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I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

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Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#91

Post by vms20591 »

trentnix wrote: post #69
vms20591 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they might pay for your insurance, give you free food, but that's it. The ultimate motive is to make profit, by getting every bit of work from you. You can sugarcoat it however you want, but to an employer, you are just a liability, not an asset, even when the "current" they call you as one. Because, the "next" they might not. The terms "employer", "they" are relative. As in the previous comment, "A company as…

No, a company just a collection of people with a common goal. And when you don’t like one company, you have incredible mobility to find another. In a job market as good as the one in the US at the moment, that mobility is irrespective of skill level . And that keeps companies, even the bad ones, from getting away with dehumanizing its workforce.

""" No, a company just a collection of people with a common goal """ yes, which is to make profit and keep shareholders & investors happy. Companies like Facebook might have started with a simple goal of connecting family & friends. But, now its an entirely different beast, making money by selling you and with way too many security holes that it hopes it can fix.

""" And when you don’t like one company, you have incredible mobility to find another. """ You are joining another one that has the same common goal.

""" And that keeps companies, even the bad ones, from getting away with dehumanizing its workforce. """ Please tell that to the Amazon's warehouse workers who had to piss in a bottle, because they don't want a slippage in their quota.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#92

Post by bumby »

gaggler wrote: post #66
trentnix wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Everywhere I’ve been employed cared about my wellbeing and when I was an employer, I cared about the wellbeing of my staff. Calling an employer/employee relationship slavery after a Googler complains he wasn’t promoted fast enough is peak self-importance.

I feel like you're underestimating how terrible Google's stack ranking system. It basically exploits you into doing more work than you should with the prospect of making more money, only to smack you back down and ask you to do 6 more month of back breaking work. More than you were hired to, mind you.

This statement is worded to lead a reader to believe you’ve never actually experienced “back breaking work”. It reads as incredibly privileged and insulated

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#93

Post by akudha »

dominotw wrote: post #81
tuesday20 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad had just one job all his life, for 33 years. While he didn’t become rich, he did enjoy relative peace of mind, pension etc. Of course everything is relative, but there was a time where companies had a little bit of concern to their employees, however small it was. Those days are gone. These days, companies don’t even pretend. A very small percentage of people are going to do well, for the vast majority it is j…

> it is just slavery If working a cushy tech job is slavery then what would be working at a sand mine in cameroon called ?

Much of the workforce

1. cannot take a couple of days off, without informing their boss much in advance

2. cannot work on something in their off time, on their own computers without employer claiming ownership of it (I am talking specifically about software here)

3. cannot take a unpaid month off, to travel or just rest, for example without losing their jobs

4. have no hope of receiving pension, decent medical benefits etc

5. have no good way of progressing in their career, without having to play bullshit office politics

6. have no concept of maternal, paternal leave, beyond the token few days which is a joke

and so on...

Yes, it is slavery. Compared to Cameroon, this is much better, cushier, comfortable slavery, but it is still slavery, aka wage slavery. We have been brainwashed so much about work, being a good citizen etc etc, that most of us can't even recognize that we give away the best years of our lives in return for a car, a small house and some money - and this is just the lucky ones, most of us don't get even that.

Both are slavery, just different forms of it. Yes, one of them is much better than the other, but they are both slavery.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#94

Post by hbgb »

tuesday20 wrote: post #46
ainar-g wrote: post #2

> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and espe…

My dad had just one job all his life, for 33 years. While he didn’t become rich, he did enjoy relative peace of mind, pension etc. Of course everything is relative, but there was a time where companies had a little bit of concern to their employees, however small it was. Those days are gone. These days, companies don’t even pretend. A very small percentage of people are going to do well, for the vast majority it is j…

I hate these flippant comparisons of unhealthy workplaces to slavery. People are paid and can go home to their families at night. Nobody is being whipped or sold or forced to have sex. Comparing a Google software developer to a slave is nonsense and undermines the horrors that real slaves went/go through.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#95

Post by thinkingemote »

akudha wrote: post #93
dominotw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is just slavery If working a cushy tech job is slavery then what would be working at a sand mine in cameroon called ?

