After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done with the Full-Time Work(a.team)
a.team
After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done with the Full-Time Work
https://www.a.team//mission/the-great-betrayal
215 comments
On the other hand I have been freelancing for the past 10 years after 15 years of working as an employee.
I no longer need to burn certain amount of hours in front of the computer. My compensation is based on my results. This is probably the biggest change that happened for me -- it allowed me to think about my overall performance as something I do and optimise for myself.
Another thing is that when you work as an employee you are getting bunched up with other people. This is fine if you are an average, but if you work every day to excel and improve your performance you are doing yourself disservice because you are subsidising all those other people who barely pull their weight or don't do it at all. My results are now tied to me and my image and people notice, tell other people. It has landed me many jobs or improved my negotiation position a lot.
Another one is I no longer fear of loosing a job. When you move from place to place regularly it becomes part of your life and you no longer fear it. I became much better at negotiating and interviewing. When I join, I immediately set up an appointment with my overseer to lay out rules that will maximise my productivity, speed up my transition in but also my transition out of the organisation. For some reason being cool about leaving and planning to make the most of it for both sides does wonders to how the manager will treat you.
I no longer need to burn certain amount of hours in front of the computer. My compensation is based on my results. This is probably the biggest change that happened for me -- it allowed me to think about my overall performance as something I do and optimise for myself.
Another thing is that when you work as an employee you are getting bunched up with other people. This is fine if you are an average, but if you work every day to excel and improve your performance you are doing yourself disservice because you are subsidising all those other people who barely pull their weight or don't do it at all. My results are now tied to me and my image and people notice, tell other people. It has landed me many jobs or improved my negotiation position a lot.
Another one is I no longer fear of loosing a job. When you move from place to place regularly it becomes part of your life and you no longer fear it. I became much better at negotiating and interviewing. When I join, I immediately set up an appointment with my overseer to lay out rules that will maximise my productivity, speed up my transition in but also my transition out of the organisation. For some reason being cool about leaving and planning to make the most of it for both sides does wonders to how the manager will treat you.
> Another one is I no longer fear of loosing a job. When you move from place to place regularly it becomes part of your life and you no longer fear it. I became much better at negotiating and interviewing.
If you're an employee, you can get similar results changing up your job every year or two. Maybe slightly longer if you really like the place.
Even in the "recession" recruiters are knocking on my door fairly regularly, and I'm comfortable enough with the Leetcode circus to be able to pass an interview loop. I'm sure some people will vehemently disagree but I notice a clear difference between my peers that only have experience working at 1 or 2 places, and those with experience working at 5-10 different places with different cultures, stacks, etc. It's obvious that the former are in a bit of a bubble and get blindsided in hard times or when there is a big technology shift.
If you're an employee, you can get similar results changing up your job every year or two. Maybe slightly longer if you really like the place.
Even in the "recession" recruiters are knocking on my door fairly regularly, and I'm comfortable enough with the Leetcode circus to be able to pass an interview loop. I'm sure some people will vehemently disagree but I notice a clear difference between my peers that only have experience working at 1 or 2 places, and those with experience working at 5-10 different places with different cultures, stacks, etc. It's obvious that the former are in a bit of a bubble and get blindsided in hard times or when there is a big technology shift.
> you can get similar results changing up your job every year or two…
This might work for few jumps but eventually Hiring managers will see this pattern and flag you as a flight risk. Please Take this advice with a grain of salt.
This might work for few jumps but eventually Hiring managers will see this pattern and flag you as a flight risk. Please Take this advice with a grain of salt.
Only if there are a lot of 1 year stints. HR these days expects people to change jobs every 2-4 years.
Yes. A decade ago it was minimum 3 years for individual contributors who are not super specialised in what they are doing -- if you worked for less multiple times in a row they would be asking for explanation. Now it is 2 years.
I will also mention it is different for contractors/freelancers and will also depend on what you do. I don't hide I change projects frequently.
What I do is I offer references to my past managers. I tell them I will give them references as long as they are happy to stick with me throughout hiring process until they make their offer conditional on me giving them the references and them being happy after they talk to my past managers.
I do this because I don't want too many people calling those guys. I think it is fair arrangement.
I will also mention it is different for contractors/freelancers and will also depend on what you do. I don't hide I change projects frequently.
What I do is I offer references to my past managers. I tell them I will give them references as long as they are happy to stick with me throughout hiring process until they make their offer conditional on me giving them the references and them being happy after they talk to my past managers.
I do this because I don't want too many people calling those guys. I think it is fair arrangement.
I am a salaried employee. My boss and I are in an agreement that I won't be just sitting in front of a computer to work 8 hours. My performance is judged by stuff I deliver.
I will admit that I have a hard time finding a replacement job, as most places have a fairly strict "on" policy.
I will most likely get my masters while I'm here and then figure out my next move.
I will admit that I have a hard time finding a replacement job, as most places have a fairly strict "on" policy.
I will most likely get my masters while I'm here and then figure out my next move.
The strict "on" policy is something that will depend on the job. At the start of my career I worked as a sysadmin and it makes sense to expect your sysadmins to be strictly available during working hours.
As a developer/tech lead I think I should be trusted to manage my time. There are times where I spend way more than 8 hours at work and I do no fuss about it and I think it is fair that there are times where my private life intrudes on me and it is now my turn to take advantage of the flexible agreement. Whatever happens, I take responsibility for my commitments (so no, no missing or being late to meetings without heads up).
I think atmosphere of trust is the most important part for a healthy organisation and nothing screams as "we don't trust you" as not being trusted to manage my own time.
So while I don't necessarily reject the idea of "always on", it is somewhat of a red light for me. It signals inflexible thinking and inability to deal with problems.
Yes, there are people who cheat and slack off at their jobs. Making it "always on" is a result of a lazy, unimaginative mind.
As a developer/tech lead I think I should be trusted to manage my time. There are times where I spend way more than 8 hours at work and I do no fuss about it and I think it is fair that there are times where my private life intrudes on me and it is now my turn to take advantage of the flexible agreement. Whatever happens, I take responsibility for my commitments (so no, no missing or being late to meetings without heads up).
I think atmosphere of trust is the most important part for a healthy organisation and nothing screams as "we don't trust you" as not being trusted to manage my own time.
So while I don't necessarily reject the idea of "always on", it is somewhat of a red light for me. It signals inflexible thinking and inability to deal with problems.
Yes, there are people who cheat and slack off at their jobs. Making it "always on" is a result of a lazy, unimaginative mind.
While you enjoy it and things are good, be sure to get your arrangements in agreed upon writing so when the political winds shift you're covered.
This is never going to happen if you want to work for any larger company. And even if got it in writing (which you will not), they are unlikely to honour it because couple employees somehow got it in writing -- you will be coerced to change it or fired or "managed out".
You may be surprised. That said, do you _want_ to work for a company that is unwilling to honor their agreements?
>when you work as an employee you are getting bunched up with other people
If you are the best on your team you should either be mentoring them as a senior or find a new job where you'll be challenged
If you are the best on your team you should either be mentoring them as a senior or find a new job where you'll be challenged
Would you be willing to share those rules?
There are no rules set in stone. My job is to find a way to work with my manager but many managers don't know how to do it or don't expect a person to be open about many aspects that are on the verge of being taboo.
I am not imposing my style of working -- out of necessity it is the manager that has to set the rules because he/she can't have completely different management styles towards each one of their employees. Instead, I try to find a common ground that will make my manager extremely happy while also allowing me to keep doing what I want and what I am best at.
I found that just this single act of explicitly discussing our "partnership" sets me up for a much better relationship with my boss than all other people who are passive and just expect to be told everything.
I am not imposing my style of working -- out of necessity it is the manager that has to set the rules because he/she can't have completely different management styles towards each one of their employees. Instead, I try to find a common ground that will make my manager extremely happy while also allowing me to keep doing what I want and what I am best at.
I found that just this single act of explicitly discussing our "partnership" sets me up for a much better relationship with my boss than all other people who are passive and just expect to be told everything.
I would agree to this. I think there is an idea that you become your own boss. In some ways thats true but mostly so you can say that to yourself or someone else. Your destiny is still controlled by clients. If you think about most things -- very few people are their own boss, there are always stakeholders who control your time spent.
It's also a lot harder to disconnect for a period of time to go on a vacation. You kind of always have to be on. I'm sure there are some people who can do that and hack that split but when you have to constantly make sure theres a pipeline of work you have to manage client inbound.
It's also a lot harder to disconnect for a period of time to go on a vacation. You kind of always have to be on. I'm sure there are some people who can do that and hack that split but when you have to constantly make sure theres a pipeline of work you have to manage client inbound.
This.
Maybe you can disconnect more if you are single. Or with a SO, but not children.
Once you have a family, there's just a lot more demands on you. The safer, more secure route ends up being the more traditional corporate job.
Maybe you can disconnect more if you are single. Or with a SO, but not children.
Once you have a family, there's just a lot more demands on you. The safer, more secure route ends up being the more traditional corporate job.
I've found it's the complete opposite. Traditional corporate jobs aren't in the least bit safe for me and my lifestyle. As a freelancer, I have immense flexibility over when I work, where I work, how I work, and to certain extent, with whom I work.
If on a particular day my family or my personal goals win out on the hierarchy of priorities, not a big deal. Sure, if over time my overall quality of work suffers, a client is going to notice, and that's not great. But otherwise…I'm calling the shots, and to me that freedom is worth its weight in gold.
If on a particular day my family or my personal goals win out on the hierarchy of priorities, not a big deal. Sure, if over time my overall quality of work suffers, a client is going to notice, and that's not great. But otherwise…I'm calling the shots, and to me that freedom is worth its weight in gold.
It's the difference between servant and subserviant.
The fact that your occupation is to perform tasks for clients does not mean you're not your own boss.
The relationship between you and the customers of your company of one employee is (or should be) really not that different from the relationship between you and the customers of your company of 2000 employees.
There is a relationship, and it is in your interest to care about what they want, but that doesn't make them your boss.
Them being your boss in your mind is something you choose to give them if you're not careful, not something they actually own.
They will happily let you think that they have a right to own your soul because they paid you a few dollars, but the simple counter to that is, do you get to own their sould because you paid them a few hours of work?
You're absolutely your own boss.
The fact that your occupation is to perform tasks for clients does not mean you're not your own boss.
The relationship between you and the customers of your company of one employee is (or should be) really not that different from the relationship between you and the customers of your company of 2000 employees.
There is a relationship, and it is in your interest to care about what they want, but that doesn't make them your boss.
Them being your boss in your mind is something you choose to give them if you're not careful, not something they actually own.
They will happily let you think that they have a right to own your soul because they paid you a few dollars, but the simple counter to that is, do you get to own their sould because you paid them a few hours of work?
You're absolutely your own boss.
As a freelance contractor you have two full time jobs. One is finding new work and the other is doing the work. As someone who likes the variety and freedom of being able to contract and define what the customer owns while still building my own startups I thought it was a good trade off when I was young and wanted the experience. I have gained a metric ton of experience and been paid to travel globally. Now I’m older and glad I put the time in. I don’t expect I’ll ever need to do so again.
Many decades ago my dad started his own small business in insurance claims adjustment. He spent an entire year trying to get it off the ground, but the only client he was able to secure was his own former employer, and fortunately after a year they offered to just take him back on as a full-time employee again. He told me the stress of constantly searching for new clients (and trying to do sales etc.) was absolutely miserable, and the psychological security of a regular paycheck beat the slightly larger amount he was making as a contractor.
Yeah, this is what we're trying to solve at A.Team on a few fronts:
1) You get to work in teams on long-term, meaningful missions (we're request-only on the client side) and earn $100/hr+ on average
2) We proactively surface missions that are a great fits for you
3) We have guaranteed on-time payments for our network (we pay them every 2 weeks, no matter what, even if the client doesn't pay us)
The vision is essentially is that you can join A.Team, discover incredible teammates, and discover incredible work that fits your interests and passions with top startups and enterprise cos building transformative new products.
1) You get to work in teams on long-term, meaningful missions (we're request-only on the client side) and earn $100/hr+ on average
2) We proactively surface missions that are a great fits for you
3) We have guaranteed on-time payments for our network (we pay them every 2 weeks, no matter what, even if the client doesn't pay us)
The vision is essentially is that you can join A.Team, discover incredible teammates, and discover incredible work that fits your interests and passions with top startups and enterprise cos building transformative new products.
I would absolutely recommend freelancing to people who need to study to move up, e.g. doing Stanford online masters or MBA and can put tuition into taxes. Rarely companies reimburse full cost and as a sole proprietor one has a chance to write education off via taxes, i.e. no student debt and top-end education/network.
In the US, anyone can deduct tuition and fees- and even better than a deduction (or "write-off" for a business) there are some tax credits you can get, too. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-benefits-for-education-info...
I don't see how being a freelancer improves the tax benefit over this at all.
EDIT: I did find this: "If you are self-employed, you deduct your expenses for qualifying work-related education directly from your self-employment income. This reduces the amount of your income subject to both income tax and self-employment tax."
So perhaps in some cases if you exhaust the credits having a deduction from the self employment tax would save you a bit on the self employment tax. But I would think in most situations the difference would not be all that large. And if your employer would provide even a partial tuition reimbursement, that would likely eclipse any tax benefit from being self employed. All of it is very situation dependent, though.
I don't see how being a freelancer improves the tax benefit over this at all.
EDIT: I did find this: "If you are self-employed, you deduct your expenses for qualifying work-related education directly from your self-employment income. This reduces the amount of your income subject to both income tax and self-employment tax."
So perhaps in some cases if you exhaust the credits having a deduction from the self employment tax would save you a bit on the self employment tax. But I would think in most situations the difference would not be all that large. And if your employer would provide even a partial tuition reimbursement, that would likely eclipse any tax benefit from being self employed. All of it is very situation dependent, though.
I contracted with a single client for 3 years. It was as close as you could get to being full-time without being full-time.
Everything just had annoying overhead. I needed a CPA to do taxes because I didn't want to spend the mental cycles on it. I needed to buy, update, and manage my own systems. I needed to do my own risk management, compliance, etc, etc, etc. I needed to find my own healthcare.
All of this was possible. However, it just added another layer to work that was annoying and distracting.
Everything just had annoying overhead. I needed a CPA to do taxes because I didn't want to spend the mental cycles on it. I needed to buy, update, and manage my own systems. I needed to do my own risk management, compliance, etc, etc, etc. I needed to find my own healthcare.
All of this was possible. However, it just added another layer to work that was annoying and distracting.
When I started out I freelanced full stack web dev. I found the best thing to do was build a network (through pub meets, coworking etc) of friends and other freelancers who would funnel work to me when they were overloaded, and so there was always a constant stream of stuff to do, then once your rep and cash flow were good, start increasing your rates and diversifying the types of work you were taking on - some of the former kind, some being referred directly to clients, sometimes joining teams where people need the gas turned up for projects etc. I’m full time now but if I could save up buffer and learn more personal stability and discipline I’d maybe give it a shot again.
It really is about who you know.
People will happily fill your time if you can be depended on to figure stuff out and take problems off their hands for them.
Also mixing less well paid reliable and prompt income with higher paid income that’s more of a pain in the ass.
It really is about who you know.
People will happily fill your time if you can be depended on to figure stuff out and take problems off their hands for them.
