71–80 of 225 posts
I’m in the unique situation where I’m hiring my replacement after having made a promotion. I know they will make (substantially) more than me. How would I negotiate a matching or superior salary?
With higher pay plus less experience comes entitlement. It’s the attitude of I shouldn’t have to do x, y, or z . Usually it’s because they can’t do those things and in full fear mode vomit some bullshit excuses. That, more than anything else, is why I’m in another line of work full of former programmers who are eager to do something else.
I just had a very valuable teammate quit this week from lack of salary progression. New-ish grads are making more than him for much lesser jobs. The business refused to do even a token salary increase because of the ‘economic climate’ Now a critical project won’t happen on time, which will cost the company many magnitudes more in revenue than it would have cost them with a token increase. Oops.
There's a meta-game that most sociopaths/narcs are playing like their lives depend on it to get their supply and climb the internal ladder, that's taking up so much energy/time/resources of the company, falling upwards
That there's nothing left to care about this sort of thing
With higher pay plus less experience comes entitlement. It’s the attitude of I shouldn’t have to do x, y, or z . Usually it’s because they can’t do those things and in full fear mode vomit some bullshit excuses. That, more than anything else, is why I’m in another line of work full of former programmers who are eager to do something else.
What line of work is that?
Well no shit. If I'm currently a top performer and we hire new workers at a higher pay rate than me, if I have to wait to get a raise because of BS corporate bureaucracy then the company should know from the second they say no I have my foot halfway out the door. Funnily enough at many companies the second you actually threaten to leave, that corporate BS suddenly isn't an issue. But trust has already been lost. Exac…
So many bureaucratic sacred cows went out the window.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in the US, have a decent-paying job, but I don't have any kids, and I got a vasectomy so it seems unlikely that I will have any kids. If something happens by accident (e.g. the vas deferens heals), my wife and I would almost certainly keep it and we'd be parents, but I don't think that's terribly likely. I actually do really like kids, I like my nieces and nephew, but the problem is that the value proposition…
If you look at children as some utility-investment ... yeah, you probably shouldn't have kids. But, you are incorrect even then. Eventually, you will get old. Your siblings and parents will be long gone. Then your spouse. You'll have nobody to pass your knowledge on to, at least, nobody to pass it on to that actually cares in a way only a child can about a parent. No grandchildren to spend time with that you simply d…
If you really care that much about passing on knowledge, write a book or get into teaching. You'll reach a much wider audience that way, and if your knowledge is indeed valuable then your impact will exceed many human lifespans. Literature can survive for a thousand years at least.
Creating entire new humans simply to use them as personal data storage devices seems cruel and bizarre. Maybe consider a NAS instead?
This is one of the reasons I loved Netflix. Each year they would say "to get new people in the door with your level experience, we had to offer them $XXX. Therefore we are raising you to $XXX." Some years I got 25%+ raises. Netflix understood this like no one else.
That's better than being forced to do interviews at other FANGs, getting offers and only then getting raises matching those offers. I heard Netflix suggested this as well, for determining the current "market rate". Offloading the market research to engineers basically.
It was also because Netflix understood that if you found a better job, it was better for both you and Netflix to leave and take that job, because it meant that you weren't truly happy at Netflix and may not be doing your best work.
It was truly an enlightened way to think about talent, and I've never seen anything as good since.
Used to be a high performer at Big Tech. Found out a coworker with less experience at the same level had $200k/year more in comp. I didn’t care about the money, I care about being taken for a fool. There were additional factors, but I left and started my own company within three months and nobody in my old team has anywhere close to my experience.
Truly one of the worst feelings there is... But I sure would have cared a lot about the 200kUSD/year too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in the US, have a decent-paying job, but I don't have any kids, and I got a vasectomy so it seems unlikely that I will have any kids. If something happens by accident (e.g. the vas deferens heals), my wife and I would almost certainly keep it and we'd be parents, but I don't think that's terribly likely. I actually do really like kids, I like my nieces and nephew, but the problem is that the value proposition…
If you look at children as some utility-investment ... yeah, you probably shouldn't have kids. But, you are incorrect even then. Eventually, you will get old. Your siblings and parents will be long gone. Then your spouse. You'll have nobody to pass your knowledge on to, at least, nobody to pass it on to that actually cares in a way only a child can about a parent. No grandchildren to spend time with that you simply d…
In the last twelve years I have had sixteen jobs. That number being so high wasn't really by choice; I've been fired and laid off a bunch of times. We can wax philosophical to the reasons why, but one thing that has become clear to me is that I'm not a terribly stable person. I am often pretty mean, short-sighted, and impulsive. When you don't have kids, those attributes are kind of considered "eccentric", but if you do that to a kid you're (correctly) considered "abusive".
It's one thing to be the primary breadwinner and have your income cut off twice a year when I only live with adults, but it's another when there's a tiny human who is 100% your responsibility depending on it. If I had a kid, it would be a purely greedy move on my end. They would be a prop, like a puppy, there to make me feel better more than any kind of altruism.
It's one thing to use a pet as a means of self-comfort, it's another to use another person.
Occasionally I will get the urge to "pass my knowledge on", which is why I will occasionally do adjunct lecturing at a nearby university. The students don't just accept everything I say implicitly like a child would, but that's alright and I don't think I would want someone to automatically believe all the shit I say.
I think even when I'm old and alone, I'll find ways to keep myself entertained.
To be clear, I'm not one of those toxic r/childfree assholes. I don't have a problem with people having kids. I was very happy when my sister told us she was pregnant. I like kids, I try pretty hard to be a decent uncle to my nieces and nephew. I just don't want to be responsible for their development.
I just had a very valuable teammate quit this week from lack of salary progression. New-ish grads are making more than him for much lesser jobs. The business refused to do even a token salary increase because of the ‘economic climate’ Now a critical project won’t happen on time, which will cost the company many magnitudes more in revenue than it would have cost them with a token increase. Oops.
What do you mean “cost them money” I legitimately can’t think of situation where releasing a product behind deadline would cost a business money? Obviously they just allocated resources more efficiently because they have fewer people. Likely they made more money because of increased demand.