problems, eh?
• gabriel34 13y ago
  There is always someone worse off than you, that doesn't mean your complaints are invalid unless you live in a communist utopia.
• imjared 13y ago
  I'm sitting at home with no commute, listening to music out of my computer speakers, in a house that's heated to my liking and I'm wearing sweatpants. For lunch I'll be baking a hot, fresh meal. At some point this afternoon I'll probably take a short nap to refresh myself. I'm pretty aware of it.
  • rckclmbr 13y ago
    I had a bad commute this morning, because I stubbed my toe on the way to the computer room. Also, I'm not wearing any pants.
• rjknight 13y ago
  No, we do not have luxurious jobs. Other people have really really shitty jobs. Software developers are just getting the kind of relative pay and conditions improvements that a much larger number of people took for granted in the 60s and 70s. It's everyone else who is fucked.
  • Touche 13y ago
    This. We enrich "business guys" with connections to billion dollar exits while we ourselves make middle-class or slightly upper-middle class wages. Meanwhile anyone willing to take out the loans to put themselves through Dental school will eventually make more than we do and if they have the motivation to open up their own practice, much more than we do.
    • throwaway812 13y ago
      I agree with the sentiment, but I think your facts are a bit off and reflect HN insularity. The median 33% household income ("middle class") in the US is $30,000 to $62,500 (household). Even if you are the sole earner in your household, it is still unlikely that you make less than $62,500. If you do make less than that, ask for a raise. If you don't make less than that, or your combined household income is more than that, you are a member of the upper class, and you should try and remember your privilege. (Hey, life's not so bad.)
      • vonmoltke 13y ago
        That is not how "class" is defined. Social class is based on socioeconomic power, influence, and security. Generally, the upper class is the top 1% or 2% of incomes or net worths, and the lower/working class is far larger than the lower 33%. Additionally, tying class tightly to income is nonsense, because it ignores people with significant wealth but little income and ignores the different socioeconomic climates across the US.
      • allochthon 13y ago
        By any reasonable definition, being well-off means being able to take out a mortgage on a house, afford occasional vacations to other parts of the world, invest in the stock market, support a family, put your kids through college, give to different charities, save for retirement, all in addition to helping family members in need, which one would do under any circumstances. A software developer might be able to do these things in California, but only barely, unless they have a very cushy arrangement or they've ridden an exit for a startup. Those at the median household income in the US (or anywhere else) are being shafted. The economy is broken.
• squigs25 13y ago
  I agree with this. Look, if you don't enjoy programming/data/technology then you're probably in the wrong field. But I think it's ok to have to force yourself to work on the stuff you don't enjoy as much. You just need to have adequate enjoyment from what you do, and the self discipline to do what you enjoy doing. At the end of the day, you're lucky to enjoy what you're doing half of the time, and to be making many times more than the rest of the world's population could make.
• eterpstra 13y ago
  The Oatmeal pretty much summed up 6pm of every weeknight of my life (I'm a stay-at-home developer, my wife is a medical resident) http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things
  • gcp 13y ago
    1000x thanks for linking this. Hadn't seen it yet.
• mantas 13y ago
  Hooray to good current days! I wouldn't call that luxurious job though. It's just that good programmers are hard to find, thus salaries go up. It's the same in all jobs that require specific skills that are relatively hard to learn. Doctors, lawyers, even skilled construction workers make a ton if they're good at their craft. And programming is not that easy when you think about it. I keep learning new stuff every day in addition to paid hours. When I get stuck at smth, I keep working on my head during night or weekend. I feel responsible for my code quality and try to make it as good as possible by going extra mile. My GF (who earns 6x less) comes from work and relaxes till her next shift. When I finish work, that means I don't stare at screen, but I still keep it in my head. I know bad programmers who make shitty wage for shitty code. I wouldn't call their jobs luxurious in any way. I feel sorry for for people in other fields whose skills are undervalued though. P.S. Greetings from Vilnius
• badman_ting 13y ago
  Speaking to my father once, he told me "Man, you got the tiger by the tail." I try not to forget it. I don't always succeed at that. He was more right than he knew -- maybe a couple years after he told me that, the business whose revenues he tripled decided they didn't like him, fired him, and he has been looking for work and underemployed ever since. He used to have a yacht, now he works at a chain hardware store.
• jader201 13y ago
  My wife, whose dad is a coal miner and works harder in one day than I've had to my entire career, cannot figure out why I'm able to work from home whenever I want, and why my boss isn't firing me because I often sleep in and don't get online or make it into the office until maybe an hour after my "normal" hours. Or how I can "just take off" whenever I need to go to the doctor, or for one of my sons' doctor's appointments or events at school. I've never known what it was like to not have this flexibility. I expect this flexibility, and will not work for an employer that will not give me this flexibility. And these expectations only increase as I get further into my career or change jobs. I'm even considering taking a contracting position making 80% less and working 80% less, so I can spend 20% doing my own (productive) thing. What other profession allows this? So yes, I definitely think I personally take this for granted, and feel in a way I'm spoiled, or at the very least desensitized to the fact that a large majority have it way more difficult than I do. I do try to keep this in mind, though, but it is hard in the day-to-day grind. So thanks for the reality check.
