As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit' • Hacker News Board

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#261

Post by aroundtown » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

granshaw wrote: post #56

wreath wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jobs are handing out more money with more flexibility than ever seen before. I may be naive, but I guess this office-work-exodus would result to improvements in office spaces in general to attract devs (or other employees in tech). This would also make it easier for people who are looking to move to the US to find office jobs, since the competition is less fierce. Am I off mark here and too naive?

What’d be really interesting is if some companies start paying a premium for employees to be onsite. That might be something I’d bite on

That premium for me is going to be higher than they imagine.

Among my coworkers I have an average commute time, and I loose 10-12 hours a week driving to and from work. I figure if I was being paid at my normal rate they'd need to pay me between 25-45%[1] more money just to come in.

[1]- Used to be that workers weren't exempt from overtime pay. At time and a half, 12 extra hours over 40 would be the equivalent of 18 hours. That is 45% of a normal 40 hour work week. (10 hours at non-overtime pay is 25% of the work week)

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#262

Post by imtringued » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

Riesling wrote: post #3

Inflation of specific asset prices is also playing into this. Money is losing its value. Try buying a house with a regular wage nowadays. Politicians, central banks and economic experts are sleeping at the helm.

I'm not sure this is true in the US. There were multiple stimulus checks and generous unemployment benefits. A lot of central bank money ended up in the hands of regular people. This is something that should have happened a lot sooner than 2020-2021.

Land values going up is how the system is rigged. That has nothing to do with your money.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#263

Post by aroundtown » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #188

rossdavidh wrote: post #88

I have often worked remotely for years, but...I'm a contractor/consultant, and a programmer. I am unemployed several months out of the year, typically, and I am always intentionally short-to-medium term where I work. I fear that many of the people demanding remote work now, will be surprised when (not if) the first layoffs come, and they find out that the person who's in the office every day is more awkward to fire t…

In my admittedly anecdotal experience, it's been a very long time since employers have had the luxury to be able to layoff software engineers.

I've been laid off more times due to outsourcing than I'd like to admit.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#264

Post by azemetre » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

asciimov wrote: post #256

praxulus wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downtown cores have the highest population density, and thus the lowest average commute for a typical set of workers distributed around a metro area.

The largest groups that live in my metros downtown core are, swaths of poor people who's crime ridden neighborhoods have yet to gentrify, the insanely wealthy who gentrified the best of the dilapidated old homes, and young hipsters who live in condos. For the most part (in my area), the only reason companies have moved downtown is because the city has given them sweetheart deals to be there. Meanwhile, hundreds of th…

I think this is vastly dependent on the state and the "downtown." Where I live, Boston, it's mostly the upper classes that live in and around the city. All the poor people have been nearly priced out to the suburbs or even other states (New Hampshire or Rhode Island).

Of course there are wealthy cities and suburbs, but if you want a walkable commute within reason, <15 minutes, you pay a premium.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#265

Post by mensetmanusman » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #252

HarryHirsch wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's baffling, haven't people got friends?

I am in my early 40's with 0 friends. Had them earlier in life and once I had kids I just could not figure out how to balance kids, work and friends. Now I have no idea how to make new ones.

I moved about 8 years ago and met people here having coffee every Monday morning at 6. Great way to start the week!

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#266

Post by munificent » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #11

5 years ago I hit a burnout point and took a year off work. It was a huge perspective shift. I realized that my day-to-day of a rushed commute to work, a stressful and distracting office, thimble-deep coworker relationships and a life completely orientated around doing the above was an insane waste of my short time on Planet Earth. I reoriented my life around family, remote work, flexibility and balance. My quality o…

> Everyone had a whole year "pause" to reevaluate if their lives were organized around their goals, and for millions, the answer was no.

It's important to remember that everyone also had a one year traumatic experience. Physically confined for a year with the threat or reality of unpredictable agonizing death to you or loved ones in the middle of an absolutely insane US political situation is going to take a toll on people.

There's this media narrative that the past year gave everyone this beautiful moment of clarity about how to live their lives. There is some truth to that. But it's also true that it's given people a whole shit load of psychological damage to work through and I wouldn't be certain that all of these people making radical life changes are 100% in their right minds.

