Live data from Hacker News

What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

noemamag.com

71–80 of 1001 posts

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#71

Because we see what's coming? Because we watched our careers go from being in service of an industry of tinkerers and designers, to being in service of the worst people attempting to maximize wealth extraction no matter the human cost? Because Snow Crash wasn't supposed to be the goal? Because our daily complicity in what's happening is also a daily reminder that we're not brave enough to be a Mangione? Take your pic…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#72

Because we see what's coming? Because we watched our careers go from being in service of an industry of tinkerers and designers, to being in service of the worst people attempting to maximize wealth extraction no matter the human cost? Because Snow Crash wasn't supposed to be the goal? Because our daily complicity in what's happening is also a daily reminder that we're not brave enough to be a Mangione? Take your pic…

> Because our daily complicity ...

Exactly this. We were (still are) complicit in our own destruction and worst yet when other courageous people spoke up we shout them down, hid away, laughed at their folly, or shunned them outright.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#73
> In my experience, there are two broad categories of Knowledge Workers. The first are outcome-first workers. Their focus is on the business, on winning, on efficiency. Human needs and faults and emotions are an obstacle to be overcome.

> The second group has an experience-first perspective. These workers love the messy middle. They value the journey. They want their organizations to perform well but as a natural consequence of collaboration, debate and shared struggle with people they actually like. Many experience-first people are artists outside of work. Photographers, directors, screenwriters, sculptors, painters, poets, writers. Many are active volunteers. For these people, to be pulled away from their economically unviable passions requires something in return: a company experience with freedom for exploration, creativity, problem solving and cool colleagues.

The first group appears to be correctly compartmentalizing work into its correct location, this is a job I do to meet a goal, how are we doing on that goal, they have healthy limited expectations of the experiences there.

The latter group sounds childish or unprofessional or at least unrealistic in their expectations that a job you do for a living will be all you want it to be. I laud people who volunteer, I do as well, I laud creatives, we need more of them, not less of them, but somewhere along the way, people need to work at the sucky starter job so they grow out of wild-eyed views that all jobs will bring one satisfaction. Some jobs are more cushy and give you more of a sense of fulfillment, true, and those are vocations in the article's sense, but most jobs are just jobs, therefore it seems unrealistic to me to expect them to make one happy.

Satisfaction in life comes from service to others, because said service drives strong trusting relationships with people, you love what you serve, and those trusting relationships mean you get to see more people and they often reciprocate, thus families (in the nuclear, community, and found senses, all apply) are formed and meaning arises as the gestalt of that support and forward progress gets us what we can handle for this-side-of-life eudaimonia.

Beyond that? That's the nature of religion and I know I'm already annoying someone with my too-strong opinions as is, so I will spare you my thoughts there this time.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#74
post #24
post #5

Side note: a half an hour call on a commute train (or in public spaces) is considered extremely rude in many parts of the world.

From my experience, (outside of the quiet car), "extremely rude" - only South Korea and Japan?

It's considered rude in Belgium, at least when I commuted there by train. People would leave the wagon to take a call. Maybe it's changed in the past few years. There were also signs that it's prohibited to call in the trains.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#75

This is basically office space but for the modern era. Peter found happiness in construction work, but when something physical like that is your job… I don’t know. A lot of those guys have back pain, inflexible schedules, working in extreme weather, and the pay isn’t even that good. Is tech so bad? Or is the world of work broken?

> A lot of those guys have back pain, inflexible schedules, working in extreme weather,

And a lot of them don't?

A lot of people who work on a computer all day also have back pain and inflexible schedules. Hell, I'm sure a lot of knowledge workers in other countries work in places with no air conditioning, for example - not exactly "extreme" but not climate-controlled, either.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#78

Because we see what's coming? Because we watched our careers go from being in service of an industry of tinkerers and designers, to being in service of the worst people attempting to maximize wealth extraction no matter the human cost? Because Snow Crash wasn't supposed to be the goal? Because our daily complicity in what's happening is also a daily reminder that we're not brave enough to be a Mangione? Take your pic…

[flagged]

That's only okay if they're a politician or business exec, right? It's fine to hold those murderers up as role models, apparently.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#79
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, (outside of the quiet car), "extremely rude" - only South Korea and Japan?

Having lived in both Australia and Japan and visited SK, for me it seems like it’s rude in all those places but only in some places do almost all the people care what strangers think enough to modify their behaviour. Which is not as judgmental a statement as it sounds like, because that care, or some might call it pressure to conform, has upsides and downsides.

Yeah, to clarify my comment, I think it's rude everywhere and I suspect many others generally also, but I've only experienced feeling I couldn't do it/people will absolutely stop you in SK/JP. I've been on trains all through Europe, the UK, almost all of North America and usually hear someone on the phone, but nobody ever says anything.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#80

Because we see what's coming? Because we watched our careers go from being in service of an industry of tinkerers and designers, to being in service of the worst people attempting to maximize wealth extraction no matter the human cost? Because Snow Crash wasn't supposed to be the goal? Because our daily complicity in what's happening is also a daily reminder that we're not brave enough to be a Mangione? Take your pic…

[flagged]

I'm not happy they do it, but I'm not surprised. There's a lot of media echochambers where Luigi M is lionized and his heinous actions dismissed or celebrated because it advances a grievance/covetousness/envy political narrative, and for the same kind of people who have to be atheist to be fashionable tend to be the ones who can fall into workism as described in TFA and also have a non-trivial chance of falling into media spheres that want to drive that anti-healthcare-exec animus crowd.
Post reply on HN