  • GuiA 13y ago
    I would also expect those things from an employer, and hope that my kids and grand kids have it even better than me on that front. Generations before us have fought so that we, as people, wouldn't have to endure the working conditions of coal miners forever.
  • markkanof 13y ago
    Do you mean 80% less or 80% of what you currently make? You make good points either way, just curious.
    • jader201 13y ago
      Oh, sorry, 80% of what I currently make. Big difference. :)
• samstave 13y ago
  No, I am keenly, almost obsessively aware of how lucky I am and how fragile my situation can be. I have three kids, a stay at home wife, make a considerable salary and have a job I absolutely love and excel at. But I am still fundamentally subsisting; my living expenses are just covered by what I make and am not able to save a considerable amount. This scares the bejesus out of me because all my kids are young: I have lots of expenses coming up related to providing well for them. The most important thought I have daily, which was reinforced by the subtext of this article, is that education is the most important thing I can give to my kids. When there are people who are "struggling to find a minimum wage job for years" to me, that means that they lack the education or skills to have a job that pays more and is in more demand. This is a failing of many parties - but it's the base of the issue. I want my kids to be able to do whatever it is they want, but to have the skills to actually make that decision for themselves. So, I am profoundly a aware of my position, am thankful for it and am working to ensure that I provide my children an even better life than my already great one.
  • redblacktree 13y ago
    I addressed that fragility in my own life by following most of Dave Ramsey's advice. If you're in debt and you're not budgeting strictly, I humbly suggest that you pick up one of his books and start today. For a bit of inspiration: I started the process with about $47k in debt. This included student loans, auto loans, and credit cards. After 19 months of working on "baby step #2," I've reduced that debt to $10k, and I expect to have it fully paid by August of this year. I used to feel as you do, about the fragility of my situation, and I now feel much much better, since my monthly expenses have reduced by about $700 (due to no longer needing to service that debt), and soon I'll feel better still, as I accumulate an emergency fund of 6 months' living expenses. Obviously, I can't know your personal situation or your specific challenges, so take this advice from a stranger on the internet for what it's worth. If you can benefit from it though, you will feel so much better about your situation. Take care.
  • biafra 13y ago
    Why does your wife not work? Lack of daycare in your area? Lack of work opportunities for her in your area?
• dabent 13y ago
  Early on in my career, I put my resume out to look for another job after a layoff. Recruiters nearly called me around the clock. I expressed frustration after the third call in a row in front of my wife. She reminded me what a blessing it was to have so many people trying to get me work and so many opportunities available, most which would give me a raise. He father struggled after layoffs to find work in his profession, with long gaps between jobs. I realized how blessed I was to be in this line of work and stopped complaining, even about the copy/paste emails. That said, there are different levels of competency in each profession, and recruiters are just as prone to rookie mistakes and lazy work as coders are. I have the luxury of working only with good recruiters and can filter the rest easily. I've also lived through relatively scarce times (2002) when it was hard to get a recruiter to return my calls. I can imagine that many recruiters and firms went under and know people involved in software who had to scramble to find work (myself included). That does help me appreciate the 90% of my career that work has been plentiful.
• beachstartup 13y ago
  technology workers complaining about recruiters is analogous to young, attractive people complaining about people hitting on them constantly. it sets off the same b.s. detectors in my brain. to me, it's really just a childish and transparent way of bragging. even reasonable people slip into these modes when they are faced with an abundance of opportunity, most of which they don't want or feel are beneath them.
  • hnal943 13y ago
    Yeah, but I think the problem with cut-and-paste recruiter spam is that it's not really an opportunity. Most of the "offers" I get don't match my skillset and would not result in a job even if I pursued them. They simply increase the noise in the channel and don't add any value to anyone.
    • logfromblammo 13y ago
      This is further compounded by the likelihood that the jobs advertised may be sham postings that are only being spammed out to you to fulfill legal requirements for restricted visas held by imported workers. For your own amusement, try responding to one or two, and see what happens. It isn't quite so posh when you discover that the job opportunities constantly streaming into your inbox don't actually exist.
      • beachstartup 13y ago
        these are all symptoms of an industry that finds its workers in high demand, which is the root of the issue we're discussing. people are complaining about being in demand.
