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The Burnout Machine

unionize.fyi

211–220 of 695 posts

Re: The Burnout Machine

#211
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…

1000% this. My partner is in the medical field, the absurd schedule they put up with and the amount they are required to work when tired is the worst. Some close friends do contracting / construction, it takes a tole on their bodies.

People that take above senior level roles or "FANG" jobs should expect to grind.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#212
You can just do things, like quitting and starting your own company instead of trying to convince a hostile company to unionize which is not a cure to any of these malaise style issues

Re: The Burnout Machine

#213
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…

IMO, this is a bad take. I've been in this industry long enough to have heard all the arguments presented here before— it's the classic ones: "pay is good", "not all jobs are bad", "others have it worse", etc.

We're in a strategic industry with lots of investment, and a lot of us who check Hacker News have good enough resumes to be in demand, but this doesn't change the fact we —software engineers as a whole— are workers. We might be well-paid, but we're still working class.

If you go outside the top-school bubble, or the usa-tech bubble, this is more evident. Take the money and generous stock grants away and the job is basically indistinguishable from any other white-collar job. Most software developers around the world can't work from Thailand when it's winter. Or take a gap year to reinvent themselves. Or find freelance work that'd allow them to live comfortably with only a dozen hours of work a week.

The incentive of companies is always to have their workers produce more, for less. Thankfully in the USA especially the stars are aligned to give "top software engineering talent" enough leverage to enjoy career mobility and cushy pay. We're at the right place at the right time.

The incentive of companies is always to have their workers produce more for less, and trust me, they're trying. It might be AI, it might be a growing supply of developers, it might be a change in investment strategies— that "top software engineering talent" pool will shrink and a lot of developers will be hit with the realization they weren't some permanent exception in the system. We might feel like we're part of the bourgeoisie because we get big cheques from the companies we work for, but we're much closer factory-line work than a lot of people realize.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#215
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…

We're definitely not victims. It's impossible to rationalise what we do.

Use this to your advantage.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#216

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.

I dunno, I live in a nice house in Kansas and work from home for a nice company and have nice benefits. What am I gonna be disillusioned about? My life is literally the best it has ever been.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly, but it's far more rewarding than being grist for the mill. Depends on your goals and your personality. When I list the things I want to achieve in my life, working for myself drastically reduces the likelihood of achieving those things - unless my own business makes enough money for me to retire in a few years (extremely unlikely). > You can spend your entire life doing less-hard work, only to wake up at…

Out of curiosity, was he doing work on the side to fund his inventions/research? I see a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in the "I have to go all in on this thing I'm not certain will work" vs. "I can do freelance/contract gigs on the side to fund my work and still have a decent standard of living until I prove out my idea(s)." You're right that it comes down to goals and personality, but if you're in a position where…

I don't know if he had side work when he started, but by the time I knew him, he didn't. He made enough money to stay afloat and have some (cheap, but smart) employees. By that point he had no time for side gigs.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#218

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…

My experience with burnout doesn't really gel with this. I find map lookup style tasks as you describe them pretty draining and the reasoning tasks relatively more energising.

But generally what actually causes burnout for me is a sense of pointlessness, that the work is nothing but the pay because it's, for example, just some B2B finance adjacent system or something.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#219
post #56

Burnout? Yes. Overwork? Maybe. Unionize? Eh… The post reeks of privilege. Go work a manual labor job outside in the sun for a few weeks and tell me how bad tech employees have it. Most of non-tech America is not empathetic to our plights. They’ll probably cheer on the offshoring of our jobs.

Couldn't agree more. My friend broke his finger and I told him how privileged it is to go to the doctor when there are plenty of people in the world with cancer and other more serious diseases.

Going to the doctor shouldn't be seen as privileged. Especially for a broken finger, which if it sets wrong can really wreck your life.

Admittedly not like cancer. But, a broken finger can be a serious long term injury if not treated correctly.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#220
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredible that people like you will watch the industry lay off hundreds of thousands of workers then turn around and make this argument. It's like devs are allergic to any semblance of labor solidarity.

> It's like devs are allergic to any semblance of labor solidarity. No, it's because we know how good we have it. Yes tech layoffs can be brutal but we all signed up for that. I knew even back in college that tech jobs can be flaky and I was likely to be out on my ass a few times in career. But I took the deal anyways because I can make six figures wearing pajamas in my basement.

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