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76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

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Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#51
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would high performing employees with office jobs be "lower class"? As others mentioned once you hit a certain income threshold and job security, then you can start prioritizing the parts of the job you enjoy. This is who the article is talking about. This means keeping a $60k job instead of sacrificing your happiness for $90-100k. That's hardly quasi-religious phenomena. It's a luxury of skilled people living in…

>Why would high performing employees with office jobs be "lower class"? As others mentioned once you hit a certain income threshold and job security, then you can start prioritizing the parts of the job you enjoy. This is who the article is talking about. Because they're foolish enough to believe that themselves in solidarity with the oligarch class, when really they're only temporarily useful to them. If you think "…

>Because they're foolish enough to believe that themselves in solidarity with the oligarch class, when really they're only temporarily useful to them.

Not everyone takes the Marxist view of society in which we're perpetually locked in a class struggle, with enemy classes and those with which we're "in solidarity".

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#52

Another angle to this beyond the data being useless because of how it was collected. High performance workers likely recognize that skills get them paid, so the opportunity to get better skills should always come before money, if you want to earn the most money. Example: A young engineer is offered a job at MSFT at $100k per year being a cog on a team doing maintenance on an existing product. Or they can go to a star…

Does it? That person is going to have the anchor of that 60k follow them around. When they move on from the startup, most likely their new company is going to base the offer around that 60k. Whereas the other one is going to have their raises and offers based around the 100k.

Plus, there's something to be said for actually being able to afford a decent place to live, and to be able to put some money away for savings and investment. $60k in SF isn't going to let you do that. $100k might.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#53

Another angle to this beyond the data being useless because of how it was collected. High performance workers likely recognize that skills get them paid, so the opportunity to get better skills should always come before money, if you want to earn the most money. Example: A young engineer is offered a job at MSFT at $100k per year being a cog on a team doing maintenance on an existing product. Or they can go to a star…

I would personally go with the first option, in your example. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

How do you imagine the better career earnings that come from the 2nd offer? At the next interview, they ask him, "what was your previous salary?" Then ten years, five companies and five frameworks later, he (if lucky) finally matches his MSFT competitor at 130k.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#54
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would high performing employees with office jobs be "lower class"? As others mentioned once you hit a certain income threshold and job security, then you can start prioritizing the parts of the job you enjoy. This is who the article is talking about. Because they're foolish enough to believe that themselves in solidarity with the oligarch class, when really they're only temporarily useful to them. If you think "…

>Because they're foolish enough to believe that themselves in solidarity with the oligarch class, when really they're only temporarily useful to them. Not everyone takes the Marxist view of society in which we're perpetually locked in a class struggle, with enemy classes and those with which we're "in solidarity".

I don't think it makes any sense to call that a 'view' - other than the trite philosophical sense in which everybody's worldview is their own. Not sure what part of Marx's analysis of class struggle would actually depend on personal opinion in any meaningful way.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#55

What a weird setup for a false dichotomy. > My latest data shows that 76% of HPEs are not primarily motivated by money. But why? When you come across a peculiar result, "But why?" shouldn't be the first question you ask. Maybe more like "What have I missed? What am I not accounting for? What am I conflating or grouping together? What assumptions did I make, and did I allow my respondents to make any implicit assumpti…

> The mysteries are hard to explain. Ah, yes. The mysteries. They are indeed hard to explain if the author is illiterate in Economics, like most people are (which isn't something to be ashamed of) Fortunately for us, the mysteries are easily explained by taking a sophomore course in intermediate microeconomics and reading over just 1 lecture: http://mirceatrandafir.com/teaching/econ306/Chapter_05_6spp.... The importa…

a very important point is that 70k point is probably very variable, but exists somewhere in everyone except for the truly exceptional billionaire types.

personally i always need a sports car because i'm a gearhead, so maybe mine is a bit higher, but it surely is there.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#56
Trade mastery really does feel wonderful. But its important to remember that in the context of employment, it doesn't matter at all unless you're allowed to practice it. Every team I've been on for the past 15 years has systematically put figurative ball-and-chains on every developer, regardless of seniority. It's spun as 'engineering discipline' but that's typically a joke, and really the management is just nervous about commits in general.

Without autonomy, mastery is just a private thing you have, to use on personal time.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#58
post #40

The thing that's so weird about a Late Capitalist society like the U.S. is the amount of time spent ritualizing inequality into a quasi-religious phenomena. The lower classes have no desire for wealth, but instead an ascetic mastery of whatever lot the divine order of the market has handed them. Meanwhile, our gilded class of saints must be free and untroubled by worldly concerns(mostly taxes), so they can harness th…

Why would high performing employees with office jobs be "lower class"? As others mentioned once you hit a certain income threshold and job security, then you can start prioritizing the parts of the job you enjoy. This is who the article is talking about. This means keeping a $60k job instead of sacrificing your happiness for $90-100k. That's hardly quasi-religious phenomena. It's a luxury of skilled people living in…

They're not lower class, but not truly upper class either because they have to work for a living.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#59
post #54
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because they're foolish enough to believe that themselves in solidarity with the oligarch class, when really they're only temporarily useful to them. Not everyone takes the Marxist view of society in which we're perpetually locked in a class struggle, with enemy classes and those with which we're "in solidarity".

I don't think it makes any sense to call that a 'view' - other than the trite philosophical sense in which everybody's worldview is their own. Not sure what part of Marx's analysis of class struggle would actually depend on personal opinion in any meaningful way.

Because it doesn't reflect reality? Do you really feel like you're "struggling" with other classes?

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#60
post #40

The thing that's so weird about a Late Capitalist society like the U.S. is the amount of time spent ritualizing inequality into a quasi-religious phenomena. The lower classes have no desire for wealth, but instead an ascetic mastery of whatever lot the divine order of the market has handed them. Meanwhile, our gilded class of saints must be free and untroubled by worldly concerns(mostly taxes), so they can harness th…

Why would high performing employees with office jobs be "lower class"? As others mentioned once you hit a certain income threshold and job security, then you can start prioritizing the parts of the job you enjoy. This is who the article is talking about. This means keeping a $60k job instead of sacrificing your happiness for $90-100k. That's hardly quasi-religious phenomena. It's a luxury of skilled people living in…

> The primary issue of inequality is largely the result of the fact that...global economic systems push wealth to a few.

I shortened your statement to draw the conclusion faster. Global economic systems in this case are neoliberal free markets combined with capitalism. This isn't some inevitable "only way it can be done" thing, it's a political choice we have collectively made and allow to continue.

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