    • beachstartup 13y ago
      the problem with going to bars is that everyone who hits on me is not really my type. most of the 'offers' i get are from fatties and uglies or losers, and would not result in a relationship even even if i decided to sleep with them. these people simply increase the noise at the bar and don't add value to anyone. oh my god it's just like, so annoying, you know? faux outrage
• seivan 13y ago
  60 hour work week to meet a marketing deadline. No thanks. If I could get a 1/3 for a job that has no requirement of producing something and fixed hours. That way I can code for myself.
• doktrin 13y ago
  I consider myself very fortunate, despite having a very strict [e.g. practically nonexistent] work-from-home allowance. It's not something I take lightly, for better and worse. For instance, at the moment I spend ~40 hrs in the office and ~40hrs in grad school and on side projects. As a result, I have very little time available for leisure or even meaningful relationships. My extra-work effort is driven in part by a fear of skill obsolescence, and competition with my peers - who are among the best in the world at what they do. At times I wonder if my priorities are a little backwards, but at times I feel so driven I'm not sure I could truly relax even if I wanted to.
• sergiotapia 13y ago
  Yes we make more money, but we also take our work with us and the stress that comes along with mentally taxing work. It's 11pm and I might be thinking of a problem at work I've been tangling for for the past 4 days. A gardner or a construction worker leaves work and _leaves work_, you feel me?
  • Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    And your'e stacking that up against the stress the gardener or construction worker has of losing their job and not having a million other options, or not being able to support medical insurance for their family because of what they earn? Even excluding that, having worked in a fairly brain dead job I found the stress of 9 hours a day doing something that dull WAY more stressful than being able to use my mind but being under some pressure to do so.
    • sergiotapia 13y ago
      I'm not saying "we have problems, 'they' don't". I'm illustrating the fact that EVERYBODY has problems. Software development isn't all peachy 100% of the time. [Let's call it 80% of the time ;)]
      • countrybama24 13y ago
        Sounds nice
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  • edabobojr 13y ago
    As opposed to the nurse who lost a patient, the social worker who has to remove a child from their home, a teacher that gets to see all of problems kids bring from homes, many aspects of being a police officer, etc?
    • Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
• grdeken 13y ago
  It's basic economics. A lot of people can mine coal or cook a burger. Not a lot of people can write or design software. The demand outweighs the supply and hence, leverage exists for those smart enough to take advantage of it. More importantly, engineers earn a fraction of the value they create for employers. It's the lawyers we should all be scoffing at...
• manuletroll 13y ago
  While this might be true for a large portion of HN's audience, there are also developers stuck in shitty positions in countries where making $100K writing software is a pipe dream. I'd be happy if I was paid a third of that.
  • mcv 13y ago
    I don't make $100K either. But together with my wife's income, we've still got it pretty comfortable. You don't need $100K to live comfortably.
    • manuletroll 13y ago
      Indeed, and I certainly don't need $100K either. I don't even live in an area where the cost of living is especially high, but I currently make less than what I was earning working on an assembly line in a factory. While I'm not dirt-poor I'm unable to make any savings or plans for the future. As I don't have much aside, I can't really try my luck in a better area as moving is not free. At least I'm only responsible for myself, so there's that.
• jeena 13y ago
  Those other people, the OP is talking about, I know many of them. Many of my friends are unemployed. But even though I tried really hard to convince those of whom I thought had the head to do it, to start a IT education, or at least start learning to code at home while they have no job yet. Still I wasn't able to convince anyone. They all said that it is too hard and not something they are interested in. That was kind of sad that they would rather sit around waiting for a low payed job instead of investing some efford for a brighter future. I understand that not everybody is able do learn the stuff we do but many people just don't want to.
• raverbashing 13y ago
  About working from home: I won't do it again, unless needed I will go somewhere else (rent a room/desk if needed) and I'll work there. Going from "work mode" to "home mode" is very important "Living in the bubble of Hacker News does distort the perspective. We tend to ignore how luxurious our jobs are. We shouldn’t forget that there is life outside our communities." Oh this applies to many more things than jobs.
  • aestra 13y ago
    >I will go somewhere else (rent a room/desk if needed) and I'll work there. It is important when working from home to have a "work area" which is only for work and nothing else. When you work from your bed you get in trouble.
• danielsamuels 13y ago
  If you really don't like recruiters, feel free to send them to http://www.rankarecruiter.co.uk/ http://www.rankarecruiter.co.uk/ - it's a joke side designed to waste their time, just like they waste ours.
• seanccox 13y ago
  Let's be careful with that term, "luxury". You're a well-paid and comparatively comfortable wage slave, but just because you don't have to labor in a mine or a burger joint doesn't mean you are experiencing luxury. Luxury is what these people are living: http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/ http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/ We would all do well to remember that the first 85 people on that list have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people in the world: http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-rich... That is luxury – a lifestyle only attainable by an infinitesimally small number of people, and one that they protect with the might of laws they author, politicians they buy, and force they command. It's important to keep sight of where the upper limits of wealth are, lest you get confused about your class or with whom you have the most in common.
