Reading about it, it seems they are in fact all the same. Even the white haribo mice. TIL.
Yeah, in a way. As in, I don't feel like I have any responsibility in things in the company going to shits (which I would if it were, well, my company).
The book The Responsibility Virus helped me a lot with this. Most people are over-responsible for the choices of others, specifically ones they can't reasonably influence, anyway.
Yes. This lies among the reasons I find it easier not to blame enterprises for their dysfunctions. The unsustained growth imperative of our economic systems makes the Gervais Principle behavior the path of least resistance. Indeed, the only way to stop it seems to come down to the heroism of one key influential person who chooses differently.
This also accounts for why I stopped trying to fix enterprises and instead focus on helping the well-meaning people who otherwise would need to fend for themselves.
I'm determined to ever only work in public, state-owned companies. I believe in a causal connection between being a private, profit-oriented business and the daily "wtf" moments, the only true measure of quality.
My uncle spent years preaching to me about the need to be loyal to a company. I never drank the Kool-Aid. He spent 21 years working for an investment banking company in their IT department. 4 years before he was set to retire with a full pension, etc. his company was acquired by a larger bank. He lost everything except his 401k. He then spent the next 12 years working to get his time back so heโd be able to retire. He died 2 years ago and the company sent a bouquet of flowers.
So the way he explained it to me was that essentially when the company was purchased all your accruals were reset and the pension was tied to years of service, which he hadnโt reached yet, then with the merger you were essentially a new employee. There was also a lot tied to retirement plans linked to corporate stocks that were basically useless after they merged. Either way, beyond working for the same company forever, his eggs were (mostly) in one basket.
You aren't a person, you are an instrument the company uses to make more money for itself. If you die or can no longer work, you will be replaced by another human resource.
I'm halfway through scrolling this long thread, and this is the first comment I've seen that isn't overly cynical. It's also correct.
I've been working for 38 years, and I've been someone who makes promotion decisions for 15 of them. The third one is helpful, not essential, but the others are super important. The people who rise to leadership positions aren't necessarily the top technical people, they're the ones who do those things with a good attitude.
The other thing I'd add is that they're people who are able to see the big picture and how the details relate to it, which is part of strategic thinking.
I was taught that my job is "to make sure all my bosses surprises are pleasant ones". 15 years of working as an engineer and that never changed. Now I have my own business and that's the thing I look for employees.. someone I can leave on their own to do a job. It they have problems they can always ask me. If they screw up I expect them to tell me immediately and to have a plan of action to fix it and to prevent it happening again. And I never ever get cross if someone does come to me and say they screwed up. Far better that we tell the client about a problem than wait until the client finds the problem themselves.
Reading all these comments makes me realize how lucky I've been in my career. I've always had great bosses who defended me and backed me up.
I'm not sure if the competence is really in the last place. I'd say it's on the equal level. Great communication and ownership of the problems means little if you can't really solve the problems.
People have those things in spectrums, not all or nothing. You have to have at least some of all of them, but I'd argue that mediocre competency with really good communication and accountability is a better combination that really good competency with one of the others being mediocre.
I still kinda disagree. We're talking here about engineering role after all. I have a colleague who is a code wizard, but has kinda problem with (under)communicating. He's still widely respected as a very good engineer, people know his communication style and adapt to it.
But if you're a mediocre problem solver, you can't really make up for it with communication skills. That kinda moves you into non-engineering role like PO, SM or perhaps support engineer.
But I would say this - once you reach a certain high level of competence, then the communication skills, leadership, ownership can become the real differentiating factors. But you can't really get there without the high level of competence first.
Weโre talking here about engineering role after all.
where? seemed like general advice.
Even then, thee aren't mutually exclusive. your competence will affect how people see you on a personal level, at least at work. And your competence affects your ability to be given problems to own. You're not gonna give the nice but still inexperienced employee to own an important problem domain. they might be able to work under the owner and gain experience, though.
Documentation and presentation are highly undervalued, and your ability to understand and spread that knowledge can overcome that lack of experience to actually handle the task yourself.
I think we might be agreeing, it's just that "mediocre" means different things to each of us. My team supports human spaceflight, and no one we have is crummy. The "mediocre" people have pretty decent technical skills if you're looking across all software development domains.
Personally, I've found the decent technical skills to be easier to come by than the other ones, and having all of them in one package is a real discriminator.
There is no ideal place to work where they "do it right", whatever kind of "right" you care about right now. When you change jobs, you merely exchange one set of problems for another.
Having worked 7 different jobs that all were in the same field made me have some backbone of standards that nobody else could have built without going through that, though. It's a blessing and a curse, so be warned. The things I picked up on that I never realized I would care so much about in the healthcare field is good office administration and Director of Care leadership. The morale is just as important as the pay rate.
i worked at all the pizza chains delivering ---- the absolute shittiest ones were a nightmare, for the same 3 reasons:
not letting employees make food themselves. it's a restaurant, you have abundant food, it's cheap, we all know it's cheap, we work long shifts, come on. the cobbler's son should have good shoes.
overemphasis on dress code -- if you genuinely give a shit if the pizza guy has his hat backwards, you should literally be sent to the gulags.
being overworked for low pay, especially being made to drive when exhausted [literally dangerous and life threatening!!]
As a consultant, I now feel grateful to the variety of dysfunctions that I experienced, because they provided me with some of the credibility that I use in advising others. That's the blessing part.
That said some companies do it more right than others. The problems at the current company are ones I can live with. Which is why I'm still there after way more years than expected.
Indeed, that's what I mean: you're always exchanging one set of problems for another, until you find the set of problems that you can accept (enough (for now)).
Absolutely. There is no business yet in which you invent money from nothing. Everyone works for someone else. It might be a capitalist boss, it might be a client, it might even be constituents or donors, but no one truly works for themselves. The only winning move is to not play, and the ones fortunate enough to not have to play were born rich. Being self-employed and/or owning your own business is just trading one boss for another.
Source: Was in private practice for a decade; now I'm a corporate attorney, and it's just a different set of people making my job hard.
I feel better about the things I do wrong, because at least I made the decisions and I can only blame myself. I can also choose which things I especially care about doing well instead of being subject to someone else's preferences. It feels better, but still yes.
And, as CEO of a tiny company, I have to interact with bureaucracies more than I did as an employee, so becoming my own boss didn't mean escaping that nonsense, anyway.
You don't have to run the rat race to get promoted. You don't have to be at your desk at 7am and leave at 7pm to put on a show. Just be competent. Most people are not. You'll eventually get promoted once you are old and white enough.
Getting promoted isn't a race. It's a marketing campaign.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease sadly. I hate it but that's the game. You can be great but if the right people don't hear about it it won't bring a reward.
The funny thing is it's a loss for the employer since it means people spend time self-promoting themselves and their achievements instead of just doing things well.
Some leadership will actively not promote you, even block attempts by you, if you're at the top of your role and consistently outperforming peers, why would they let you move up? You make them look good right here.
Getting promotions and raises is rare. Havenโt seen that happen very many times. However, many people have told me that the best way to get a raise is to switch to another company.
I worked at โAT&T wirelessโ back in the day when dirt was new. This guy would say โ squeaky wheel gets the grease.โ One day after he said that our team lead said โ๏ฟผOr gets replaced.โ Then they walked his ass out.
Yeah. I always tell newbies "nobody ever got a promotion for work their boss didn't know they did." Sadly if you produce 100 units of value and the boss only knows about 10 of them the guy who did 20 units but won't shut up about it looks 2x as valuable even though he's actually doing 1/5 the work. Trick is to be doing the most work and have people see it
If we take it from the other side, it's difficult for management to understand how well you're doing if you're not communicating it properly, especially if your job is highly technical but they aren't. Technical experts who would understand your work alone don't necessarily make good managers.
I must not be old enough because I've never been promoted even though I'm practically white as a ghost. Every promotion I have ever received is from getting a new job at a new company and ending up making significantly more money that way.
How long do you work for the same employer though? What field are you in?
I've worked for the same employer for 12 years and never got a promotion because there was only one way up and a pool of over 1000 employees to pick from, then switched to another job and got a promotion under a year...
Oh yeah if you're "just" a programmer (in the sense that you don't have other formations) you might have to do management courses on the side, that's what my friend had to do to land a permanent promotion...
It's true management would likely get me promoted faster but honestly I always wanna stick with the programming side of things. As I get more experienced I will keep getting larger salary bumps, but it's almost definitely not gonna be from promotions but rather from switching jobs lol
May I ask, what is the most important thing to show in a programmer CV?
Im a junior programmer. I would say im good at the job. I can easily create new software and also find problems in other codes and fix them. However I have no idea what I would say in an interview. Its not like I learn code by memory.
Unfortunately in your case, the most important thing is experience. You just need the years for employers to want to hire you, and with this year in particular, the competition for jobs is insane because of all the layoffs. Make some cool personal projects, that sort of thing can help.
personal projects or project you contribute to (e.g. a decent sized code base in Github). if you're early on, this can be school projects.
ability to answer programming concepts in an interview settings
school/grade prestige.
I have no idea what I would say in an interview.
if you have no previous job, then yea. It's rough. The first job is always rough, and even in software that's no exception. You will want to talk about decisions and features you worked on in personal projects for that stuff. And of course, really nail down your fundamentals; they really drill you with those interview questions as a junior.
If you have a job, then talk about that. Maybe there's some NDA, but you can talk about some problem in general terms and what you needed to do to solve it. You're not expected to do anything crazy as a junior, so your answer relies more on you knowing how to work in a team than novel architectual decisions.
Personal example: my first job was at a small game studio and my non-BS answer would be that I simply did bug fixes for a game. Nothing fancy, probably something an intern can do.
But interview spin: doing those bug fixes
helped me learn about Unity's UI system, I can talk about specific details if the interviewer cares (and don't feel too bad if they don't. Even a super experienced engineer won't be able to talk about every sub-topic of an industry)
I talk about where I encountered decisions and when I talked to my lead about what to do. e.g. One bug ended up coming from code that another studio owned. While it was a one line fix, I reported it to a lead who would then create an issue to pass on to that studio. Frustrating, but it shows you understand the business politics of the job, something school can't teach.
I never did it at that first job, but there were moments where deadlines get moved forward, and you think of a compromise for a feature due to the lack of time . That shows your ability to identify the Minimum Viable Product and to understand the problem, both the bad and good ways to solve something (sadly. in games you may have to hack solutions quite often)
Fully agree. You can be lazy AF, as long as you get a few key assignments done or overfulfill them. Everybody will be like 'ooh, he so good' and forget that you don't do shit for 95% of the time.
