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Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

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Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#271

Post by runeks »

mac01021 wrote: post #260
gjem97 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it a bit strange when people talk about shortages of non-price-controlled goods and services. When you say that the industry is "short on construction workers", there's an implicit "who will work for what we used to pay them." It seems to me like it's someone who hires in that industry trying to entice more talent to come help lower the price again, rather than an accurate description of the state of th…

If it takes 3 years to become good at construction work, there can definitely be a 3+ year shortage in qualified construction workers.

Shortage at what price? There’s always a shortage of bread for people willing to pay 1 cent per loaf, and never a shortage for people willing to pay $10.

One could argue that, while you think you’re experiencing a shortage, reality is that you’re simply not willing to pay enough.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#272

Post by mattmanser »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #208
Clubber wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. You've probably been seen and healed by a great doctor that smokes or has smoked weed recently. There is a good chance your financial advisor, lawyer and/or boss smokes or has smoked weed recently. Most professionals who do certainly don't boast about it with the witch hunting Puritan culture in the US, but there are a lot of them out there, and you've probably never noticed because it's not noticeable.

Yes it is. If your great doctor had to pass a drug test, he would be perfectly capable of abstaining long enough to pass it.

Assuming he got over a month's notice, right?

So a young person decides to sort themselves out, stops smoking and goes job hunting. They're ready to go! And then? What, wait around for a month with nothing to do? Eventually get bored, hang around with their mates and boom, cycle repeats.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#273

Post by [deleted] »

logfromblammo wrote: post #207
skellera wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is required to give you a job. The increased cost to do that everyday is not worth it to the company if they can weed out possible irresponsible workers from a drug test. It’s work, not a babysitter. All everyone is talking about is weed which I’m sure most of us agree shouldn’t be tested for but we don’t even know what the failed tests failed for.

I think you underestimate the cost differential between contracting with a lab to drug-test your employees on an ongoing basis, and with hiring a software developer once to make a rudimentary video game that positively correlates a passing score with operating heavy industrial equipment safely for the next 8 hours. Hell, you could set up an old Atari with Frogger in it, and require employees to score X points before…

[deleted]

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#274

Post by djb_hackernews »

jacobolus wrote: post #192
opportune wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap. And those are figures for experienced workers to boot, and "Staff Engineer" is typically a managerial role IMO, if not directly by delegation/HR-type stuff, then in a technical sense. The total comp is in practice also generally a bit lower because most of those companies backload the vesting

“Staff Engineer” is about halfway up the technical career ladder in many places, with a few possible (but increasingly rare) levels above, and a few levels below. Someone promoted to staff engineer likely has at least 5 years of work experience (probably more) and is self-motivated, good at their job, gets along well with their coworkers, and has some technical vision. Many of these people might have some quasi-manag…

I've worked for 2 well known software companies and what you are describing is a Senior Engineer in both (5-10 years experience).

The place I am now starts fresh grads as Engineer I, then Engineer II, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Architect and then Staff Engineer. Each promotion takes about 4-5 years so you aren't reaching Staff until about 20 years. A Staff Engineer is basically fully autonomous and is an IC that reports directly to the executives. They work on what they want and with who they want.

I understand this is different at Google and I guess Staff is the equivalent to a Google Fellow.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#275

Post by ch4s3 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #208
Clubber wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. You've probably been seen and healed by a great doctor that smokes or has smoked weed recently. There is a good chance your financial advisor, lawyer and/or boss smokes or has smoked weed recently. Most professionals who do certainly don't boast about it with the witch hunting Puritan culture in the US, but there are a lot of them out there, and you've probably never noticed because it's not noticeable.

Yes it is. If your great doctor had to pass a drug test, he would be perfectly capable of abstaining long enough to pass it.

So you're admitting that it's arbitrary.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#276

Post by AnimalMuppet »

monocasa wrote: post #122
ransom1538 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. However, you don't worth with concrete cutters or 1k volt lines.

Someone who smoked a joint a couple days ago can absolutely work with concrete cutters or 1k volt lines.

Can someone who smoked a joint 30 minutes ago?

Can someone who smoked a joint a couple days ago be trusted not to smoke one 30 minutes before starting work with the concrete cutters? Trusted enough to bet your company on? (Because you know that if the worker smokes a joint just before working with the concrete cutters, and someone gets injured or killed, the owner loses the company in the lawsuit.)

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#277

Post by opportune »

pedrosorio wrote: post #264
opportune wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap. And those are figures for experienced workers to boot, and "Staff Engineer" is typically a managerial role IMO, if not directly by delegation/HR-type stuff, then in a technical sense. The total comp is in practice also generally a bit lower because most of those companies backload the vesting

"That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap." That's why you said: "when it's usually 10-20+ year tenured engineering managers at a few specific companies " right?

Yeah I was speaking in broad terms across the industry, not accounting for edge cases

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#278

Post by FLUX-YOU »

alextheparrot wrote: post #52
bdamm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Now grab a 3ft section of copper tubing, cut it to length with your pipe cutter, bend it with your copper bending tool, and flare it with your flare clamp... what, you don't have any of those? Wellll.."

Great! There’s an opportunity for same day rental delivery here too

By the time you'd planned for all the tools and materials you'd need, loaded it into a kit, and shipped it off to the customer, you or the plumber probably could have just sent your business to someone more local.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#279

Post by johngalt »

bluedino wrote: post #94
dionidium wrote: post #17

I work at a medium-sized software company. We've had similar problems with younger employees. Guys literally posting in company-wide Slack channels that they're "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later." Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s? "Hey, how about instead of coming in later you hit the bricks and never come back?" The culture ha…

>> "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later." Most clients don't want to deal with that kind of behavior. "It's been 3 hours, why is the site still down?" "The developer isn't in yet to fix it." Being reliable and showing up to work on time is a job skill as much as good communication, being a hard worker, etc I realize that you should be flexible with workers' hours but people also need to realize co…

There certainly was an element of punctuality that has been lost, but it goes both ways. Clients don't want to deal with this either: "Sorry it's 5:01pm. The dev will be back tomorrow morning. Enjoy being down for the next 16hrs."

I'm all-in for the kids these days sheesh comments, but if you think 'back in the day' workers had the constant availability expectation that we have in the modern era with cell phones, that's just factually incorrect. It wasn't only employees that reliably adhered to the schedule, it was also management. If that changes, both sides should accept the trade offs, otherwise you are expecting the employee to treat the schedule as sacred, while the employer treats the schedule as something which is changed on a whim.

Lazy unreliable people certainly exist, but they don't usually last that long in any role. Poisonous management practices that set people up for failure have a much longer shelf life and do more damage.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#280

Post by [deleted] »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #208
Clubber wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. You've probably been seen and healed by a great doctor that smokes or has smoked weed recently. There is a good chance your financial advisor, lawyer and/or boss smokes or has smoked weed recently. Most professionals who do certainly don't boast about it with the witch hunting Puritan culture in the US, but there are a lot of them out there, and you've probably never noticed because it's not noticeable.

Yes it is. If your great doctor had to pass a drug test, he would be perfectly capable of abstaining long enough to pass it.

[deleted]
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