  • nilkn 13y ago
    Luxury is relative, is it not? Working in a posh office with a very comfortable salary, very lenient management, and extensive benefits straight out of college is a hell of a lot nicer than laboring in a mine in your 40s, struggling to put food on the table, having no advancement opportunities whatsoever, and rather than getting health care benefits actually suffering health-wise due to the intensity of the labor. Of course, nobody I know works in a mine. But my job is still generally a bit nicer in most ways than that of all of my friends outside of technology. I realized this when it occurred to me that I worked half as much as my friend who is a physician in residency and yet I actually am paid more. That's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Of course, he'll get a big pay bump when he finishes residency--but that'll be several years from now, and if things keep going the way they are, my pay will jump up a lot as well. So let me rephrase that: seasoned developers in Silicon Valley are paid as much or more than licensed family physicians. To find the doctors who beat us squarely in pay, you have to start looking at the radiologists and the surgeons. A few years ago, I was the math equivalent of the aimless college poet who tugged at his heart for guidance but felt nothing. The poet is now working for nearly minimum wage and I'm now making more than my parents combined. Let's face it: I lucked out. Not as much as Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires, but relative to most people--definitely.
• MyNameIsMK 13y ago
  Dear Recruiter, You are a middleman. Your job is pointless. Your industry will go "kapoom" soon. Enterprising young people are already figuring our ways to automate you out of your job . Take me off your list. I am not a 'lead', or a 'prospective candidate'. Show me the money. That's what she said. Goodbye.
• CaptainSwing 13y ago
  I think that it is important to separate our understanding of relative exploitation/privilege from notions of structural exploitation/privilege. two points on this. firstly, luxury is relative. As workers (I know its unpopular in the US, but I, as a developer, would happily call myself, and other developers 'working class' as long as we are handing over the products of our labor for a wage) we are not earning as much money as our bosses expect to make from the product of our labour, therefore however relatively luxurious our work environment and living standards, we must remember that we are still being exploited. The recent revelations about the silicon valley wage cartel (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/01/15/silicon_valley_hiring_cartel_apple_google_and_other_accused_of_driving_down.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/01/15/silicon_valle...) show one of the ways in which our wages are kept artificially low. Secondly, not a critique of your sentiment, but an addendum, there are certain senses that our 'luxurious' jobs are particularly precarious. When labour costs increase the two methods that bosses/capitalists use to maintain a profit are a) employing workers who will accept less and b) automating the work previously don by workers. More and more we are competing globally for employment, This applies to all industries to some extent (if wages for electronics manufacture get too high in China they will move to Thailand, etc), it is even easier to relocate soft wave developer jobs, as there aren;t the same demands for the movement of physical resources, building new factories, etc. combine this with the fact that we are constantly creating the 'machines' that will replace us. For example, designing complex web sites is much easier and takes much less work using django, for example, than frm scratch, but that is because django is replacing work that was previously done by workers. These two methods of keeping labour costs down often combine in the form of deskilling. If we make django do all the tough technical bits we can hire a less experienced worker for less $$. tl;dr Yes we have 'relatively' luxurious jobs, no that doesn't mean we its not in our interests to get rid of the wage-relation, with all its ridiculous contradictions in an age of plenty as we live in.
• mikeash 13y ago
  Speak for yourself. I sure as hell am aware of it. If you want to talk about how ridiculously unaware you were about how good you have it, feel free. But please don't imply that I'm somehow equally dumb. I do my share of complaining, but I understand that when it comes down to it, I am extremely fortunate when it comes to my job.
• null_ptr 13y ago
  So how are we supposed to get to "the future", where people aren't wage slaves any more but instead are free to pursue their real dreams and ambitions, if those of us fortunate enough to make some headway should feel ashamed for having done so? Give me a break.
  • acuozzo 13y ago
    You took the words right out of my mouth. Thanks for posting this.
• rikkus 13y ago
  Some of us are actually aware of this. It's good to point out what the world is like to people who may not have first hand knowledge, but then they're still not getting any by reading this article. I'd have liked to see the author encourage others to travel, perhaps, whether geographically or economically. It's difficult to have empathy with fellow humans without actual contact.
• homakov 13y ago
  Why compare yourself to unsuccessful people? there are always plenty of them. Almost anyone who can read & do maths can say "i'm smarter than 50% of Earth population" so..