The white part depends on the country, in Western Europe the skin color is as good as irrelevant, at least until middle management. But yea, once you realize how incompetent the average colleague is, promotion becomes basically inevitable.
Your employer does not care about you. You are not important or irreplaceable
Take your time and energy and put it into your life, not their business
I have had coworkers die (not work related) and by the time you hear about it (like the next day) they have already worked out who will get the work done so the machine doesn't have to stop
True but there's also absolutely no reason to think they care. Even if someone dies. Because they really don't. So it feels extra soulless when they send out the email redistributing tasks right after the generic condolences email that goes out to the whole floor
I mean, how do you gauge how much someone cares? What would make you think someone cared (either at work or anywhere else)? I think all actions by a company would make people think it's just an unempathetic gesture. Even if it was a small company and the employee was there for very long and was actually missed.
The longer you work anywhere -- and I mean ANYWHERE -- the more you see the bullshit and corruption and crappy rules or policies and inequality all over.
For me it has been about the 3 year mark anywhere I've worked: once you get past that, you fade away from "damn I'm glad to have a job and be making money!" and towards "this is absolute bulls#!t that [boss] did [thing] and hurt the workers in the process!" or similar
Sometimes it's better if your employer doesn't know everything you can do. If you're not careful you'll end up Inventory Controller/shipper/IT services/reception/Safety officer, and you'll only ever be paid for whatever your initial position was.
I wanted to be a system engineer, I got hired as a devops, I started doing a bit of system engineer, called hr and said that I'm working on infrastructure and I need my title changed or else I won't be able to continue my work, my title was changed, no I do system engineer stuff and less of devops, this was a very rare occasion but it can happen from time to time.
Well it depends, I had gotten offers double and triple my yearly pay to move to the capital or go outside of my country for a system engineer position. Devops pays more in the US, for around 20-30k MORE per year, but other salaries in the US and other salaries in EU.
Personally I like system engineer/architect jobs more, DevOps is nice but lacks creativity.
Success is mainly about sucking up to the right people. No matter how good you are at your job, you have to know how to play work politics. Most bosses don't know how to evaluate actual ability, and they're much less objective than they think. Usually they favor more likeable employees over capable ones if forced to choose. Human life is a popularity contest, always has been, always will be. That's the side effect of being a highly social species...
100%. The rebranding of some HR departments as "People Officers" or "People Team" drives me bonkers. When push comes to shove, they will always protect the interests of the business before the interests of the employee. Full stop.
Your employer is ALWAYS looking for a way to either get more work out of you for the same compensation, or replace you with some one or some process that produces the equivalent output for less cost. The entire idea that employees should be loyal to their employers is one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever spawned by capitalism.
Loyalty is vastly overrated. The only rational course of action is to complete exactly the tasks to which you've agreed for the wage they've determined. Your employer will demand loyalty but never reciprocate. Don't let them manipulate you.
Also, never ever let them see you sweat. It doesn't matter how good your employer is, at the first hint that you're insecure, they'll pounce and you'll be treated like garbage. Always have your briefcase packed and a box to clear out your desk on a moment's notice.
People in your workplace don't know shit. There are a few who know stuff but the majority is dumb, careless or the combination of the two. Surprisingly the higher you go the more dumb and careless there are. We are designing monster billion dollar construction projects and some of my colleagues have problems with understanding written english. Others cannot learn a software that has literally 3 buttons in them they have to press. I don't even know sometimes why I am trying.
I have yet to see an employer even attempt to prove it wrong.
Showing up and working sluggishly is the most stable pattern. Getting it done quick and then relaxing only attracts attention and criticism, and as mentioned: More work for no increase in pay.
I disagree. There's nothing worse than having to pretend to work. I'm more drained after a day of scrolling than I am after a day of stressful 100%-work. The best imo is around 70%-work.
i think it's the mental stress of knowing this time could be spent on something meaningful but instead because of horseshit protestant work ethic - brained boomers it must be wasted
kind of like those sick sick stores that destroy merchandise before throwing it away because god fucking forbid someone else could use it. spitting in the face of humanity.
Behold and bask in the glory of working from home! Here, all your free time can actually be spent free! No more alt-tabbing to a random Excel spread sheet or dumbass email everytime the floor boards outside your crap ass cubicle squeak. No more desperately searching for mildly enjoyable activities that are only slightly conspicuous when viewed from over your shoulder. Revel in a world where if you bust ass and finish what you need to you are actually rewarded with the free time to cuddle your dog, take a nap, binge stardew valley, or just do absolutely nothing.
The fact that it is for this exact reason working from home is hated by old farts is so unbelievably frustrating it's difficult to put in words. I know they like to word it differently like "lack of productivity" or "lowered team dynamic" (which have both since been repeatedly disproven by what little research we have) or some crap but we all know they just can't stand not knowing exactly what we're doing at all times. It honestly feels like they're just irritated that workers are genuinely happy for once.
I can touch type at about 70 wpm. Why? Typing practice looks remarkably productive to anyone who doesn't know what I'm actually doing. I also find doing math puzzles helpful. Making little calculations and drawing diagrams looks super impressive to clueless managers. Of course, such strategies depend on apathetic managers.
My company laid off a few very efficient workers, who sacrificed a lot of time and mental health for the company, because people working remotely in India are cheaper.
Sounds like a company I worked for. I saw the writing on the wall and got out. A lot of good people were laid off and a second office in India was opened...
Efficient workers get more work if you're in the office. I work from home, and that allows me to work efficiently until my work is done, set up scheduled emails to go out at the time I would've otherwise been done, then do what I want until then.
I see your work doesn't have invasive programs that check idle mouse and idle keyboard behaviors.
this is an old one but i can't help thinking, what if they installed it without my knowledge, after all, my work laptop was given to me already pre prepared by our IT department.
There is an entire department at my work that employs thousands of moderators to review desktop screenshots of all employees every 5 minutes to make sure no one is โidleโ.
Yeah, they're pretty behind the times, and I'm happy for that. They gave me a work laptop, but since they didn't block me from just using my home computer instead, I just do that so that I've got an excuse if they ever bring up any strange data they might be skimming from the laptop. It's been a couple years now without any word from them about it, though, so I think I'm in the clear.
Yeah, I figured they're aware I'm not using the laptop - I'm not on the VPN most of the time as a result. I'm still able to do all my work in my own copy of excel, though, so I'm hoping I can continue pretending I'm unaware that I'm not following the correct avenues to get my work done, at least until they force me to use the laptop.
It's a double edged sword. I was very efficient, and did get more work, which got me noticed and eventually promoted out of a doing position into a leading position
It's a nice change, the work is light, the people side of the work is easy. I have higher pay and much more free time
I'm not writing up anything. I clock in when my shift starts, I complete the work designated for me for that shift, send it out by the time it needs to be sent out, and clock out at the end of my shift.
Most shops I know of these days assign a labor time to any given job. You get charged that amount whether the mechanic does it in half the time or takes five times as long.
Anymore, it's an internal benchmark for mechanics to build on the efficiency of their own work.
In my line of work, it may take me three hours to solve a client tax issue. I will bill for that accordingly.
If another client comes along the next day with the exact same issue, but this time I know the answer because I researched it yesterday, so I can solve it instantly, should the second client get charged nothing?
It does not, or at least should not work like this. If you can do same work, with same quality in less time than average, then pay rate is higher than average.
Obviously not if it's a flat rate. But empoyment rarely is flat rate based. The contract are usually require you to work a certain amount of time per week/month.
Most employers pay you to be on standby for last minute tasks. That's what you are doing for the rest of the time. You are also planing on how to do these tasks more efficiently. That is all billable in my opinion.
Wage theft is one of the least acted upon crimes.
This system is immoral, and the people who run it are immoral.
Thinking you will get any justice except for what you take for yourself is naive and wrong.
This system isn't designed for us, its literally designed for the people its named after.. Capitalists.
Taking anything you can back from them is perfectly fine.
I grew up in a communist country, and we had a saying "if you don't steal from your employer, you're stealing from your family". And people acted accordingly.
You would love that! Or perhaps not, it actually sucked for everybody.
Wage theft (when employers don't pay their employees what they're owed) in the US accounts for more stolen value every year than grand theft auto, larceny, petty theft, and breaking and entering combined. Yet wage theft is not considered a crime.
It's the same story all over the world. The real issue isn't the economic system but rather greedy people in positions of power with no accountability.
Yeah, that's exactly what they said... can you refute that surplus value is extracted through exploitation of labour forces? No? Didn't think so. Much easier to insult and deride, and pretend that was a meaningful or valuable argument, than to actually make one.
We don't have time to do it right the first time, but we will make just enough time to redo it wrong a few more times before the customer complains loudly enough that the boss pulls someone from another job which will now not be done right because we don't have time.
If the company claims that "you need to work overtimes because we are short on stuff", then that's definitely their failure to hire more people. NEVER work overtime, except if you get appropriate compensation for it.
"No" means "no", also in and especially in the work environment. If your boss asks you to stay longer to "finish the task", just say "no" and walk away.
It has taught me that imposter syndrome fucking sucks.
On a more serious note, itโs taught me to be a solid ally for colleagues but always be skeptical of the business owners and decision makers themselves. I woke up to a layoff along with 5 other people and was laid off for 3 months before I found a new gig. Donโt allow emotions to cloud your job search. Itโs all a negotiation and you should push for whatever you can get in terms of salary, PTO, etc. Never sell yourself short because the company sold you some story about how they need help.
That everything I buy can be measured as totalCost/wages*0.82=hoursCost.
I love measuring things in hours.
Let's assume I make 12/hr. Is 24 cans of soda really worth more (taxes) than an hour of work? 12 bucks might not sound too bad, but over an hours wages does.
Boundaries. Establish them and defend them with every ounce of your being. If you don't, most employers will grind you in to the dirt and send you out to pasture when you eventually crack under the pressure. Better to establish healthy boundaries up front. Not only will you find yourself more frequently surrounded by people you like and share mutual respect with, you will be happier and land fewer "shit" jobs because employers looking for people to send to the meat grinder will see that they can't grind you down and you'll be filtered from the hiring pool before you ever have to suffer at their hands.