Much of the workforce 1. cannot take a couple of days off, without informing their boss much in advance 2. cannot work on something in their off time, on their own computers without employer claiming ownership of it (I am talking specifically about software here) 3. cannot take a unpaid month off, to travel or just rest, for example without losing their jobs 4. have no hope of receiving pension, decent medical benefi…

A wage slave is a person who is tied to the system of making a wage. It's not literal slavery. Ever.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#96

Post by [deleted] »

dominotw wrote: post #81
tuesday20 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad had just one job all his life, for 33 years. While he didn’t become rich, he did enjoy relative peace of mind, pension etc. Of course everything is relative, but there was a time where companies had a little bit of concern to their employees, however small it was. Those days are gone. These days, companies don’t even pretend. A very small percentage of people are going to do well, for the vast majority it is j…

> it is just slavery If working a cushy tech job is slavery then what would be working at a sand mine in cameroon called ?

[deleted]

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#97

Post by Frost1x »

noonespecial wrote: post #67
Frost1x wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised at how people fall in this trap. Businesses are inherently not there for your interest (income/livelihood), they exist to capture money/resources. They hire people to be the human face to make it appear otherwise (HR) and market (propoganda) to workers in similar ways products/services are marketed to consumers. If there's a position, businesses expect it contributes to their profit. If the posit…

Its not always zero sum. In the best case, a group of workers that could make 1x each on their own, combine and are able to make 1.5x each together, and get paid around 1.2x each. The additional .3x is the corporate "profit" and is distributed in any number of ways depending on how the company is set up. Its still a rational decision for all of the employees to work there.

Not sure I believe emergentism. While it may be difficult to quantify, I don't find the "whole greater than the sum of its parts," just the perception of the sum being greater than its parts or the reality hiding in the complexity from us mere mortals.

Without emergent properties (your work + my work < our work), it really is a zero sum game. To me, you may be able to manipulate perception of value in this fashion but that's where it ends (which to be fair, is often enough).

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#98

Post by dominotw »

akudha wrote: post #93
dominotw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is just slavery If working a cushy tech job is slavery then what would be working at a sand mine in cameroon called ?

Much of the workforce 1. cannot take a couple of days off, without informing their boss much in advance 2. cannot work on something in their off time, on their own computers without employer claiming ownership of it (I am talking specifically about software here) 3. cannot take a unpaid month off, to travel or just rest, for example without losing their jobs 4. have no hope of receiving pension, decent medical benefi…

So almost everyone on the planet is a slave ? makes it kind of a meaningless word.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#99

Post by heyflyguy »

gaggler wrote: post #66
trentnix wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Everywhere I’ve been employed cared about my wellbeing and when I was an employer, I cared about the wellbeing of my staff. Calling an employer/employee relationship slavery after a Googler complains he wasn’t promoted fast enough is peak self-importance.

I feel like you're underestimating how terrible Google's stack ranking system. It basically exploits you into doing more work than you should with the prospect of making more money, only to smack you back down and ask you to do 6 more month of back breaking work. More than you were hired to, mind you.

Without sounding judgy, this is something that I joke with my fellow Gen-x'rs and Boomers with. Millenials expect prepayment for what they're about to do, in hopes they can actually do it.

I was raised in a generation that you had to prove you could in fact, do the work.

I appreciate and enjoy their confidence, and don't much care for what you might call "being entitled", though I can see this will become a protected phrase in the near future.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#100

Post by wayoutthere »

heyflyguy wrote: post #99
gaggler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're underestimating how terrible Google's stack ranking system. It basically exploits you into doing more work than you should with the prospect of making more money, only to smack you back down and ask you to do 6 more month of back breaking work. More than you were hired to, mind you.

Without sounding judgy, this is something that I joke with my fellow Gen-x'rs and Boomers with. Millenials expect prepayment for what they're about to do, in hopes they can actually do it. I was raised in a generation that you had to prove you could in fact, do the work. I appreciate and enjoy their confidence, and don't much care for what you might call "being entitled", though I can see this will become a protected…

You’re not wrong, but we have those expectations because we often have to go deep into educational debt to get the job in the first place. The costs always get passed along.
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