Also mixing less well paid reliable and prompt income with higher paid income that’s more of a pain in the ass.
I've freelanced full-time on and off for periods of a few years throughout my career, and completely agree. There's a misconception that it's in some way "flexible". When it comes to things like taking holiday, you kind of have to just take them when the opportunity arises. This has made coordinating time-off with my partner who works a full-time job pretty difficult, as often a particularly well-paid or high profile project will come in that's hard to turn down. I've also noticed, at least in Europe, that my workload picks up considerably in summer when you actually want to take a break. I'm going back to a full-time job later in the year and looking forward to having scheduled time off and having someone else paying my benefits and dealing with all the paperwork for me.
(almost never happened as a freelancer)
You mean you almost never got paid every month?! Well, I hate to sound callous but that's on you as a business owner who got into some bad deals. I've been freelancing off and on, and mostly on, for much of my long career in web dev, and I've found ways to find and hold onto clients that (a) appreciate my work, (b) pay well, and (c) pay on time. Was that hard?! Yes, very! But I'm thankful I was able to get to where I am now.
Speaking generally:
The #1 problem people face getting into freelancing is still thinking they "work for somebody". You don't. You work for yourself. You have your own business, with your own goals. Your own schedule. Your own growth trajectory. You *seek out* the clients you *want* to work with to help you achieve your goals as the owner of the business. The fact you help your clients achieve _their_ goals is a side-effect of your business plan, not "the plan". If you end up with a client who isn't a good fit for your business plan, fire them and hire a different client. You're the boss. You are.
You mean you almost never got paid every month?! Well, I hate to sound callous but that's on you as a business owner who got into some bad deals. I've been freelancing off and on, and mostly on, for much of my long career in web dev, and I've found ways to find and hold onto clients that (a) appreciate my work, (b) pay well, and (c) pay on time. Was that hard?! Yes, very! But I'm thankful I was able to get to where I am now.
Speaking generally:
The #1 problem people face getting into freelancing is still thinking they "work for somebody". You don't. You work for yourself. You have your own business, with your own goals. Your own schedule. Your own growth trajectory. You *seek out* the clients you *want* to work with to help you achieve your goals as the owner of the business. The fact you help your clients achieve _their_ goals is a side-effect of your business plan, not "the plan". If you end up with a client who isn't a good fit for your business plan, fire them and hire a different client. You're the boss. You are.
The primary concrete benefit I can see to being a freelancer is being able to put away more money for retirement than is possible in a 401(k).
Almost every other aspect seems like a worse deal to me than being a full-time employee, especially with the [relatively new] greater acceptance of remote work for full-time employees.
Almost every other aspect seems like a worse deal to me than being a full-time employee, especially with the [relatively new] greater acceptance of remote work for full-time employees.
Freelance is all about your network quality. When I did part time freelance to bootstrap my career I too got my dose of difficult clients. Then years later, I did a switch from FTE to consulting, with a single high quality client, and it was basically just like any other job.
What I came to realize is that freelance is actually the lower end of the spectrum for consulting agencies. A client base for such work can range from mom-and-pop businesses to veterinary chains to big telcos, with stability and size of contracts being relatively proportional to how good your sales/business development pipeline is. Needless to say, it's all work up and down the spectrum, so finding that mythical work/life balance liberation is an akin to mastering an art form.
What I came to realize is that freelance is actually the lower end of the spectrum for consulting agencies. A client base for such work can range from mom-and-pop businesses to veterinary chains to big telcos, with stability and size of contracts being relatively proportional to how good your sales/business development pipeline is. Needless to say, it's all work up and down the spectrum, so finding that mythical work/life balance liberation is an akin to mastering an art form.
Yep, this was my exact experience. A 40 hour work week was a vacation by comparison.
https://www.brightball.com/articles/what-exactly-happened-to...
https://www.brightball.com/articles/what-exactly-happened-to...
Zygmunt Bauman was right on the mark, 25 years ago.
> Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To ‘be modern’ means to modernize – compulsively, obsessively; not so much just ‘to be’, let alone to keep its identity intact, but forever ‘becoming’, avoiding completion, staying underdefined. Each new structure which replaces the previous one as soon as it is declared old-fashioned and past its use-by date is only another momentary settlement – acknowledged as temporary and ‘until further notice’. Being always, at any stage and at all times, ‘post-something’ is also an undetachable feature of modernity. As time flows on, ‘modernity’ changes its forms in the manner of the legendary Proteus . . . What was some time ago dubbed (erroneously) 'post-modernity' and what I've chosen to call, more to the point, 'liquid modernity', is the growing conviction that change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty. A hundred years ago 'to be modern' meant to chase 'the final state of perfection' -- now it means an infinity of improvement, with no 'final state' in sight and none desired.
> Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To ‘be modern’ means to modernize – compulsively, obsessively; not so much just ‘to be’, let alone to keep its identity intact, but forever ‘becoming’, avoiding completion, staying underdefined. Each new structure which replaces the previous one as soon as it is declared old-fashioned and past its use-by date is only another momentary settlement – acknowledged as temporary and ‘until further notice’. Being always, at any stage and at all times, ‘post-something’ is also an undetachable feature of modernity. As time flows on, ‘modernity’ changes its forms in the manner of the legendary Proteus . . . What was some time ago dubbed (erroneously) 'post-modernity' and what I've chosen to call, more to the point, 'liquid modernity', is the growing conviction that change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty. A hundred years ago 'to be modern' meant to chase 'the final state of perfection' -- now it means an infinity of improvement, with no 'final state' in sight and none desired.
This may sound silly and be off topic but I believe this is what got me to peruse a career outside of programming.
This accurately describes modern life and, I think by extension, modern software development.
This accurately describes modern life and, I think by extension, modern software development.
May I ask why? It seems to me that, facing a fast-changing world as described in the article, you would be best served perfecting a skill such as programming to navigate it.
I can't speak for the OP, but I've felt this way too, and for me it's because I feel that while most industries are changing for the better, software development seems unusually short sited in chasing new stuff. Most industries are improving as they change, where software (from my perspective) is regressing or just pointlessly churning.
The concepts and abstract skill of programming is undoubtedly useful, but the implementation details and how it's done are going to be replaced by something worse in 3 years.
I think it bothers me because I'm attached to it, and it's disappointing to see it move in directions I don't like or that feel wrong to me. It's all "market forces" and "public opinion" and nobody controls it, but it would be less depressing in an industry I didn't care about.
The concepts and abstract skill of programming is undoubtedly useful, but the implementation details and how it's done are going to be replaced by something worse in 3 years.
I think it bothers me because I'm attached to it, and it's disappointing to see it move in directions I don't like or that feel wrong to me. It's all "market forces" and "public opinion" and nobody controls it, but it would be less depressing in an industry I didn't care about.
I whole-heartedly disagree that software engineering is getting worse. The languages, ecosystems, security, processes, etc. are pretty much all far better than they were 10 years ago. You really just have to ignore the loud individuals in the "web3" and JavaScript (JS has largely calmed down lately though) spaces.
I'm curious if you'd share examples. I think I'd sum up the last 10 years as the web and mobile ecosystems doing a mediocre job trying to catch up to where native apps were 20 years ago.
My overall development experience writing C++ 10 years ago was actually better than writing C# and Typescript now. The more interactive environments like Jupyter notebooks and browser dev tools are nice, but they're still not as featureful or as interactive as a good Lisp environment.
For consumer software we're nearly in the same place we were 25 years ago, except we took a round trip through the web, and now we're back to downloading native apps, which are more "secure" in some sense, but are funneling private data off to strangers, making it overall worse. And our hardware is 100x more powerful but our software is 1000x more bloated to make up for it. And the business model of consumer software now is to treat the user like an idiot and monetize them as much as possible.
Business software has some bright spots, like IAAS, SAAS, etc. but they're kinda just regurgitating ideas from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Security is a funny one because it's technically better, but overall worse because software that wouldn't be connected in the past now "has to" go online, opening it up to attack.
There is a lot of good, like the open source world, and Linux and FreeBSD gaining popularity, but even those have dark sides, like corporations exploiting them as a source of cheap or free labor.
My overall development experience writing C++ 10 years ago was actually better than writing C# and Typescript now. The more interactive environments like Jupyter notebooks and browser dev tools are nice, but they're still not as featureful or as interactive as a good Lisp environment.
For consumer software we're nearly in the same place we were 25 years ago, except we took a round trip through the web, and now we're back to downloading native apps, which are more "secure" in some sense, but are funneling private data off to strangers, making it overall worse. And our hardware is 100x more powerful but our software is 1000x more bloated to make up for it. And the business model of consumer software now is to treat the user like an idiot and monetize them as much as possible.
Business software has some bright spots, like IAAS, SAAS, etc. but they're kinda just regurgitating ideas from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Security is a funny one because it's technically better, but overall worse because software that wouldn't be connected in the past now "has to" go online, opening it up to attack.
There is a lot of good, like the open source world, and Linux and FreeBSD gaining popularity, but even those have dark sides, like corporations exploiting them as a source of cheap or free labor.
I think there are aspects of it that are getting worse.
Is React better than using vanilla JS? Yes. I like not storing state in the DOM.
Is it worth the layers of abstraction, both mental and infrastructural? This is a difficult question to answer.
Is React better than using vanilla JS? Yes. I like not storing state in the DOM.
Is it worth the layers of abstraction, both mental and infrastructural? This is a difficult question to answer.
That’s correct. I’ve been programming for 25 years (until I changed careers, still in tech).
Software in web development, at least, has a quickly shrinking shelf life and the value it creates (besides intellectual stimulation for developers) seems very very small.
Software in web development, at least, has a quickly shrinking shelf life and the value it creates (besides intellectual stimulation for developers) seems very very small.
It's interesting to contrast this with Japan. Japan has some of the longest-lived companies [1]. Construction, hotels, sake and confectionery feature prominently. Meanwhile, the average company lifespan on the S&P500 went down from 32 years in 1965 to 20 years last year. [2]
I suspect that the difference has a lot to do with culture. The Japanese companies with a long life are probably smaller, family-run, and don't go aggressively for growth. When your company has been going for over 200 years, I imagine one feels a sense of "don't fuck it up." Compare that to the US, where it's always ever onwards and upwards, always going for growth.
The Japanese have some ideas which seem bizarre to the West. Like, companies in those positions might "adopt a son". Typically they're 25-30 year-old men who take on the name of their adopted families. They then run the business (although presumably not straight away). Seems weird, but look at the results.
These small Japanese businesses seem more in-tune with their regular employees, too, treating them like an extended family, to some extent. There's no hire and fire mentality that we've been seeing lately; with the likes of Microsoft scooping up a big workforce only to turn around a couple of years later and reverse it. It's a shitty way to treat people.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-...
I suspect that the difference has a lot to do with culture. The Japanese companies with a long life are probably smaller, family-run, and don't go aggressively for growth. When your company has been going for over 200 years, I imagine one feels a sense of "don't fuck it up." Compare that to the US, where it's always ever onwards and upwards, always going for growth.
The Japanese have some ideas which seem bizarre to the West. Like, companies in those positions might "adopt a son". Typically they're 25-30 year-old men who take on the name of their adopted families. They then run the business (although presumably not straight away). Seems weird, but look at the results.
These small Japanese businesses seem more in-tune with their regular employees, too, treating them like an extended family, to some extent. There's no hire and fire mentality that we've been seeing lately; with the likes of Microsoft scooping up a big workforce only to turn around a couple of years later and reverse it. It's a shitty way to treat people.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-...
> The Japanese have some ideas which seem bizarre to the West. Like, companies in those positions might "adopt a son". Typically they're 25-30 year-old men who take on the name of their adopted families. They then run the business (although presumably not straight away). Seems weird, but look at the results.
Family-run companies don't have an agent-principal problem companies with a dedicated corporate management layer have, but they have a problem of inheritance: when the old owner+manager dies, the new one must be one of his children, but this is a very limited pool of potential successors. What if your sons are all rakes and louts?
Someone who loves working for your business and shows a lot of potential is a much better heir if he's willing to become your son-in-law. The whole "adopt a son" thing is just a bit of legal fiction the preserve the family name.
Family-run companies don't have an agent-principal problem companies with a dedicated corporate management layer have, but they have a problem of inheritance: when the old owner+manager dies, the new one must be one of his children, but this is a very limited pool of potential successors. What if your sons are all rakes and louts?
Someone who loves working for your business and shows a lot of potential is a much better heir if he's willing to become your son-in-law. The whole "adopt a son" thing is just a bit of legal fiction the preserve the family name.
I will add to this. In every corporate environment I was a part of, 'the only constant is change' was a common refrain.
As were Marx and Engels, 175 years ago in the Communist Manifesto: “Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.”
This was written in the context of European society moving from a relatively settled period to one of rapid change. Had they been writing during the Wars of Religion they would have made similar observations about "uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation", and "All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify".
You can point to a lot of periods in history where everything changes rapidly for at some points a couple of centuries before settling down again. It's hard to say if the modern period is unique or just another period of tumult between long stretches of calm. I'd caution against the notion that history is a science.
You can point to a lot of periods in history where everything changes rapidly for at some points a couple of centuries before settling down again. It's hard to say if the modern period is unique or just another period of tumult between long stretches of calm. I'd caution against the notion that history is a science.
> It's hard to say if the modern period is unique or just another period of tumult between long stretches of calm.
Nobody can know the future, but some things are clear:
1. We are a lot more interconnected than in the past (every human civilization that wants to interact with others can do so... or was even forced do it, not very long ago).
2. We are a lot more self-aware than in the past, en masse.
3. We are a lot more structured in our large scale scientific approaches, and we have a lot more science centers working in parallel, widely distributed around the world.
Assuming peaceful conditions and no Venus-style global warming, things will stay hectic for the foreseeable future.
Nobody can know the future, but some things are clear:
1. We are a lot more interconnected than in the past (every human civilization that wants to interact with others can do so... or was even forced do it, not very long ago).
2. We are a lot more self-aware than in the past, en masse.
3. We are a lot more structured in our large scale scientific approaches, and we have a lot more science centers working in parallel, widely distributed around the world.
Assuming peaceful conditions and no Venus-style global warming, things will stay hectic for the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure how you would measure something like self-awareness.
I don't think interconnectedness presages rapid social change. We could just as easily settle into a sort of long quiet period where people are more or less accustomed to the way society is organized and institutions have been reformed to adapt to present day issues. After the industrialization of the 1early 9th century there was a fairly stable social arrangement until WWI swept everything off the map. It isn't impossible to imagine a situation where WWI didn't happen and the Belle Époque stretched for a long period of time.
I don't think interconnectedness presages rapid social change. We could just as easily settle into a sort of long quiet period where people are more or less accustomed to the way society is organized and institutions have been reformed to adapt to present day issues. After the industrialization of the 1early 9th century there was a fairly stable social arrangement until WWI swept everything off the map. It isn't impossible to imagine a situation where WWI didn't happen and the Belle Époque stretched for a long period of time.
> After the industrialization of the 1early 9th century there was a fairly stable social arrangement until WWI swept everything off the map.
That's one way to look at that period with rose tinted glasses :-)
There's a reason Marx & co wrote things during that time.
WW1 was just a more violent outburst of many frustrations, national, social, etc.
That's one way to look at that period with rose tinted glasses :-)
There's a reason Marx & co wrote things during that time.