That, given the chance, always choose a smaller company: having a direct contact with the person that pays your salary gives you a better shot in terms of professional growth
Agree, I've been lucky (and persistent) enough to end up in an asshole-less workplace.
As they say "job interviews are both sided" and the smaller the company is, the more relevant the person interviewing you is gonna be for that company: that's a good litmus test for what your potential workplace is going to be. I turned down many offers from people I had the feeling (or proof) they could be assholes.
My situation. I was told unless someone retires there isn't really a way to go up. The only reason I'm sticking around is because I have gotten decentish raises and benefits like them paying for all my personal gas.
That said, 2 of the old timers retired and they just cut those positions. If I don't get a bug raise or another position come my next year I'm gonna bounce.
A smaller company means smaller salary and bigger potential to have to fill in the cracks as management decides to not backfill.
I moved from a 10 person map to a hundreds of employees map/hosting provider and doubled my pay for minimal extra work. My team isn't much bigger than my previous team, but I don't have to work nearly as hard being a JOAT vs staying in my lane and passing off stuff that's out of my primary knowledge domain.
I had quite the opposite experience: my last job was for a big company (800+ employees) I had a shitton of work with the downside of being extremely repetitive and alienating, just a small cog inside a huge machine.
Now it's just me and my boss. Of course I'm a JOAT and I have more responsibilities, but that makes the work way less boring and I feel more appreciated for what I do every day. I earn a little more than before and I have the upside of having learned many new skills that make me a more valuable asset on the work market.
I'm aware that not all kinds of job allow you to do this, tho.
My biggest lesson was that decades of work means nothing if you become disabled (in the US).
You can end up with literally nothing and lose literally everything if you become disabled. Even if you still have skills, even though you worked hard to contribute to society for decades, it can all go away overnight and you can suddenly not afford food anymore. Thereโs no safety net, and you wonโt learn that until you need it.
No matter how much you invest you're time and effort for your job: You are expendable, and the only people who will know you were absent from home because of work 20 years later, will be your kids.
It's suffocating to be in a middle management position because you get squeezed by the higher-ups and your own team. If the higher-ups make a decision that your team dislikes or vice versa, you're going to be in the shitter with whichever party suffered every time even if you had the best intentions.
The "family" talk is only just talk. If an employer says "we're family here" or some similar nonsense, it's not family as in "we stick together through everything" - what a family actually is or should be.... It's more of a farengi perspective...
Rule of acquisition 111: "Treat people in your debt like familyโฆ exploit them."
And rule 6: "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity." (Which is also cited as "Never allow family to stand in the way of profit")
Fact is, they want you to be family in the way that you'll do anything for them, like you would for your own family. But when it comes time that you need them to help you out like a family would, they'll show you the door very quickly.
Related: if you're hit by a bus tomorrow, your job will be posted before your obituary. You're just a cog in their money printing machine. As soon as you lose your value in that regard, you're gone. If you slow down the machine too much, they'll find a cog that is more easily lubricated (to push the analogy). If you're broken and can't work, they'll replace you without a thought. Management is there to put a nice face on the company (for your benefit) and make it seem less like you're a number; but that's all you are.
The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you.
Lineman for a major telecommunications corporation. Just tested positive for covid. The unspoken rule is show up, if you are dead they may send you home. Got lucky since I actually interact with the public. Sent pic of the positive test to manager. Don't know what is going to happen.
Kind of. I work in the humanities industry, so there is a limit to off-days (as with most jobs) but nothing like a set number like five days and definitely nothing like a prohibition like I thought the original commenter was talking about, you just canโt drag it out. However, it wouldnโt be humanities if there wasnโt a human element, and itโs a red flag in the industry if there wasnโt a willingness to accommodate, like I see posts about that all the time like here for example and wonder what anyone saw in them.
Isnโt it inscribed in law that if you have a perfectly good reason to call in sick, even exceeding five days a year, that it will be granted to you? Even grade school allows something like at least fifteen days a year, as that I think is the maximum time someone can be temporarily suspended. Someone can correct me on that.
I'm in America and this isn't an issue. I don't know anyone where this isn't an issue, in fact there's this thing in America called SSI designed specifically to help the chronically unhealthy without even a need to work.
I worked a job in health insurance where I couldn't take time off for doctors appointments until I had been there for 6 months. My health got super fucked.
A central purpose of doing your job is to train yourself up to do the job you would prefer - either at the company you are with - or more likely at another.
The job I'd prefer is hundreds if not thousands of years from now. I want to have my own ship to explore planets and feed the data back to earth. New contact? Great send info to earth for ground troops to stop by and start procedures while i move to the next planet.
A planet that's lifeless but good for resources. Great, send info to earth for mining ships to start work on it.
Bad areas not suitable for ship travel (black holes, pulsars, etc etc). Ok mark perimeter for other ships to avoid.
Mark scenic areas for possible stations to setup.
Imagine thousands of ships that are doing this. So much data flow. Probably too much data for scientists to keep up ๐คฃ
Someone has to do it and not many would like to do it but those of us that would like to would have a blast! You could even do it as a 1 man crew with robots to help keep the ship going that way if the human lifeform were to die it's only 1 life vs the hundreds that would potentially die if it was a full crew of humans. The robots could even clean up for the next human to take over.
Everything except world-seer can be done as an at home aid for the elderly or folks with developmental differences. Pay is shit and you may have to do personal care things, but you also mostly hang out with generally nice or at least docile folks. But then there also can be random anger and poop. Scarily enough you usually need little to no qualifications for this work.
I have a friend that works with special ed. No licence, no cert needed. He has to handle poop, spitting, blood and the sorts. On top of that, watching and caring for those that may have a seizure. It feels wrong to put on so many hazards and life determining issues to a person with little to no training in it. To top it off, he has to fight to get a full time potion to even get benefits.
Fair point. I was thinking about an in home aid, which my partner did for 7+ years with developmentally impaired adults. It was rarely dangerous and the employees were prepared for each unique client, which they could spend years with if they chose to stay. The lack of professional training is not ideal nor fair to either party, but neither this is world we live in and those folks need aids who care. If you want to mostly hang out with folks and make a meaningful impact this would be a way to do that.
Who says I don't? Just nothing I do can be turned into a job that pays enough money to live. I don't want to be doing one thing for more than 5-10 hours a week, and I want to do many different things, not stick with one for very long.
I've created open source software. I've written guides for games. I've helped countless people with their problems, online and offline. All my friends would say I'm valuable to them, those are part of "society". I'm constantly making myself better, more knowledgeable, I am part of society, by improving myself I improve society.
Your problem is twofold: One, that you've bought into the idea that only paid work is meaningful, a destructive paradigm rooted in misogyny; and B, it's not that you don't like work, you just don't like responsibility. Which, okay, but avoiding it is still pretty immature. And maybe you're young, and being a dilletante is fine for now, but for your own sake you shouldn't aspire to make it a lifelong pattern.
I don't understand this mentality at all. No dreams? No drive? You don't want to make art, or raise children, or help your community, or cook food, or tend the earth?
FYI This is the majority of the workforce. They have to work in order to do other things that are not paid. The are not interested in self improvement, climbing the social ladder, kissing ass etc. They want to do a job that doesn't suck, get paid a fair wage, and work a fair number of hours so they can do the things they actually enjoy.
These are the people that drive human society. The most valuable portion that maintains our existence.
Who says I don't do these things? Can you turn making art into a job if you want to do it for a few hours each month and aren't particularly good? Can you turn child-raising into a job if you only raise your own? Can you turn "community helping" into a job if you just help whoever you can for small things without any particular qualifications? Does cooking food for myself, family and friends pay anything? Does tending my garden pay anything?
You've bought into the toxic idea that only paid work is real. Raising your own kids is work. Cooking food for your own family is work, growing food for your family is work.
This kind of labor, and much more, is just as real and important as paid labor.
The fuck? You do know you're in a thread about "jobs", not about generic "work", right? No one said anything about generic work, this thread was about jobs, i.e. getting paid so you have enough to live.
I personally would love to do almost all of those things. I wouldn't want to do them as a job. There is an ocean of difference between doing something because it's enjoyable and doing it because if I ever stop for any reason, I will starve to death in a ditch. Tends to kill the fun.
My ideal job would be chilling out as a professional student, splitting my time between large amounts of socializing and various crafting hobbies that are not stressful because my ability to live does not depend on them. Might even take up an instrument. Wouldn't play it for anyone, I just like learning things more than I like anything else. Which is not monetizable.
Barring that, whatever allows me the most time to do so without making me miserable. Beyond the basic amount required to survive, life isn't about money. Life is life.
The company has an obligation to find workers who don't know their worth and continue to do more work without more compensation. Take the additional work, get them used to doing it, and get that raise at the next annual review, or leave.
You are more important than the company, put you and your family first.
If your company doesn't provide a pension plan you have no reason to be loyal and stay.
Telework is an excuse for minimal working. Most remote workers schedule emails, get their work done quickly than spend the work day doing personal work on the clock.
Charisma is more important than performance for career progression.
Favorite employees are typically the easiest to be manipulated and taken advantage of.
From an employer's perspective, they are wasting their money if you work less than the work day. Most employees waste their workdays in the office, stretching out work. One of the reasons why telework is failing is because, after three years, employers finally figured out that their employees are not working the whole day. From their point of view, that means you are unproductive because you could be doing even more and can handle a much larger workload. Employees obviously don't want them to know that.
So the solution is to get them back to the office so they are forced to spend more time either being slowed down by their environment or pretending to work like before? I don't understand the point. Employees are not going to magically transpose 2h of efficient remote work into 8h of efficient office work. The point of view is irational.
Document absoluely everything. Get every agreement in writing. If someone tells you to do something in a meeting, follow it up with an email response confirming the action. Keep a copy of those emails. If itโs not written, it didnโt happen.
Deducing whether a coworker is liked by all the other coworkers is unfortunately a very overlooked stepped of the hiring process that I wish would be there.
If you're doing more than you're supposed to do, or doing things outside of normal work time, no matter what DOCUMENT IT. If they're a good employer, they'll compensate and reward you, if they're a bad employer you can leave and it'll be easier to update your resume by referencing your own documentation
Itโs about who you know. Donโt socially isolate your self even when you are great at your job. Being invisible is a sure fire way to be overlooked when it comes to promotions or a raise. Also being likable means your colleagues will more likely have your back and root for you.
