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

Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 240 posts

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#121

Post by georgeecollins »

compiler-guy wrote: post #105
tavavex wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

"Unlimited PTO" is a fiction created by accountants that sounds good on paper. When you need or want time off, you work it out with your manager. No debate about how many days you have left this year, or how many you have accumulated. It's undefined and technically you are supposed to work together and away you go. Accountants like it because guaranteed time-off is a liability that appears on the company's books as a…

Exactly- sounds great but in practice often not great. Depends on the culture. I once worked for a small but ultimately very successful start up, as a married guy with kids. Unlimited PTO sounded great. Until I planned my second week long vacation in a year and got a lot of side eyes. Two weeks per year of vacation was less then what I got when PTO was "limited". In practice under unlimited PTO you could take a week off but more than that resulted in a PIP for something else.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#122

Post by b112 »

TheRoque wrote: post #54
smallmancontrov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was famously an inflection point 40-50 years ago where wages decoupled from productivity to the downside. I'm sure it wasn't perfect before then, but things did change.

Are you talking about the end of the Bretton-Woods agreement? https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ I mean, it's cherry picked, but still funny to see all those charts.

When I looked at this, the first thing which popped into my mind came from the 95th percentile graph... third one I think.

If you're a CTO, CEO, CxO, you have direct, in depth knowledge to how the company is doing. You also likely have insight into how that translates into free capital to spend on wages. Many companies are not public, and even when companies are, earning reports aren't easy for a line worker to fully understand.

So if you have that knowledge, it's much easier to push back when someone says a wage increase isn't possible. Such as the board, or the CEO (eg, if CTO, or whatever).

This by no means "makes it fair", it's simply that the inequality may be from knowledge, and therefore bargaining power.

Another aspect of things, is that every CxO class worker can agree, their knowledge is very very important, irreplaceable in fact! Upper management, you see, is quite valuable, as of course (from their perspective) "I'm irreplaceable and valuable!". Who doesn't think they have value, after all?

But.. those line workers, or even those engineers, well.. they're like cogs. One as another.

Some might attribute malice to the above thoughts by CxO class individuals, but it can also simply be driven by self-belief in innate value, and by good old ego.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#123

Post by coffeemug »

danans wrote: post #86
jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

> Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. > > However, this requires a level of initiative and agency that most employees never exhibit Even if some aspects of that might be true on the individual level, this take is the classic "blame the individual, but don't question the system." Nothing about the concentration of capital by mega-corporations (enabled by tax po…

Both arguments can be (and are) right at once.

What OP said is definitely true on the micro level-- not "even/might/some aspects", but the whole thing. It's true that in any given organization there are fewer senior roles because of hierarchical nature, it's true that as you progress up the ladder the demands change and increase, and it's true that many people fail or choose not to adapt.

The macro argument seems right as well. If you measure it longitudinally the numbers don't stay constant. It's 1 in 4 today, maybe it was 1 in 10 fifteen years ago. Anecdotally there is definitely something strange going on with the labor market that's new, and that you can't explain by micro realities alone.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#124

Post by SilverElfin »

unethical_ban wrote: post #49
deburo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

30 years ago and prior for a generation or two. Employees had pensions instead of 401ks where tenure built up a guaranteed fixed income payment at retirement. Now we're all tied to the stock market. Oh, and back then a single income could support a working-class family to buy a decent house, two cars and maybe send a kid or two to college.

Pensions are mostly a pyramid scheme scam. It’s why basically all government run pensions have more liabilities than assets and effectively keep taking from taxpayers to not collapse. And why many company run pensions disappear in a bankruptcy.

I prefer having the money under my control, personally.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#125

Post by Aurornis »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #55
figmert wrote: post #3

There's no reward for loyalty any more, and it's caused everyone to job hop (at least while that was possible), including me. At the time, employees complained about it, and in the same breath refused to give out any promotions and/or reward employees. Or they'd reward them with some shitty voucher. The world has literally become the people vs corporations. There is no soul in working any more.

two weeks notice when you leave but where's the two weeks notice when they fired you.

YMMV but I've never seen a tech company give less than 2 weeks pay when doing layoffs.

I'd rather take the money and not have to work while I find a new job than to have a warning that my job is going to end in 2 weeks while I'm expected to keep working.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#126

Post by DanielHB »

compiler-guy wrote: post #105
tavavex wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

"Unlimited PTO" is a fiction created by accountants that sounds good on paper. When you need or want time off, you work it out with your manager. No debate about how many days you have left this year, or how many you have accumulated. It's undefined and technically you are supposed to work together and away you go. Accountants like it because guaranteed time-off is a liability that appears on the company's books as a…

Is it really a financial liability part really pushing companies for these policies? I never heard this argument before and compared to salaries PTO is minuscule liability...

Seems much more likely companies just trying to squeeze employees into taking less PTO.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#127

Post by nsxwolf »

tavavex wrote: post #87
arsan87 wrote: post #42

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low. The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us us…

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

If you tell me I have "Unlimited" PTO, I'm taking 5 weeks, because that's what I've had at every regular PTO job in the last 20 years.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#128

Post by coffeemug »

deburo wrote: post #11
figmert wrote: post #3

There's no reward for loyalty any more, and it's caused everyone to job hop (at least while that was possible), including me. At the time, employees complained about it, and in the same breath refused to give out any promotions and/or reward employees. Or they'd reward them with some shitty voucher. The world has literally become the people vs corporations. There is no soul in working any more.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

The balance of power between capital and labor fluctuates; qualitatively it definitely felt different ten years ago. For whatever reason labor seems to have much less power today. Not zero, just less. It isn't that companies used to be more loyal out of some moral obligation. They were forced to be more loyal by market dynamics that used to be more favorable to labor.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#129

Post by Rekindle8090 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors: As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying…

[dead]

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#130

Post by nradov »

yladiz wrote: post #106
nradov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merit raises are typically based on market rates as a baseline. The employees' costs in terms of consumer price inflation are not a factor. If every employer gives out raises in line with inflation that also creates a positive feedback loop which contributes to higher and higher inflation every year (I do understand that's not the only thing which drives inflation rates). If your wages are falling behind then look fo…

As an employee I don’t care about the reasons that inflation exists, I care about getting the same real money over time (only counting inflation raises, not counting merit or other kinds). And citation needed about inflation raises driving inflation, there are much bigger factors that contribute to it.

Employers don't care about whether you're getting the same real money over time. Why should they?
Post reply on HN