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Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

mcsweeneys.net

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Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#211

Post by gavinmckenzie »

htrp wrote: post #201
gavinmckenzie wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the first couple of years I would worry about this, but I haven’t in a very long time. The only occasions when I’ve had a gap between contracts is when I’ve chosen to take a break. I manage my finances to ensure I have several months of equivalent income saved. My process is that 60 days before the end of my current contract, whether my current client has said they intend to renew or not, I start seeking other con…

> I should note that I’m in Canada and so I don’t have to worry about healthcare coverage. Basically anywhere with a robust social safety net (not the USA) Do you find that you get less comp for your contracts working in Canada?

Historically, yes. Post-pandemic, not as much. When the pandemic caused a migration to work-from-home and companies increased their remote-hiring efforts, I expected that the move to “work from anywhere, hire from anywhere” would push contracting rates down.

Oddly in my experience in the mobile (iOS) development space the opposite happened, and rates increased significantly. Those higher rates have held steady for two years now and appear to be permanent. Plus I’m increasingly taking contracts with U.S. clients.

Of course a full-time FAANG employee with stock options etc. will have a higher total compensation compared to me, but overall I’m making more than I ever have and I’m much happier compared to when I was a full-time employee.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#212

Post by p0pcult »

eweise wrote: post #206
p0pcult wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youre getting downvoted, but perhaps you meant this as satire? Poe's Law and all...

Seems obvious to me that its satire.

Thanks, but I didn't ask you, because you didn't write it. I think it is satire, but sometimes one can't really know. It is undoubtedly a position that some people hold that missed revenue/profit estimates are akin to losses. Hence, Poe's Law.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#213

Post by gavinmckenzie »

Swizec wrote: post #205
l1silver wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't the inbetween contract jobs a tenuous time?

> But isn't the inbetween contract jobs a tenuous time? This is priced into the contract. I've done both FTE and contracting. They both have their benefits. Looking at my FTE job with the attitude of "This is a business relationship – you pay me, I work" has been the best balance for me. You can do more deeper bigger things than you can as a contractor plus the lottery tickets are nice. Honestly, if companies wanna p…

This is very true.

Though it’s really tough for most employees (especially the 20-somethings) to resist the internal tribal messaging from their employers and instead see their employment relationship as just transactional.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#214

Post by arolihas »

piva00 wrote: post #70
mshake2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's productive or wise to speculate on decisions that restrict the free association of people. Outside of narrow circumstances, an employer should not be legally required to employ someone any more than an employee should be legally required to work at the company.

Why is it so easy for you to disregard any kind of power/leverage relationship about labour and employment? Reality isn't that simple nor that reductionist.

It's easier to not care about anything if you decide your only principle is "the free association of people". It's one of the easiest ways to do whatever you want in your life and not give a damn about the impact it has on others without having to feel any guilt or cognitive dissonance.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#215

Post by matheusmoreira »

mshake2 wrote: post #45
arrrg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it necessary to fire them? That's the relevant question we should ask ourselves. A hiring freeze and marking obsolete positions as obsolete (meaning if someone switches teams or quits that specific position will not be replaced) should be a workable model for all profitable companies with some cash reserves. Sure, it takes a bit longer and probably costs a bit more (though probably not tons and lay offs also have…

>Is it necessary to fire them? That's the relevant question we should ask ourselves. That's not the relevant question. The relevant questions are: were the layoffs illegal, and if they weren't, then why is it any of your business? If you don't want to live in that world, start your own startup, hire people, and never fire them. Nobody is stopping you.

How is it not everyone's business? People should be aware of how flaky these corporations are and demand higher pay to compensate for the added instability due to the risk of getting fired out of nowhere associated with working for them.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#216

Post by PuppyTailWags »

NhanH wrote: post #174
LBJsPNS wrote: post #149

But you don't understand! These people who were laid off are important ! So much so they didn't need a union, because the company couldn't possibly let them go. Unions are for all those other people who aren't important ! Perhaps some of you are beginning to understand the term Solidarity Forever.

Union does not protect you from layoff. They will be able to negotiate for severance package, but seeing the way big techs are handling it, I highly doubt unions can negotiate a better one.

I have some criticism, mainly in that I want visa-holders to fit the legal definition of employed for longer so that they can find a new job without the 30 day deadline over their heads.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#217

Post by matheusmoreira »

arolihas wrote: post #214
piva00 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so easy for you to disregard any kind of power/leverage relationship about labour and employment? Reality isn't that simple nor that reductionist.

It's easier to not care about anything if you decide your only principle is "the free association of people". It's one of the easiest ways to do whatever you want in your life and not give a damn about the impact it has on others without having to feel any guilt or cognitive dissonance.

Nothing wrong with free association of people though. Unionization is also an example of free association: people coming together to maximize leverage and minimize power imbalances.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#218

Post by gavinmckenzie »

turdprincess wrote: post #208
gavinmckenzie wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the first couple of years I would worry about this, but I haven’t in a very long time. The only occasions when I’ve had a gap between contracts is when I’ve chosen to take a break. I manage my finances to ensure I have several months of equivalent income saved. My process is that 60 days before the end of my current contract, whether my current client has said they intend to renew or not, I start seeking other con…

contacted for many years as well. All my contracts always ran a year or longer. In the end, it felt very similar to full time employment - it was 9 - 5, regular meetings, coworkers, etc.. At the same time, I didn’t get any benefits, health insurance or paid holidays. I am not sure I want to contract like that again. It has most of the downsides of regular employment but none of the benefits. I think in the USA it wou…

It’s definitely not for everyone, and certainly living in a locale without social safety nets like healthcare would add to the stress.

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#219

Post by matheusmoreira »

gorgoiler wrote: post #7

I grind away at our codebase day in day out causing me immense personal anxiety and burnout risk and all for what? Well! The honest answer is because software engineering is an incredibly satisfying intellectual pursuit. So satisfying that outside of work in my spare time I literally do it for free , giving away my work to strangers as free / open source software. Why draw a salary then? Or stock? Well obviously I ha…

> Why draw a salary then? Or stock?

On my own time, I only work on stuff I personally care about, only for as long as I want and I usually don't even publish the resulting code because of the implicit responsibility associated with that. They'd have to pay me to work continuously on code I don't care about or even own. Why solve other people's problems for free?

Re: Macroeconomic changes have made it impossible for me to want to pay you

#220

Post by anthonypasq »

binarymax wrote: post #173
shever73 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact is, if I wanted to pay you, I could. I could even give you raises. But once again, that is not the economic reality we face. And so we must make hard choices. True...contrast Microsoft's decision to take an $800m hit in letting go 10,000 employees with its earnings report showing $16.4b operating profits.

Even harsher is that on the same day Microsoft laid off their staff, they announced a 10B investment in OpenAI.

how is that harsh? its just common sense that giant corps restructure and move their talent and assets around as the world changes, otherwise half of Microsoft would still be working on Windows and we'd be laughing at them.

layoffs arent always about cutting costs, its usually about restructuring and reprioritizing

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