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

191–200 of 240 posts

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

#191

Post by coffeemug »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #142
Aurornis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at the full spectrum from great to terrible (and eventually one that went legally fraudulent) companies. You're right that there can be a problem at small companies when you hire someone out of a toxic company. Some people love the fresh start and are so happy to finally be in a healthy environment that they thrive. Some people are so broken from toxic previous employers that they can't adapt. We hired a…

Stop trying to hire folks from AWS and this won't happen. Micrsoft is famous for "rest and vest" and a far less toxic culture as a result. You could also try hiring from Intel, where the internal "great place to work" propaganda is known as "great place to leetcode" because usually the work pace is so lax that its seem as a stepping stone for further advancement on your own time...

Microsoft is no longer rest and vest and hasn’t been for a long time. The expectations and pressure are very high (at least the corner I’m in)

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

#192

Post by erikerikson »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #142
Aurornis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at the full spectrum from great to terrible (and eventually one that went legally fraudulent) companies. You're right that there can be a problem at small companies when you hire someone out of a toxic company. Some people love the fresh start and are so happy to finally be in a healthy environment that they thrive. Some people are so broken from toxic previous employers that they can't adapt. We hired a…

Stop trying to hire folks from AWS and this won't happen. Micrsoft is famous for "rest and vest" and a far less toxic culture as a result. You could also try hiring from Intel, where the internal "great place to work" propaganda is known as "great place to leetcode" because usually the work pace is so lax that its seem as a stepping stone for further advancement on your own time...

Microsoft took a pause in some areas for a moment but has been a brutal dog eat dog environment for a long time and never really stopped. I tried to get the job there once and got back channel on why I was denied: the interviewer didn't believe I'd emotionally handle the psychological environment. They went with somebody far more aggressive.

These companies are not monoliths though. Statistics really matter.

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

#193

Post by erikerikson »

ashleyn wrote: post #154
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…

Past a certain point there's also a diminishing return on the effort put in to get a raise/promotion and it mostly becomes about managing "up or out" expectations. I'm about maxed out for development roles compensation wise. By saving most of this compensation and investing it in the S&P 500 and similar indices, I get way more of a return for far less effort. There are days - not months, days - where I'll earn about…

When you control what work means you can live much more cheaply. Unless you love the high COL areas and high burn lifestyle, it might be time to work on something more personally and emotionally worthwhile.

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

#194

Post by jasondigitized »

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.

Unlimited is 3 weeks. If you go over, people will start questioning your commitment to the company.

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

#195

Post by cortesoft »

superfrank wrote: post #138
compiler-guy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> But what happens in practice is no one feels like they are entitled to the time they should be entitled to, and negotiations from the employee side always come from a place of weakness. It's a terrible system > Undoubtedly someone will respond to this post with just how amazing their manager is and that they have never had a problem. That me! Except I don't think it has anything to do with my manager or company. I'…

> Looking at my teams, the amount of PTO people take has almost no correlation to whether they have unlimited PTO or a set number of days.

If the number of PTO days taken is the same between the groups, isn't it CLEARLY superior from an employee perspective to have a set amount? That way, you get paid out if you leave or are fired.

I know quite a few people who use their PTO as a sort of emergency fund if they are laid off... they will at least get paid that amount to hold them over until the next job.

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

#196

Post by danaris »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #160
compiler-guy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

You have to manage discretionary PTO. The problem has almost never been people taking too much but taking too little. At some companies, the directive from the top to management was to make sure people took at least 3-5 weeks of PTO every year. For legal reasons you can't keep official track of this (it will be imputed as accrual) but managers would actively nudge people to take more PTO. If you proactively manage it…

> The problem has almost never been people taking too much but taking too little.

The management culture in the US (other places too, but I'm most familiar with the US) is such that any time the employee (particularly ICs/line employees) wants to spend outside of work is automatically considered suspect.

This is because non-management employees are considered to be inherently lazy and constantly seeking to get as much out of the organization as possible for as little work as possible. And when they do work, they're considered to be incompetent and malicious (requiring constant supervision).

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

#197

Post by nradov »

whyenot wrote: post #178
nradov wrote: post #48

Kind of a silly article. If you're working in education administration or local government then why would you even expect career progression? These are not growth industries.

I work as staff at a state university in what as been ranked as the highest cost of living city in California. In my field, I have the highest classification I can get. I am on step 20 out of 20. My salary is $88,000 a year. That is considered “low income” where I live. There is nowhere I can go higher in my chosen profession. The union is more interested in bringing up the lowest paid members than helping people in…

I don't think that white-collar state employees are necessarily lazier or less competent than employees in other sectors. The problem is with the surrounding system, not the individuals. Much of their work could be automated away, or done more efficiently, or simply not done at all. It's time to take a step back and assess how many government employees we really need. Why has total government employment (federal + state + local) been growing faster than the rate of population growth? Something doesn't add up.

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

#198

Post by Henchman21 »

nradov wrote: post #130
yladiz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because people are not perfect incarnations of idealized concepts. Employers are people who exist in society who have concerns beyond the bottom line. That many or well more than most employers have forgotten this fact is at the core of what is wrong with work, corporate America, and capitalism in general.

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

#199

Post by mrguyorama »

bwestergard wrote: post #177
mrguyorama wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~$0 of baby boomer wealth will pass down. It's all going to be taken by end of life care companies who charge $20k a month (yes really) to put you in a small room and have a teen with barely a highschool diploma check in on you every now and again, for minimum wage. Every dime of wealth the boomers collected will be captured by a few private capital orgs who prepared for this. It will never flow down.

In 2024, the Silent Generation and baby boomers represented 25% of the population, but held 65% of all wealth in the US. The healthcare industry will profit a great deal, but there is no way they will capture 65% of all wealth in the country. And supposing they did: ultimately, all this wealth ends up on some household's balance sheet unless it goes abroad.

Yet we have ample evidence that extremely little of the massive increases in wealth, value, and productivity of the past 50 or so years has ended up in the hands of normal people.

Why would this be any different?

You can make all sorts of hay about "Oh that money will be invested so it will still benefit normal people" but no, the vast majority of the wealth the boomers gathered will be controlled by the new aristocracy. They will do with it as they please and thus you should expect it to almost entirely benefit them first and foremost.

Private equity prepared for this windfall. Even if they scoop up only ten percent of it or so, that's an enormous transfer of wealth from average families to the hyperwealthy. That's another entire chunk of the pie that is just removed from the continually shrinking normal person economy.

A giant fraction of that wealth is in real estate: Homes. Those homes should be passed down to the next generation, alleviating our insane house prices somewhat, but instead they will come under ownership of the same companies who currently monopolize specific rental markets to ensure the price goes up as much as they want, and they will absolutely rent out those new properties, in such a way that they do not reduce prices.

That housing stock is completely and totally captured by these private equity firms that own the end of life care companies.

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

#200

Post by plorkyeran »

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.

If you're getting fired for cause then it is not an amicable breakup and the norms for when you're trying to maintain a relationship obviously don't apply. Layoffs for any reason other than "the company is out of money and is shutting down tomorrow" which only pay two weeks severance would be unusually stingy.
Post reply on HN