Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 353 posts

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#151

Post by Supermancho »

RajT88 wrote: post #35
lampshades wrote: post #16

Yes, I agree 100%. Do not help those who seek to devalue you. Extract as much value for as little work as possible. The people who run these companies are not your friends and they’re not your family, take advantage of them at every opportunity you can. Don’t care if the company fails, don’t pay any mind to burning bridges, don’t bother giving two weeks, and certainly don’t do anything more than the bare minimum. All…

Burning those bridges carries a cost to your career. If you think about your retirement prospects as amassing wealth by optimizing the "Area under the graph", it's really important to build a professional network so if one job opportunity ends, you can quickly work your network to find another similarly paying job. Failing that, you take a big pay cut, and impact your salary history. I can't imagine an employer makin…

> Burning those bridges carries a cost to your career.

I don't think this is borne out in practice. I've done very well and very poorly over the decades. It would have to be a very specific situation (lot of events unluckily coinciding) where coworkers/previous position could influence an interview process today.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#152

Post by WalterBright »

MarkMarine wrote: post #95
WalterBright wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acknowledging the adversarial nature of workers and owners It is not adversarial. It is a mutually beneficial, win-win relationship. It's the unions who (mistakenly) frame it as a win-lose relationship, which is why businesses don't like dealing with them.

How do you square the circle of management wanting to pay employees the minimum they can for the maximum amount of their employees labor? The company is a giant thing, with lawyers, power and resources that are impossible for an individual to push against and win anything that is contested. Like 80 hour work weeks. Children working in manufacturing jobs. Unsafe working conditions with fire exits blocked. Which are al…

> How do you square the circle

It's squared by the employees wanting the maximum pay for the least amount of work. It's call "Supply & Demand". It's the Law.

> impossible for an individual to push against and win anything that is contested

Not impossible at all. I've done it many times. The power the employee has is to say "No" and go work for someone else, or start their own company.

> Like 80 hour work weeks / children working / unsafe working conditions

were necessary when productivity was much lower than today. It's no surprise that those went away when productivity increased. I can't even think of a job a 10 year old could be useful at in a modern company.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#153

Post by unity1001 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #124
unity1001 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> class warfare nonsense Its only nonsense in the mind of plebs. For the class that's waging that war, its quite real. They are aware of what they are doing.

So if we disagree with you, we're a "pleb". Nice. Personal attacks are against the site rules, by the way.

You absolutely have not understood the comment that you replied to.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#154

Post by count »

neilv wrote: post #145
ergonaught wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Process improvement: Is this your job? Then no. This remark from TFA at least implies when it "is" part of your job, go for it. Perhaps you have rejected, or simply not engaged with, the "call" to recognize class warfare, however, or if I can be silly I'll call you a "capital sympathizer". From the frame of recognizing workers vs capitalists, you can't just say write off being exploited as "well you were paid to be…

(Process improvement is often part of the official job of Staff+.) There seems to be lots of nasty class stuff going on, throughout society. But TFA just seems to hurt legitimate discussion of class issues. Imagine you're skeptical of the suggestion of class problems, but since a post about that was upvoted on HN, and you're open to being convinced, you took a look. Unfortunately, after reading it, you have to chalk…

The history of humanity is nasty class stuff going on. It's kind of amazing the 'pax capitalista' we've had for the last few decades, honestly.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#155

Post by ClumsyPilot »

WalterBright wrote: post #74
andrepd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is adversarial (in a game theoretical sense). You are not doing any favours to the company and the company is not doing any favours to you; both are trying to extract as much value from the other as possible. Now if we were talking about a worker's co-operative (or any company where a significant portion of ownership laid with the workers), now that's a different story...

Smart businesses know that in order to prosper, you have to make win-win deals. Free market economies grow and prosper because people are making win-win deals. Win-lose deals are the path to poverty and misery.

> Smart businesses know that in order to prosper, you have to make win-win deals.

If this were true, Asset Stripping and corporate raiders wouldn't exist

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#156

Post by Supermancho »

voldacar wrote: post #147
grumpy_coder wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the company cut has been getting bigger and bigger for the last 40 years. Productivity has increased and wages have not.

When you look at wages + benefits, the increase is more or less proportional.

Can you point to something that convinced you of this?

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#157

Post by jojobas »

Not that I'd expect something clever from someone calling for "class warfare", but this is a load of bollocks even by Marxist standards.

21st century IT work is Marx's wet dream come true and an occasional layoff doesn't change that, it's not that those laid off are doomed to experience any hardship. There are (still) plenty of offers with stock options and it still pays at least top quarter.

There is an important caveat however - you have to be good. Marx couldn't imagine only 5% or so of those willing being good at working the lathe. You'll only need class warfare if you're no good.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#158

Post by andrekandre »

nickff wrote: post #109
darth_avocado wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how you sugarcoat it, the extra hours you make people work for no extra increase in wages, is free labor. Just because you’re getting paid doesn’t mean the company doesn’t get free labor. The company paid for the regular hours and the rest was free labor.

What if you get a pay bump for no increase in hours? Is that free money?

its an interesting question, but im not sure what it has to do with the comment your replying to?

they are just saying, if you are contracted to be payed x per hour at 8hrs a day, unless you work 8 + n hours, wherein n gives you no additional hourly pay, then its free labor to the company (above and beyond contracted work hours), not sure what is controversial about that?

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#159

Post by jojobas »

ravenstine wrote: post #119
lampshades wrote: post #16

Yes, I agree 100%. Do not help those who seek to devalue you. Extract as much value for as little work as possible. The people who run these companies are not your friends and they’re not your family, take advantage of them at every opportunity you can. Don’t care if the company fails, don’t pay any mind to burning bridges, don’t bother giving two weeks, and certainly don’t do anything more than the bare minimum. All…

My takeaway from what you said is that the employee-company relationship is inherently adversarial to a degree and to not forget that. In general, I wholeheartedly agree. However, > don’t pay any mind to burning bridges not all bridges should be burned. If you mean the bridge between you and a company, yes, said bridges should not be treated as anything more than a rope bridge over a canyon. I would limit burning bri…

>is inherently adversarial

Until they invented stock options and started handing them out left right and centre.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#160

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #7

I don't live in NY or Seattle. The tech sector is much smaller where I am. I've never seen it be advantageous to treat other people as someone I'm in competition with. I've been laid off. Yeah it sucks, but no job is forever, and being nice to people means I get to sleep at night. I've also never seen anyone who can't be replaced. Time and time again something wasn't documented, and other devs/dbas/admins stepped in…

One of the things that the colonial powers did, in Africa and South America, was to pit the various tribes and factions against each other. The British even moved northern tribes and Indian workers into their southern colonies.

It was pretty damn effective. The damage still resonates to this day, long after the colonial powers left.

No one paid any attention to the man behind the curtain; they were too busy killing each other.

Post reply on HN