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What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

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Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#41
post #30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, (outside of the quiet car), "extremely rude" - only South Korea and Japan?

i’m in the US, if you took a call for more than a few mins a busy metro car I’d tell you to knock it off

People talk on the phone all the time on every US metro I’ve tried. Seems fine if they’re not on speaker or raising their voice

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#42
post #18

Scholars and academics have been bemoaning the pointlessness of what the article calls "knowledge work" for centuries. A few of my favorites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Scholar https://andrewmbailey.com/papers/Higher-order%20truths%20abo...

There's a well-known book that labels programmers as a specific type of pointless job. "Duct tapers" is the category. Also task masters, who would have a foot under the software development umbrella, have space in the book.

"Bullshit Jobs"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#45
post #24
post #5

Side note: a half an hour call on a commute train (or in public spaces) is considered extremely rude in many parts of the world.

From my experience, (outside of the quiet car), "extremely rude" - only South Korea and Japan?

UK, unless you are quiet about it. Though you might not notice as our reaction only tends to be in body language, or for particularly loud speakers (particularly those who are GOING INTO A TUNNEL or otherwise think shouting will help with bad reception) we might tut.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#46
post #3

tech people need to become business owners

how about just letting us behind? You go on your AI futuristic trip, don't force it on others, and you can then come back and tell us how fantastic your life is while we all missed the boat. That's fine with me. But that's not what will happen, right? AI is being forced on everybody, everywhere. Which means it really doesn't matter if we jump in right now, agentic stuff will still be the norm in 5 years, and at that point you can show us all the magical things you're doing. I'm sure that will convince way more people than the current approach of "join right now or be left behind!!!"

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#48
'professionals are sharing dreams of “disappearing” or “living on a farm somewhere” or “going off the grid.”'

This has been a meme in tech for decades. I seriously considered farming 20 years ago due to my dissatisfaction with tech, its nothing new.

I fall into the group of tech workers that never enjoyed their work, I still loathe it but it pays really well. Standups are the worst, every day its "what did you do yesterday". The number of hours worked are far above a normal 9 - 5.

Sections of sociery spent years telling people to learn to code and they did and they do. The issue is that for many people that just work to live and don't live to work, code is souless and there is nothing to show for it after decades of grind.

This negative outlook is not universal of couse, I am sure this site is full of people that love software and more power to them. For a good deal of us though, its just how we pay the bills and there is nothing else that will come close to paying them as well.

Now to add to the general malaise we see companies laying off tens of thousands of engineers to justify their token spend. The feeling of living on borrowed time is prevelant especially for those that never got RSU's or SF salaries

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#50
Let's see.... Unemployment, AI Lunatics, forced to use AI, AI Slopping...

Much of joy we got from coding was taken way, I can not even imagine anyone wanting to get back to a coding role to vibe slop all day long.

I even heard from colleagues that presented algorithms better than the AI slop and heard verbatim from their boss: I prefer the AI solution instead of your.

So yeah, AI lunatics are ruining tech

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