  • jebus989 13y ago
    Only 50% of people can say that
• epx 13y ago
  There are hidden sacrifices and costs. 99% of my good friends in this profession took depression medicine at some point of their lives.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• ryanmarsh 13y ago
  Yes, this. I've had jobs where I worked in the freezing rain, etc. etc. The people cutting your grass are likely better than you. I'll just come out and say it, they are, because their life SUCKS and they get up every day and just do it. They have heart. Many people in our community have a disgusting sense of superiority and entitlement. You just don't understand unless you've been there. What makes many people in this community vapid isn't that they're uncompassionate towards people who have it harder, it's that they musn't realize how well off they really are. It's not your fault that most of us don't have the perspective that some of us do, but the lack of it is very real. I've been called an asshole many a time by young privileged employees that complain about the free food, that we have certain core working hours, that yes, you need to be at the team standup on time, and in presentations you should pay attention to the presenter and out of respect put down your device(s). Before someone picks those examples apart, if you are about to, you're missing the point. Relatively speaking chances are you have absolutely nothing to whine about in your work. Nothing.
  • d23 13y ago
    > Relatively speaking chances are you have absolutely nothing to whine about in your work. Nothing. The problem with playing this game is that there are always bigger fish, and there are always smaller fish. Do back-breaking work 8 hours a day? At least it's not 10. Do it for 12 hours a day? At least you have a job. Don't have a job? At least you're alive in America. Not from America? Etc.
    • ryanmarsh 13y ago
      It's called gratefulness, and we have none of it.
      • ilyanep 13y ago
        As much as I agree with the fact that we should all be grateful for our amazing jobs, gratefulness is not the same thing as "not allowed to complain."
      • jedmeyers 13y ago
• alecco 13y ago
  Yeah, I feel luxurious every weekend I spend working on somebody else's code mess.
• justinzollars 13y ago
  Thank you for posting this! I find the Silicon Valley a internally focused place and I think we need more reminders from members of our community that we are the exception and not the rule. Not everyone in the world can be a VC or programmer.
• alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  You significantly understate the luxury which we enjoy, as even the millions of people searching for minimum wage jobs enjoy extreme luxury. There are hundreds of millions of people living on under $2 per day. And yes, that is adjusted for purchasing power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_living_on_less_than_1_dollar_day_2007-2008.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_livi...
• CodeMage 13y ago
  It's commendable to want to be grateful for what we have and not take it for granted, but it should never be used as an argument against wanting to improve our lot. I can understand wanting to share your newly found sense of perspective with everyone else, but I'd like to suggest balancing it a bit with the following excerpt from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.
• moron4hire 13y ago
  It's this sort of thinking that prevents people from getting help when they let their health slide and get depressed (notice that I didn't say it's this sort of thinking that causes depression. Depression is a disease.) Yes, "First World Problems", etc. But you have to realize that your problems are actually problems. Just because other people have worse problems doesn't mean you should just suck it up and "take it like a man. If you're feeling like you just don't want to work today, and that feeling perpetuates for more than a day or two, then you need to do something different than what you're currently doing. We used to call it "in a rut", now we recognize that it's a symptom of depression. And however mild it may be, you wouldn't wait until cancer or a chest cold were really bad until you tried to treat it. What you need to do differently to treat your mind is going to be unique to you. Maybe it's exercising more, maybe it's sleeping more, maybe it's eating better, maybe it's just getting a hug from someone you love. Just remember, engineer, first fix yourself.
• xster 13y ago
  This is a Facebook post, not an article.
• rjurney 13y ago
  Before I got paid to compute, I drove a forklift and unloaded floor-loaded ocean containers in 150F heat. I'm acutely aware that I'm spoiled to all hell. Its too bad all students aren't required to perform 'real work' as part of their education.
• qwerta 13y ago
  Yet another bullshit article. IT has zero entrance barrier, anyone can pick up tutorial from internet and start software development. Many people give up after they find out that software development is actually very hard. And work from home is not luxury. Even East Asia textile sweatshops offer work from home. It is just Californian startups who require total control over their minions.
  • vbuterin 13y ago
    > Even East Asia textile sweatshops offer work from home. I'd like to learn more about this. Intuitively, it makes sense for something like this to be true; the "workers slaving away at assembly lines in factories 12 hours a day 7 days a week" meme seems a bit too ancient and well-established to be accurate and we definitely don't see that many sources of what the East Asia sweatshop lifestyle is actually like. Any links?
    • qwerta 13y ago
      It is story from asian friend. Every morning her family would collect batch of clothes for sewing and return it finished at evening. Also Japan industry during WW2 worked this way, lot of work was done in family homes, central factories were only used for steel.
• balls187 13y ago
  Logic fail. "We have it better than people who don't, therefore we shouldn't complain."
• shn 13y ago
  Most of those recruiters do not deserve to be employed in the first place. They lack basic empathy towards job seekers. They talk like they own you. I have not met any of them yet that does not meet this description unfortunately. I think having some power on other people's lives corrupt them.
