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Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

sloanreview.mit.edu

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Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#341

Post by pedrosorio »

hnfong wrote: post #316
pedrosorio wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair regarding 3) nothing forces you to commute for an hour on 101. That will be the case (riding a comfortable shuttle with WiFi) if you work in Mountain View and want to live in San Francisco (65km away). You can either move (much) closer to the office or just work in San Francisco (more likely if you find another employer).

The 45+min bus ride from SF is not exactly pleasant either. When I was in SF I took a daily shuttle that went on the more scenic I280, but staring at those meadows and hills got boring after a couple months. The GP can get to office in 12 minutes. Moving much closer obviously makes the monetary aspect of the proposition much less enticing since the rent is ridiculous. And if you happen to hit peak traffic where every…

If the rent in SF (with 1h commute) is fine, MTV wouldn’t be any worse.

I have lived within 15 mins car/public transportation of the office(s) I’ve worked at in SF and SV for years and paying the rent has been more than worth it.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#342

Post by winrid »

sheepybloke wrote: post #314

There's a lot of talk of compensation here, but I do think it's more connected to toxic work culture. I left my job in March after my company aimed to lay off 25% of its workforce after the pandemic hit. It was hard, because while our revenues dropped substantially, we had just made huge profits the previous year. I understood the reasons why they wanted to cut, but it just felt reactionary and not forward looking, e…

I recently joined a company that laid off a good portion of engineering during the pandemic.

It's hard digging into issues because entire teams are gone and took the domain knowledge with them.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#343

Post by sleight42 »

Nihilartikel wrote: post #118
skrebbel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

I think that the American thirst for money is perhaps sometimes greed, but most often it's a gnawing psychological side effect of our relative lack of personal security in our society. A person can have $100k in the bank and still be bankrupted and left literally living on the streets if they have the audacity to get cancer, lose their job, and have unlucky circumstances. (edit) This insecurity is a 'feature', not a…

This person gets it. While some may dream of avarice, some (like me) want enough to be able to whether this volatile uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) America that I live in where, if you are not well off, you will suffer.

Of course, living to acquire money to acquire (the perception of) safety is itself a form of suffering.

The lack of a social safety net contributes to further suffering in the form of anxiety.

Of course, the market can change (narrator: inflation is at 7% in the US now while Argentina looks on and says, “hold my beer”), leaving your savings and best laid plans diminished.

Our form of capitalism is a capricious master.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#344

Post by imwillofficial »

koonsolo wrote: post #188
vwcx wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*A year to learn, a yearn to earn, next year churn.

I remember reading somewhere (but I can't remember where): "My job is not my job, my job is to find a better job"

I don’t think this line of thinking will bring out your best work.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#345

Post by imwillofficial »

webmaven wrote: post #304
koonsolo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading somewhere (but I can't remember where): "My job is not my job, my job is to find a better job"

I've come across "My job is to eliminate my job."

Impossible in reality for the most part, but a lofty goal to aim for.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#346

Post by jshaqaw »

The great resignation is fascinating. Some people are trapped in jobs with toxic cultures because they really have obligations to meet and a lack of good alternatives. Lots of other people just think this is the case. A toxic manager with a certain kind of charisma (as many high level toxic managers ten to have)can project this fear into the susceptible and they use that power shamelessly. But this kind of fear projection seems to rely on actual physical proximity or at least spending lots of time in an environment that they not you control. It’s amazing how much less scary a jackass manager seems when you are working home in your sweatpants with some Louis Armstrong playing. Can only be good to defang these soul parasites a bit.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#347

Post by jjav »

jahewson wrote: post #17
skrebbel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

The cost of living is just so crazy high here though, $2.5m for a starter home in SV. More in some parts. You’d need a household income of 500k/yr to even qualify for that mortgage.

> $2.5m for a starter home in SV

While cost of housing is indeed crazy high, 2.5M for a starter home is quite an exageration.

Here's ~300 listings for under $1M:

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,condo,apartment_...

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#348

Post by faangiq »

Areading314 wrote: post #34

A huge problem with this industry is the inflexibility to pay current engineers LARGELY increasing comp each year. The thought is that there is a market rate for an engineer and that pay can increase with the market rate, but this is a fallacy. An engineer that has been at a largish company for 1 year is worth 20-30% more than the year they were hired because they have specific knowledge of the tech stack. Yet that e…

>Grind those code monkeys into dust. t. Every CEO ever.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#349

Post by emmo »

jjav wrote: post #347
jahewson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living is just so crazy high here though, $2.5m for a starter home in SV. More in some parts. You’d need a household income of 500k/yr to even qualify for that mortgage.

> $2.5m for a starter home in SV While cost of housing is indeed crazy high, 2.5M for a starter home is quite an exageration. Here's ~300 listings for under $1M: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,condo,apartment_...

Pretty much all of those are nicer than any house I have ever lived in, lol.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#350

Post by nexus2045 »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #181
ui4jd73bdj wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems reasonable enough for a fresh grad. For example 50k->300k. I doubt every engineer could prove to be so valuable in the end spectrum but might work for some companies. Of course if the company fired people the model would lose it's appeal, since you are leaving money on the table on the early spectrum but have no security to reach the end. Would you leave a company where you got a guaranteed 30% raise every year…

it's amazing to see the silicon valley effect on people's' thoughts of programmers salaries... $300,000 at age 30?

Actually these days there are many posts of people who are making double that.
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