A couple of months ago there was a post on Reddit of a Gen Z person who hated when people would say a simple good morning to them. They rather walk into work, sit down, do their work and go home without talking to anyone. And a lot of other Gen Z people agreed with them. Crazy that they donโt understand how the โgameโ works, nobody is going to root for you when you act like that. Also no wonder Gen Z is struggling with loneliness.
Let's not start shitting on the next generation, please. We promised to be better, so let's make an attempt at empathy yeah? IDK how old you are but keep in mind they're inheriting a dying planet, late stage capitalism, and in general, hopelessness. I'm very securely in the millennial range and we were also shit on heavily when entering the workforce. Be better.
We also need them very immediately to vote. We can't count on other millennials, gen x has given up trying and boomers are still voting like it's their job. We need to make sure they vote, IDC who they pick, they just need to be active.
The way we've structured work in the U.S. is a capitalist farce. We've been duped into working our asses off to make someone else who doesn't care about your well-being a large pile of money. So, I get my work done, I don't slack, but, I'm not going to go out of my way to do things for a company that would replace me tomorrow if I got bit by a bus.
I love the image of a bus zooming towards you, the fear of being hit, the bus stops at the last second, you're so relieved 'whew', and then it opens it's giant bus mouth like jaws and CHOMP!
X post from user The Skinfluencer @angelamavalla: What is the biggest lesson that employment has taught you?
Response from user Penunggu ExtraJenaka @Nazafi_Hamid: Efficient workers get punished with more work.
[I am a human, if I've made a mistake please message and let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. ๐]
Fuck the company, don't get lured into a feeling of "fAmiLy" or even loyality towards them. Do as little work as possible, get as much money out of them as possible, then switch companies and get a significant pay rise. Rinse and repeat.
This is why yesterday, after completing double the minimum expected work, I "worked from home" for the last two hours. Meanwhile, there's a senior on the team who did a quarter of the work I did last quarter. And he gets paid more!
They're not your friends, even if they act like that.
The management just sees you as expense factor and does not care about you except for how to get the most work done for the least amount of money. Your team leader does not care about you and only cares if their numbers look good. Your colleagues do not care about you and only see you as competition or the idiot they can give their work to.
If someone is nice to you they want something from you not because they like you.
A lot of truth in this thread, albeit too cynical for my taste. Yes, the company as soulless, emotionless entity doesn't care for you. However, your coworkers might, even your boss.
Also, my main take away:
make sure you know your worth
make sure the right people know your worth
make sure the right people know that you know your worth
That's never been my experience, I work in retail so it can be tricky when you're going up against thousands of other applicants and they usually don't require experience.
Interesting, I've definitely gone months applying for jobs and not hearing back for interviews or anything. I suppose location and sheer luck has a bit to do with it as well.
playing the game is a necessary function of corporate work, otherwise it will chew you up and spit you out. you can have autonomy if you've made the right people happy, the rest can get fucked.
To add some positivity... Art is absolutely something you can make money with. It's a struggle and you're going to be poor for most of your early career, but that goes for most jobs. Make art.
When Im working hard to get somewhere in the company I get shit from people:
"ThE cOmPaNy dOeSn'T cArE aBoUt YoU...."
Yeaah I fucking know the company doesn't care. But its not like I'm getting a different and better role + a better salary if I just work the bare minimum and give zero shits about everything. In the end some people just work harder for selfish reasons, I doubt its for company loyalty or Love of flowers.
That with the limited number of jobs to accommodate for, changing monetary values and demand for goods and services, natural disasters and game changers, and fluctuating, unpredictable circumstances that change how something plays out, there is nothing about the job force that isnโt fluid and prone to putting you in some kind of shifting interdependent situation, enough that making the job scene a bureaucratic construct was a big mistake and that having career dreams is too oversimplified an expectation. I knew this to an extent but now I know the full scope.
Communication is one way: they will expect you to communciate but will never communicate what they want you to communicate or that communication is expected.
Yup. At my last job, I did my best to produce quality work, I got an award for making zero errors in a year, and I was one of the go-to people for new employees to ask for advice. I trained new team members, even while I was still a temp myself.
Eventually got told that I was joining the team that dealt with all the escalation emails. I only knew how to work on 2 of the many types of products that went into that folder, but it was mandatory to work every single email that went into that box, 2 hour shift, every email had to be answered by the end of the 2hrs. I also only had a single 30min super quick "training" on how to even answer the emails (really complicated template system, which I still did not understand by the end of it)
I told my manager I wasn't comfortable working in that box, considering they never trained me to work on most of the other products, but she ignored me and said I'd figure it out.
Luckily, I only had to do it once, then they delayed my actual start date for that task, until I got laid off (along with most of the rest of my team) 3 months later. YAAAAAAY. :|
They got rid of my whole team to get rid of me? Lol, I don't think so. The job was mortgage related, and the work volume tanked in 2022, after blowing up in 2020.
I was just a barely above minimum wage minion, with no team members under me. I honestly think that along with there not being enough work for all of us, they wanted to eliminate WFH teams.
It depends on the job type really. If itโs something in the food business, you are in a literal death trap every day in the name of some random personโs sense of taste, but if youโre in a humanity job for example, they canโt afford the mentality that would cause the work scene to not accommodate to you.
I work in agricultural robotics... Our client develops a new harvesting machine, but is unaware of the real danger of it. My boss just want the things done as fast as possible. This expose us to danger. Not really a robotic cell, not really an agricultural machine, something in between, without any direct regulation to cover it because it is new.
Sorry about that. Hopefully they fix that and you live somewhere where they'll be able to. In most relatively well-off countries, usually filing a complaint in court does the job.
Being emotionally detached from really stupid leadership decisions is harder than it seems
Took me a lot of years to not think it's my company that is being run into the ground. I should not - and nowadays could not - care any less.
You mean "my responsibility", right?
Yeah, in a way. As in, I don't feel like I have any responsibility in things in the company going to shits (which I would if it were, well, my company).
The book The Responsibility Virus helped me a lot with this. Most people are over-responsible for the choices of others, specifically ones they can't reasonably influence, anyway.
I found out that https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ explains a lot of the dysfunctions that one finds in an office / corporate environment.
Yes. This lies among the reasons I find it easier not to blame enterprises for their dysfunctions. The unsustained growth imperative of our economic systems makes the Gervais Principle behavior the path of least resistance. Indeed, the only way to stop it seems to come down to the heroism of one key influential person who chooses differently.
This also accounts for why I stopped trying to fix enterprises and instead focus on helping the well-meaning people who otherwise would need to fend for themselves.
That hit hard ๐ถ
I'm determined to ever only work in public, state-owned companies. I believe in a causal connection between being a private, profit-oriented business and the daily "wtf" moments, the only true measure of quality.
Edit: fixed the link.
I'm afraid I'd be even more depressed by the wtf moments in a public organisation, but I am also considering it.
I stopped giving a shit a long time ago. I do my best to consult and warn and if they don't listen it's not my problem.
The company doesn't care about you. The company doesn't care about you. The company doesn't care about you.
My uncle spent years preaching to me about the need to be loyal to a company. I never drank the Kool-Aid. He spent 21 years working for an investment banking company in their IT department. 4 years before he was set to retire with a full pension, etc. his company was acquired by a larger bank. He lost everything except his 401k. He then spent the next 12 years working to get his time back so heโd be able to retire. He died 2 years ago and the company sent a bouquet of flowers.
THE COMPANY DOESNโT CARE ABOUT YOU!!
How do you lose a pension? It doesn't matter where you work or if a company gets bought.
So the way he explained it to me was that essentially when the company was purchased all your accruals were reset and the pension was tied to years of service, which he hadnโt reached yet, then with the merger you were essentially a new employee. There was also a lot tied to retirement plans linked to corporate stocks that were basically useless after they merged. Either way, beyond working for the same company forever, his eggs were (mostly) in one basket.
The company cares about you in the same way a beef farmer cares about his cattle.
Not even if you do valuable or efficent stuff for the company. You're disposable.
The company is always on the lookout for ways to replace you with somebody who will do more for less.
And in the meantime, they will squeeze you for every drop of effort they think they can get away with.
They refer to you as .... HUMAN RESOURCES
You aren't a person, you are an instrument the company uses to make more money for itself. If you die or can no longer work, you will be replaced by another human resource.
The people on the top of the company don't care, either... Even if it seems like the really like you alot.
The most important traits for doing well at work (in this order):
I'm halfway through scrolling this long thread, and this is the first comment I've seen that isn't overly cynical. It's also correct.
I've been working for 38 years, and I've been someone who makes promotion decisions for 15 of them. The third one is helpful, not essential, but the others are super important. The people who rise to leadership positions aren't necessarily the top technical people, they're the ones who do those things with a good attitude.
The other thing I'd add is that they're people who are able to see the big picture and how the details relate to it, which is part of strategic thinking.
I was taught that my job is "to make sure all my bosses surprises are pleasant ones". 15 years of working as an engineer and that never changed. Now I have my own business and that's the thing I look for employees.. someone I can leave on their own to do a job. It they have problems they can always ask me. If they screw up I expect them to tell me immediately and to have a plan of action to fix it and to prevent it happening again. And I never ever get cross if someone does come to me and say they screwed up. Far better that we tell the client about a problem than wait until the client finds the problem themselves.
Reading all these comments makes me realize how lucky I've been in my career. I've always had great bosses who defended me and backed me up.
I'm not sure if the competence is really in the last place. I'd say it's on the equal level. Great communication and ownership of the problems means little if you can't really solve the problems.
People have those things in spectrums, not all or nothing. You have to have at least some of all of them, but I'd argue that mediocre competency with really good communication and accountability is a better combination that really good competency with one of the others being mediocre.
I still kinda disagree. We're talking here about engineering role after all. I have a colleague who is a code wizard, but has kinda problem with (under)communicating. He's still widely respected as a very good engineer, people know his communication style and adapt to it.
But if you're a mediocre problem solver, you can't really make up for it with communication skills. That kinda moves you into non-engineering role like PO, SM or perhaps support engineer.
But I would say this - once you reach a certain high level of competence, then the communication skills, leadership, ownership can become the real differentiating factors. But you can't really get there without the high level of competence first.
where? seemed like general advice.
Even then, thee aren't mutually exclusive. your competence will affect how people see you on a personal level, at least at work. And your competence affects your ability to be given problems to own. You're not gonna give the nice but still inexperienced employee to own an important problem domain. they might be able to work under the owner and gain experience, though.
