361–370 of 482 posts
There really is too much stupidity in the world. “Obviously”.
Learning to ignore it is an easy but reasonable response. Accepting it however, and learning that most stupidity can be dispelled with a bit of guidance is much harder.
You can get there if you aren’t stupid. :)
That article was a very nice surprise and apart from how crushingly accurate it is (before somebody jumps in to defend all the corporate chaos, of course) it also had me giggling several times while reading it. The answer of course is financial incentives. It is the answer 99% of the time, I know quite a few high-profile managers at this point and they are all very smart and get stuff done people and yet they allow t…
This is why I'm thinking we need a new system. Not capitalism, not communism, not anything that's already been talked about for 200 years. It seems to me that our real problem is that we are wired to demand everybody contributes. Both righties and lefties actually agree on this, they just have different views on how to get it done theoretically, and in practice have also come up with various schemes to make this happ…
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It's slightly more complicated, and the numbers are somewhat obfuscated to hide my actual employer. You're right that these numbers are not a huge deal - that much is obvious, or we wouldn't be wasting that money. What is more relevant to the average reader is that we have a large department in this space, and almost all (not all) the work is pointless because the numbers just don't matter at this scale. We have a co…
But again - isn't the antithesis of this that the company never does the work to look into any of this and, in doing so, misses a huge but non-obvious problem that these tools might reveal? So you need to build it to do the work and check, and then you need to maintain it (because you already built it and the possibility still exists, etc, etc).... Like, absolutely, there's some impossible to define line below which…
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You forgot taxes. $38k - $27k in taxes = $11k savings. So 9 years to save up, by which time housing inflation will have taken the price to ~$700k. You are then $40k short for the down payment.
Do you know a lot of software engineers that barely make $100k? That's why I'm not getting caught up in the particulars of this example.
Anyone working in in a government position, or for a state university, or for a nonprofit is probably not earning $100k except maybe in high COL areas or those with quite senior positions.
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It's interesting then how cooperatives aren't more popular or more successful. You'd think that if they were significantly more efficient than the typical dictatorship companies then they'd outcompete them, but as far as I'm aware that doesn't happen.
I think there's often an issue of how you measure success. Co-ops seem to have much lower tendency to try and take over the world than corporations inevitably seem to display at scale - quite content to return comfortable salaries year-after-year to their employee-owners, rather than reap profits at all costs. As a concrete example, Mondragon has been operating very successfully for ~70 years, but barely anyone from…
Instead we are almost down to one or two grocery chains and the government is left with the impossible task of regulating the consolidation to mitigate risk and screwed prices.
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Corporations from the perspective of most employees are communists dictatorships. Think about it: you use a communal means of production, distribute profits centrally, and you don’t get to vote for who gets to be your manager.
Communism builds walls to prevent you from leaving and put you in labor camps if you refuse to do the work assigned to you. So they are not very comparable at all, consent makes a huge difference.
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> Read the article. It's about people that will retire. Yes, and the point that everyone is trying to explain to you, which you refuse to acknowledge, is that in general, software developers in the US are doing fine. They don't need to "grind all the leetcode" and work for a BigCo. It's a choice not a financial mandate. Software developers, even outside of BigCos, are in the upper income brackets in the US. I'm not s…
Well now you're moving the goalpost. Your original comment mentioned hundreds of millions of Americans so it can't be only about software developers. That's why the focus changed to everyone. Anyways, yes you have the choice of not working on big corps. My point is that it's not a real choice unless you want to accept all of the consequences of leaving all that money on the table. You have to accept the risk that you…
Finally admitting the truth.
> You have to accept the risk that you might be a few emergencies away from bankruptcy.
Working for a BigCo doesn't magically protect you from emergencies. Accumulating $millions might protect you, but you don't just walk in the door of a BigCo and pick up your treasure chest. You have to work there for many years. In the meantime, you're subject to the same risks as everyone else. For example, lot of BigCos have been doing layoffs recently, which would put a big dent in the "for many years" plan. Also, if you suffer some kind of disability that prevents you from continuing to work, then you're screwed regardless.
Anyway, what makes you think you would be BigCo material? Not everyone is. The number of jobs is limited, and the competition is fierce. You might be able to get in the door by grinding leetcode, but once you're in the door you still need to make management happy in order to keep your job and win pay raises. The grind doesn't end.
As of last 3 months I have completely stop working in tech. I will only ever come back to tech as a contractor. I'm rebuilding my personal site to go as a consultant and contractor only from here on. I'm literally pulling down my resume today so that I stop getting harassed by these stupid recruiter Indian call centers.
I will never willing work in a corporate hell scrape again and if I choose to it will be on my terms.
I honestly think if this blog post resonated with you, you should just go work for yourself. It's far more rewarding even if its harder work to be your own boss. Good riddance to complacency and incompetence!
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It’s there but not easy to find
They used to be easy to find, but some years back they redesigned seemingly all pill bottles to hide the instructions. It’s a frustration and makes me wish ill on whoever is behind it, every single time I need to use such a medicine.