Live data from Hacker News

Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

adamconrad.dev

381–390 of 447 posts

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't think many or most tech companies have anything positive to offer the world. All these companies simply exist to make money. Generally speaking, most companies just exist to make money. To the extent that they improve anyone's lives, is that they support the economy and allow citizens to pay taxes. There are certainly some minority of tech companies which do good in the world, but actually getting hired…

> I just don't think many or most tech companies have anything positive to offer the world. All these companies simply exist to make money. IMHO, making money IS providing something positive to the world. A lot of people are employed, and those people get to buy art or cookies or college for their kids or whatever. A lot of customers are served, and presumably got something they wanted.

>IMHO, making money IS providing something positive to the world. A lot of people are employed, and those people get to buy art or cookies or college for their kids or whatever.

Yep, I think that's fair. I just mean that this is generally the good that a company does: not its stated "mission."

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife works at a YC co that recently closed their series A. It’s weird to me that you view it as “asking permission” and not “chatting about a thing before committing to it.” You’re not alone in this thread. It feels like most men here view it through the lens of permission. I don’t get it.

It does sound very transactional. If you need to negotiate your time like that then something has gone wrong.

Does it though? "we both agreed it would be perfectly reasonable for me to ask for 30 minutes of additional “me time”"

So..."Hey, I wanna do this thing. It'll mean cutting down on our time together/require more help from you in watching the kid(s), but it has the potential of increasing how much I bring home by (X)" "Huh, yeah, that makes sense. Okay"

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#383
Also interesting there was no concern about the "evilness" of Facebook. I could never work at Facebook no matter how much they offered. You could say they are "in the business of making money" but their actions (or lack thereof) has direct impacts on entire countries usually for the worse.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That...isn't what happened. He has his routine. That routine includes some amount of "family time", whatever that means. It is probably one they have discussed before, in ensuring that their mutual needs for companionship/childcare vs alone time are being met. The plan he came up with would cut into that time. Rather than just make that change on his own, he talked to her about it, ensuring that she was also on board…

>That's called "a healthy relationship". That's called asking for permission.

Having someone agree with you about something does not mean you asked for, nor required, their permission. It -does- mean you went and spoke to them first so they knew what to expect, that you gave them room to give their opinion on the decision, and that you went into it with the desire to find a mutually beneficial arrangement in the event they disagreed with it rather than just "Wife! I have decided!"

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife works at a YC co that recently closed their series A. It’s weird to me that you view it as “asking permission” and not “chatting about a thing before committing to it.” You’re not alone in this thread. It feels like most men here view it through the lens of permission. I don’t get it.

It does sound very transactional. If you need to negotiate your time like that then something has gone wrong.

Not really. Let's say you're sharing chores. It would make sense to ask if your partner is okay with doing a bit more chores while you prepare for a better paying job.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#387

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

Reading these responses is pretty upsetting. No wonder big tech is so evil. So many talented developers willing to sell their soul for more money. No thought to whether what they’re doing is causing harm to the world.

I am a wage slave. I look at every corporation as being negative, as they exploit the wage slaves who work there. One way being how much surplus value they expropriate from workers.

If I am being paid a lot at one place, and very little at another place, I might feel more of my surplus labor time is expropriated from the lower paying place. If I program, and one place pays more, it is an indicator (although just one, and not a solid one) that they exploit their workforce once.

A handful of companies might be even more distasteful than the other ones, but I look at all of them as exploitive - so I may bypass a few companies, but all corporations employing people are exploitative, and I am a wage slave.

The concept of anything changing due to individual choice does not add up to me. Things happen due to mass action, not some individual choice with some liberal moral reasoning. Amazon exploits their factory workers, but the factory workers who organized and voted to join a union in Staten Island have improved the lot of all Amazon workers, and other workers by their organizing and mass action. Some individual moral liberal reasoning to not join Amazon would not have been better. I'm sure most joined because it was the best and highest paying job they could find.

Also, I don't see the work I do at a corporation as being something that is not causing harm in the world. It is inherently exploitative. The notion of a woke corporation doing good in the world is a contradiction. If I am doing something good it is when I am not working - organizing, educating and agitating. Primarily so that workers have more control over their labor.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#388

Also interesting there was no concern about the "evilness" of Facebook. I could never work at Facebook no matter how much they offered. You could say they are "in the business of making money" but their actions (or lack thereof) has direct impacts on entire countries usually for the worse.

Meta offering the highest salary could be because people actually do care about this, and so Meta needs to pay more for people to think it’s worthwhile working there.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point, I guess you'd have to say to yourself (or I'd have to say to myself, would be a better way to say it), "I'll whore myself out for X amount of time for X amount of money, then I can do whatever I want or work for whomever I want for X amount of time, after."

flexible ethics? not everybody.

There are certain lines people won't cross, of course. Too much rigidity, on the other hand, is a disorder. If there's no traffic at 4 a.m. and I jaywalk, does that mean I have flexible ethics because the cost to benefit ratio is right for me... I guess. Would I murder a child for a billion dollars? No. That's over a line for me.

I guess then, yes. My ethics are flexible, depending. I have also followed the two second rule, even though I find eating food off of the floor abhorrent =(

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#390

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

Yes. And it’s a good one. Even from the point of view of job satisfaction. The more $ you are paid, the more expensive it is for the company to waste your time. Also, it means you are working with other high-paid people, which means they are results-oriented - not there for some childish, naive crusade to change the world.

> some childish, naive crusade to change the world

I went into a shoe store recently and the salesman showed me a shoe that had Bluetooth which I could hook into my phone. I guess this is the kind of innovation being spun out nowadays.

One sign someone is naive is if their crusade to change the world depends on what corporation they choose to work at.

Post reply on HN