WW1 was just a more violent outburst of many frustrations, national, social, etc.
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I’m not looking at it with any judgment positive or negative. I’m just saying it is imaginable that the institutions of the period could have persisted had WWI not happened.
Marx wasn’t writing during the late 19th century. The Revolutions of 1848 were the backdrop of their work.
Marx wasn’t writing during the late 19th century. The Revolutions of 1848 were the backdrop of their work.
> You can point to a lot of periods in history where everything changes rapidly for at some points a couple of centuries before settling down again. It's hard to say if the modern period is unique or just another period of tumult between long stretches of calm. I'd caution against the notion that history is a science.
Whether history is or isn't a science is completely orthogonal to how unique a period is.
The modern period is unique due to the amount of resources being exploited per capita being unprecedented compared to any other time in human history. Although in the future it's possible that that number will trend down, for the time being our current prosperity is only enabled by copious amounts of energy spent on modern conveniences, particularly infrastructure, appliances and utilities.
Whether history is or isn't a science is completely orthogonal to how unique a period is.
The modern period is unique due to the amount of resources being exploited per capita being unprecedented compared to any other time in human history. Although in the future it's possible that that number will trend down, for the time being our current prosperity is only enabled by copious amounts of energy spent on modern conveniences, particularly infrastructure, appliances and utilities.
The ability to turn raw materials into resources and to generate energy is certainly unique so far, but it may turn out to be basically the norm going forward.
Were they, though?
If we need progress, and we do, because nobody wants to die (of disease, old age, whatever) and everyone wants a good life (not one doing backbreaking work or even doing dishes), then that means trying to progress is an inevitable aspect of being human, not a an aspect of the "bourgeois epoch".
It's not the bourgeoisie doing stuff, it's just us, humans.
So if we are progressing and we build upon progress, then progress accelerates, it's only natural, since we have more stuff to build on top of.
That's what's actually melting social conventions and perceived stability.
And I don't think anyone has a solution to this problem, yet.
If we need progress, and we do, because nobody wants to die (of disease, old age, whatever) and everyone wants a good life (not one doing backbreaking work or even doing dishes), then that means trying to progress is an inevitable aspect of being human, not a an aspect of the "bourgeois epoch".
It's not the bourgeoisie doing stuff, it's just us, humans.
So if we are progressing and we build upon progress, then progress accelerates, it's only natural, since we have more stuff to build on top of.
That's what's actually melting social conventions and perceived stability.
And I don't think anyone has a solution to this problem, yet.
"It's not the bourgeoisie doing stuff, it's just us, humans."
I think this is misunderstanding what Marx was trying to say here. Marx saw the bourgeoisie (fancy word for "owners", that's all) as a product of forces, not a cause.
The cause is the specific form of economic management / ownership in the current era -- capitalism. The structure of private property, or ownership of production by private entities; which unleashes the profit motive. Which rewrites and restructures everything in its path. Workers and owners are just doing what's required of them to keep feeding this furnace -- and their tummies.
Yes it's humans doing it. But they're doing it in the context of filling their stomachs. The point is that the way that they filled their stomachs changed. With consequences, good and bad.
Disagree strongly with this phrase "we are progressing"; this is value laden, and hand waving. There is definitely a motive force driving things -- profit extraction -- but the word "progress" implies inevitability and a singular direction as well as a positive aspect. I think we can be more scientific than that.
And yes, agreed, nobody has a solution. But I think Marx is among many who have a line of useful analysis about what this is.
I think this is misunderstanding what Marx was trying to say here. Marx saw the bourgeoisie (fancy word for "owners", that's all) as a product of forces, not a cause.
The cause is the specific form of economic management / ownership in the current era -- capitalism. The structure of private property, or ownership of production by private entities; which unleashes the profit motive. Which rewrites and restructures everything in its path. Workers and owners are just doing what's required of them to keep feeding this furnace -- and their tummies.
Yes it's humans doing it. But they're doing it in the context of filling their stomachs. The point is that the way that they filled their stomachs changed. With consequences, good and bad.
Disagree strongly with this phrase "we are progressing"; this is value laden, and hand waving. There is definitely a motive force driving things -- profit extraction -- but the word "progress" implies inevitability and a singular direction as well as a positive aspect. I think we can be more scientific than that.
And yes, agreed, nobody has a solution. But I think Marx is among many who have a line of useful analysis about what this is.
I think about this quote -- especially the "melts into air" part -- often.
I do feel like Marx "slips up" a bit there with the "senses his real conditions of life"; this feels like "Younger Marx" of Manifesto/German-Ideology era and not older, mature, cynical Marx of "Grundrisse" and "Capital". I think the latter recognized that at no point are the "real conditions" visible or confronted, and that all is 'obscured' by ideology and the pursuit of market domination and exploitation.
The words of "Younger Marx" there were easily twisted and exploited by people with awful motives and means and brutal simple minds. Later Marx ... they didn't understand.
I do feel like Marx "slips up" a bit there with the "senses his real conditions of life"; this feels like "Younger Marx" of Manifesto/German-Ideology era and not older, mature, cynical Marx of "Grundrisse" and "Capital". I think the latter recognized that at no point are the "real conditions" visible or confronted, and that all is 'obscured' by ideology and the pursuit of market domination and exploitation.
The words of "Younger Marx" there were easily twisted and exploited by people with awful motives and means and brutal simple minds. Later Marx ... they didn't understand.
Their diagnosis was okay, it's the proposed cure people have a problem with.
There's actually very little written by Marx or Engels on any kind of proposed "cure". Marx himself reacted very negatively to the idea of "writing recipes for cook-shops of the future." He didn't think it possible, nor desirable, to draw up plans.
The "cures" in the 20th century were on the whole written by people with far simpler minds and uglier motives. Their actions don't take away from the value of Marx as an analyst and critic of capitalism.
The "cures" in the 20th century were on the whole written by people with far simpler minds and uglier motives. Their actions don't take away from the value of Marx as an analyst and critic of capitalism.
It is certainly a novel way to look at what Marx wrote.
I assume you are overlooking the little things like the abolition of private property, or central planning of the economy on purpose?
I assume you are overlooking the little things like the abolition of private property, or central planning of the economy on purpose?
What little they did write in the Manifesto did plenty of damage all on its own, and it served as a step-by-step guide for most of history's failed communist states. (Particularly the bits of making "despotic inroads" on the existing systems)
I don't disagree, but I also think much has been lost in translation between 19th century phrases and language and conventions vs now. Context of the time was revolutions in the context of a mix of brutal 19th century monarchies/dictatorships, proto-capitalist/mostly agrarian economies, and brutal badly regulated industrial capitalisms.
The phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" in particular has a very unfortunate history and ... interpretation.
The phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" in particular has a very unfortunate history and ... interpretation.
Such statements are profoundly ahistorical. Pre-modern life was far more fragile, temporary, vulnerable than anything which people in developed countries experience today. Life for most people involved constant risk of violence, starvation, and disease.
The statement doesn't make any claims about what pre-modern life was like, it only describes what it means to be modern and how that word changed over a hundred-year period.
Yeah but I didn't have to learn how Spear.JS worked in the new monthly update in order to go catch food. The skills I needed and my relationships did not change as often.
Food is actually a profoundly bad example to make your point, because food security before modern times was non-existent pretty much everywhere, even if you had the necessary skills to grow or catch it. :)
The supply of food was unstable but the means to find it was not changing all the time. Once you built up a certain foraging / hunting skill the skillset is done. You don't have to relearn it 10 times.
While that is true to a certain extent, what is also true is that the overall rate of change for pretty much everything was much, much slower before modern times. If your situation was relatively stable, that slow pace of change could mean a certain amount of safety and security in certain contexts.
Nonsense. Pre-modern life was anything but stable, safe, or secure. People were subject to invasions, pestilence, bad weather, plagues, accidents, the list goes on. Anyone who believes that the rate of change was slower in pre-modern times is simply ignorant of history and archaeology. There are many types of change beyond just technological change.
Workers aren't done with full-time work. Workers answered a survey saying that they are disillusioned with the idea of full-time work. In their idea of a perfect world, they would do freelance and not tie themselves to one employer. What would be really interesting is to follow up with those 109 that were actually laid off and see where they land. I'd wager 95% of them continue with full-time work, despite their answers on this survey.
As someone whose hired people/done PT work/contract work and FT work these are things people want:
Health Care and Money.
I know many smart people who'd do non-full time work if they had healthcare provided. But, unless you're a FTE you're not getting that.
Also, the pay differences is pretty low. Why would I work as a Dev at "Random Contract Company" that is offering $65-75/hr when I could just get a FT job that pays $140-150k/yr and includes PTO and other perks?
If part time/contract paid as much of a difference as travel nurses for instance, you'd see a lot more contractors.
Health Care and Money.
I know many smart people who'd do non-full time work if they had healthcare provided. But, unless you're a FTE you're not getting that.
Also, the pay differences is pretty low. Why would I work as a Dev at "Random Contract Company" that is offering $65-75/hr when I could just get a FT job that pays $140-150k/yr and includes PTO and other perks?
If part time/contract paid as much of a difference as travel nurses for instance, you'd see a lot more contractors.
> But, unless you're a FTE you're not getting that.
I don't understand this prevailing notion that Health Care is some mythical thing that only employers can provide.
I contracted for a few years. I simply bought health insurance. It was "more expensive" because I didn't have an employer contributing to part of the costs, but it wasn't any more "expensive" than what I and my employer were paying for anyways.
I don't understand this prevailing notion that Health Care is some mythical thing that only employers can provide.
I contracted for a few years. I simply bought health insurance. It was "more expensive" because I didn't have an employer contributing to part of the costs, but it wasn't any more "expensive" than what I and my employer were paying for anyways.
Some employers almost completely subsidize it.
It is hard to give up a job that pays $140k, subsidizes health insurance, std and ltd and offers good PTO.
This could equal to a total compensation of $170k.
Also, larger companies can get a better deal on healthcare than a single person.
It is hard to give up a job that pays $140k, subsidizes health insurance, std and ltd and offers good PTO.
This could equal to a total compensation of $170k.
Also, larger companies can get a better deal on healthcare than a single person.
Correct. This is well known for employers that "fully loaded" cost is 20% to 40% higher than base salary.
My point is simply that health insurance does not require an employer. Individuals can purchase it on their own. Like anything, that purchase costs money.
My point is simply that health insurance does not require an employer. Individuals can purchase it on their own. Like anything, that purchase costs money.
>It was "more expensive" because I didn't have an employer contributing to part of the costs
So it was more expensive, full stop, no scare quotes. Anyone who has ever shopped for insurance on the open marketplace or saw how much they would have to pay for COBRA can tell you that it is extremely expensive to pay for it yourself. If someone else is covering your costs, then it costs less.
So it was more expensive, full stop, no scare quotes. Anyone who has ever shopped for insurance on the open marketplace or saw how much they would have to pay for COBRA can tell you that it is extremely expensive to pay for it yourself. If someone else is covering your costs, then it costs less.
I use the scare quotes because people seem to think that employer provided healthcare is anything different than a cash subsidy.
You and me as individuals can purchase the exact same product that our employer can. Only difference is your employer won't be subsidizing part of it.
You and me as individuals can purchase the exact same product that our employer can. Only difference is your employer won't be subsidizing part of it.
You paid more of your income than you were before: the very definition of “more expensive” in this context.
I didn't actually. I received an increase to move to that role. Even after contractor expenses, it was a raise.
If you pay X for something, and then have to start paying Y > X for the same thing, it's become more expensive for you. I don't see how this is debatable.
How many people were you providing healthcare for, and between them how many chronic conditions that could become life threatening during a short lapse in coverage?
> I know many smart people who'd do non-full time work if they had healthcare provided. But, unless you're a FTE you're not getting that.
Buying your own health insurance and setting your rates to be able to afford it is Freelancing 101.
It’s not some mysteriously difficult subject. Anyone can price out ACA marketplace plans online and build out a spreadsheet calculating their costs and taxes and necessary target rate in under 30 minutes. If you can’t calculate those basic numbers, you shouldn’t be thinking about freelancing.
> Also, the pay differences is pretty low. Why would I work as a Dev at "Random Contract Company" that is offering $65-75/hr when I could just get a FT job that pays $140-150k/yr and includes PTO and other perks?
Freelancing doesn’t really mean taking those terrible contract jobs you see on job sites. Successful freelancers will build a reputation and offer services to companies, naming their own price in the proposals.
Buying your own health insurance and setting your rates to be able to afford it is Freelancing 101.
It’s not some mysteriously difficult subject. Anyone can price out ACA marketplace plans online and build out a spreadsheet calculating their costs and taxes and necessary target rate in under 30 minutes. If you can’t calculate those basic numbers, you shouldn’t be thinking about freelancing.
> Also, the pay differences is pretty low. Why would I work as a Dev at "Random Contract Company" that is offering $65-75/hr when I could just get a FT job that pays $140-150k/yr and includes PTO and other perks?
Freelancing doesn’t really mean taking those terrible contract jobs you see on job sites. Successful freelancers will build a reputation and offer services to companies, naming their own price in the proposals.
1. FTE comes with far more insurance types and benefits then just health, at least mine does.
2. "Freelancing doesn’t really mean taking those terrible contract jobs you see on job sites. Successful freelancers will build a reputation and offer services to companies, naming their own price in the proposals."
-- This makes sense, after you have built that reputation. What people are worried about is that start when you have _zero_ reputation and they need to have income and healthcare for themselves and their families. How long can this take? Weeks, months, years?
2. "Freelancing doesn’t really mean taking those terrible contract jobs you see on job sites. Successful freelancers will build a reputation and offer services to companies, naming their own price in the proposals."
-- This makes sense, after you have built that reputation. What people are worried about is that start when you have _zero_ reputation and they need to have income and healthcare for themselves and their families. How long can this take? Weeks, months, years?
You start out keeping your 40 hour full-time job and do freelance work in the evenings and weekends. After you reach a reasonable income level freelancing you drop the full-time job.
My biggest issue with freelance/contract was the internal pressure to take on jobs for pay that didn't fully match my technical or organizational interests. It wasnt always clear when the next catch would come if i turned away paid work. There was always a pipeline, but it was lumpy and often at the mercy of budgets, finance, vendor management, etc.
As an Employee, i put all my effort into finding an organization i love, and the work is a pleasure each day.
As an Employee, i put all my effort into finding an organization i love, and the work is a pleasure each day.
This is people idealizing things. In best of world, yeah, who wouldn't want to take units[1] of work at will. Have some available time? Put in a bid, do the task and be done. On the other hand, as one can see with Uber on the one hand and 1099s on the other, it's a mixed bag with lots of pros and cons. You manage your own time, but you take on more responsibility. I think, given the realities of life, people will, on balance, choose the stability an FTE position.
[1]this isn't always practical as many things are not inherently divisible into units of labor [pregnancy being the iconic example where you can't put 9 women to deliver in one month]
[1]this isn't always practical as many things are not inherently divisible into units of labor [pregnancy being the iconic example where you can't put 9 women to deliver in one month]
Software security and quality is already in a pretty sad state. If the software industry changes to resemble the gig economy we're going to be in trouble.
Software security has already been turned into gig work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_bounty_program
Some people make a living off it. Most don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_bounty_program
Some people make a living off it. Most don't.
