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The Age of the Crisis of Work

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Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#81

Post by 0zemp1c »

majormajor wrote: post #12
throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

Explain to me why as an employee, I should care whether my employer greatly succeeds, just slides along, or slowly crumbles? As far as I can tell, except over the very long term, I end up in the same place. Or for a more specific example, I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job hopping wh…

I've found nothing more frustrating in jobs than when I can't help but care about things the company doesn't care about. If your company doesn't care about 50K I don't think there's a need for me to convince you to care about it. If they have no mechanism for either raising those savings opportunities to leadership and prioritizing fixes, or rewarding someone for saving them 50k on their own, they pretty clearly don'…

replace "saving 50k" with "eliminating tech debt" for many

we all know we could rebuild or refactor systems to improve them, but all we would be doing is spending time and money to earn no more money, because the "improved" product/service wouldn't appear different to the outside world

my new attitude is to not even both with tech debt unless the product will be enhanced or improved in some user-obvious way

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#82

Post by 0zemp1c »

tehnub wrote: post #5
throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

Explain to me why as an employee, I should care whether my employer greatly succeeds, just slides along, or slowly crumbles? As far as I can tell, except over the very long term, I end up in the same place. Or for a more specific example, I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job hopping wh…

Maybe if you have shares of your company stock there’s some motivation?

bonuses have become almost algorithmic

at least where I work in BigTech, your bonuses are more or less pre-baked based on:

- company prospects (they do well, you do well)

- seniority (your "level")

- tenure

I've not seen anyone get outsized bonuses based on individual merit

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#83

Post by kelseyfrog »

It's a response to "The firm's responsibility is to its shareholders," a mentality that when taken to its logical conclusion implies that I'm of no worth to a company other than my money making ability. Some people are perfectly fine with this arrangement, while others see themselves as used as a means to an end.

Under that framing, who wants to be seen as a means to an end? The Kantians in the room find the arrangement morally impermissible. Besides, when the pandemic revealed that most of the work we do isn't even under the guise of a common good to the betterment of society, the moral plausible deniability vanishes and leaves us exposed to the harsh reality of being used as a means to an end.

To any critiques, especially those who says, "but that's how things are," I respond in kind with the categorical imperative - that we should act as if they aren't because not doing so only perpetuates the using of people as a means to an end.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#84

Post by the_only_law »

pknomad wrote: post #22
throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

Explain to me why as an employee, I should care whether my employer greatly succeeds, just slides along, or slowly crumbles? As far as I can tell, except over the very long term, I end up in the same place. Or for a more specific example, I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job hopping wh…

Your point about this reminds me of this scene in Office Space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_1lIFRdnhA This movie really spoke to me during the pandemic and I'm guessing it has for many others as well. That being said... I do think it's more about who you work with that makes work more enjoyable. I find extra motivation at work for mundane things like working on tech debt if it means making my colleague's job ea…

Yeah I rewatched it a couple times after getting laid off. It’s always uncanny how “real” many of Mike Judge’s characters are.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#85

Post by gdulli »

adamwong246 wrote: post #72

A lot of people are realizing it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you are great or terrible at your job, because you might get fired or laid-off either way. You can spend you whole life squirreling away your retirement, only to watch those savings evaporate at the next "financial crisis". We're told the system is meritocracy but it never seems to pan out that way.

I really this attitude is too dire. Effort is not always rewarded quickly or transactionally. But over the long run, it does make a difference. Even if there's more bullshit and frustration than there should be along the way.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#86

Post by nine_zeros »

blastro wrote: post #77
nine_zeros wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I'm still not hearing what the company will do for A workers. How can management guarantee that an A player is evaluated and rewarded correctly? What controls does the company have to prevent B-level management from hurting A-level workers?

I think he's saying that you will continue to get paid and be part of the team. That's the trade. The others are on their way out, slowly or quickly. Not that there's some extra benefit by being on the A side.

> I think he's saying that you will continue to get paid and be part of the team. That's the trade. The others are on their way out, slowly or quickly. Not that there's some extra benefit by being on the A side.

And why does he think that A employees will continue to be around if this is the game?

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#87

Post by gdulli »

denkmoon wrote: post #38

Why the fuck would I ever put in more effort than absolutely necessary when I will not be rewarded proportionately for the increased effort? It probably won't even be noticed. and even if I were, where does that get me? Still sucking eggs in a housing market that is now more than ever before for business rather than for fulfilling a human need, still suffering through the bureaucratic uncaring nightmare that is the s…

> Why the fuck would I ever put in more effort than absolutely necessary when I will not be rewarded proportionately for the increased effort?

Because it's unpredictable how and when you'll be rewarded, so why not put yourself in a position to capitalize when you can?

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#88

Post by seydor »

What does money buy? In most of the west not even a home , and luxuries are demonized. Vacations are alright but become a bit of a chore. Work for work's sake does not cut it anymore.

Not that this was unexpected, considering the huge demographic shift

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#89

Post by to11mtm »

di456 wrote: post #52
throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

Explain to me why as an employee, I should care whether my employer greatly succeeds, just slides along, or slowly crumbles? As far as I can tell, except over the very long term, I end up in the same place. Or for a more specific example, I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job hopping wh…

> But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it Are you empowered to fix it instead of just reporting it? How much effort to fix it? Sometimes the effort to do the fix is smaller than the work of selling the problem and jockeying for priority in the issue reporting process. Especially if going through those processes won't lead to anything meaningful getting done besides extra bureaucratic work. Or if y…

> Are you empowered to fix it instead of just reporting it? How much effort to fix it? Sometimes the effort to do the fix is smaller than the work of selling the problem and jockeying for priority in the issue reporting process. Especially if going through those processes won't lead to anything meaningful getting done besides extra bureaucratic work.

This has always been a warning sign for me; I've had cases where I was admonished for spotting a 1-line, very obvious bug (that either -would- happen, or was an as-yet-unfiled/unprioritized support request/ticket.) Never mind I'm already in that part of the code base and fixing/testing it would be trivial; The bug -must- be tracked separately, which means it must be prioritized and wait for proper resources to again be allocated before work can be done. These work places tend to be pretty toxic in other ways FWIW.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#90

Post by tester457 »

kyleyeats wrote: post #8
throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

Explain to me why as an employee, I should care whether my employer greatly succeeds, just slides along, or slowly crumbles? As far as I can tell, except over the very long term, I end up in the same place. Or for a more specific example, I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job hopping wh…

It's easy: You're pre-selected. You've been trained for decades in one way or another to unquestioningly chase the mission . You went through five interviews and putting mission-over-self was the #1 selection criterion in each. You call it imposter syndrome or cPTSD or ADHD but the truth is you've just had people screaming expectations in your ear your whole life. It's not a question of you vs. your employer but of y…

So what does it mean to pick you in this situation?
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