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Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
81–90 of 102 posts
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#82I am apathetic about the entire industry, as a consultant. Everybody is working on bullshit products that have no relevance whatsoever with the real world, overcomplicated with bullshit techniques like morning standups and Zoom meetings that are a total waste of time. We had a taste of freedom during the pandemic and now all we get is a mockery of it, with 99.9% companies hiring only on hybrid 3 days in the office bu…
Most software jobs are profoundly uninteresting--finding convoluted ways to put strings in databases and fighting with systems "designed" far in excess of their requirements doesn't inspire much but apathy.
Pair this with this sick obsession the industry seems to have developed to replace humanity with chatbots, and yeah, here we are.
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Next step is cutting out all the articles with suspected dog whistles, taping them to your walls, and connecting them with red string to crack the code.
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Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#84You have depression. See a psychotechnician.
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that last bit is the key- before US workers swallowed the myth that working harder would translate to better outcomes for the company, and then them overall. But now it’s more clear than ever corporations hoard wealth and do not let improvements trickle down to employees.
You know, whenever I see a company big shot giving some "all hands" presentation about how We All Need To Pull Together And Work Hard To Make This A Record Quarter, I can't help but think to myself, "Dude, your stock net worth just increased by $5 million in the last hour of you simply standing there, -existing- behind that podium. That's likely more money than I'll ever see in my entire life. Why exactly are you tel…
Absurd value capture at the top, while everyone beneath is an instantly fire-able cog. If you do stay relevant there's age-ism to deal with after 40.
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#86People have gotten the message that capitalism is a cancer that will exploit workers of every bit of value for a pittance. People are fighting back by quiet quitting and doing the absolute bare minimum to collect a paycheck. There's literally no point in working hard for your higher ups to make bank off of you while you get an "attaboy." They're going to learn the hard way now.
> People have gotten the message The generation of young people in the 1960s thought this. Then the generation of young people in the 1970s thought this. Then the generation of young people in the 1980s thought this, and so on. I'll be 50 this year, I've gotten to see it twice myself. I've started reading about it historically (Days of Rage by Burrough is informative and neutral tone). Capitalism isn't a cancer. It's…
> There's that nagging little thought in the back of your mind, that if you were to try to fix the system from within the system, you might discover you no longer worry so much about fixing it, right?
I got to less worry by concluding that there's no fixing it at all. It's all an entropic reaction, like milk mixing in coffee. You can't freeze the mixture in time or reverse it. It's all deterministically headed toward its lowest energy state, whether that's some utopia or dystopia. And, in a roundabout way, that translates into it not needing fixing! The only thing that needs fixing is my approach/relationship to it. The fix to which is turning out to seem like taking everything (the system, people, life) less seriously and becoming a lolbertarian. Don't worry and just have a good time, man. :D (Luckily for me, that includes -- actually, is mostly -- coding.) Anyways, what was that about the '60s?
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the pay angle got serious until after like Google went IPO - somewhere around like 2005-2010. Before that, tech workers were paid well, but not so much beyond like a financial analyst. Now there's a mass market of FAANG-M jobs, perhaps like 500k jobs in total. They all pay way more compared to the average job, in multiplier terms. There has been a quantitative shift in tech worker pay at the top end in…
> Before that, tech workers were paid well, but not so much beyond like a financial analyst. Now there's a mass market of FAANG-M jobs, perhaps like 500k jobs in total. They all pay way more compared to the average job, in multiplier terms. We're really only talking about the top employees at the top tech companies in the top most expensive COL areas. It's not like every tech employee in the world is making $500K and…
“Making 500k… driving a Ferrari”
I’m guessing you’re being sarcastic but, I make that much at a tech company and absolutely can not afford a Ferrari. At least, not if I want a roof over my head. Of all the engineers I know making this much, and even double or triple that, the most expensive car driven is a model S.
Actually the only person I know with a Ferrari is a cabinet contractor. He drove it over with paint cans that I requested for kitchen cabinet touch ups.
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#88Whatever.
I neither approve nor disapprove of this message.
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#89Lack of communication breeds lack of concern, in my opinion. I don't think some folk understand how high your communication bandwidth needs to be to go fully remote.
Agreed, you need very proactive communicators. I just left a startup but it felt like issues fell through all the time, and not because they weren't raised, but it felt like people didn't understand the importance. Had a persistent collection of issues all in the realm of reliability, it took a long, long time (and many Pagerduty alerts) for me to realize that Engineering leadership above me was not communicating to…
Nothing to add, just wanted to say your post is super insightful and really resonates with me.
Re: Ask HN: Widespread Apathy?
#90IMO it’s the reality of technology being a business, not a value-set, settling in. 1999-2020 was 20+ years. That’s about the length of a long-term industry cycle. It’s also 20 yrs of selling a narrative about tech that recruited ambitious, value-driven people who also wanted to make money. Don’t want 18 hr days at Goldman or 10 years of medical school, but want the pay? Come work 8 at and make the same pay without th…
Some positivity and a way out in this dynamic: - WFH or at least hybrids enables a building or rebuilding of the social connections from neighborhoods, communities, and families. For about 2000 years, this was fulfilling to humans. From 2006-2020, Facebook became what’s fulfilling somehow. Good odds you’ll find the former fulfilling as a 101 human if you check it out. Don’t have to be a 30+ y/o with a spouse and kids…
Your comment (and several others in this discussion) really resonated with me.
I'd like to add onto this particular comment, the mantra "think small".
The process of focusing on the smaller-scale things that are within your sphere of influence (your neighborhood, your family, yourself) are slower, less instant-gratification, but they also deliver much higher ROI in long-term satisfaction.