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The other side of the field looks much greener when you just got laid off. FTE is a very stable type of employment compared to freelance. And considering that most got laid off from high profile tech companies they should have no issue finding work.
Kind of an interesting phenomena lately with all the press around the layoffs, I guess because they are happening in household name companies. It seems wired from my perspective to run to the media about this. If anything, complaining to the media will make you even less hirable because now the company is thinking in the back of it's head if you will badmouth them to the press if they have to lay you off.
Kind of an interesting phenomena lately with all the press around the layoffs, I guess because they are happening in household name companies. It seems wired from my perspective to run to the media about this. If anything, complaining to the media will make you even less hirable because now the company is thinking in the back of it's head if you will badmouth them to the press if they have to lay you off.
I freelance and hire other freelancers. There is a meta-job in managing business, and more importantly, selling, which I think that many people with an average intelligence and EQ would be able to do and eventually make the same or more than their jobs.
But most people won't have the appetite for risk, or the will to spend about ~20% of their time selling (constantly) to make sure that the pipeline grows in volume and margin.
But most people won't have the appetite for risk, or the will to spend about ~20% of their time selling (constantly) to make sure that the pipeline grows in volume and margin.
Add to that many people really don't like selling themselves.
I don’t think that’s a massive problem - you can get away without ultra-personalistic selling and focus the sales attention on your product/service and USPs. In my experience, what most people (myself included when I started) are horrified of is selling, period. Particularly cold outreach which you might not need in very specific contexts, but of which there will be a sizeable need in many others.
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I agree. The allure of working from anywhere at any time is enticing, but not the reality for most. Everyone ultimately has a boss — whether an employer, manager, shareholder, client — and shifting to freelance doesn't change that. What does change is the responsibility for bringing in consistent work and the accountability for project deadlines, which can be a job on its own.
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Nothing was callous about the Google firings.
Real callous firings are when you wake up to your entire company no longer existing, your pension gone and corporate raiders walking off with billions.
Not being able to say goodbye on the internal message board is not a violation of your human rights.
Enjoy your many months of severance - something almost nobody else in your country enjoys.
Real callous firings are when you wake up to your entire company no longer existing, your pension gone and corporate raiders walking off with billions.
Not being able to say goodbye on the internal message board is not a violation of your human rights.
Enjoy your many months of severance - something almost nobody else in your country enjoys.
Agreed, we tech worker in the US still have it pretty good, so some perspective is in order:
- when Enron took over Portland Gas and Electric, they folded in the PG&E employee 401ks into their stock, so many people retired with nothing after years of hard labor [1]
- AT&T recently cut life / death insurance benefits promised to retirees for employees retiring after 2022 (but those cuts don't apply to top executives) [2]
There are many instances of this, it happens all the time.
Don't get me wrong, getting laid off is terrible, but we can bounce back faster than most.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/01/20/f...
[2] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pa...
- when Enron took over Portland Gas and Electric, they folded in the PG&E employee 401ks into their stock, so many people retired with nothing after years of hard labor [1]
- AT&T recently cut life / death insurance benefits promised to retirees for employees retiring after 2022 (but those cuts don't apply to top executives) [2]
There are many instances of this, it happens all the time.
Don't get me wrong, getting laid off is terrible, but we can bounce back faster than most.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/01/20/f...
[2] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pa...
Re: [1] - I was interested in how this worked so I read the article, here's a quote:
"The 55-year-old electrical troubleshooter ignored his financial planner's advice, keeping 100 percent of his 401(k) money invested in Enron stock. He purchased more Enron shares with his savings and annual bonus"
"In addition to contributing the maximum 15 percent to their 401(k) funds, the Stevenses were buying $600 a month in Enron stock. Cathie Stevens, who had been so poor as a teenager that she picked strawberries for clothing money, even flipped her annual bonus money back into the purchase of Enron options."
Not sure who you're really blaming for people "retiring with nothing" if they put all their eggs in one basket like that, against experts' advice.
"The 55-year-old electrical troubleshooter ignored his financial planner's advice, keeping 100 percent of his 401(k) money invested in Enron stock. He purchased more Enron shares with his savings and annual bonus"
"In addition to contributing the maximum 15 percent to their 401(k) funds, the Stevenses were buying $600 a month in Enron stock. Cathie Stevens, who had been so poor as a teenager that she picked strawberries for clothing money, even flipped her annual bonus money back into the purchase of Enron options."
Not sure who you're really blaming for people "retiring with nothing" if they put all their eggs in one basket like that, against experts' advice.
False dichotomy, here. Google's approach can be callous regardless of whether there are MORE callous approaches out there.
It absolutely is callous, “showing an insensitive and cruel disregard for others”. It is not financially callous, as you point out, it absolutely is emotionally callous to not have the courtesy to even notify the person that they are ending the employment, and not giving them a chance to say goodbye to their colleagues. Regardless of whether you see work as your primary community, suddenly being suddenly exiled from a community is hard. Its even worse than treating relationships as transactional (which is also callous), it’s switching someone’s status from in-group to out-group unilaterally and not even telling them. Like if you found out your spouse was leaving you because they changed the locks on the door—but, hey, it’s all good because they’re giving you a year’s worth of their salary, right?
Sure, it could be worse, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t callous.
Sure, it could be worse, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t callous.
Well said. I've been laid off a couple of times in the last 5 years. It sucked when I was notified of it. But thinking back, all of us here on HN are incredibly privileged. We get laid off with months of severance and basically get another well paying job nearly immediately.
Be careful with any use of "all"—there are large numbers of us who have never seen Silicon Valley, many who live in countries with poor standards of living, and even a number who don't work in tech at all. All of these people are also contributing to these conversations, and it would cause a lot of misunderstanding to assume they're all ex-FAANG.
This. I am always a bit shocked by the Valley bias to believe you can walk out of a building complex and get a job down the road. Even in the rest of the US it is nowhere that easy, and being in Europe (where many high profile tech companies hire copious amounts of people who can do the same-or better-work than their US counterparts but where the job market is fundamentally different), I sometimes find that worldview borderline insulting.
I can only imagine what other countries might be like--I would expect ageism, local laws, market maturity, and even factors like origin and upbringing to still be significant risk factors if people were to be laid off in the casual manner the US seems to take for granted.
I can only imagine what other countries might be like--I would expect ageism, local laws, market maturity, and even factors like origin and upbringing to still be significant risk factors if people were to be laid off in the casual manner the US seems to take for granted.
I am not in the Valley, but I am in a large US metro. So yes, good point.
But the context of this article is a person getting let go from Google, not from a job digging ditches. From that point of view, yes, I think there is definitely privilege, compared to places elsewhere that you mentioned.
But the context of this article is a person getting let go from Google, not from a job digging ditches. From that point of view, yes, I think there is definitely privilege, compared to places elsewhere that you mentioned.
> all of us here on HN are incredibly privileged. We get laid off with months of severance and basically get another well paying job nearly immediately.
At age 39, I think I've had a traditional salaried job for about 6 months of my life so far and that was around age 23. It didn't suit me and I've always loooked for alternative forms of making money since. I've had a great run as a freelancer for the last twelve years or so. For the last few years in tech, and before that as a performer and dancer.
It's important when you're part of an online community not to generalize the other people there. I am not like you, you are not like me. We come from different countries, have different backgrounds and outlooks on life.
The thing bringing us together is a shared interest in the topic of this forum. Don't expand on that and assume it means we have similarities in other areas, that's groupthink territory. It's our differences that make this place interesting.
At age 39, I think I've had a traditional salaried job for about 6 months of my life so far and that was around age 23. It didn't suit me and I've always loooked for alternative forms of making money since. I've had a great run as a freelancer for the last twelve years or so. For the last few years in tech, and before that as a performer and dancer.
It's important when you're part of an online community not to generalize the other people there. I am not like you, you are not like me. We come from different countries, have different backgrounds and outlooks on life.
The thing bringing us together is a shared interest in the topic of this forum. Don't expand on that and assume it means we have similarities in other areas, that's groupthink territory. It's our differences that make this place interesting.
I am here reading comments from my poor country only having had a job for one and a half years in the last 8 years. Not complaining but i believe there is a diversity of people visiting HackerNews - different backgrounds, culture, locations, circumstances, etc.
You are right, but the article is about a person being let go from Google.
"Other people are treating workers like shit so this treatment of workers like shit is fine" is "well said"?
I think its just the regular clickbaity nature of the industry now. Yesterday, we saw the Fortune article saying:
"You need to detach and psychologically recover from work, professors say. The solution: commuting."
Which was not exactly the summary of the article, but it was clearly framed this way for generating reactions and engagement from RTO and WFH crowd ( and clearly I belong to one of those groups since I noticed ). The author eventually asked the website to change the title to:
"You need to detach and ‘psychologically recover’ from work, professors say. Commuting is a ‘liminal space’ where that can happen"
As always, there are levels. Callous may be too strong, but I would not say 'nothing was callous'.
"You need to detach and psychologically recover from work, professors say. The solution: commuting."
Which was not exactly the summary of the article, but it was clearly framed this way for generating reactions and engagement from RTO and WFH crowd ( and clearly I belong to one of those groups since I noticed ). The author eventually asked the website to change the title to:
"You need to detach and ‘psychologically recover’ from work, professors say. Commuting is a ‘liminal space’ where that can happen"
As always, there are levels. Callous may be too strong, but I would not say 'nothing was callous'.
Totally agree. These articles are so hyperbolic and ridiculous. One of the quotes from a worker near the beginning of it is:
> “This just drives home that work is not your life, and employers—especially big, faceless ones like Google—see you as 100% disposable”
It’s unfortunate and rather sad that it takes a firing to cause someone to realize that work is not their life. Work is a transaction. You do work and you get paid. If you want to find meaning in your life, there are better places to look than in some corporation.
In terms of being “disposable”, again, it’s not that you’re disposable. It’s transactional. For years the standard advice to tech workers has been to switch jobs frequently to gain pay raises. That was viewed as sensible economics, not a betrayal of one’s employer.
> “This just drives home that work is not your life, and employers—especially big, faceless ones like Google—see you as 100% disposable”
It’s unfortunate and rather sad that it takes a firing to cause someone to realize that work is not their life. Work is a transaction. You do work and you get paid. If you want to find meaning in your life, there are better places to look than in some corporation.
In terms of being “disposable”, again, it’s not that you’re disposable. It’s transactional. For years the standard advice to tech workers has been to switch jobs frequently to gain pay raises. That was viewed as sensible economics, not a betrayal of one’s employer.
> Real callous firings are when you wake up to your entire company no longer existing, your pension gone and corporate raiders walking off with billions
What's the difference. The same mentality makes both happen. If Google was financially in dire straits, what you said would be exactly what they were doing.
In a sense, this is worse - Google is not in financial straits. Its gigantic. Its ginormous revenue only slowed a bit. The entire purpose of this stampede was to appease hedge funds and investors by propping up the stock price. Employees and users be damned.
What's the difference. The same mentality makes both happen. If Google was financially in dire straits, what you said would be exactly what they were doing.
In a sense, this is worse - Google is not in financial straits. Its gigantic. Its ginormous revenue only slowed a bit. The entire purpose of this stampede was to appease hedge funds and investors by propping up the stock price. Employees and users be damned.
I hard disagree that a laid off Google employee would feel better if Google had wanted to keep them on but the company was folding. No severance and all your equity being worthless is a pretty shit trade for knowing your corporation still loves you.
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I don't disagree that it could be worse, but that's also no excuse for Google (specifically) to have fired people in this impersonal manner.
Workers aren't done with full-time work, they're done with allegiance to their employer. They're also done with giving free labor to their employer.
* Do I get paid overtime? No? Then I work 40 hours per week.
* You expect two weeks notice when I resign? That's cute!
* I'm jumping ship as soon as a better opportunity comes along. A better opportunity may be just working on a better project or learning new things.
* I will share my salary information. It's not private or top secret.
I'm sorry, this is the mess the MBA's made when the neocons took over the country in the 1980's. Everybody at the time saw this coming and now it's here. The employers made their bed and now it's time for them to lie in it.
I don't feel a bit sorry for them and I won't shed a single tear when the FAANG companies and their ilk whine that they're having a hard time finding workers, which they will inevitably do.
Too bad, so sad.
* Do I get paid overtime? No? Then I work 40 hours per week.
* You expect two weeks notice when I resign? That's cute!
* I'm jumping ship as soon as a better opportunity comes along. A better opportunity may be just working on a better project or learning new things.
* I will share my salary information. It's not private or top secret.
I'm sorry, this is the mess the MBA's made when the neocons took over the country in the 1980's. Everybody at the time saw this coming and now it's here. The employers made their bed and now it's time for them to lie in it.
I don't feel a bit sorry for them and I won't shed a single tear when the FAANG companies and their ilk whine that they're having a hard time finding workers, which they will inevitably do.
Too bad, so sad.
> * You expect two weeks notice when I resign? That's cute!
Storming out of your high paying tech job without giving any notice is the type of idea that sounds good when you’re fantasizing about, but does far more harm than good.
In real life, professionals don’t do this. I’ve only heard of it happening a few times, and it each case it was the story of legends that everyone knew about for years. Not in a good way, but in a “that’s the guy who just disappeared and left us to clean up their mess” way.
It’s the kind of move that will make sure nobody who knows anyone who knows that story will ever consider hiring you, and for good reason.
> I don't feel a bit sorry for them and I won't shed a single tear when the FAANG companies and their ilk whine that they're having a hard time finding workers, which they will inevitably do.
This is delusional. As long as a company is paying top-1% compensation they’re going to have candidates lining up to take those jobs.
The idea that tech workers are all going to unite and refuse to take $300K cushy FAANG jobs is just internet revenge fantasy.
Storming out of your high paying tech job without giving any notice is the type of idea that sounds good when you’re fantasizing about, but does far more harm than good.
In real life, professionals don’t do this. I’ve only heard of it happening a few times, and it each case it was the story of legends that everyone knew about for years. Not in a good way, but in a “that’s the guy who just disappeared and left us to clean up their mess” way.
It’s the kind of move that will make sure nobody who knows anyone who knows that story will ever consider hiring you, and for good reason.
> I don't feel a bit sorry for them and I won't shed a single tear when the FAANG companies and their ilk whine that they're having a hard time finding workers, which they will inevitably do.
This is delusional. As long as a company is paying top-1% compensation they’re going to have candidates lining up to take those jobs.
The idea that tech workers are all going to unite and refuse to take $300K cushy FAANG jobs is just internet revenge fantasy.
The level of delusion and entitlement coming from people getting paid $160k (plus golden Cadillac benefits, fully covered) to work from home doing approximately 15 hours of real work a week is staggering.
I suppose its just proof of the hedonic treadmill at work.
I suppose its just proof of the hedonic treadmill at work.
I thought I was the only other person who noticed this.
> As long as a company is paying top-1% compensation they’re going to have candidates lining up to take those jobs.
Some people have self-respect and can't be "bought." Those are the kinds of employees you want and will be harder for these companies to get.
As far as giving notice is concerned, at my company as soon as you give notice you're immediately walked out of the premises by security and all your access is immediately revoked. Your colleagues will pack up your stuff and it will be sent home to you. There are many companies like that.
Some people have self-respect and can't be "bought." Those are the kinds of employees you want and will be harder for these companies to get.
