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Watching an acquirer ruin your company

startupwin.kelsus.com

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Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#201

Post by peyton »

smcl wrote: post #193
mm007emko wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…

Would this not be the best time to form a union, though? If we start to hit tough times when programmers are treated like shit and the job market is tight, then your colleagues will be less inclined to rock the boat and management will be actively trying to crack down on any attempts to organize. Basically when you need a union it could be too late. Right now management will be off-guard, not expecting any unionisati…

The retaliation penalty is tiny. You’re not really the target demographic for the whole union thing.

Spend your money/energy on lobbying.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#202

Post by distances »

Phlarp wrote: post #119
cr__ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software engineers have been tricked into thinking they are part of the in club because they are paid well enough to have the lifestyle that the middle class had between ww2 and the 80s This, and additionally we've been tricked into feeling guilty about it as well.

And still too busy smelling our own farts to unionize.

What would be your expectation for an union? I was union member as a developer when I lived a Nordic country (union for engineers and other academic technical professions). Main benefit I saw would've been legal help if I got into trouble with an employer. Otherwise the working conditions were anyway in such a good shape that I wasn't really sure what I should want out of it.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#203

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

kortilla wrote: post #198
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don’t need to unionize but I’m pro-union. I think software should have a guild like the actors guild, that enforced minimum standards. when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! I would love to know as a member of such a hypothetical guild I have collective clout to ensure I’ll never have to deal with a bullshit metric tracker again.

> when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! This is naive. Any ticket tracking system can be used to track productivity. And if you don’t have a ticket tracking system to organize work, that’s a miserable environment to work in.

But it also means at minimum a middle manager can’t use software that does stupid shit like neatly displaying comparable lines of code and stack rank devs based off this. I like this minimum. I don’t need a union to perfectly solve the problem of micromanagement but I can happily pay portions of my salary towards minimum standards of workplace environment.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#204

Post by killingtime74 »

teddyh wrote: post #195
jmyeet wrote: post #13

As soon as someone hands you the check it's no longer "your" company and you should stop thinking of it as such. Only misery lies on that path. I see this on a smaller scale where ICs leave a company and take a copy of "their" code (ask Sergey Aleynikov [1] if that's a good idea). It's not yours. If you ever use it you could face legal consequences. And there's no code I've ever written that I wasn't convinced I coul…

A child is still your child, even after they turn 18.

Are you implying your own your child. Because that’s a perfect analogy, once there 18 they are independent. It’s just like expressing regret for a sold company

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#205

Post by closewith »

andruby wrote: post #199
closewith wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this is not a matter of pay, e.g. airline pilots are paid more than programmers here yet they are heavily unionized. [Citation needed]

If this happens to be about France, then I can second this. $116K AirFrance vs €39K software engineer. https://fr.glassdoor.be/Salaries/airfrance-pilot-salary-SRCH... https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Software_Engineer_%...

That seems like an example of selection bias. Does the average software developer in France earn €39k? Does the average pilot earn $116k?

The answer is obviously not - do you have any salary data?

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#206

Post by krautsourced »

cube00 wrote: post #98
sverhagen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be good advise, but I hate it. Personally, I couldn't put my heart into the job hunt, while at the same time giving my best at the current job. In other words: just the step of starting to search for a job is for me synonymous to accepting defeat at the current job.

It's something that comes with experience. If you've had projects like this in the past you'll recognise the early warning signs (eg. hard deadline before (even rough draft) requirements are available). You'll know it's time to start the job hunt early because there's no way it can work unless you work yourself 24/7 into the ground. It's not about accepting defeat, it's about accepting you are worthy of something bet…

That right there. Failing impossible tasks is not a personal failure and nobody should waste their personal life on these tasks out of some sense of 'pride' or 'loyalty'. The failure lies purely with the person who made those plans. They are the ones who failed _you_, not the other way around.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#207

Post by xg15 »

kortilla wrote: post #200
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. [...] This does not happen for unionized workers. I can't work out what "this" is that does not happen to unionised workers? Unionised workers can switch jobs to get more pay too.

If the union has a structure with the company that rewards seniority then job hoppers are punished.

I think there are different definitions of what a union even is. German here and I was really quite surprised to understand that unions in the US are apparently per company. I believe in most of the EU, unions are per business sector - so while unions are in a sense stakeholders of the companies (if the company goes bust, it can't provide jobs), it usually doesn't have a specific interest in keeping employees in a particular company.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#208

Post by withinboredom »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #187
pdimitar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unionization can be hijacked by employers, history knows of such occurrences. Plus Amazon and Google have been caught up (in the recent times nonetheless) of hiring paid saboteurs to impede people from unionizing. My job is not to do underground mafia wars. If the employers want to fight dirty I'll just move to someplace else. Eventually they'll be stuck with the people who are OK with being slaves -- but won't be cr…

Inquiry: does this apply to other well-paying unions, such as the actors guild and professional sport players? I’m genuinely asking, because as far as I know they are still in existence and regularly ensure better working conditions for their membership without limiting their mobility.

My wife had a client that went on to play in the walking dead. In order for my wife to be able to continue to do her client’s hair, she had to join the actor’s guild and be “licensed” by them and pay dues. So, I’d say they (at least the actors guild) def can reduce your mobility, even say which hair stylists you are and aren’t allowed to use.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#209

Post by moron4hire »

distances wrote: post #202
Phlarp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still too busy smelling our own farts to unionize.

What would be your expectation for an union? I was union member as a developer when I lived a Nordic country (union for engineers and other academic technical professions). Main benefit I saw would've been legal help if I got into trouble with an employer. Otherwise the working conditions were anyway in such a good shape that I wasn't really sure what I should want out of it.

You don't think that, perhaps, the working conditions were so good because of the strong culture of unionizing in Nordic countries?

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#210

Post by mm007emko »

throwaway2056 wrote: post #163
mm007emko wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…

Geniunely asking. As I live in a part of world where we stay in longterm jobs. Is it not stressful when switching jobs? - from paperwork, interviews, new colleagues, friendships, on-boarding, new place politics - especially for brain.

Generally yes and that's the reason I've been reluctant to switch jobs for small gains. I stayed with my previous employer for 6 years (plus 2 calendar months because here you have to file in a letter of resignation 2 months in advance, that's by the law).

But software development can be stressful on its own: you have endless pointless meetings which serve no purpose but you have to attend them, you have mandatory corporate team-building shite which you must attend or you lose the "software engineer SENIOR" job title and you have to show leadership skills to HR people and your managers during pointless "funny" "games" during the team-buildings, you can't be involved in illegal activities (e.g. rage-type murder of your manager is a major no-no which can ruin your career for good). You also have to learn new things constantly in your free time because your employer is reluctant to pay for courses. The list goes on. My previous job was applied research and especially the university professors who did the actual research treated us like a piece of shite. I can't even count the number of times I heard something like "you can't understand anything because you have only Master's".

The stress-level of switching to a new job is generally comparable to normal activities. You need to grow some thick skin.

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