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I quit the tech industry (2015)

eev.ee

41–50 of 276 posts

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#41
post #27

I can't afford to leave my job, I would only be able to sustain myself for ~1 year. I think I would be satisfied if I only had to work half as much: 4 hours a day, 20 a week. Now I just need to find that job...

In my country (Netherlands), most employers are amenable - if not legally required - to allow you to work part-time, IIRC over half the workforce here works part-time - could be 36 hours (so you get an afternoon a week off, or a day off every two weeks, or a day off if you work 4x9 hours), 32, some even work only 24 hours. So basically it is possible, and I think in the US too you can negotiate to work less hours.

Working 24 hours is the holy grail, but now that I’ve been working 40/week for years I kinda feel like I’d suddenly feel my workweeks are too short.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#42

We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…

I think you're right. I'm just afraid that any solution here will be much more on the "stick" side than the "carrot" side that you propose.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#43

We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…

There's a great read on this at https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/workplace-killing-peop...

Unfortunately we're not good at handling externalities we can't easily measure.

""" She has said that the real inconvenient truth is not just that there is environmental pollution, which there certainly is, but that there is also social pollution. The work hours that companies are demanding of their employees are causing the breakup of marriages, burdens on raising children, and general disruption to family life. And the family unit is an important source of social support.

You can see this in stories from my book — the GE guy who’s on the road all the time and never sees his kids until he finally decides to quit. So she coined the term “social pollution,” and I think it’s a wonderful term. """

""" t’s true. He takes three points and puts them together. The first point, which is consistent with data reported by the World Economic Forum and other sources, is that an enormous percentage of the health care cost burden in the developed world, and in particular in the U.S., comes from chronic disease — things like diabetes and cardiovascular and circulatory disease. You begin with that premise: A large fraction — some estimates are 75 percent — of the disease burden in the U.S. is from chronic diseases.

Second, there is a tremendous amount of epidemiological literature that suggests that diabetes, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome — and many health-relevant individual behaviors such as overeating and underexercising and drug and alcohol abuse — come from stress.

And third, there is a large amount of data that suggests the biggest source of stress is the workplace. So that’s how Chapman can stand up and make the statement that CEOs are the cause of the health care crisis: You are the source of stress, stress causes chronic disease, and chronic disease is the biggest component of our ongoing and enormous health care costs. """

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#44
post #29

Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.

> Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life

It's not selfish not to have kids. And in western countries, spouses/parents can take care of themselves financially.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#45
post #29

Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.

If they don't have dependents, I don't see how it's selfish?

Of course, if they do, and they're offloading the burden on to other people (a partner who now has to take up more work on their own, for instance) then that's different.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#46

We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…

Do we have some tangible numbers on the long term situation of those "quitting tech" people? Like, ok, they open a wind-surfing school, but then what? Does that work, are they more fulfilled and able to work the next 10+ years in that situation without burning out? Or do they go back to tech after a while because grass is always greener, and a job is a job and there are not as much fulfilling jobs as we would like to be.

Looking around me, I do know a fair amount of people quitting tech. To become a sport or management coach, a sound designer, a bar owner, a writer, etc. But a lot of those people seem to struggle even more now than they were when being in tech.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#47
post #29

Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.

> Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life It's not selfish not to have kids. And in western countries, spouses/parents can take care of themselves financially.

What fraction of Americans nearing retirement age can actually comfortably retire ?

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#48
post #34
post #29

Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.

self-ish is not a bad thing.

Selfish behaviour only works because the rest of society on aggregate are still contributing to the maintenance, development, and research of a multigenerational civilisation.

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#49
post #29

Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.

> Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life It's not selfish not to have kids. And in western countries, spouses/parents can take care of themselves financially.

I'd argue that, while it may not be selfish to have kids, most people who are having kids do it for selfish reasons. They don't want to "die alone". They want to show that they can afford it. They want to vicariously get into Harvard and work in publishing (if traditional publishing still exists in the 2040s at all) and live some imagined high life... even though the probabilities are minuscule and most children are going to inherit a world even shittier than the one we were stuck with.

I don't think I'll have kids. It's the one vote I've got. Why would I stake anything I care about on a society that will almost certainly fail them?

Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)

#50

We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…

Do we have some tangible numbers on the long term situation of those "quitting tech" people? Like, ok, they open a wind-surfing school, but then what? Does that work, are they more fulfilled and able to work the next 10+ years in that situation without burning out? Or do they go back to tech after a while because grass is always greener, and a job is a job and there are not as much fulfilling jobs as we would like to…

Usually, when the money runs out, they return with their tails between their legs, often in shittier jobs that they'd have had if they'd stuck with it.

You're right about the grass being greener. The tech industry is an absolute plague, but most other industries are just as bad.

In the long term, and for most of us, the only way to escape this garbage system is to blow it up.

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