Documentation and presentation are highly undervalued, and your ability to understand and spread that knowledge can overcome that lack of experience to actually handle the task yourself.
I think we might be agreeing, it's just that "mediocre" means different things to each of us. My team supports human spaceflight, and no one we have is crummy. The "mediocre" people have pretty decent technical skills if you're looking across all software development domains.
Personally, I've found the decent technical skills to be easier to come by than the other ones, and having all of them in one package is a real discriminator.
There is no ideal place to work where they "do it right", whatever kind of "right" you care about right now. When you change jobs, you merely exchange one set of problems for another.
Having worked 7 different jobs that all were in the same field made me have some backbone of standards that nobody else could have built without going through that, though. It's a blessing and a curse, so be warned. The things I picked up on that I never realized I would care so much about in the healthcare field is good office administration and Director of Care leadership. The morale is just as important as the pay rate.
i worked at all the pizza chains delivering ---- the absolute shittiest ones were a nightmare, for the same 3 reasons:
not letting employees make food themselves. it's a restaurant, you have abundant food, it's cheap, we all know it's cheap, we work long shifts, come on. the cobbler's son should have good shoes.
overemphasis on dress code -- if you genuinely give a shit if the pizza guy has his hat backwards, you should literally be sent to the gulags.
being overworked for low pay, especially being made to drive when exhausted [literally dangerous and life threatening!!]
As a consultant, I now feel grateful to the variety of dysfunctions that I experienced, because they provided me with some of the credibility that I use in advising others. That's the blessing part.
That, and comedy equals tragedy plus distance.
That said some companies do it more right than others. The problems at the current company are ones I can live with. Which is why I'm still there after way more years than expected.
Indeed, that's what I mean: you're always exchanging one set of problems for another, until you find the set of problems that you can accept (enough (for now)).
Is this still true if you're self-employed?
Absolutely. There is no business yet in which you invent money from nothing. Everyone works for someone else. It might be a capitalist boss, it might be a client, it might even be constituents or donors, but no one truly works for themselves. The only winning move is to not play, and the ones fortunate enough to not have to play were born rich. Being self-employed and/or owning your own business is just trading one boss for another.
Source: Was in private practice for a decade; now I'm a corporate attorney, and it's just a different set of people making my job hard.
I feel better about the things I do wrong, because at least I made the decisions and I can only blame myself. I can also choose which things I especially care about doing well instead of being subject to someone else's preferences. It feels better, but still yes.
And, as CEO of a tiny company, I have to interact with bureaucracies more than I did as an employee, so becoming my own boss didn't mean escaping that nonsense, anyway.
You don't have to run the rat race to get promoted. You don't have to be at your desk at 7am and leave at 7pm to put on a show. Just be competent. Most people are not. You'll eventually get promoted once you are old and white enough.
Getting promoted isn't a race. It's a marketing campaign. The squeaky wheel gets the grease sadly. I hate it but that's the game. You can be great but if the right people don't hear about it it won't bring a reward.
The funny thing is it's a loss for the employer since it means people spend time self-promoting themselves and their achievements instead of just doing things well.
Some leadership will actively not promote you, even block attempts by you, if you're at the top of your role and consistently outperforming peers, why would they let you move up? You make them look good right here.
Had a sup that did that to me. It sucked. Glad I'm not working for her anymore.
Getting promotions and raises is rare. Havenโt seen that happen very many times. However, many people have told me that the best way to get a raise is to switch to another company.
I worked at โAT&T wirelessโ back in the day when dirt was new. This guy would say โ squeaky wheel gets the grease.โ One day after he said that our team lead said โ๏ฟผOr gets replaced.โ Then they walked his ass out.
Yeah. I always tell newbies "nobody ever got a promotion for work their boss didn't know they did." Sadly if you produce 100 units of value and the boss only knows about 10 of them the guy who did 20 units but won't shut up about it looks 2x as valuable even though he's actually doing 1/5 the work. Trick is to be doing the most work and have people see it
If we take it from the other side, it's difficult for management to understand how well you're doing if you're not communicating it properly, especially if your job is highly technical but they aren't. Technical experts who would understand your work alone don't necessarily make good managers.
I must not be old enough because I've never been promoted even though I'm practically white as a ghost. Every promotion I have ever received is from getting a new job at a new company and ending up making significantly more money that way.
How long do you work for the same employer though? What field are you in?
I've worked for the same employer for 12 years and never got a promotion because there was only one way up and a pool of over 1000 employees to pick from, then switched to another job and got a promotion under a year...
Around 3 years per employer, so it's a bit on the shorter end, but not too far from the average for my field.
I'm a programmer. Not a ton of competition per team, especially when I usually work on smaller teams.
Oh yeah if you're "just" a programmer (in the sense that you don't have other formations) you might have to do management courses on the side, that's what my friend had to do to land a permanent promotion...
It's true management would likely get me promoted faster but honestly I always wanna stick with the programming side of things. As I get more experienced I will keep getting larger salary bumps, but it's almost definitely not gonna be from promotions but rather from switching jobs lol
May I ask, what is the most important thing to show in a programmer CV?
Im a junior programmer. I would say im good at the job. I can easily create new software and also find problems in other codes and fix them. However I have no idea what I would say in an interview. Its not like I learn code by memory.
Unfortunately in your case, the most important thing is experience. You just need the years for employers to want to hire you, and with this year in particular, the competition for jobs is insane because of all the layoffs. Make some cool personal projects, that sort of thing can help.
in rough order of important:
if you have no previous job, then yea. It's rough. The first job is always rough, and even in software that's no exception. You will want to talk about decisions and features you worked on in personal projects for that stuff. And of course, really nail down your fundamentals; they really drill you with those interview questions as a junior.
If you have a job, then talk about that. Maybe there's some NDA, but you can talk about some problem in general terms and what you needed to do to solve it. You're not expected to do anything crazy as a junior, so your answer relies more on you knowing how to work in a team than novel architectual decisions.
Personal example: my first job was at a small game studio and my non-BS answer would be that I simply did bug fixes for a game. Nothing fancy, probably something an intern can do.
But interview spin: doing those bug fixes
Best of luck
Most probably you will never be promoted anyway.
Just be friends with the manager. That's who I found was promoted the most in my career.
tbh its pretty common in IT to find your squad (and your squad leader) and follow โem everywhere.
Except it's often a boys club with its toxic behaviors, which not all people will fit in.
Not been my experience but no doubt it exists in the field
Fully agree. You can be lazy AF, as long as you get a few key assignments done or overfulfill them. Everybody will be like 'ooh, he so good' and forget that you don't do shit for 95% of the time.
It should be noted that this is advice specific to white men in Western countries ๐ but yes, it's true.
The white part depends on the country, in Western Europe the skin color is as good as irrelevant, at least until middle management. But yea, once you realize how incompetent the average colleague is, promotion becomes basically inevitable.
I think they were talking about white hair (connected to being old).
Your employer does not care about you. You are not important or irreplaceable
Take your time and energy and put it into your life, not their business
I have had coworkers die (not work related) and by the time you hear about it (like the next day) they have already worked out who will get the work done so the machine doesn't have to stop
I don't think taking action to fill a hole is indicative of not caring.
I'm all for filling holes!
Hole filling action, even!
True but there's also absolutely no reason to think they care. Even if someone dies. Because they really don't. So it feels extra soulless when they send out the email redistributing tasks right after the generic condolences email that goes out to the whole floor
I mean, how do you gauge how much someone cares? What would make you think someone cared (either at work or anywhere else)? I think all actions by a company would make people think it's just an unempathetic gesture. Even if it was a small company and the employee was there for very long and was actually missed.
The longer you work anywhere -- and I mean ANYWHERE -- the more you see the bullshit and corruption and crappy rules or policies and inequality all over.
For me it has been about the 3 year mark anywhere I've worked: once you get past that, you fade away from "damn I'm glad to have a job and be making money!" and towards "this is absolute bulls#!t that [boss] did [thing] and hurt the workers in the process!" or similar
Sometimes it's better if your employer doesn't know everything you can do. If you're not careful you'll end up Inventory Controller/shipper/IT services/reception/Safety officer, and you'll only ever be paid for whatever your initial position was.
I wanted to be a system engineer, I got hired as a devops, I started doing a bit of system engineer, called hr and said that I'm working on infrastructure and I need my title changed or else I won't be able to continue my work, my title was changed, no I do system engineer stuff and less of devops, this was a very rare occasion but it can happen from time to time.
Wouldnโt DevOps pay a lot more than Infra in general? Seems to be the more in demand skillset at the moment.
Well it depends, I had gotten offers double and triple my yearly pay to move to the capital or go outside of my country for a system engineer position. Devops pays more in the US, for around 20-30k MORE per year, but other salaries in the US and other salaries in EU.
Personally I like system engineer/architect jobs more, DevOps is nice but lacks creativity.
Success is mainly about sucking up to the right people. No matter how good you are at your job, you have to know how to play work politics. Most bosses don't know how to evaluate actual ability, and they're much less objective than they think. Usually they favor more likeable employees over capable ones if forced to choose. Human life is a popularity contest, always has been, always will be. That's the side effect of being a highly social species...
HR protect the company first, the employees second.
Just remember what hr stands for. You are a resource. No more than a stapler, that can be replaced at any time
Well, sure. Unless you're talking about a red Swingline. I can't compete with that.
100%. The rebranding of some HR departments as "People Officers" or "People Team" drives me bonkers. When push comes to shove, they will always protect the interests of the business before the interests of the employee. Full stop.
You are right, but to be fair. "Human Ressources" was an awful name to begin with.
Yeah, neither is great. Needs to be called something like "Employee Business Relations" maybe?
Company interest workers?
Yeah, that sounds way better!
There's a reason they're called "Human Resources" and not Human Relations.
There's no such thing as quiet quitting. I prefer acting your wage.
Your employer is ALWAYS looking for a way to either get more work out of you for the same compensation, or replace you with some one or some process that produces the equivalent output for less cost. The entire idea that employees should be loyal to their employers is one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever spawned by capitalism.
Loyalty is vastly overrated. The only rational course of action is to complete exactly the tasks to which you've agreed for the wage they've determined. Your employer will demand loyalty but never reciprocate. Don't let them manipulate you.
