The Burnout Machine • Hacker News Board

Re: The Burnout Machine

#201

Post by echelon » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:16 PM UTC

__loam wrote: post #161

echelon wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made $450k TC in my last job. In Atlanta. I don't think we need unions to be treated well. Unions will kickstart the offshoring of our career. Just like every other place unions exist without a talent monopoly (manufacturing, automotive, and most recently film crews). Google is going to hire in developing markets and stop hiring domestically. Everyone else will follow. The talent in India is incredible these days.…

If they can offshore your job because you joined a union they can do so if you didn't join one too.

It's more likely they'll offshore the union job.

Unions lead to an ossified workforce where nobody does more than what is essential. New employees are jealous of tenured employees with more benefits. Once people get tenure, they'll take advantage of their status. This leads to lower productivity, not higher productivity.

Without a union, you have people fighting to show their seniority and leadership at every level. The top 10% naturally sort themselves out. And the take home typically correlates with that.

Union jobs get easier and cushier with tenure.

Non-union jobs get harder the more you want from the job, but you are in control of your career progression and comp. And the strongest rise to the top.

Switching jobs or unions will fuck with seniority, dues, etc., so it will become a factor in choosing jobs. It will likely lead to many more "lifers" who work at a single job for a long time. This leads to less knowledge and skill mobility, tighter code ownership (less fungible, less exposed to new ideas), and this will certainly lead to ossification of organizations and business functions.

Businesses are probably more afraid of unions than they are high compensation.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#202

Post by brian-armstrong » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:16 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #103

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #18

Class consciousness is firmly in the zeitgeist: witness season 1 of Severance. There is no going back from this, as once you are disillusioned it is much harder to be re-illusioned. There will be some sort of collective response by white-collar professionals at some point. I think people are ready for change.

Most developers are paid more than 2x the median wage. For HN, that difference is probably 3x-5x or more. If class consciousness is on the rise, HN's readership is in the classes that the lower economic strata are going to be rising up against. If you have any illusions that the proletariat will welcome you with open arms for your claimed solidarity, think again or you might be in for a shock; specifically, a short,…

Conversely, software engineers are generating considerably more profit for their employers than they receive in compensation on average. I know it's not the only metric of exploitation, but it's a hard one to ignore.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#203

Post by Capricorn2481 » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:16 PM UTC

JimTheMan wrote: post #134

These articles about work conditions in tech feel profoundly out of touch with the rest of the world. It's like reading a gazette from Mary Antoinette talking about how tough her life was (pre-revolution..) The rest of the world outside of tech, looks at tech and sees a bunch of very overpaid developers with quite cushy perks... Like sure, it would be great to unionise... But if tech workers don't acknowledge their p…

> But if tech workers don't acknowledge their privelege, they shouldn't be shocked when no-one else turnsout to support them

It's hard not to read your comment as anything but virtue signaling, and doing so in a way that makes everyone worse off.

You seem to think being a part of a union means you think you have a bad job and everyone should pay special attention to you. Forming a union does not mean you are asking for anything, it means you are giving yourself protection to ask for things in the future without being fired. That's perfectly sensible.

Most tech workers I know are well aware they have desirable positions and do not see it as a bad job. Is there something specific you want people to do to acknowledge their privilege? I would guess not, short of "don't ever complain about your job, ever," which is not realistic in any profession

And as a side note, "tech" means a lot of things. There are lots of people in tech making a teachers salary with no benefits. Doesn't mean it's the worst job ever, but it's probably not most people's image of what "tech" is.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#204

Post by mistrial9 » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:17 PM UTC

stared wrote: post #100

Software engineering is one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode" (I moved from academia over a decade ago, and I know the difference). This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels like it lacks perspective compared to virtually any other occupation. > We’re living in a world where billion dollar tech companies expect us to live and breathe code, demanding 80 hour weeks under the guise of "passion…

> one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode"

you have never done 80 hour weeks in software?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#205

Post by busterarm » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:18 PM UTC

Henchman21 wrote: post #116

wyager wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But tech isn't a blue collar industry, and this is about tech unions.

I work in a data center with electricians, tower climbers, and systems and network engineers. ALL of us are blue collar. Including me, a systems/network engineer. I suggest you investigate this aspect of tech — there’s more to it than VS Code and JavaScript

Data Center and Operations people absolutely are blue collar in attitude and mindset, but you DC folks get to be isolated.

If you're in a working environment that hires SDEs straight out of Tier 1 Universities, start talking about what it's like to grow up poor and you'll see quickly how everyone's eyes glaze over and you get treated like a pariah.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#206

Post by jacobgkau » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:18 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #166

legitster wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels it lacks perspective with virtually any other occupations. On one hand, misery and happiness are relative. On the other hand, try telling a construction worker how hard our lives are sitting in chairs clicking buttons. My dad used to have to do things like hot tar roofing to pay the bills. So I still consider it a blessing to get to work in software. I thi…

>I think one thing that needs to be understood better is the concept of "burnout". I can explain it pretty well. You can classify pretty much all jobs into 2 categories - map lookups and reasoning. A map lookup job is something where you learn to associate a specific problem with a solution. Most jobs are like this. You go work in construction, its pretty much map lookup - supervisor tells you to go prep the concrete…

Eh, your definition implies people who are actually skilled (i.e. able to do "reasoning" jobs) don't/can't suffer from burnout. I'd bet there are cases of the opposite of what you describe, where people would be able to solve problems with reasoning, but get burnt out from being locked into a map-lookup structure. Or cases where people are good at, or enjoy, reasoning about one type of problem, but then get thrown into a different field they're not as attuned to or interested in.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#207

Post by daedrdev » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:18 PM UTC

__loam wrote: post #198

daedrdev wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people actually don't work at immensely profitable FAANG companies.

And yet they're so massive that them all doing layoffs at the same time despite that profitability has a huge impact on the labor market of the while industry.

If someone produces less effort than they cost, it's reasonable to fire them even if the organization as a whole is profitable. That's probably not what the FAANG companies did, but layoffs are not unjustifiable for profitable companies.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#208

Post by maxrmk » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:19 PM UTC

I feel very fortunate to have worked other jobs before my first in tech. My last was hanging drywall and I will never forget how awful it was. I haven’t loved every part of every tech job I’ve worked, but I’ve always chosen to be there.

I think the author is missing perspective on what the alternatives are like, and seems to have a lack of agency when they say things like:

> How many of us have been forced to work on projects that make us sick to our stomachs - surveillance tech, data mining tools, algorithms that reinforce social biases - because we don’t have the power to say no?

There’s incredible mobility within tech - more so than almost any other industry. Vote with your feet! I’ve taken major pay cuts to have more choice over my work, and have never regretted it.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#209

Post by OutOfHere » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:19 PM UTC

Just stop working more than 35-40 hours a week. If you get no bonus because of this action, that's not so bad. If you get let go because of it, the next one could be more tolerant. You are not a slave, so don't act like one.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#210

Post by blueyes » Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 10:20 PM UTC

personal theory: burnout is basically when you're expending more energy than than you're able to recover during rest -- over chronic timelines. that is, i think getting physical health right addresses many causes of burnout. getting your device and app use right addresses a set of others. finding ways to connect with your team, users, company mission addresses other potential problems; ie feeling alienated and on a futile or harmful mission is a great way to get burned out.

wrote about some of this here: https://vonnik.substack.com/p/state-changes-work-and-presenc...