As far as giving notice is concerned, at my company as soon as you give notice you're immediately walked out of the premises by security and all your access is immediately revoked. Your colleagues will pack up your stuff and it will be sent home to you. There are many companies like that.
Of course everyone knows this, so the thing to do is quietly bring all your stuff home ahead of time.
> Some people have self-respect and can't be "bought." Those are the kinds of employees you want and will be harder for these companies to get.
I'm not an employer, but assuming your stereotypical cutthroat capitalist character, why would they want employees who "have self respect" and "can't be bought"?
Even as a person who admires those qualities, I would probably prioritize a lot of other traits far above those 2, starting first with "can they do the job".
I'm not an employer, but assuming your stereotypical cutthroat capitalist character, why would they want employees who "have self respect" and "can't be bought"?
Even as a person who admires those qualities, I would probably prioritize a lot of other traits far above those 2, starting first with "can they do the job".
Turns out that "yes men" aren't good for your organization.
<< I don't feel a bit sorry for them and I won't shed a single tear when the FAANG companies and their ilk whine that they're having a hard time finding workers, which they will inevitably do.
I chuckled, but that is a constant cry, but with varying framing ( "no one wants to work", "we need schools to teach $skill_companies_want to prepare them for jobs of tomorrow" ).
Overall, I think I agree. All of the above are gentlemen agreements. If one party does not honor social contact, you don't need to either. Naturally, you want to understand the consequence of those actions ( last time I quit, I gave my boss 3 weeks, but I genuinely liked him so I did not want to leave him stranded; the side benefit that he would likely be in my corner should we meet again - and in my industry, we well might ).
Companies and their managers are pissed at the power worker's squirreled away during Covid and want it back. The need for control above all else became clear where record profits and productivity did not translate into WFH forever, but a clear 'now its time to bring us all back together' while also being surprised by 'hey, you are less productive; why?'
I chuckled, but that is a constant cry, but with varying framing ( "no one wants to work", "we need schools to teach $skill_companies_want to prepare them for jobs of tomorrow" ).
Overall, I think I agree. All of the above are gentlemen agreements. If one party does not honor social contact, you don't need to either. Naturally, you want to understand the consequence of those actions ( last time I quit, I gave my boss 3 weeks, but I genuinely liked him so I did not want to leave him stranded; the side benefit that he would likely be in my corner should we meet again - and in my industry, we well might ).
Companies and their managers are pissed at the power worker's squirreled away during Covid and want it back. The need for control above all else became clear where record profits and productivity did not translate into WFH forever, but a clear 'now its time to bring us all back together' while also being surprised by 'hey, you are less productive; why?'
You're absolutely right. You still have agency. If you like your boss and don't want to leave them stranded, you may elect to give them several weeks notice. You just don't owe them that.
Just like working more than 40 hours per week. Sometimes you might want to put in more time because you can't turn your mind off and you may just want to continue working on whatever it is you've been working on. The problem arises when they expect you to work more than 40 hours per week.
As an aside, my company has been booming with WFH from a productivity standpoint. We're hiring people from all over the country and we've really learned how to make remote teams work. From the news it appears we may be an exception.
Just like working more than 40 hours per week. Sometimes you might want to put in more time because you can't turn your mind off and you may just want to continue working on whatever it is you've been working on. The problem arises when they expect you to work more than 40 hours per week.
As an aside, my company has been booming with WFH from a productivity standpoint. We're hiring people from all over the country and we've really learned how to make remote teams work. From the news it appears we may be an exception.
1. Denial: nah, google/meta/apple/XXX would never laid me off!
2. Anger: WTF, I dedicated xx years to XXXX, how dare they!
3. Bargaining: I'll never work for the man again! I'll be my own boss!
4. Depression: This sucks, out of work sucks! I don't have a social circle to hang out with. My life sucks!
5. Acceptance: OK. Time to get a new job. Oh, look at that start up, their motto is change the world, join us and be the next xxx(ian/ler/mate, etc). Sounds awesome, let me ask my friend for a referral.
I might have taken liberty to the original with sarcasm.
2. Anger: WTF, I dedicated xx years to XXXX, how dare they!
3. Bargaining: I'll never work for the man again! I'll be my own boss!
4. Depression: This sucks, out of work sucks! I don't have a social circle to hang out with. My life sucks!
5. Acceptance: OK. Time to get a new job. Oh, look at that start up, their motto is change the world, join us and be the next xxx(ian/ler/mate, etc). Sounds awesome, let me ask my friend for a referral.
I might have taken liberty to the original with sarcasm.
The article repeats over and over that 89% of workers want more flexibility than a normal job offers, but my view is that the pandemic started a trend of more flexibility for existing jobs. My coworkers are mostly on west coast time, but I am on the early end of Eastern Time and our company has no problem with that.
I work when I can, get my kid off the bus, and don't have a problem taking a day off here and there with our unlimited PTO policy. A few years ago I felt tied to an 8:30-5 schedule, but I think child care challenges during the pandemic have made a lot of employers more flexible.
I work when I can, get my kid off the bus, and don't have a problem taking a day off here and there with our unlimited PTO policy. A few years ago I felt tied to an 8:30-5 schedule, but I think child care challenges during the pandemic have made a lot of employers more flexible.
On the other hand, another way to have more financial security is to save and invest money. That way you have time to figure out something new if your current job ends for whatever reason. If you get paid relatively well, like many tech workers do, it's not that hard to save a decent amount of money. The lifestyle creep just gets most people.
Even with considerable savings, it's easy to get "I can take a break" money, but it's very hard to get "fuck you" money. With the stigma against changing jobs and taking breaks in the IT industry, there's other pressures to stay at shitty employers and stay burnt out because you're risking your future employability.
Personally I'm looking to go part-time and have better work life balance because at most places 50% of your time is spent on bullshit anyways.
Personally I'm looking to go part-time and have better work life balance because at most places 50% of your time is spent on bullshit anyways.
> With the stigma against changing jobs and taking breaks in the IT industry
Is there a stigma again either of these? In my experience, the stigma against changing jobs is really only if you change jobs a LOT, to the point where the employer is worried your employment won't be worth the investment.
And I've taken breaks between jobs with no problems + don't really see it as an issue when I see it on resume in most cases.
Is there a stigma again either of these? In my experience, the stigma against changing jobs is really only if you change jobs a LOT, to the point where the employer is worried your employment won't be worth the investment.
And I've taken breaks between jobs with no problems + don't really see it as an issue when I see it on resume in most cases.
> With the stigma against changing jobs and taking breaks in the IT industry,
Where is the stigma against changing jobs? From everything I've seen, job-hopping every 18 months seems to be the default in the last couple decades, at least for software developers. I personally think that's suboptimal duration for everything except maximizing TC (costing the company institutional knowledge, and costing the employee learning from seeing both cause and effect in lifecycles), but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that.
Maybe VC throwing the brakes on growth theatre will mean that startups will return to business fundamentals, and rethink what engineering practices work for that.
There has long been a stigma in tech hiring against candidate not currently employed. Maybe partly due to the job-hopping convention ("if you're not doing that, you must be stupid"), but I think this particular stigma predated techbros, for a variety of reasons.
(Though, noteworthy contrary data point: before leaving one place, I did ask a recruiter at my favorite FAANG, who assured me that their process doesn't penalize candidates for not currently being employed. They answered as if that was an FAQ and the company had a policy about that. At least regarding whether an offer is made, at that particular company; I imagine that could affect compensation package.)
Maybe the recent rash of big tech layoffs relaxes that particular stigma for everyone in tech.
Where is the stigma against changing jobs? From everything I've seen, job-hopping every 18 months seems to be the default in the last couple decades, at least for software developers. I personally think that's suboptimal duration for everything except maximizing TC (costing the company institutional knowledge, and costing the employee learning from seeing both cause and effect in lifecycles), but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that.
Maybe VC throwing the brakes on growth theatre will mean that startups will return to business fundamentals, and rethink what engineering practices work for that.
There has long been a stigma in tech hiring against candidate not currently employed. Maybe partly due to the job-hopping convention ("if you're not doing that, you must be stupid"), but I think this particular stigma predated techbros, for a variety of reasons.
(Though, noteworthy contrary data point: before leaving one place, I did ask a recruiter at my favorite FAANG, who assured me that their process doesn't penalize candidates for not currently being employed. They answered as if that was an FAQ and the company had a policy about that. At least regarding whether an offer is made, at that particular company; I imagine that could affect compensation package.)
Maybe the recent rash of big tech layoffs relaxes that particular stigma for everyone in tech.
As a hiring manager, I I only welcome taking breaks between jobs. This way I can be sure the new employee will come onboard full of energy and salf-motivated.
What stigma is there against taking breaks? I have long gaps between every single job on my resume, it's never been an issue.
> The lifestyle creep just gets most people.
I changed industry a few years ago and as a result had a big income increase. I made a point of not changing my lifestyle because I know it won't last forever.
Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to commit to it. Not that I live a particularly wealthy lifestyle, but it's hard to renounce to the extra little comfort that money can get you. Little by little, you get used spending a bit more money.
Also, when you live in a very expensive city like NYC, simply living not too far from work in a decent appartement takes a big part of your paycheck.
I changed industry a few years ago and as a result had a big income increase. I made a point of not changing my lifestyle because I know it won't last forever.
Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to commit to it. Not that I live a particularly wealthy lifestyle, but it's hard to renounce to the extra little comfort that money can get you. Little by little, you get used spending a bit more money.
Also, when you live in a very expensive city like NYC, simply living not too far from work in a decent appartement takes a big part of your paycheck.
The key to avoiding lifestyle creep is "pay yourself first". Set up automatic deductions to automatically pull money from your paycheck before it ever gets to your bank account. In the US, you can put $20k per year into a 401k account and another $6k into an IRA account tax free.
> you can put $20k per year into a 401k account and another $6k into an IRA account tax free.
Only if your income is relatively low (for US tech employees).
https://www.fool.com/retirement/plans/401k/contribute-to-401...
Only if your income is relatively low (for US tech employees).
https://www.fool.com/retirement/plans/401k/contribute-to-401...
> I changed industry a few years ago and as a result had a big income increase. I made a point of not changing my lifestyle because I know it won't last forever.
Same here. Making almost double, still in the same house and car, just saving money and paying down on the house.
Same here. Making almost double, still in the same house and car, just saving money and paying down on the house.
There’s also a difference in how old you are and if you have a family. When you have four years of junior-level savings, the prospect of having no income is very different than when you have twenty years of savings, with ten of those at senior levels. Likewise if you are single, expenses are very different than a family of four.
> The lifestyle creep just gets most people.
A lot of people who were doing okay before find themselves underwater budgetwise because of inflation.
Tech is one of the few industries where you get paid more by getting paid more. If you're an engineer making $180k you can demand a pay raise or threaten to walk. Knowing you'll land somewhere in a few weeks or use savings for the next 6-12 months. Someone making $60k, for example, could never be that bold.
A lot of people who were doing okay before find themselves underwater budgetwise because of inflation.
Tech is one of the few industries where you get paid more by getting paid more. If you're an engineer making $180k you can demand a pay raise or threaten to walk. Knowing you'll land somewhere in a few weeks or use savings for the next 6-12 months. Someone making $60k, for example, could never be that bold.
It seems to me that to be a successful contractor, you usually have to have a certain personality type. In addition to doing the actual work, you have to be able to drum up business on a regular basis. This requires someone who can build a good network of friends, colleagues, and clients and interact with them regularly.
Many programmers are introverted by nature. They went into programming because the idea of sitting alone in front of a computer all day did not cause a panic attack. They enjoy those long hours of 'solving a problem' using an IDE and testing the code over and over until it is right. They can sometimes go a whole week without engaging in a conversation longer than 10 minutes.
This personality type does not match up well with a contracting business that has to 'wine and dine' potential clients; come up with proposals and present them to others; and regularly interact with existing clients to work out details.
Many programmers are introverted by nature. They went into programming because the idea of sitting alone in front of a computer all day did not cause a panic attack. They enjoy those long hours of 'solving a problem' using an IDE and testing the code over and over until it is right. They can sometimes go a whole week without engaging in a conversation longer than 10 minutes.
This personality type does not match up well with a contracting business that has to 'wine and dine' potential clients; come up with proposals and present them to others; and regularly interact with existing clients to work out details.
I feel that a survey of only 500 people, asking rather softball, "in-a-perfect-world" questions, may not exactly be a bellwether.
When it comes to freelancing/contract work, a significant number of folks like the idea of it, but the reality of it is not something they are comfortable with.
I think a lot of these folks may find themselves facing the same thing I did. They are now considered "olds," and won't find the doors open as wide as they used to be.
Those added jobs are probably a lot of young, fresh, faces.
When it comes to freelancing/contract work, a significant number of folks like the idea of it, but the reality of it is not something they are comfortable with.
I think a lot of these folks may find themselves facing the same thing I did. They are now considered "olds," and won't find the doors open as wide as they used to be.
Those added jobs are probably a lot of young, fresh, faces.
Obviously, there's plenty of bias here given the source, but I think on balance it either hinted at or laid out a lot of the issues we know about the state of 9-5 employment, most notably in the U.S, fairly well:
-Lack of control over schedule/location
-Lack of growth paths at many companies
-Lack of leverage/Inputs match outputs almost 1:1 (sell time, make a dollar)
-Not getting rewarded for the value you bring to a job; instead that value accruing mostly to people above you
-That feeling of being merely a line on a spreadsheet
Over time, I've learned that for some people, articles like this will really resonate and shake them to their core. (I happen to be in that category but I've experienced enough in previous entrepreneurial ventures for this enthusiasm to be tempered a little bit with reality every time I read things like this).
Others will recoil seeing this, their first instinct going to the (very real) risks in leaving that system and conclude they're far more comfortable optimizing for the familiar.
Both reactions are perfectly OK. There's no wrong or right answer. It's just what connects with you, as a person.
The key is to understand that, either way, you're in charge of your career, regardless of what kind of professional setup suits you best and makes you happiest.
-Lack of control over schedule/location
-Lack of growth paths at many companies
-Lack of leverage/Inputs match outputs almost 1:1 (sell time, make a dollar)
-Not getting rewarded for the value you bring to a job; instead that value accruing mostly to people above you
-That feeling of being merely a line on a spreadsheet
Over time, I've learned that for some people, articles like this will really resonate and shake them to their core. (I happen to be in that category but I've experienced enough in previous entrepreneurial ventures for this enthusiasm to be tempered a little bit with reality every time I read things like this).
Others will recoil seeing this, their first instinct going to the (very real) risks in leaving that system and conclude they're far more comfortable optimizing for the familiar.
Both reactions are perfectly OK. There's no wrong or right answer. It's just what connects with you, as a person.
The key is to understand that, either way, you're in charge of your career, regardless of what kind of professional setup suits you best and makes you happiest.
You don't want to feel "disposable"? Don't go work for a company with tens of thousands of employees where literally everyone is disposable, up to and including the C-suites, by design.
You want to work part-time? Guess what, you are asking for a job that is disposable, because someone else needs to even out the work gap you left.
That said, being disposable also comes with less responsibility and, by extension, less pressure. You want to feel important and valued? Go work at a small shop that isn't lavishly funded by OPM, where your work helps keep the company solvent.
Or, go work for yourself. You'll learn to appreciate the peace of mind of having a paycheck magically show up at the end of month, or getting at least some benefits when it doesn't anymore.