• pmichaud 13y ago
  There are definitely amazing, luxurious aspects of programming. Something came into view for me recently though, that I never realized before: When I graduated from high school, I started my own little (tutoring) company, and did software from after that, so I never had the experience of a "normal", hourly job, like retail or coal mining or whatever. Recently I had an opportunity to do a job like that and the mood struck me to try it out for like a month. I realized something huge about our jobs versus a lot of other jobs: I make more than $100/hr sitting in my pajamas, and I'm totally blessed. But I work my fucking ass off. My brain is fully engaged, and when I charge you $125 for an hour of my time, you got more than that value, because I was working, firing on all cylinders. What I realized in this other job was that even though I worked like 10 hours, it felt like I didn't do much because... I didn't. My coworkers and I, we did some stuff, chatted, laughed a bit, did another bit or piece, took lunch, etc. We spent a lot of time just socializing, having down time, not thinking too hard. I also noticed that there wasn't really room to do "better". The nature of the job sort of set a cap on how productive you could be during a given time period, so the culture just grew around that. Think of a gas station attendant sitting around watching TV most of the day, the night audit at the hotel, or the guy flipping burgers when it's not lunch time. That's when I really got the distinction between $10-20/hr work and $100+ -- we, collectively do difficult, mentally taxing work that requires long hours of intense focus, and a dedication to craftmanship that most other jobs just don't require. And we do that job under mostly under unreasonably tight deadlines, often for employers that don't understand what we're doing and therefore undermine us in many ways. Yes, it's luxury in many ways. But it's also a coal mine of its own sort.
  • zhemao 13y ago
    What kind of job was it, retail? Even that job is probably a luxury compared to, say, manufacturing. I don't think you'd have that much down time if you were working in a factory. You wouldn't be thinking a lot, since it's repetitive manual labor, but I'm sure you'd be pretty tired at the end of the day (physically, not mentally).
    • ry0ohki 13y ago
      That's what I was thinking. Mentally taxing work is usually more rewarding at the end of the day than physically taxing work.
• pawn 13y ago
  My dad likes to remind me of how much better my job is than what I could be doing. He's done construction work all of his life, and self-employed construction for as long as I've been alive. Growing up, I often worked for him during the summers after school was out. I've done all manner of construction work under him, concrete work, plumbing, roofing, decks, fences, you name it. He claims now that he had me doing all that so that I'd want to go to college and get a desk job, and maybe he's telling the truth. There have been some things I remember fondly about those days, but overall, there's no comparison. We have it a lot easier.
  • badman_ting 13y ago
    Yeah, that perspective is crucial, I think. When I was a teenager I worked at TJ Maxx for gas money. Retail/customer service type work can be and often is humiliating and somewhat dehumanizing, and of course it pays jack. I have coworkers who not only didn't do that, they didn't work anywhere else professionally before coming to their jobs at our cushy employer. They're kind of double-screwed: they don't know how sweet this job is vs other jobs doing similar work, and they don't know how much they should be getting paid for it. So they have good jobs, that they bitch about, for which they get paid half or 60% of what they should be getting. (The pay isn't why they bitch, they don't even know they're getting underpaid.)
• kayoone 13y ago
  Might be like that in the US, but in other parts of the world, being a software developer is not that glorious. Average pay, constant high work loads, doing very challenging work but being seen as a coding slave.. doesn't matter much if you work from home or not in that case, most projects aren't really enlightening.
• blazespin 13y ago
  Humble brag.
• njharman 13y ago
  When I'm depressed/sad/whining and people ask "what's wrong" or "how am I doing". They laugh when I reply with variation of "Good, I'm not being genocided". But that is my serious reply. Like this article states, no matter how "crappy" I imagine my (MUC, white, male, american) life to be, If I rationally examine it It is magnitudes better than 90+% of the people on the planet. Thinking about the people struggling to find drinking water or not be killed by their neighbors puts things in perspective.
• loceng 13y ago
  You can be healthy and happy doing any task - so long as you have balance and support and habits to support you.
• whitef0x 13y ago
  I think it is like anything. Every job has its benefits and its tradeoffs. It is just that different jobs have different benefits and tradeoffs for different people. If you enjoy your job as a programmer and you enjoy applying algorithms to real world problem then yes, I agree it is a luxurious job. However if you hate programming (which means you shouldn't be doing this job) but for some reason (financial, social, etc) you continue to work in this field then the tradeoffs could outweigh the benefits.
• whitef0x 13y ago
  I think it is like anything. Every job has its benefits and its tradeoffs. It is just that different jobs have different benefits and tradeoffs for different people. If you enjoy your job as a programmer and you enjoy applying algorithms to real world problem then yes, I agree it is a luxurious job. However if you hate programming (which means you shouldn't be doing this job) but for some reason (financial, social, etc) you continue to work in this field then the tradeoffs could outweigh the benefits.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• gren 13y ago
  "PS: I am available for hire! Feel free to contact me" at the end of the post was a bit ironic. Otherwise I quite agree with the post, we tech guys have chance to choose our job.