Also, never ever let them see you sweat. It doesn't matter how good your employer is, at the first hint that you're insecure, they'll pounce and you'll be treated like garbage. Always have your briefcase packed and a box to clear out your desk on a moment's notice.
People in your workplace don't know shit. There are a few who know stuff but the majority is dumb, careless or the combination of the two. Surprisingly the higher you go the more dumb and careless there are. We are designing monster billion dollar construction projects and some of my colleagues have problems with understanding written english. Others cannot learn a software that has literally 3 buttons in them they have to press. I don't even know sometimes why I am trying.
I believe the exact same thing is true.
I have yet to see an employer even attempt to prove it wrong.
Showing up and working sluggishly is the most stable pattern. Getting it done quick and then relaxing only attracts attention and criticism, and as mentioned: More work for no increase in pay.
The trick is getting your task done quickly and then pretend to still be working on it while actually doing nothing.
I disagree. There's nothing worse than having to pretend to work. I'm more drained after a day of scrolling than I am after a day of stressful 100%-work. The best imo is around 70%-work.
i think it's the mental stress of knowing this time could be spent on something meaningful but instead because of horseshit protestant work ethic - brained boomers it must be wasted
kind of like those sick sick stores that destroy merchandise before throwing it away because god fucking forbid someone else could use it. spitting in the face of humanity.
Agree. How many hours humanity could use elsewhere. Being creative, exercising and having fun.
Behold and bask in the glory of working from home! Here, all your free time can actually be spent free! No more alt-tabbing to a random Excel spread sheet or dumbass email everytime the floor boards outside your crap ass cubicle squeak. No more desperately searching for mildly enjoyable activities that are only slightly conspicuous when viewed from over your shoulder. Revel in a world where if you bust ass and finish what you need to you are actually rewarded with the free time to cuddle your dog, take a nap, binge stardew valley, or just do absolutely nothing.
The fact that it is for this exact reason working from home is hated by old farts is so unbelievably frustrating it's difficult to put in words. I know they like to word it differently like "lack of productivity" or "lowered team dynamic" (which have both since been repeatedly disproven by what little research we have) or some crap but we all know they just can't stand not knowing exactly what we're doing at all times. It honestly feels like they're just irritated that workers are genuinely happy for once.
Learn from George Costanza.
Carry a clipboard and look angry all the time.
I can touch type at about 70 wpm. Why? Typing practice looks remarkably productive to anyone who doesn't know what I'm actually doing. I also find doing math puzzles helpful. Making little calculations and drawing diagrams looks super impressive to clueless managers. Of course, such strategies depend on apathetic managers.
My company laid off a few very efficient workers, who sacrificed a lot of time and mental health for the company, because people working remotely in India are cheaper.
Sounds like a company I worked for. I saw the writing on the wall and got out. A lot of good people were laid off and a second office in India was opened...
Efficient workers get more work if you're in the office. I work from home, and that allows me to work efficiently until my work is done, set up scheduled emails to go out at the time I would've otherwise been done, then do what I want until then.
I see your work doesn't have invasive programs that check idle mouse and idle keyboard behaviors.
this is an old one but i can't help thinking, what if they installed it without my knowledge, after all, my work laptop was given to me already pre prepared by our IT department.
There is an entire department at my work that employs thousands of moderators to review desktop screenshots of all employees every 5 minutes to make sure no one is โidleโ.
Makes me want to scream when I think about it.
Yeah, they're pretty behind the times, and I'm happy for that. They gave me a work laptop, but since they didn't block me from just using my home computer instead, I just do that so that I've got an excuse if they ever bring up any strange data they might be skimming from the laptop. It's been a couple years now without any word from them about it, though, so I think I'm in the clear.
Fyi. If your IT department is remotely on top of things - they know. They just might have larger fish to fry.
We can see all kinds of things about any devices that log on to check email, connect to the VPN, etc.
Yeah, I figured they're aware I'm not using the laptop - I'm not on the VPN most of the time as a result. I'm still able to do all my work in my own copy of excel, though, so I'm hoping I can continue pretending I'm unaware that I'm not following the correct avenues to get my work done, at least until they force me to use the laptop.
wow really glad you have that power
Luckily I work in a jurisdiction that would tear the whole C-team a new one if that happened.
It's a double edged sword. I was very efficient, and did get more work, which got me noticed and eventually promoted out of a doing position into a leading position
It's a nice change, the work is light, the people side of the work is easy. I have higher pay and much more free time
You you're writing up more time that it actually took you. That is fraud.
I'm not writing up anything. I clock in when my shift starts, I complete the work designated for me for that shift, send it out by the time it needs to be sent out, and clock out at the end of my shift.
... same fucking thing, Einstein.
The non-fraudulant thing would be to clock out when you're done.
Nope. They pay me for my availability, not how much of it they utilize.
If that is clearly state in your contract that way, sure.
No, that is literally how employment works.
That's not fraud, that's called "working smarter". Not giving us a raise to account for inflation, now that's fraud.
I'm not stealing, I'm just "shopping smarter".
Damn that boot must be so far down your throat it's comng out your ass
Not wrong
Maybe it's meant to be, but my parents taught me about deliberate ignorance, and I intend to use it.
Also, malicious compliance
My parents tried teaching me that, but I was ignorant of their lessons.
Is it fraudulent for a mechanic working flat rate to complete a 10 hour job in 6 hours and collect the full 10 hours of pay?
Most shops I know of these days assign a labor time to any given job. You get charged that amount whether the mechanic does it in half the time or takes five times as long.
Anymore, it's an internal benchmark for mechanics to build on the efficiency of their own work.
In my line of work, it may take me three hours to solve a client tax issue. I will bill for that accordingly.
If another client comes along the next day with the exact same issue, but this time I know the answer because I researched it yesterday, so I can solve it instantly, should the second client get charged nothing?
It does not, or at least should not work like this. If you can do same work, with same quality in less time than average, then pay rate is higher than average.
No.
It's literally right there in the sentence you wrote, thankfully.
Obviously not if it's a flat rate. But empoyment rarely is flat rate based. The contract are usually require you to work a certain amount of time per week/month.
I remember those halcyon days when calling each other Sherlock and Einstein was the zenith of insults.
On the playground.
During recess.
In the fifth grade.
Which seems appropiate since most of people in this comment chain seem to be teenagers who's only argument seem to be "boss bad" and "work bad".
A lot of us speak from experienceโฆ itโs not just some opinion pulled out of thin air and being reductive and dismissive isnโt solving anything.
Well, surely there must be more constructive replies to that situation that just slacking on the job or wirting up fake hours.
Like does everyone here work for Evil Corp itself? If it sucks so bad, quit. Find a better job.
What in the boot licking fuck is this?
Most employers pay you to be on standby for last minute tasks. That's what you are doing for the rest of the time. You are also planing on how to do these tasks more efficiently. That is all billable in my opinion.
Wow youโre not very intelligent
Imagine caring about stealing from a thief.
They're just stealing back a fraction of what is being stolen from them.
Stealing from a thief is still a crime.
BTW, if they're a thief, report/sue them. Or are they just "thief" because of an ad hoc moral system you made up to justify anything you do?
Wage theft is one of the least acted upon crimes. This system is immoral, and the people who run it are immoral. Thinking you will get any justice except for what you take for yourself is naive and wrong.
This system isn't designed for us, its literally designed for the people its named after.. Capitalists. Taking anything you can back from them is perfectly fine.
I grew up in a communist country, and we had a saying "if you don't steal from your employer, you're stealing from your family". And people acted accordingly.
You would love that! Or perhaps not, it actually sucked for everybody.
Wage theft (when employers don't pay their employees what they're owed) in the US accounts for more stolen value every year than grand theft auto, larceny, petty theft, and breaking and entering combined. Yet wage theft is not considered a crime.
It's the same story all over the world. The real issue isn't the economic system but rather greedy people in positions of power with no accountability.
The original comment did not suggest any wage theft happening, and the original comment from the communist commando treated all employers as thieves.
What the hell are you talking about? Are you an AI bot or just stupid?
Try reading it again. It's not that complicated ;-)
Yes, because every single empoyeer is a thief. Capitalism bad, mkay. Fucking tankies.
Maybe you should have gotton some qualification or had a better work ethic and you wouldn't be stacking boxes at Amazon.
Making fun of a personโs job is easily one of the most unappealing personality traits a person can have.
I didn't even know what his job is, I invented it. And I'm pretty sure all boxes at Amazon are stacked by robots, so it's not even a real job.
Imagine thinking capitalists deserve anything other than being kicked to the curb. Workers do everything, the sooner we control things the better.
Yeah, that's exactly what they said... can you refute that surplus value is extracted through exploitation of labour forces? No? Didn't think so. Much easier to insult and deride, and pretend that was a meaningful or valuable argument, than to actually make one.
shut the fuck up.
I learnt meritocracy is a joke long before I discovered that it was literally invented to be a joke.
Minimum wage, minimum effort
We don't have time to do it right the first time, but we will make just enough time to redo it wrong a few more times before the customer complains loudly enough that the boss pulls someone from another job which will now not be done right because we don't have time.
If the company claims that "you need to work overtimes because we are short on stuff", then that's definitely their failure to hire more people. NEVER work overtime, except if you get appropriate compensation for it.
"No" means "no", also in and especially in the work environment. If your boss asks you to stay longer to "finish the task", just say "no" and walk away.
It has taught me that imposter syndrome fucking sucks.
On a more serious note, itโs taught me to be a solid ally for colleagues but always be skeptical of the business owners and decision makers themselves. I woke up to a layoff along with 5 other people and was laid off for 3 months before I found a new gig. Donโt allow emotions to cloud your job search. Itโs all a negotiation and you should push for whatever you can get in terms of salary, PTO, etc. Never sell yourself short because the company sold you some story about how they need help.
That everything I buy can be measured as totalCost/wages*0.82=hoursCost.
I love measuring things in hours.
Let's assume I make 12/hr. Is 24 cans of soda really worth more (taxes) than an hour of work? 12 bucks might not sound too bad, but over an hours wages does.
Boundaries. Establish them and defend them with every ounce of your being. If you don't, most employers will grind you in to the dirt and send you out to pasture when you eventually crack under the pressure. Better to establish healthy boundaries up front. Not only will you find yourself more frequently surrounded by people you like and share mutual respect with, you will be happier and land fewer "shit" jobs because employers looking for people to send to the meat grinder will see that they can't grind you down and you'll be filtered from the hiring pool before you ever have to suffer at their hands.