You want to work part-time? Guess what, you are asking for a job that is disposable, because someone else needs to even out the work gap you left.
That said, being disposable also comes with less responsibility and, by extension, less pressure. You want to feel important and valued? Go work at a small shop that isn't lavishly funded by OPM, where your work helps keep the company solvent.
Or, go work for yourself. You'll learn to appreciate the peace of mind of having a paycheck magically show up at the end of month, or getting at least some benefits when it doesn't anymore.
The idea behind this is nice - "people want to diversify their risk and not be 'owned' by one company" - but I don't think it's in line with the way people are, unfortunately.
People like the simple, dependable nature of the biweekly paycheck — full stop. I run a services business, and I've talked to many amazing in-house folks who I'm sure could do the same (and be more successful than I am). What I've found is that for many people, the concept of not being sure what they'll make is simply unpalatable.
This article cites survey results but doesn't talk about all the reasons people don't enjoy or have success when they go it alone.
People like the simple, dependable nature of the biweekly paycheck — full stop. I run a services business, and I've talked to many amazing in-house folks who I'm sure could do the same (and be more successful than I am). What I've found is that for many people, the concept of not being sure what they'll make is simply unpalatable.
This article cites survey results but doesn't talk about all the reasons people don't enjoy or have success when they go it alone.
There is nothing good about losing a job, no doubt.
What I find interesting is how this becomes another example of software engineers facing the same struggles that artists have always faced.
It happened first with open source software. People want to build cool stuff and make it freely available, asking for support in return. Reality check, nobody is paying your rent for your OSS. This is life-as-an-artist 101.
Wanting more control over your schedule and the work you take is super liberating! It comes at a lot of costs.
There is the time cost of finding clients and negotiating contracts.
There is the billing cost, of invoicing your customer and finding a secure way to receive payments. Many platforms take a cut.
There are the additional taxes of being self-employed: "In addition to regular income tax, freelancers are responsible for paying the self-employment tax of 15.3% in 2022" (https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/self-employment-tax)
There is the stress of not knowing how long your current clients need you, and when you will have to start hustling again. Historically, full-time work fixes this issue. It is currently in question with the state of the news.
It is generally easier to find freelance work for knowledge workers compared to creative workers. With the state of the news, the competition has become extremely fierce.
The freelancer life is a very different reality that you really have to check before committing.
Myself, I have absolutely enjoyed my experiences with freelance, and I believe it helped me develop an independent way of moving through the world. Now I'm happy to have gone from being a freelance musician of 9 years to full time tech worker. Food is great.
What I find interesting is how this becomes another example of software engineers facing the same struggles that artists have always faced.
It happened first with open source software. People want to build cool stuff and make it freely available, asking for support in return. Reality check, nobody is paying your rent for your OSS. This is life-as-an-artist 101.
Wanting more control over your schedule and the work you take is super liberating! It comes at a lot of costs.
There is the time cost of finding clients and negotiating contracts.
There is the billing cost, of invoicing your customer and finding a secure way to receive payments. Many platforms take a cut.
There are the additional taxes of being self-employed: "In addition to regular income tax, freelancers are responsible for paying the self-employment tax of 15.3% in 2022" (https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/self-employment-tax)
There is the stress of not knowing how long your current clients need you, and when you will have to start hustling again. Historically, full-time work fixes this issue. It is currently in question with the state of the news.
It is generally easier to find freelance work for knowledge workers compared to creative workers. With the state of the news, the competition has become extremely fierce.
The freelancer life is a very different reality that you really have to check before committing.
Myself, I have absolutely enjoyed my experiences with freelance, and I believe it helped me develop an independent way of moving through the world. Now I'm happy to have gone from being a freelance musician of 9 years to full time tech worker. Food is great.
Hey there,
I'm co-founder of contra.com - we started our platform for people that wanted to be independent, set their own rules for working and carve their own path to success. Nearly everyone on our team has current or previous experience as a contractor or freelancer and we're really focused on making the best place for everyone to be successful.
Whether you're new to the work of indy working or have been doing it for years, check us out. We don't charge any commissions on your work, since you worked hard to make that money. In the second half of the year we even rolled out a feature that allows you to migrate your work easier from other contractor/freelancing sites to our platform so you can retain more of the money you've earned.
I'm co-founder of contra.com - we started our platform for people that wanted to be independent, set their own rules for working and carve their own path to success. Nearly everyone on our team has current or previous experience as a contractor or freelancer and we're really focused on making the best place for everyone to be successful.
Whether you're new to the work of indy working or have been doing it for years, check us out. We don't charge any commissions on your work, since you worked hard to make that money. In the second half of the year we even rolled out a feature that allows you to migrate your work easier from other contractor/freelancing sites to our platform so you can retain more of the money you've earned.
I can confidently say nothing is going to change. People will forget this soon. There will be new companies and new “geniuses” and people will blindly pledge allegiance. It’s not meant to be disparaging, people always want to align with good positive growth stories and they will. The same thing happened in 1999, 2008 too. The cycle continued between 99-08 and then again between 08-now. If anything the idol worship of entrepreneurs increased and became more fervent. May be entrepreneurs became adept at marketing themselves or people became desperate but the worshipping culture got worse. Forget about workers are done with loyalty, I will consider it a win if the blind worshipping of entrepreneurs is dialed down.
An interesting case of outsourced externalities: degrading the common pool of workers by lowering loyalty and commitment.
Besides that, I can only recommend being your own boss to have more control over your professional destiny.
Besides that, I can only recommend being your own boss to have more control over your professional destiny.
In the modern work paradigm, I can’t see why I would bother even report a bug in my employers software that was burning money.
As an employee, I don’t see much in it for me other than not getting fired, so I do the bare minimum.
As an employee, I don’t see much in it for me other than not getting fired, so I do the bare minimum.
As they asked in the “Office Space” - what would motivate you (to report that bug)? More equity?
To be fair, i am not sure there is anything anymore as I do not trust employers. I wouldn't trust that I will be there for any significant length of time.
I would basically need 20% of the savings of fixing the bug on my next paycheck.
I would basically need 20% of the savings of fixing the bug on my next paycheck.
Okay. What is your long term strategy? Start your own company?
I have to wonder if this is not the goal of many of these companys
"Gig Economy" is great for the large companies (at least in the US) , they would much rather higher you as a Freelance contractor then having to pay ever increasing health care costs, more and more regulatory burden on what you have to offer and provide to employee's etc.
Must better to just call you a "contractor" and pay you 50% what an employee would cost in totality, but making you believe you are "making more" because you income is higher.
"Gig Economy" is great for the large companies (at least in the US) , they would much rather higher you as a Freelance contractor then having to pay ever increasing health care costs, more and more regulatory burden on what you have to offer and provide to employee's etc.
Must better to just call you a "contractor" and pay you 50% what an employee would cost in totality, but making you believe you are "making more" because you income is higher.
>I have to wonder if this is not the goal of many of these companys
Why do you wonder this? Were these people laid off and then replaced with contractors? Why would they do this by laying off 10% of staff instead of just replacing all the new hires going forward with contractors, instead of continuing to hire into full time roles?
I have to wonder if this is idle speculation on your part based on no evidence.
Why do you wonder this? Were these people laid off and then replaced with contractors? Why would they do this by laying off 10% of staff instead of just replacing all the new hires going forward with contractors, instead of continuing to hire into full time roles?
I have to wonder if this is idle speculation on your part based on no evidence.
"Gig Economy" is even better for small companies that do not have as much capital, and each hire is a larger percentage of their workforce than in a large company. Because of this, each hire in a small company is a bigger risk.
If you work full time, work is your life, or it’s whatever percentage of your life that you spend there on average per week. You can try to ignore this fact and focus on your life outside of work, but you’re just going to build cognitive dissonance over time and delay the day of reckoning. The only path forward is improving the quality of your life at work by improving labor regulations, and the only way to achieve that is through labor organizing, which means unions.
As others have pointed out, dubious article.
And, dubious proposition. For myself... I quit my GOOG job a year ago, and I certainly felt this was through 2022, and pursued contracting and freelance and startups and open source stuff and enjoyed the freedom. But once layoffs really started to heat up through the summer, I started to feel the push to finding a "stable" fulltime job, found one, and am more than happy to be employed securely, given the market. Especially after yesterday when 150+ of my fellow Canadian ex-Googlers were dumped onto the job market.
A fulltime job right now is golden. More and more people are going to feel this way as things become unstable. With thousands of very qualified recently laid-off people dumped onto the market, compensation rates are going to fall, interviewing is going to get tougher, work more stressful, etc. Competition for consulting gigs will also get difficult.
And, dubious proposition. For myself... I quit my GOOG job a year ago, and I certainly felt this was through 2022, and pursued contracting and freelance and startups and open source stuff and enjoyed the freedom. But once layoffs really started to heat up through the summer, I started to feel the push to finding a "stable" fulltime job, found one, and am more than happy to be employed securely, given the market. Especially after yesterday when 150+ of my fellow Canadian ex-Googlers were dumped onto the job market.
A fulltime job right now is golden. More and more people are going to feel this way as things become unstable. With thousands of very qualified recently laid-off people dumped onto the market, compensation rates are going to fall, interviewing is going to get tougher, work more stressful, etc. Competition for consulting gigs will also get difficult.
This seems to be exactly why they were so loud about their layoffs, to produce this perspective. Old is new, right? As noted in TFA, the number of tech jobs increased during the same period.
Very glad you're happy though.
Very glad you're happy though.
FWIW, I agree re: "why they were so loud". And I agree there's still plenty of hiring and opportunity out there. However, I also lived through the last two rounds of layoffs/contraction in this sector, and (as a jr dev) was unemployed for over a year in the post .com/9-11 crash.
For me, I can see the writing on the wall, and have a family to feed. Tech jobs may have increased in the previous interval but it seems plain to me where they're headed over the next 1-2 years.
Of course I'd like to be wrong.
For me, I can see the writing on the wall, and have a family to feed. Tech jobs may have increased in the previous interval but it seems plain to me where they're headed over the next 1-2 years.
Of course I'd like to be wrong.
Yeah - the idea that 90% of workers want to be gig type workers seems insane to me. I’m sure companies will lap this up.
This reads like a very biased, clickbait extrapolation from a highly localized sample population, and barely registers as realistic when read from outside the US, and should be flagged as opportunistic clickbait.
(About the only thing I can relate to in the title is the callousness/corporate insensitivity of the layoff process)
(About the only thing I can relate to in the title is the callousness/corporate insensitivity of the layoff process)
I've worked less than full time for a good portion of my career -- sometimes salaried, sometimes on contract. If you can make it work financially, I highly recommend it. I can do unrelated personal work at a much higher level when I have 10+ hours per week available to advance it. And my energy for the "day job" is at its best when it doesn't eat up all my time, so my results per hour are better.
The pattern is rare enough that there is a cultural barrier, at least in the US (and possibly worse elsewhere?). I accept that there will be fewer opportunities, and plan to do outstanding work during the hours I'm engaged. My employer gets a happy me and benefits from (by now) decades of experience. I hope that more tech (and non-tech) workers will join me in advocating for this sort of arrangement so it becomes more common.
The pattern is rare enough that there is a cultural barrier, at least in the US (and possibly worse elsewhere?). I accept that there will be fewer opportunities, and plan to do outstanding work during the hours I'm engaged. My employer gets a happy me and benefits from (by now) decades of experience. I hope that more tech (and non-tech) workers will join me in advocating for this sort of arrangement so it becomes more common.
Here's the former CTO of my last salaried job talking about part time work and the arrangement I had there: https://youtu.be/Gsai-2ZCHwk?t=431
I’m in the A.Team network (the group behind this post) and I’ll say that they don’t even have many contracts available right now.
If their own ability to find work for contractors is any signal, contracting is a horrible replacement for full time opportunities. It’s unpredictable.
If their own ability to find work for contractors is any signal, contracting is a horrible replacement for full time opportunities. It’s unpredictable.
It's not just that people have figured out loyalty isn't rewarded. That has surely been known for a while.
With WFH, you can be constantly looking for a new job. Who's going to know if you take an hour to talk to some recruiter? Just like Tinder/etc has upended dating, tech workers can be courted constantly. I take calls from recruiters all the time, I don't even think of it as disloyalty.
You can even actually work multiple jobs from home. Tech makes it possible, though you're often going a step deeper into breaking contracts when you do that.
Then there's also working on your own side gig, which is much easier to do when WFH is a reality.
With WFH, you can be constantly looking for a new job. Who's going to know if you take an hour to talk to some recruiter? Just like Tinder/etc has upended dating, tech workers can be courted constantly. I take calls from recruiters all the time, I don't even think of it as disloyalty.
You can even actually work multiple jobs from home. Tech makes it possible, though you're often going a step deeper into breaking contracts when you do that.
Then there's also working on your own side gig, which is much easier to do when WFH is a reality.
Whats the point of constantly talking to recruiter unless you change jobs often
But if you do, then arent you worried that it is seen as a res flag which may prevent you later from cool jobs?
But if you do, then arent you worried that it is seen as a res flag which may prevent you later from cool jobs?
Tells me what the market looks like, plus I often run into some role that I know someone for.
I don't see changing roles as a flag at all. Nobody seems to care, especially if you just happened to be at a job that died.
I don't see changing roles as a flag at all. Nobody seems to care, especially if you just happened to be at a job that died.
News flash: the grass looks greener on the other side!
I’ve done both, most of my advice is the same as others who’ve contracted. One thing I’ll add: get retainer contracts! I had one contract that paid a couple hundred per month for me to be “on-call” if the main programmer was out in a small one-man shop. If they didn’t use their allotted hours, every couple months we’d check in, review something etc.
I got a full time job but if I were still contracting this is where I’d focus a lot of attention: finding gigs that pay you monthly for maintenance, on-call etc.
I’ve done both, most of my advice is the same as others who’ve contracted. One thing I’ll add: get retainer contracts! I had one contract that paid a couple hundred per month for me to be “on-call” if the main programmer was out in a small one-man shop. If they didn’t use their allotted hours, every couple months we’d check in, review something etc.
I got a full time job but if I were still contracting this is where I’d focus a lot of attention: finding gigs that pay you monthly for maintenance, on-call etc.
People who are done with the Full-Time Work can always try a few other options:
- Starting their own company (and good luck managing all that stress and uncertainty while trying to do some work while securing a steady income)
- Becoming a freelancer (be your own boss, pick up work when you want it... at least that's how it goes in theory)
- Retiring (this one is not bad but only limited for people of appropriate age or with significant savings)
- Being unemployed (that really sucks, as you might imagine, especially if you have a family to feed)
- And, as a last resort, looking for a Full-time job again.
- Starting their own company (and good luck managing all that stress and uncertainty while trying to do some work while securing a steady income)
- Becoming a freelancer (be your own boss, pick up work when you want it... at least that's how it goes in theory)
- Retiring (this one is not bad but only limited for people of appropriate age or with significant savings)
- Being unemployed (that really sucks, as you might imagine, especially if you have a family to feed)
- And, as a last resort, looking for a Full-time job again.
I did school / retraining as another option. Also hard financially, but it's an option to get ahead in the long run.