• 1Percenter 13y ago
  Learn to markdown
• Suncho 13y ago
  The biggest problem with this whole situation is that we, as a society, are forcing people to work when our economy doesn't need them to. If we needed people to work, then the jobs would create themselves. There would be no talk of job creation. It would happen on its own. And people don't need jobs either. They never did. They need food and money. Jobs just used to be an appropriate way to obtain those things.
• jebblue 13y ago
  There was a story on the local news last night that a bus driver in Austin is making $117K. Just throwing it out there, like, what if you really like driving a bus but only get paid $20K. That would suck. But if you like it and can get paid 6 figures then I'd say that would be very cool. I knew a guy in high school who dreamed and talked of nothing but owning and driving his own bug rig. He was a pretty sharp guy, he just wanted his own truck and the open road.
• dmamills 13y ago
  I used to work as a line cook, I made ~$13/hr (Canadian) and I worked from 5pm-3am, about 6 days a week including weekends. It stole my life away from me. The world of kitchens was hot, hostile, fast-paced and overall just terrible. There were no sick days. I did it from age 15-22. It's not to say that I didn't love it because I did, but it was hell. Now I sit at a desk all day and get paid to type out a fancy language at a leisurely pace for nearly three times as much. It's insane how hard I used to work for so little, compared to how much I now get paid to work so little.
• grownseed 13y ago
  From the sound of it, it's not so much a luxury problem but rather one of integrity... If you feel like the comfort of your home or your lack of motivation somehow make your job "luxurious", I'm sorry to say that the problem is in all likelihood mostly with you and not the profession. I would probably call that apathy and/or privilege. I worked from home for quite a while, and the simple idea of getting rewarded for not achieving anything made me feel guilty and inadequate. I also happened to work in kitchens from a very young age for a few years, with ridiculous hours and pay as one would imagine, yet I often consider getting back to it. There's a particular sense of satisfaction in cooking that I've never found in programming. All jobs come with their upsides and downsides, and all professions have people who get paid too much or not enough. I don't think you can lump in personalities and activities together like that. I realize my tone might come through as a bit harsh, and I'm sorry if it does. I'm just a bit tired of the lazy well-off programmer stereotype, it undermines a lot of us in several ways.
• mch0lic 13y ago
  It's not really a problem in Lithuanian, but rather in the mindset of poorly educated/older generation people there. Being Lithuanian I never received a single word of encouragement from my friends or family, but rather was threatened that starting business will lead me to poverty or I would simply fail. Luckily, I spend quite a lot of time abroad (mostly SE Asia) and seen how random local village person would start his burger stall, if that fails try cooking some fried rice and even if that fails bringing money home try selling noodles or whatever else. I mean those guys would never give up and that's sort of mindset that let's you have a better life. Personally I try not to spend to much time back home even I'm officially running business there, I much rather stay in Mauritius as I do now, or go back to SE Asia. Being around enthusiastic and happy people makes you one too and once you happy money is no longer an issue, it just finds its way to you..
• jokoon 13y ago
  Maybe. That doesn't change the fact that I can't find a job in another sector just because I know programming. That fact is IT actually saves a lot of money to the extent that effect is proportional to the sum of innovation. It's true that it's an easier life to know programming nowadays, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have a better life if you're a programmer, hired or not. I think programmers should not complain about anything or their job if they chose to swallow the blue pill and work a programming job they don't like, coding for a project they don't like. I think you can complain if you got at least ideas for solutions that have not been tried. If you don't, and you work a job you don't like, then don't complain, because you're part of the problem. Programming is not always about making a project work. Programming is mostly about innovation and making new useful things and improving old things. I don't understand why most of the IT landscape is still email and http and html, technologies that have been created at the very beginning. I think most jobs are luxurious jobs, but that's because the government is more effective than in other places. If you do programming but you don't like what you do, maybe it's because the work you're being given is just shitty. Maybe it's better than doing a shit job, but sitting doing something you don't like is as much turning people crazy than anything else.
• phryk 13y ago
  "Even more people are getting their butts of the beds every morning, going to the job they hate, just to support the basic needs." And you think that programmers don't? I work as a badly underpaid php developer and have slept on a couch in a ~35m² single-room apartment for the last few years. I handed in my resignation this week, because this job causes depressions that make me borderline suicidal. I'll have to live off of state welfare, if I can get it, if I don't then I'll be homeless, but I just can't take this shit anymore, so I'm taking the plunge and hope for the best. For every well-paid and -treated programmer there are a whole bunch of underpaid and ill-treated ones. Besides, what's so wrong about not wanting to work? You as someone with a good grip on what technology can do should see that we could've started to automate the production of things needed for basic survival (food, shelter, energy…) decades, if not even longer, ago. As far as I can tell, programmers have far greater chances to end up with depression or burnout than most other jobs, so please don't act like it's all sunshine and unicorn farts for all of us.
