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“Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

businessinsider.com

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Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#141

Post by rodgerd »

boulos wrote: post #28

There seems to be conflation in this article between two very different groups. Group A is folks who are acquired and have outsized grants that say vest over N years (N between 2 and 4). It turns out the acquisition was probably a mistake, but the acquiring company made it (and won't own up to it). That's what's described in the Facebook and Microsoft examples. This is the classic "rest and vest" scenario (Note: an a…

> In particular, I found this quote disturbing

Indeed. But this is the world we're in, where coming to work and doing the job you're paid for because you have a life outside of work is considered toxic.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#142

Post by Houshalter »

Zyst wrote: post #21
thisone wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that was sarcasm

I also got the same idea. I do dislike forums like ArsTechnica where "/s" is prominent, I believe that if you need to write a sarcasm tag to get that across, you likely should not be writing sarcasm at all. Then again there's people like parent which will miss what I believe to be obvious sarcasm, and I wonder all over again if there's a point to it all. Sometimes I think we should just not write sarcasm at all on wr…

Sarcasm and satire are very effective ways of communicating a point. The above comment added only 2 words to draw attention to the absurdity of that statement.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#143

Post by pdimitar »

StavrosK wrote: post #139
pdimitar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. People use the joking form of expression to tell truths they wouldn't dare saying with a straight face while the other side knows they're fully serious. Social stigma and dogma are to blame for this. ( Off-topic: one of the reasons that the love between me and my wife hasn't at all eroded -- it even got stronger -- after 3 years and a few months is that we're very honest with each other, even for the unpleasant…

Also, it's only been three years. Give it a few decades.

I had a failed relationship that lasted 8 years before. But I know what you are talking about. Time can kill love.

I do believe we're on the right track however. We are sensitive to the relationship killers and we are actively addressing them. Being inert is not our thing.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#144

Post by mattm »

pdimitar wrote: post #114
scurvy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, he said it jokingly.

I ain't buying it. I don't know the concrete person, that's a fact. I spent my younger years in much more social jobs compared to programming in cubicles (thank the gods I work remotely for 5+ years now) and out of probably 200+ men I've heard joking about horrible wife and kids, I can assure you no more than 5 were really joking. And I don't mean offhand conversations -- I am talking about people who I've chatted wi…

I've also learned that a big reason why some people are workaholics is because they don't want to go home. Working late at the office gives them a good excuse.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#145

Post by acchow »

boulos wrote: post #28

There seems to be conflation in this article between two very different groups. Group A is folks who are acquired and have outsized grants that say vest over N years (N between 2 and 4). It turns out the acquisition was probably a mistake, but the acquiring company made it (and won't own up to it). That's what's described in the Facebook and Microsoft examples. This is the classic "rest and vest" scenario (Note: an a…

"Rest and vest" also happens for startups early employees who stay through IPO and are still vesting their initial grants. Generally, they've built up enough domain knowledge about the mostly-hacky systems that they are valuable enough for that knowledge alone and don't have to work very hard.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#146

Post by maxxxxx »

I think it's not only engineers. I know several people who are either corporate lawyers or other long-time managers who pretty much go to meetings the whole day because they have nothing real to do. They all are pulling good money but feeling like they are not doing much seems to take a psychological toll.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#147

Post by maxxxxx »

home_boi wrote: post #4
rb808 wrote: post #2

Google is sounding more like IBM every year.

Did IBM pay well back in the day?

In the 80s and before IBM was THE place to work. Pretty much like Google or Facebook today. In the 90s they slowly started to cut retirement benefits and other perks and now it's not a great place to work at as far as I know.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#148

Post by user5994461 »

> There are a lot 'coasters' who reached a certain level and don't want to work any harder. They just do a 9-5 job, won’t work to get promoted, don’t want to get promoted.

Finally someone who understands how being an employee works. You are paid to be present ~ 40 hours a week, as stated in your contract.

Working twice as hard and killing your week end has no point and you won't get promoted. Don't bother.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#149

Post by js2 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #54
js2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want to know how many of your taxpayer dollars went to pay me for helping to shepherd purchase orders through the JPL bureaucracy. :-(

Working the bureaucracy is often much more difficult than the engineering part. In my company the tech leads spend more on figuring out what documentation to produce and how to store it than either writing documentation or producing software.

It was the OP who wrote he "spent the next three years getting paid for doing nothing, and getting pretty depressed about it." I would feel all the worse knowing my pay was taxpayer funded.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#150

Post by user5994461 »

pdimitar wrote: post #132
frenchy wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to say. It could be a million things. Some people are just hard to get along with. Some people are great fun for 1 hour a day, but miserable if you're around them all day. If you've devoted your life to your career, it's no surprise that you won't have anything in common with your wife & children, which makes things harder. They may love & respect each other, but not find each other's company enjoyable.

I've known and talked with enough people to know that you are very likely right -- that still doesn't stop me from thinking "how the hell can love and respect exist in such conditions?" People are extremely diverse indeed. I've known such couples and couldn't for the life of me ever imagine me being in such a relationship. But they are out there.

Are you really surprised that people can't get along when they re stuck together 24/7 all days?

That's what happens when they retire.

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