The mantra that runs American businesses, certainly American tech businesses, feels broken. Companies bend over backwards to make their financials fit the narrative of constant growth and are rewarded for it even when they get there by callously cutting costs rather than investing in the long term. Nearly no loyalty between employees and employers, and not much between companies and customers either. All that seems to matter anymore is the quarterly financial report.
Sometimes it feels like you need to hit the reset button.
Sometimes it feels like you need to hit the reset button.
>by callously cutting costs rather than investing in the long term
Interest rates went up significantly over the past year. As a result, a dollar 10 years from now is now worth far less than it did a year ago. It makes total sense for companies to make money now (by cutting costs) rather than "investing in the long term". Sure, it sucks for the people involved, but it's not as irrational as you make it out to be.
Interest rates went up significantly over the past year. As a result, a dollar 10 years from now is now worth far less than it did a year ago. It makes total sense for companies to make money now (by cutting costs) rather than "investing in the long term". Sure, it sucks for the people involved, but it's not as irrational as you make it out to be.
Literally the only concern you even regarded in that entire comment is the bottom line. As far as I can tell, expectations are so gruelingly low that the two things a company is expected to do is (barely) follow the law (but not too closely, as it would be wasteful) and make profit.
It's not surprising that companies who just got done squeezing the pandemic economy and growing senselessly for what they knew was temporary had to leak employees, but just because what they did was rational doesn't mean it was good, or respectable. It's not the standard we should want.
It's not surprising that companies who just got done squeezing the pandemic economy and growing senselessly for what they knew was temporary had to leak employees, but just because what they did was rational doesn't mean it was good, or respectable. It's not the standard we should want.
>Literally the only concern you even regarded in that entire comment is the bottom line.
Going back to your previous comment:
"Companies bend over backwards to make their financials fit the narrative of constant growth and are rewarded for it even when they get there by callously cutting costs rather than investing in the long term"
Why should they be "investing in the long term"? For the bottom line? Or as some sort of jobs program to keep people employed even if they're not really needed?
>As far as I can tell, expectations are so gruelingly low that the two things a company is expected to do is (barely) follow the law (but not too closely, as it would be wasteful) and make profit.
Yeah, that's basically the point of a company. Would you rather companies be responsible for making money, and keeping people employed even if they're not really needed?
>It's not surprising that companies who just got done squeezing the pandemic economy and growing senselessly for what they knew was temporary had to leak employees, but just because what they did was rational doesn't mean it was good, or respectable. It's not the standard we should want.
Would you rather that the people not be employed in the first place?
Going back to your previous comment:
"Companies bend over backwards to make their financials fit the narrative of constant growth and are rewarded for it even when they get there by callously cutting costs rather than investing in the long term"
Why should they be "investing in the long term"? For the bottom line? Or as some sort of jobs program to keep people employed even if they're not really needed?
>As far as I can tell, expectations are so gruelingly low that the two things a company is expected to do is (barely) follow the law (but not too closely, as it would be wasteful) and make profit.
Yeah, that's basically the point of a company. Would you rather companies be responsible for making money, and keeping people employed even if they're not really needed?
>It's not surprising that companies who just got done squeezing the pandemic economy and growing senselessly for what they knew was temporary had to leak employees, but just because what they did was rational doesn't mean it was good, or respectable. It's not the standard we should want.
Would you rather that the people not be employed in the first place?
> Why should they be "investing in the long term"? For the bottom line? Or as some sort of jobs program to keep people employed even if they're not really needed?
What are companies even for in society to you? They're supposed to provide goods and services. The "long term" is a healthy, respectable business. If you just follow short-term financials all the time, obviously that won't work. But chasing only financials in general won't work either.
Does a restaurant not strive to have good service and quality food in some part for the sake of it? Does nobody ever start a business in a field they genuinely care about? Obviously a company itself can't strive for anything since it is not a person, but the people who found them and work at them can and do. Financials are not the ultimate signal of success. They're part of surviving and growing, but far from the only thing a company should ultimately desire to maximize.
Not everyone in society is a grifter. For some, finances are just something that have to be balanced with accomplishing the real goals. A necessary evil of an economic system that has trade-offs, like any. Having money-obsessed psychopaths in every CEO position is a terrible outcome because the truth is that you should actually care about what your company does.
So no, they shouldn't optimize for keeping people employed even if they don't need them. However, they should optimize for sensible hiring strategies so that they are less likely to need to "cut the fat" later.
> Yeah, that's basically the point of a company. Would you rather companies be responsible for making money, and keeping people employed even if they're not really needed?
No, I'd rather we had higher expectations than the absolute bare minimum. I'm not sure why your takeaway from what I said is that they should needlessly hire and maintain employees.
> Would you rather that the people not be employed in the first place?
Yes, I would rather companies do not senselessly hire a bunch of full-time long-term employees during a very blatantly obvious temporary boost in the market only to inevitably shit can them in a year or less. What they did looked good on the balance sheets. So much growth! So why not?
The reason for why not is that it's shitty behavior.
It may very well be that with where we're at now, shitty behavior is so normal among American companies that it's wishful thinking to believe any long-term consequences could ever come from it. I mean, it's not like there are even consumer choices left in most categories that feel like they have much dignity. The most genuine brand loyalty you'll find in America is power tool companies, and they're not really saints either.
I wasn't there, so I can't really say, but I postulate that in the past, when the naive facade of the American company broke, and people became increasingly aware of the level of greed and corruption that they could exhibit, they just sort of let it become normal. Apathetic pessimism.
I don't care if it's stupid. Or naive. Or pointless. To me, it does matter that people give a shit. It does matter that every single possible facet of grifting is not exploited just for the mere fact that one can get away with it. And, of course, it does matter that companies respect their employees and prospective employees by not taking advantage of market conditions and hiring people in an irresponsible and clearly unsustainable fashion.
I remember the alarms on this hiring spree being sounded as early as last year when it was still in a huge boom. You can't tell me that the only way a company like Google can possibly deal with "changes in market conditions" (...that everyone knew was going to happen in advance anyways...) is by having a hiring freeze so late in the game that they even cut off prospective employees that have already passed the entire interview, followed by some pretty strong layoffs.
If those employees matter so little that this effectively changes nothing about a company like Google's ability to operate and deliver the same stuff they planned on doing anyways, then what was the point?
I don't even like Apple, but at least in this case it seems like they are able to behave in a significantly more conservative fashion. I'm not sure how much of that is their notoriously large bank reserves, or their hiring strategies, but either way, they're probably going to be the last of the tech giants to announce layoffs. That's a good play for their employee morale even if they could be in a better place in some regards. Are they perfect? No. I literally hate Apple, and frankly it's probably still all just bottom-line oriented behavior. It's just that it's hard to not respect some slightly longer-term planning above the absolutely stupid short-term quarterly financials driven behavior that I've witnessed first-hand at a different FAANG company.
What are companies even for in society to you? They're supposed to provide goods and services. The "long term" is a healthy, respectable business. If you just follow short-term financials all the time, obviously that won't work. But chasing only financials in general won't work either.
Does a restaurant not strive to have good service and quality food in some part for the sake of it? Does nobody ever start a business in a field they genuinely care about? Obviously a company itself can't strive for anything since it is not a person, but the people who found them and work at them can and do. Financials are not the ultimate signal of success. They're part of surviving and growing, but far from the only thing a company should ultimately desire to maximize.
Not everyone in society is a grifter. For some, finances are just something that have to be balanced with accomplishing the real goals. A necessary evil of an economic system that has trade-offs, like any. Having money-obsessed psychopaths in every CEO position is a terrible outcome because the truth is that you should actually care about what your company does.
So no, they shouldn't optimize for keeping people employed even if they don't need them. However, they should optimize for sensible hiring strategies so that they are less likely to need to "cut the fat" later.
> Yeah, that's basically the point of a company. Would you rather companies be responsible for making money, and keeping people employed even if they're not really needed?
No, I'd rather we had higher expectations than the absolute bare minimum. I'm not sure why your takeaway from what I said is that they should needlessly hire and maintain employees.
> Would you rather that the people not be employed in the first place?
Yes, I would rather companies do not senselessly hire a bunch of full-time long-term employees during a very blatantly obvious temporary boost in the market only to inevitably shit can them in a year or less. What they did looked good on the balance sheets. So much growth! So why not?
The reason for why not is that it's shitty behavior.
It may very well be that with where we're at now, shitty behavior is so normal among American companies that it's wishful thinking to believe any long-term consequences could ever come from it. I mean, it's not like there are even consumer choices left in most categories that feel like they have much dignity. The most genuine brand loyalty you'll find in America is power tool companies, and they're not really saints either.
I wasn't there, so I can't really say, but I postulate that in the past, when the naive facade of the American company broke, and people became increasingly aware of the level of greed and corruption that they could exhibit, they just sort of let it become normal. Apathetic pessimism.
I don't care if it's stupid. Or naive. Or pointless. To me, it does matter that people give a shit. It does matter that every single possible facet of grifting is not exploited just for the mere fact that one can get away with it. And, of course, it does matter that companies respect their employees and prospective employees by not taking advantage of market conditions and hiring people in an irresponsible and clearly unsustainable fashion.
I remember the alarms on this hiring spree being sounded as early as last year when it was still in a huge boom. You can't tell me that the only way a company like Google can possibly deal with "changes in market conditions" (...that everyone knew was going to happen in advance anyways...) is by having a hiring freeze so late in the game that they even cut off prospective employees that have already passed the entire interview, followed by some pretty strong layoffs.
If those employees matter so little that this effectively changes nothing about a company like Google's ability to operate and deliver the same stuff they planned on doing anyways, then what was the point?
I don't even like Apple, but at least in this case it seems like they are able to behave in a significantly more conservative fashion. I'm not sure how much of that is their notoriously large bank reserves, or their hiring strategies, but either way, they're probably going to be the last of the tech giants to announce layoffs. That's a good play for their employee morale even if they could be in a better place in some regards. Are they perfect? No. I literally hate Apple, and frankly it's probably still all just bottom-line oriented behavior. It's just that it's hard to not respect some slightly longer-term planning above the absolutely stupid short-term quarterly financials driven behavior that I've witnessed first-hand at a different FAANG company.
>What are companies even for in society to you? They're supposed to provide goods and services.
In a free market, they're supposed to provide goods and services, and the way the free market incentivizes that is by giving them rewarding them with money.
>Does a restaurant not strive to have good service and quality food in some part for the sake of it? Does nobody ever start a business in a field they genuinely care about?
There certainly are people who do things out of passion or altruism, but we can't run an economy off of that. There aren't enough bakers who care about feeding people in and of itself to feed everyone on earth. As such, the economy is set up to give people money for providing goods and services, so that we don't need to rely on people's passion/altruism to keep us fed.
>Financials are not the ultimate signal of success. They're part of surviving and growing, but far from the only thing a company should ultimately desire to maximize.
And that's fine, if money isn't your end goal there are other types of legal structures for that (ie. non-profits or charities).
>The "long term" is a healthy, respectable business.
Right, but that only matters insofar as that a "healthy, respectable business" generates more money. It's not something to pursue in and of itself.
> If you just follow short-term financials all the time, obviously that won't work. But chasing only financials in general won't work either.
My argument isn't that we should always chase short term financials, it's that the decisions made (ie. layoffs) aren't necessarily inconsistent with long term growth. The monetary regime changing in such a way where future revenue is suddenly worth less is a example of this.
>No, I'd rather we had higher expectations than the absolute bare minimum. I'm not sure why your takeaway from what I said is that they should needlessly hire and maintain employees.
"higher expectations than the absolute bare minimum" says nothing about what you actually want, considering that there's a laundry list of things that people seemingly want from corporations. Be specific. Is it just not hiring people only to fire them a short time later?
>Yes, I would rather companies do not senselessly hire a bunch of full-time long-term employees during a very blatantly obvious temporary boost in the market only to inevitably shit can them in a year or less.
1. hindsight is 20/20. it's not really clear that they intentionally hired people with the knowledge that the "boost" was temporary. If anything, if you knew that there would be a crash in the market, hiring would be a bad idea, given how much it costs to hire/ramp new engineers up.
2. if it's really so "blatantly obvious", then surely the engineers who were getting hired knew what they were signing up for? After all, it's not like the nature of at-will employment is some sort of secret. If you don't want the risk of getting 6 months later, don't sign up for the job. Don't ruin that for the people who want to take the risk.
In a free market, they're supposed to provide goods and services, and the way the free market incentivizes that is by giving them rewarding them with money.
>Does a restaurant not strive to have good service and quality food in some part for the sake of it? Does nobody ever start a business in a field they genuinely care about?
There certainly are people who do things out of passion or altruism, but we can't run an economy off of that. There aren't enough bakers who care about feeding people in and of itself to feed everyone on earth. As such, the economy is set up to give people money for providing goods and services, so that we don't need to rely on people's passion/altruism to keep us fed.
>Financials are not the ultimate signal of success. They're part of surviving and growing, but far from the only thing a company should ultimately desire to maximize.
And that's fine, if money isn't your end goal there are other types of legal structures for that (ie. non-profits or charities).
>The "long term" is a healthy, respectable business.
Right, but that only matters insofar as that a "healthy, respectable business" generates more money. It's not something to pursue in and of itself.
> If you just follow short-term financials all the time, obviously that won't work. But chasing only financials in general won't work either.
My argument isn't that we should always chase short term financials, it's that the decisions made (ie. layoffs) aren't necessarily inconsistent with long term growth. The monetary regime changing in such a way where future revenue is suddenly worth less is a example of this.
>No, I'd rather we had higher expectations than the absolute bare minimum. I'm not sure why your takeaway from what I said is that they should needlessly hire and maintain employees.
"higher expectations than the absolute bare minimum" says nothing about what you actually want, considering that there's a laundry list of things that people seemingly want from corporations. Be specific. Is it just not hiring people only to fire them a short time later?
>Yes, I would rather companies do not senselessly hire a bunch of full-time long-term employees during a very blatantly obvious temporary boost in the market only to inevitably shit can them in a year or less.
1. hindsight is 20/20. it's not really clear that they intentionally hired people with the knowledge that the "boost" was temporary. If anything, if you knew that there would be a crash in the market, hiring would be a bad idea, given how much it costs to hire/ramp new engineers up.
2. if it's really so "blatantly obvious", then surely the engineers who were getting hired knew what they were signing up for? After all, it's not like the nature of at-will employment is some sort of secret. If you don't want the risk of getting 6 months later, don't sign up for the job. Don't ruin that for the people who want to take the risk.
This article perfectly illustrates how small, steady distortions give birth to hyperbolic claims.
Actual question (in article): 62% [of knowledge workers] said that the recent waves of layoffs have made them feel less secure committing to one employer.
Preview text (below headline): 62% of knowledge workers say they don’t feel secure committing to one employer anymore.
Headline: After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done With the Full-Time Work Model
As Scott Alexander might say, the media rarely lies, but it loves to play telephone with itself.
Actual question (in article): 62% [of knowledge workers] said that the recent waves of layoffs have made them feel less secure committing to one employer.
Preview text (below headline): 62% of knowledge workers say they don’t feel secure committing to one employer anymore.
Headline: After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done With the Full-Time Work Model
As Scott Alexander might say, the media rarely lies, but it loves to play telephone with itself.
I want everyone to know that I personally hold myself responsible for these failures, but I won't be stepping down from my leadership position. It weighs heavy on my heart losing so many of my corporate family members. I love you all. Please don't say bad things about me in public because I will be trying to convince investors of my next big revolutionary opportunity, distancing myself from the current failures that I hold myself responsible for.