I think we're going to see a lot of lifestyle churn over the next few years as people deal with what they went through but any one who claims that the current rapid velocity of any particular pendulum is somehow a straight linear projection is lying to themselves. I look forward to articles a year from now about this "unexpected movement" of people going back to in-office jobs, or working longer hours at shit jobs because they burned through all of their savings, or just wanting more financial stability.

I don't think we can make many reliable extrapolations today based on the aggregate behavior of a huge number of psychologically traumatized people, while the trauma is still not even over. Articles like this read to me like someone during the Blitz seeing victory gardens and confidently predicting that after WII every Londoner is going to become a farmer.

I'm not saying that things will return to any pre-COVID state, just that after the shock we've been through, the entire interconnected spring-mass system of our lives has in no way settled down into a stable state yet. Shit is still chaotic.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#267

Post by ghaff » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

adflux wrote: post #191

nickpp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wonder dude, I really wonder. The older I get the harder I find to be excited by shit. I do believe that if I was in the iPhone team I would've been like "another f-ing phone, why should I care?". The paycheck is pretty much all that is getting me out of bed in the morning, even if at this point I can't say I really need it anymore.

Guess its a normal part of aging, but maybe its not normal to not get excited by stuff you used to like

>maybe its not normal to not get excited by stuff you used to like

People absolutely fall in and out of interest in different types of activities. This is especially true of people who really jump into things with both feet.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#268

Post by wonderwonder » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #265

wonderwonder wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in my early 40's with 0 friends. Had them earlier in life and once I had kids I just could not figure out how to balance kids, work and friends. Now I have no idea how to make new ones.

I moved about 8 years ago and met people here having coffee every Monday morning at 6. Great way to start the week!

appreciate the tip, assuming you mean at a coffee shop or something similar?

Still have the kids though :) so cant really go grab coffee that early. I am sure most of the problem is me not figuring it out but I am pretty much at a loss, I work remotely, have younger kids that I have to take to school and pickup, feed etc. Finish work at like 6 then kids until 9. So weekdays are out. Then weekends seems like there is always something to do or I am just exhausted and feel bad abandoning my wife and kids to go do something.

I know I am the cause of my own issues, just not sure of the solution.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#269

Post by newfriend » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #217

caseysoftware wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people pay $100+/month for cable, eat out multiple times per week, have thousands of credit card debt, and an unexpected $400 bill would ravage them. If you want to live a un-average life, you need to have un-average priorities and sacrifice. Few on HN should be living paycheck to paycheck. Check out Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for a starting model. And yes, you'll have to sacrifice now to benefit later.

This is called the myth of overconsumption. It creates a simple fairy tale that financial success or failure rests solely on the individual. It allows people to ignore wage stagnation, inflation, rising costs of critical goods and services, rising inequality, and fundament structural inequities with society. Here's a more in-depth academic paper that provides data beyond unsourced colloquialisms if you're interested.…

And this is the myth of "The Man is keeping me down".

It allows people to ignore that their choices are by far the biggest factor in what happens in their lives, and instead allows them blame society and take no responsibility.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#270

Post by cwkoss » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #60

vincentmarle wrote: post #9

This is admirable but the truth is that these jobs will not disappear, they will simply be outsourced abroad. There’s swaths of competent people abroad that are happy to take your (overpaid) place and the major shift to remote work tools has made it all the easier to blend in your team even if they’re working from another country. On top of this, foreign workers usually get paid 1/3 of the American salary, so the emp…

People have been saying this since I was in high school post dot com bubble burst. “Don’t get into IT or software development it’s all going to be outsourced.”

In my experience, outsourced code is almost always harder to maintain and I haven't seen example of successful outsourcing of ongoing code maintenance.

I'm sure there's a lot of variance, but I don't think "outsourced everything" will be practical for most software businesses that place importance on quality of service.

Outsourcing can be great for developing a green-field new initiative, but at some point the in house folks are going to need to learn the new codebase so they can fix bugs, scale, and keep the lights on.