Working for the federal government in Canada I learned that following the process is far more important than getting anything done.
That, given the chance, always choose a smaller company: having a direct contact with the person that pays your salary gives you a better shot in terms of professional growth
The downside is that in smaller companies, assholes have a bigger impact on you.
Agree, I've been lucky (and persistent) enough to end up in an asshole-less workplace.
As they say "job interviews are both sided" and the smaller the company is, the more relevant the person interviewing you is gonna be for that company: that's a good litmus test for what your potential workplace is going to be. I turned down many offers from people I had the feeling (or proof) they could be assholes.
Another downside with smaller companies is there not always room for you to grow or move up.
My situation. I was told unless someone retires there isn't really a way to go up. The only reason I'm sticking around is because I have gotten decentish raises and benefits like them paying for all my personal gas. That said, 2 of the old timers retired and they just cut those positions. If I don't get a bug raise or another position come my next year I'm gonna bounce.
A smaller company means smaller salary and bigger potential to have to fill in the cracks as management decides to not backfill.
I moved from a 10 person map to a hundreds of employees map/hosting provider and doubled my pay for minimal extra work. My team isn't much bigger than my previous team, but I don't have to work nearly as hard being a JOAT vs staying in my lane and passing off stuff that's out of my primary knowledge domain.
I had quite the opposite experience: my last job was for a big company (800+ employees) I had a shitton of work with the downside of being extremely repetitive and alienating, just a small cog inside a huge machine.
Now it's just me and my boss. Of course I'm a JOAT and I have more responsibilities, but that makes the work way less boring and I feel more appreciated for what I do every day. I earn a little more than before and I have the upside of having learned many new skills that make me a more valuable asset on the work market.
I'm aware that not all kinds of job allow you to do this, tho.
My biggest lesson was that decades of work means nothing if you become disabled (in the US).
You can end up with literally nothing and lose literally everything if you become disabled. Even if you still have skills, even though you worked hard to contribute to society for decades, it can all go away overnight and you can suddenly not afford food anymore. Thereโs no safety net, and you wonโt learn that until you need it.
Because fuck you.
No matter how much you invest you're time and effort for your job: You are expendable, and the only people who will know you were absent from home because of work 20 years later, will be your kids.
It's suffocating to be in a middle management position because you get squeezed by the higher-ups and your own team. If the higher-ups make a decision that your team dislikes or vice versa, you're going to be in the shitter with whichever party suffered every time even if you had the best intentions.
Never do more than you are asked, especially for free
Always look busy
The "family" talk is only just talk. If an employer says "we're family here" or some similar nonsense, it's not family as in "we stick together through everything" - what a family actually is or should be.... It's more of a farengi perspective...
Rule of acquisition 111: "Treat people in your debt like familyโฆ exploit them."
And rule 6: "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity." (Which is also cited as "Never allow family to stand in the way of profit")
Fact is, they want you to be family in the way that you'll do anything for them, like you would for your own family. But when it comes time that you need them to help you out like a family would, they'll show you the door very quickly.
Related: if you're hit by a bus tomorrow, your job will be posted before your obituary. You're just a cog in their money printing machine. As soon as you lose your value in that regard, you're gone. If you slow down the machine too much, they'll find a cog that is more easily lubricated (to push the analogy). If you're broken and can't work, they'll replace you without a thought. Management is there to put a nice face on the company (for your benefit) and make it seem less like you're a number; but that's all you are.
The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you. The company doesnโt care about you.
You can't get sick
What job do you have where youโre not allowed to take care of your health when necessary?
I think we can all guess the country. I wish you all the best, wakkawakkawakka.
North Korea?
Lineman for a major telecommunications corporation. Just tested positive for covid. The unspoken rule is show up, if you are dead they may send you home. Got lucky since I actually interact with the public. Sent pic of the positive test to manager. Don't know what is going to happen.
Yes murica
Kind of. I work in the humanities industry, so there is a limit to off-days (as with most jobs) but nothing like a set number like five days and definitely nothing like a prohibition like I thought the original commenter was talking about, you just canโt drag it out. However, it wouldnโt be humanities if there wasnโt a human element, and itโs a red flag in the industry if there wasnโt a willingness to accommodate, like I see posts about that all the time like here for example and wonder what anyone saw in them.
Isnโt it inscribed in law that if you have a perfectly good reason to call in sick, even exceeding five days a year, that it will be granted to you? Even grade school allows something like at least fifteen days a year, as that I think is the maximum time someone can be temporarily suspended. Someone can correct me on that.
An American job
I'm in America and this isn't an issue. I don't know anyone where this isn't an issue, in fact there's this thing in America called SSI designed specifically to help the chronically unhealthy without even a need to work.
I worked a job in health insurance where I couldn't take time off for doctors appointments until I had been there for 6 months. My health got super fucked.
A central purpose of doing your job is to train yourself up to do the job you would prefer - either at the company you are with - or more likely at another.
Spend your time on interesting new skills
Doesn't work, the job I'd prefer would be no job.
Or idk, professional with-friends-chiller, or people-get-to-knower, or world-seer, or randomly-on-piano-player, or casual-video-games-player.
The job I'd prefer is hundreds if not thousands of years from now. I want to have my own ship to explore planets and feed the data back to earth. New contact? Great send info to earth for ground troops to stop by and start procedures while i move to the next planet.
A planet that's lifeless but good for resources. Great, send info to earth for mining ships to start work on it.
Bad areas not suitable for ship travel (black holes, pulsars, etc etc). Ok mark perimeter for other ships to avoid.
Mark scenic areas for possible stations to setup.
Imagine thousands of ships that are doing this. So much data flow. Probably too much data for scientists to keep up ๐คฃ
Someone has to do it and not many would like to do it but those of us that would like to would have a blast! You could even do it as a 1 man crew with robots to help keep the ship going that way if the human lifeform were to die it's only 1 life vs the hundreds that would potentially die if it was a full crew of humans. The robots could even clean up for the next human to take over.
But that's all a dream unfortunately.
Yeah this is my mindset too.
Everything except world-seer can be done as an at home aid for the elderly or folks with developmental differences. Pay is shit and you may have to do personal care things, but you also mostly hang out with generally nice or at least docile folks. But then there also can be random anger and poop. Scarily enough you usually need little to no qualifications for this work.
I have a friend that works with special ed. No licence, no cert needed. He has to handle poop, spitting, blood and the sorts. On top of that, watching and caring for those that may have a seizure. It feels wrong to put on so many hazards and life determining issues to a person with little to no training in it. To top it off, he has to fight to get a full time potion to even get benefits.
Fair point. I was thinking about an in home aid, which my partner did for 7+ years with developmentally impaired adults. It was rarely dangerous and the employees were prepared for each unique client, which they could spend years with if they chose to stay. The lack of professional training is not ideal nor fair to either party, but neither this is world we live in and those folks need aids who care. If you want to mostly hang out with folks and make a meaningful impact this would be a way to do that.
You don't want to make the world just a little bit better for the people around you? To contribute something to society?
Who says I don't? Just nothing I do can be turned into a job that pays enough money to live. I don't want to be doing one thing for more than 5-10 hours a week, and I want to do many different things, not stick with one for very long.
I've created open source software. I've written guides for games. I've helped countless people with their problems, online and offline. All my friends would say I'm valuable to them, those are part of "society". I'm constantly making myself better, more knowledgeable, I am part of society, by improving myself I improve society.
None of this is any job that pays any money.
Sounds like you want to be self-employed
Sure, can you help me get started and tell me how would I make money with what you've read so far from me? Doing things I want to do.
Your problem is twofold: One, that you've bought into the idea that only paid work is meaningful, a destructive paradigm rooted in misogyny; and B, it's not that you don't like work, you just don't like responsibility. Which, okay, but avoiding it is still pretty immature. And maybe you're young, and being a dilletante is fine for now, but for your own sake you shouldn't aspire to make it a lifelong pattern.
I don't understand this mentality at all. No dreams? No drive? You don't want to make art, or raise children, or help your community, or cook food, or tend the earth?
FYI This is the majority of the workforce. They have to work in order to do other things that are not paid. The are not interested in self improvement, climbing the social ladder, kissing ass etc. They want to do a job that doesn't suck, get paid a fair wage, and work a fair number of hours so they can do the things they actually enjoy.
These are the people that drive human society. The most valuable portion that maintains our existence.
Who says I don't do these things? Can you turn making art into a job if you want to do it for a few hours each month and aren't particularly good? Can you turn child-raising into a job if you only raise your own? Can you turn "community helping" into a job if you just help whoever you can for small things without any particular qualifications? Does cooking food for myself, family and friends pay anything? Does tending my garden pay anything?
You've bought into the toxic idea that only paid work is real. Raising your own kids is work. Cooking food for your own family is work, growing food for your family is work.
This kind of labor, and much more, is just as real and important as paid labor.
The fuck? You do know you're in a thread about "jobs", not about generic "work", right? No one said anything about generic work, this thread was about jobs, i.e. getting paid so you have enough to live.
Exactly, and that's a big problem. We need to talk about it, whenever the topic comes up. It's called "invisible labor" for a reason.
I have no idea what you're trying to talk about. You're not making sense to me.
I personally would love to do almost all of those things. I wouldn't want to do them as a job. There is an ocean of difference between doing something because it's enjoyable and doing it because if I ever stop for any reason, I will starve to death in a ditch. Tends to kill the fun.
My ideal job would be chilling out as a professional student, splitting my time between large amounts of socializing and various crafting hobbies that are not stressful because my ability to live does not depend on them. Might even take up an instrument. Wouldn't play it for anyone, I just like learning things more than I like anything else. Which is not monetizable.
Barring that, whatever allows me the most time to do so without making me miserable. Beyond the basic amount required to survive, life isn't about money. Life is life.
The company has an obligation to find workers who don't know their worth and continue to do more work without more compensation. Take the additional work, get them used to doing it, and get that raise at the next annual review, or leave.
You are more important than the company, put you and your family first.
If your company doesn't provide a pension plan you have no reason to be loyal and stay.
Telework is an excuse for minimal working. Most remote workers schedule emails, get their work done quickly than spend the work day doing personal work on the clock.
Charisma is more important than performance for career progression.
Favorite employees are typically the easiest to be manipulated and taken advantage of.
How is doing your work quickly in remote working an excuse for minimal working? If the work is done, where's the issue?