> In a survey of 500 knowledge workers in the US ...
Apparently none of these folks were on a visa because to my knowledge, work visa holders cant really do freelance work. Nor can the folks on visa work for multiple employers. Surprisingly this article does not even mention visa based restrictions on employees and their state after being laid off. So I am not sure how representative this is of any sentiment amongst laid off people.
Apparently none of these folks were on a visa because to my knowledge, work visa holders cant really do freelance work. Nor can the folks on visa work for multiple employers. Surprisingly this article does not even mention visa based restrictions on employees and their state after being laid off. So I am not sure how representative this is of any sentiment amongst laid off people.
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I get that this is an advertisement, but the message lacks credibility. Workers that are most impacted and feel "betrayed" by layoffs are likely to value stability. Giving up full-time work is not a path to greater stability. If that's what you want, it's still better to go full-time, and just temper your expectations about the durability of your employment.
I can see alot of emotion filled posts on here and LinkedIn about layoffs. It sucks but us employees service our employers.
They will fire and hire as they choose, emotions mean nothing in a business decision like this. If you're hurt and don't want to play along. They will find someone who does. It's as simple as this.
Also contracting offers you less job security, I don't think you realise.
They will fire and hire as they choose, emotions mean nothing in a business decision like this. If you're hurt and don't want to play along. They will find someone who does. It's as simple as this.
Also contracting offers you less job security, I don't think you realise.
<< They will fire and hire as they choose, emotions mean nothing in a business decision like this.
It is a way distance oneself from the decision and rationalize it, but I assure you that emotion absolutely plays into this. Especially at smaller companies, there is a reason recurring layoffs do not initially touch employees that manager likes.
It is a way distance oneself from the decision and rationalize it, but I assure you that emotion absolutely plays into this. Especially at smaller companies, there is a reason recurring layoffs do not initially touch employees that manager likes.
Workers have not been getting the benefits of growth since 1971 and we're sick of it
It's time to transition from a competition to a cooperation economy and it's going to take centuries - but if we don't do it soon we're going to face a social and ecological calamity that makes COVID-19 look tame in comparison.
My opinion is that humanity solved material scarcity by the year 2000 and by continuing on the path of hoarding based capitalism, we now produce the wrong goods which is actively self destructive to the species.
I write more about this here:
https://kemendo.com/Myth.pdf
It's time to transition from a competition to a cooperation economy and it's going to take centuries - but if we don't do it soon we're going to face a social and ecological calamity that makes COVID-19 look tame in comparison.
My opinion is that humanity solved material scarcity by the year 2000 and by continuing on the path of hoarding based capitalism, we now produce the wrong goods which is actively self destructive to the species.
I write more about this here:
https://kemendo.com/Myth.pdf
Your article sounds great... if you ignore the mountain of skulls left by the Soviets, the Chinese, the Khmer Rouge, etc.
There's a much simpler explanation for what caused economic growth and employee compensation in real dollars to decouple in 1971: https://www.barrons.com/articles/gold-standard-dollar-domina...
There's a much simpler explanation for what caused economic growth and employee compensation in real dollars to decouple in 1971: https://www.barrons.com/articles/gold-standard-dollar-domina...
All of the people you mention assumed two things that aren't true:
1. There aren't enough resources for everyone
2. Humans are fundamentally evil/selfish
Both are demonstrably wrong
Everything in the paper shows the counter-productivity of violence and coercion.
In fact you'll see that I demonstrate in fact the opposite:
>Provided you have a relative scarcity of empathy, premeditated violent conquest of indigenous peoples is a viable and successful strategy for resource acquisition, which cemented it as a practical template for future structures of dominance.
I mean I literally quote S Tzu to make this point:
"The costs of conflict always weaken our position even if we ‘beat’ our opponent"
further...
>To anyone who is worried about “Aligning” AI globally, your charge is this: Invert structural incentives in your organization to demonstrate cooperation rather than competition, and sharing rather than hoarding as much as possible.
This issue cannot be resolved by force, and the fact of using force or coercion, as you point out, destroys the entire process.
Peace and sharing is literally the only way out
So my guess is, like most people, you still believe one of those two myths I started with.
Edit: Also, I've been studying the great decoupling for a long time and my theory predicts it as post scarcity requires an increasing mis-allocated production based on luxury consumption. That is not possible without arbitrary limits on intermediated resources (currency). If demand for luxury goods is impeded by the growth of currency - then you just change what currency represents - eg. It is perfectly alienated from capital and thus does not represent a relationship between "value" and production.
1. There aren't enough resources for everyone
2. Humans are fundamentally evil/selfish
Both are demonstrably wrong
Everything in the paper shows the counter-productivity of violence and coercion.
In fact you'll see that I demonstrate in fact the opposite:
>Provided you have a relative scarcity of empathy, premeditated violent conquest of indigenous peoples is a viable and successful strategy for resource acquisition, which cemented it as a practical template for future structures of dominance.
I mean I literally quote S Tzu to make this point:
"The costs of conflict always weaken our position even if we ‘beat’ our opponent"
further...
>To anyone who is worried about “Aligning” AI globally, your charge is this: Invert structural incentives in your organization to demonstrate cooperation rather than competition, and sharing rather than hoarding as much as possible.
This issue cannot be resolved by force, and the fact of using force or coercion, as you point out, destroys the entire process.
Peace and sharing is literally the only way out
So my guess is, like most people, you still believe one of those two myths I started with.
Edit: Also, I've been studying the great decoupling for a long time and my theory predicts it as post scarcity requires an increasing mis-allocated production based on luxury consumption. That is not possible without arbitrary limits on intermediated resources (currency). If demand for luxury goods is impeded by the growth of currency - then you just change what currency represents - eg. It is perfectly alienated from capital and thus does not represent a relationship between "value" and production.
Oh, you quoted Sun Tzu so that means your logic and arguments are correct, good to know.
You're correct that humans have lived in peaceful, cooperative societies in the past. What you don't seem to grasp is that those societies were never larger than a few hundred members and, critically, they were only peaceful within their own ranks. Cooperative societies require trust, and humans have extreme difficulty in building trust outside of their immediate friends and family. Millenia spent establishing robust institutions and legal systems are the only reason modern society enjoys the levels of trust it does today, and all attempts to replace those institutions with new ones that encourage cooperation (or else!) have lead to mountains of skulls.
We can look to primates, and most of the animal kingdom, for further proof of this. Chimps get into wars over resources with anyone outside of their own troup, and even enslave other chimps at times. Ants have extremely high trust, cooperative societies... until they run into a competing colony. Why are humans magically different? If you're going to make a religious argument that God made us different I'd consider it, but nothing in biology or history supports it.
You're correct that humans have lived in peaceful, cooperative societies in the past. What you don't seem to grasp is that those societies were never larger than a few hundred members and, critically, they were only peaceful within their own ranks. Cooperative societies require trust, and humans have extreme difficulty in building trust outside of their immediate friends and family. Millenia spent establishing robust institutions and legal systems are the only reason modern society enjoys the levels of trust it does today, and all attempts to replace those institutions with new ones that encourage cooperation (or else!) have lead to mountains of skulls.
We can look to primates, and most of the animal kingdom, for further proof of this. Chimps get into wars over resources with anyone outside of their own troup, and even enslave other chimps at times. Ants have extremely high trust, cooperative societies... until they run into a competing colony. Why are humans magically different? If you're going to make a religious argument that God made us different I'd consider it, but nothing in biology or history supports it.
Humans are not "magically" different, we are measurably biologically different and that makes all of the difference.
We have the capacity to care beyond Dunbar's number (which you obliquely reference) but again, structurally we built systems of competition and distrust to survive - precisely the opposite actually of what you claim. These are not systems of trust they are systems of mutual fear.
The systems that got us here will not work any further
I'd appreciate you not making claims that I don't make nor assuming things I do not state.
Feel free to prove my argument wrong with a robust response. All of your claims I rebut in the paper.
We have the capacity to care beyond Dunbar's number (which you obliquely reference) but again, structurally we built systems of competition and distrust to survive - precisely the opposite actually of what you claim. These are not systems of trust they are systems of mutual fear.
The systems that got us here will not work any further
I'd appreciate you not making claims that I don't make nor assuming things I do not state.
Feel free to prove my argument wrong with a robust response. All of your claims I rebut in the paper.
Interesting, I've never heard an answer to "what happened in 1971". So decoupling from gold basically gave the elite a really good handle to manipulate the economy? Fascinating.
Exactly. I'm not a gold bug (and the last 50 years have shown it doesn't behave too differently from any other commodity) but by requiring the government to tie the value of currency to something, anything, that they can't just create out of thin air limited how much the federal reserve and banks were able to screw over the average citizen.
To be fair even ancient Romans used to meddle around with reducing gold and silver content in their physical coinage, resulting in the crisis of the 3rd century. And Spanish silver bullion was too bad...
But yes. Much better than limitless fiat being summoned from the void.
But yes. Much better than limitless fiat being summoned from the void.
What I don't understand is the organisations they are laying off are also hiring. For eg. I saw Miro firing bunch of people last week and then hiring new people. I feel this is like bait and switch. CEOs take responsibility of the layoff but it feels like they dont really care. If employers are not loyal then why should the employees be.
It should be called out more prominently that this website belongs to a freelancer firm. This thread is free advertising for a corporate P.R. piece, and doesn't reflect anything more broad and genuine than that.
If you're going into freelancing because you don't like layoffs, then good luck with that.
If you're going into freelancing because you don't like layoffs, then good luck with that.
> 500 knowledge workers—including 109 that had recently been laid off—in the US
Before commenting on the content of the article, I'm wondering if this is a sample worth giving any attention to?
I'm no statistician, but drawing from a sample of 500 to make sweeping statements about "Workers" seems disingenuous, at least.
Before commenting on the content of the article, I'm wondering if this is a sample worth giving any attention to?
I'm no statistician, but drawing from a sample of 500 to make sweeping statements about "Workers" seems disingenuous, at least.
There have been other periods of massive layoffs. (I’ve personally witnessed 2001 and 2008) Weren’t workers disillusioned with full time work back then or has it become easier and more acceptable to freelance in the last decade? Was it perhaps the callousness of the layoffs that ignited these emotions?
This is extremely misleading.“500 knowledge workers in the US” hardly constitutes “workers” in the title.
Layoff's are not new and will continue with the slow down in the world economy, many people will have to reinvent themselves in a world where their skills are no longer needed.
I feel for older workers who will find it harder to find new work.
Layoffs have been happening forever, I don't understand why all these stories are raising concerns. Lay-offs suck, but aren't anything new.
It's been 15 years since the start of The Great Recession. There's a generation of tech workers learning that things can quickly turn bad.
I would also say that there's something particularly unsettling about these layoffs. We went from "nobody can find enough workers" to "we're shedding thousands of jobs along with all our peers in the industry" seemingly instantaneously. Additionally, the amount of corporate doublespeak is astounding, saying things that boil down to "we hired too many people" without those in charge being held accountable for the mistake.
I would also say that there's something particularly unsettling about these layoffs. We went from "nobody can find enough workers" to "we're shedding thousands of jobs along with all our peers in the industry" seemingly instantaneously. Additionally, the amount of corporate doublespeak is astounding, saying things that boil down to "we hired too many people" without those in charge being held accountable for the mistake.
Good points. I would also agree that everything these past few years seem off.
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But they aren't done with the $4000 a month mortgage with dropping equity value that's holding them hostage.
gigantic surprise: you're "family" when it means sacrificing for the company, and you're a human sacrifice when the company needs to make its shareholders feel better about the economy.
Curious domain name.
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It's a shame that most of people (HR recruiters) consider fulltime work == remote work. They're totally orthogonal concepts. It's a LOL for me. And it's also a sign that an article is written by sales/marketing/HR people.
Wake up, non-tech people: Fulltime != Remote.
Wake up, non-tech people: Fulltime != Remote.
I'm not sure what you mean?
Are you saying remote workers aren't working full-time?
I'm a remote worker and I work way more than most in office workers.
Are you saying remote workers aren't working full-time?
I'm a remote worker and I work way more than most in office workers.
I mean simply there's no relation between fulltime and remote. Is it hard to understand, or ?
The article doesn't equate "full-time" and "remote". It simply mentions the interest in remote work as evidence that employees are looking for more flexibility.
It doesn't equate, but it implies remote! That's the issue.
If you try contact to any HR people, and they say "fulltime", it means "no remote is allowed".
In this case, the title should replace Fulltime with Remote for flexibility.
If you try contact to any HR people, and they say "fulltime", it means "no remote is allowed".
In this case, the title should replace Fulltime with Remote for flexibility.
It doesn't equate, but it implies remote!
No, it doesn't.
In this case, the title should replace Fulltime with Remote for flexibility.
What are you talking about? You think the title should be "After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done With the Remote Work Model"?!
No, it doesn't.
In this case, the title should replace Fulltime with Remote for flexibility.
What are you talking about? You think the title should be "After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done With the Remote Work Model"?!
Logic of article: Too much layoffs => Fulltime job is insecure => Now workers prefer remote or freelancer work.
You see the "implication" here ?
I'm not sure what's hard to see the issue here.
The correct logic should be: => Now workers prefer freelancer work. (no remote here as it's unrelated to fulltime).
It's the story about Fulltime vs Freelance.
I don't see Remote is related at all.
You see the "implication" here ?
I'm not sure what's hard to see the issue here.
The correct logic should be: => Now workers prefer freelancer work. (no remote here as it's unrelated to fulltime).
It's the story about Fulltime vs Freelance.
I don't see Remote is related at all.
Now workers prefer remote or freelancer work.
Wrong. The article is about prospective employees wanting 1) more flexibility and 2) less risk exposure to the whims of a single company.
Remote work is mentioned in one paragraph as evidence of people seeking flexibility. It's mentioned a second time in the context of remote work making it easier for companies to hire freelancers (i.e. you aren't restricted to local talent).
You misread the article, posted a bizarre screed that got down-voted, and for some reason you keep trying to make the same incorrect claim.
Wrong. The article is about prospective employees wanting 1) more flexibility and 2) less risk exposure to the whims of a single company.
Remote work is mentioned in one paragraph as evidence of people seeking flexibility. It's mentioned a second time in the context of remote work making it easier for companies to hire freelancers (i.e. you aren't restricted to local talent).
You misread the article, posted a bizarre screed that got down-voted, and for some reason you keep trying to make the same incorrect claim.
Grandfather commentor has some experience we don't.
If you are going freelance to avoid getting laid off...
Since I became a full time employee I have actually gotten paid every month (almost never happened as a freelancer). I have never had to find a new contract, or had a contract fall through after turning down other work. I haven't had 90 day payment terms.
I just never found that magical "pick up work when you want, and actually get paid on time" sales pipeline. You are not your own boss. You have clients, who have deadlines, who are paying you to meet those deadlines. If you don't, you suddenly find yourself in violation of contract law. At your full time job if you miss a deadline, how often do you get fired? That has never happened to me. But I have absolutely not been able to deliver on a contract and not gotten paid because of it. Once a client thinks "We don't actually want to move forward with that project", they try to find a way to get out of the contract. There are no severance packages for freelancers. Just months of wasted time that won't be compensated.