  • phryk 13y ago
    Of course we already have this sort of stuff largely automated; I meant in a way that doesn't just make profit for a small minority of the population.
• starmanjones 13y ago
  our jobs are sweat shops, too, sweat shops of the mind. You can handle it now, but when you get older, it will be torture. Does your dad have a 30 year mortgage to pay off? And high property taxes? No. So that means he owns a house outright and thus does not have to work 45 years.
• ithkuil 13y ago
  Yes I realize some/most of us have a privileged job. However, I believe that it's reasonable that people who are exceptionally talented expect something better. Sometimes you know you are exceptionally talented, they tell you, you know how to build stuff, how to fix stuff, how to get to the heart of the problem, how to learn new stuff quickly, how to write down code and documentation. Yet you have move countries (sometimes at the expense of family and quality of life) and/or spend hours every day commuting because your company values physical presence above all that. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to complain. Even if we are lucky, lucky to have talent or just lucky that the talent we have is highly valued (unfortunately not all talented people are so lucky), I still think it's reasonable to complain.
• ap22213 13y ago
  Yes, programming is very luxurious. And, I try to remind myself of that everyday. I earn 2-3 times that of most of my non-programmer friends. And, generally, it's been a luscious existence. But, I think the mechanisms of my brain that make me good at programming also make me prone to emotional stress, misery, mood cycles, etc. So, yeah, even though I love programming, especially regarding the creative aspects, I also sometimes wish I could have been born with different genes.
• lepunk 13y ago
  I'm fortunate enough to been able to do both manual labor and office work (coding) too, so I think I'm less critical about my job compared to someone who got a decent one straight out from uni. After high-school I had a bunch of temporary jobs working with builders, carpenters, etc in Hungary for less than £10 / day. I was happy because it paid my day-to-day expenses. Then I moved to London where I took a minimal wage "biorobot " job in a factory for £5.5 / hour. I sincerely thought I have a great, well paid job. I was happy Then I applied for a startup as the first coder there, got hired and I'm still with them after 6 years. I don't even know exactly how much I make on a hourly basis, but I don't really care. I'm happy It is all just perspective. You can be the happiest person on a very low salary, or be depressed and cranky about your job even if you make millions. I do think programmers deserve high salaries, and luxury like working from home. Why? Because our profession is extremely unique. Every single day we have the potential to solve a problem which never been solved before.
• cuillevel3 13y ago
  I think we idealize our jobs. They're stressful and dangerous. Stress, obesity, back, blood circulation and respiratory problems do kill eventually. Then there is depression, working alone, never going outside. But hey, you could always become a consultant: travel much, eat badly, work everywhere, ignore ergonomics... And one more thing, I wouldn't compare myself to the millions of unemployed, or low-wage workers, but to the upper middle class.
• lostcolony 13y ago
  Even reading some of these comments is a bit nauseating. If you are a software dev, designer, etc, in almost any part of the world where you can read this, you are massively lucky. Nevermind the whole "You have internet access and can develop software for a living? Welcome to the top 50% in the world", etc; there are people in your area barely scraping by; if your only metric is others in the same economic bracket, get out more. One of my hobbies is a martial art. Many of the students there are in much poorer straights than myself. One in particular, a young adult nearly out of high school, and already working, rides 10 miles each way to work and the martial arts school on his bike, because he can't afford public transportation. He lives paycheck to paycheck, and has to work out special payment arrangements with the instructor because of it. I don't really care if his day job is 'easier' than mine (I did it once; it wasn't for me, but whose to say it isn't for him); he has to stress how to cover bills, how to get to work when not feeling great and facing a 10 mile bike ride there and back, etc. I can call in and WFH because I have the sniffles. Or drive, because I have a car, and the funds to keep up insurance, gas, repairs, etc. If you enjoy coding, and you get paid enough for it to cover your bills and stash some away, you are massively, massively lucky. Is it as good a break as it could, or should (were this a utopia) be? No. But compared to the unfairness many others face, you should be reveling in it, while trying to affect change not just for yourself but those who are in harder circumstances.
• nzp 13y ago
  I absolutely get what you're trying to say, but---so what? How is programmers being aware of their luxurious jobs going to help people with less luxurious jobs? Will the situation for other people improve if people here merely stop complaining about recruiters and procrastination? If they merely do a mental version of catholic style self flagellation? Is this another variant of "eat your dinner, there are children in Africa starving" routine? What good does me eating my dinner do to a starving kid in Africa? Etc. There's nothing wrong about complaining about relevant problems in one's profession, even if those problems seem nice to have to other people, and not complaining won't magically make other people's lives more comfortable. And having a "luxurious" job that pays well is nothing to be compulsively ashamed of if it's an honest job not involving exploitation of others (which programming in almost all (?) cases is).
• solidsnack9000 13y ago
  Is our work really luxurious or just stable, rewarding and fairly renumerated?