From an employer's perspective, they are wasting their money if you work less than the work day. Most employees waste their workdays in the office, stretching out work. One of the reasons why telework is failing is because, after three years, employers finally figured out that their employees are not working the whole day. From their point of view, that means you are unproductive because you could be doing even more and can handle a much larger workload. Employees obviously don't want them to know that.
So the solution is to get them back to the office so they are forced to spend more time either being slowed down by their environment or pretending to work like before? I don't understand the point. Employees are not going to magically transpose 2h of efficient remote work into 8h of efficient office work. The point of view is irational.
telework gives human beings their agency back. nobody, NOBODY needs to spend 8 hours straight doing emails
That is one of the benefits, minimal working. If you can get all your work done in half the work day, good for you.
That's the biggest load of bs I've ever read. I work just as hard as my colleagues in the office and I don't clock out after half a day.
Then you are doing it wrong.
Or maybe I respect my boss because he respects me so I don't have a reason to fuck with him.
That is your choice, but your coworkers are getting paid the same and doing a lot less.
Or they just do as much as I do.
Document absoluely everything. Get every agreement in writing. If someone tells you to do something in a meeting, follow it up with an email response confirming the action. Keep a copy of those emails. If itโs not written, it didnโt happen.
Lots of meta-level comments here so I'll add one that's more in the weeds:
In an office job, it's always good to be friendly with IT and the office manager/administrative assistant.
During covid: the government paid me more than my employer to sit around and do nothing, so I had zero incentive to go back to work.
Lesson learned: Get a better employer
If you get placed on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan), it's better to resign and look for another job than to fight the process.
Coworkers is not my friend. Someone being so sad when i left and got a better job lol.
Deducing whether a coworker is liked by all the other coworkers is unfortunately a very overlooked stepped of the hiring process that I wish would be there.
If you're doing more than you're supposed to do, or doing things outside of normal work time, no matter what DOCUMENT IT. If they're a good employer, they'll compensate and reward you, if they're a bad employer you can leave and it'll be easier to update your resume by referencing your own documentation
Itโs about who you know. Donโt socially isolate your self even when you are great at your job. Being invisible is a sure fire way to be overlooked when it comes to promotions or a raise. Also being likable means your colleagues will more likely have your back and root for you.
A couple of months ago there was a post on Reddit of a Gen Z person who hated when people would say a simple good morning to them. They rather walk into work, sit down, do their work and go home without talking to anyone. And a lot of other Gen Z people agreed with them. Crazy that they donโt understand how the โgameโ works, nobody is going to root for you when you act like that. Also no wonder Gen Z is struggling with loneliness.
Let's not start shitting on the next generation, please. We promised to be better, so let's make an attempt at empathy yeah? IDK how old you are but keep in mind they're inheriting a dying planet, late stage capitalism, and in general, hopelessness. I'm very securely in the millennial range and we were also shit on heavily when entering the workforce. Be better.
Millennials for the defence of Gen Z gang rise up.
I donโt want Gen Z to kill themselves because they canโt see a future. Protect them at all costs.
We also need them very immediately to vote. We can't count on other millennials, gen x has given up trying and boomers are still voting like it's their job. We need to make sure they vote, IDC who they pick, they just need to be active.
That could very well be depression. I certainly don't like dealing with people when depression is getting the upper hand.
The way we've structured work in the U.S. is a capitalist farce. We've been duped into working our asses off to make someone else who doesn't care about your well-being a large pile of money. So, I get my work done, I don't slack, but, I'm not going to go out of my way to do things for a company that would replace me tomorrow if I got bit by a bus.
I love the image of a bus zooming towards you, the fear of being hit, the bus stops at the last second, you're so relieved 'whew', and then it opens it's giant bus mouth like jaws and CHOMP!
What kind of buses can bite you?
This kind? :)
The bad kind, you'll know it when you see them.
He must live near Totoroโs catbus.
I don't care if my company replaces me same day if I die. They should.
Don't go out of your way for a company that will fire you if you get sick. That's the big one.
That was kind of the point. Getting hit by a bus doesn't necessarily kill you, but will put you in the hospital for a long time.
Image Transcription:
X post from user The Skinfluencer @angelamavalla: What is the biggest lesson that employment has taught you? Response from user Penunggu ExtraJenaka @Nazafi_Hamid: Efficient workers get punished with more work.
[I am a human, if I've made a mistake please message and let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. ๐]
Fuck the company, don't get lured into a feeling of "fAmiLy" or even loyality towards them. Do as little work as possible, get as much money out of them as possible, then switch companies and get a significant pay rise. Rinse and repeat.
There's no shame in job hopping if it benefits you
Exactly my point :)
I know so many people who shit on people who job hop. Idk why.
This is why yesterday, after completing double the minimum expected work, I "worked from home" for the last two hours. Meanwhile, there's a senior on the team who did a quarter of the work I did last quarter. And he gets paid more!
They're not your friends, even if they act like that.
The management just sees you as expense factor and does not care about you except for how to get the most work done for the least amount of money. Your team leader does not care about you and only cares if their numbers look good. Your colleagues do not care about you and only see you as competition or the idiot they can give their work to.
If someone is nice to you they want something from you not because they like you.
A lot of truth in this thread, albeit too cynical for my taste. Yes, the company as soulless, emotionless entity doesn't care for you. However, your coworkers might, even your boss.
Also, my main take away:
Employee : This is the report you asked about
Boss : Good job! Now, I have another task for you..
Employee : ....
Find a new job before those new owners take over the business.
Employment is among the biggest dangers to mental health!
Dominant personalities and work styles almost always make it up to management.
life is so much better when u find a job u like ( or learn to like the one u have)
The money is not worth it if you dont enjoy what you are doing.
A lot of people don't have a choice, though.
I would say," if you don't find the work tolerable" and unfortunately that varies based on your options.
my mortgage begs to differ.
You mean thereโs nothing you would spend the money on that would give the money value?
It's easy to get more money. It's hard to get more time.
As someone who spent some time homeless this entire comment is bullshit haha
I also spent time homeless. Being broke fucking sucks, and it is hard to get out of. I was very lucky to do so and I know that.
But once you're already employed, switching jobs just isn't that hard.
That's never been my experience, I work in retail so it can be tricky when you're going up against thousands of other applicants and they usually don't require experience.
What do you do for work?
I wait tables.
Interesting, I've definitely gone months applying for jobs and not hearing back for interviews or anything. I suppose location and sheer luck has a bit to do with it as well.
playing the game is a necessary function of corporate work, otherwise it will chew you up and spit you out. you can have autonomy if you've made the right people happy, the rest can get fucked.
To add some positivity... Art is absolutely something you can make money with. It's a struggle and you're going to be poor for most of your early career, but that goes for most jobs. Make art.
HR is there to cover the company ass and not to help you.
When Im working hard to get somewhere in the company I get shit from people:
"ThE cOmPaNy dOeSn'T cArE aBoUt YoU...."
Yeaah I fucking know the company doesn't care. But its not like I'm getting a different and better role + a better salary if I just work the bare minimum and give zero shits about everything. In the end some people just work harder for selfish reasons, I doubt its for company loyalty or Love of flowers.
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
It is "just a job" - just roll with it and pretend and you're fine.
That with the limited number of jobs to accommodate for, changing monetary values and demand for goods and services, natural disasters and game changers, and fluctuating, unpredictable circumstances that change how something plays out, there is nothing about the job force that isnโt fluid and prone to putting you in some kind of shifting interdependent situation, enough that making the job scene a bureaucratic construct was a big mistake and that having career dreams is too oversimplified an expectation. I knew this to an extent but now I know the full scope.
Same happened today morning. More work, more salary. My answer: no thanks.
You're not interviewing for a job, they're interviewing to be your employer.
Communication is one way: they will expect you to communciate but will never communicate what they want you to communicate or that communication is expected.
Yup. At my last job, I did my best to produce quality work, I got an award for making zero errors in a year, and I was one of the go-to people for new employees to ask for advice. I trained new team members, even while I was still a temp myself. Eventually got told that I was joining the team that dealt with all the escalation emails. I only knew how to work on 2 of the many types of products that went into that folder, but it was mandatory to work every single email that went into that box, 2 hour shift, every email had to be answered by the end of the 2hrs. I also only had a single 30min super quick "training" on how to even answer the emails (really complicated template system, which I still did not understand by the end of it)
I told my manager I wasn't comfortable working in that box, considering they never trained me to work on most of the other products, but she ignored me and said I'd figure it out. Luckily, I only had to do it once, then they delayed my actual start date for that task, until I got laid off (along with most of the rest of my team) 3 months later. YAAAAAAY. :|
Sounds like they needed an excuse to get rid of you easily.
They got rid of my whole team to get rid of me? Lol, I don't think so. The job was mortgage related, and the work volume tanked in 2022, after blowing up in 2020. I was just a barely above minimum wage minion, with no team members under me. I honestly think that along with there not being enough work for all of us, they wanted to eliminate WFH teams.
If you make your work processes more efficient, you donโt need to tell anyone right away, if at all.
AKA "beating a good horse."
Just because someone has done a job a while means they do their job well.
Companies don't give a fuck about you anymore
This sentence is one word too long.
I dunno, people used to stay at one company their whole life, get a pension, good insurance, regular raises...
Yeah you're definitely right, just not a concept I will ever be familliar with.
There is no such things as the employer will provide a safe working environment. They don't care, it even more true when your safety cost them money.
It depends on the job type really. If itโs something in the food business, you are in a literal death trap every day in the name of some random personโs sense of taste, but if youโre in a humanity job for example, they canโt afford the mentality that would cause the work scene to not accommodate to you.
I work in agricultural robotics... Our client develops a new harvesting machine, but is unaware of the real danger of it. My boss just want the things done as fast as possible. This expose us to danger. Not really a robotic cell, not really an agricultural machine, something in between, without any direct regulation to cover it because it is new.
Sorry about that. Hopefully they fix that and you live somewhere where they'll be able to. In most relatively well-off countries, usually filing a complaint in court does the job.
"The reward for winning the pie-eating contest is more pie"
Always agree on compensation/salary before starting your work.
to not get employed ever again
Society doesn't deserve it.
100% agree with this, some coworkers want to be high speed, and eventually get dog piled with more work and other bs overtime.
Thr trick is to do all the work on the weekends and submit them all on Monday
Employees who take initiative get to pick the job they do. Employees who dodge work get stuck with the shifty jobs