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‘I’m proud of being a job hopper’: Seattle engineer’s post about company loyalty goes viral
(www.geekwire.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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Fucking legacy? Is this a joke? Who gives a shit about what shitty products they launch for FAANG companies? I certainly don't - not beyond keeping my resume and portfolio up to date.
Compensation and stability are the only things that matter beyond basic working conditions and a non-toxic environment.
Well in my case I created a legacy by helping to unionize my workplace. I don't even care if I'm ever remembered for that, not many legacies can be beat
Very nice! Unionization is the only way to make employera care about workers rights.
My legacy is my kids, and that’s time no company can take from me
Yet...
Man we've lost something along the way. When did our jobs become purely a means of money and contributing nothing to society.
When society began treating people as an exploitable resource.
100 percent. My work is treated as a commodity. Why wouldn't I consider the company one as well?
I always found the name of the department "Human Resources" quite demeaning.
Mine turned into that when it stopped paying enough to provide me with basic needs.
If it's fuck me, then it's fuck all y'all too.
When they started treating employees and disposable cogs to be exploited.
The exact moment the employer only cared about money and not its employees or contributions to the society.
Executives used to be stewards of the company. They took care of brand, and people.
Then we switched to a bottom line focus. Now, profit, stock prices are the only thing that matters.
Shortcuts, layoffs, benefit cuts, etc are the only way to offset not making continuous market growth, and still rack ridiculous profits.
Also, great deal of Americans started not giving a shit about where the product comes from or who makes it. We want the cheapest thing, fast. Just has been our personal priorities.
There's not much incentive for a company to consider it's corporate image, contributions to community and public, etc.
I'd say that's when.
When capitalism. That’s when.
Edit: to clarify, it wasn’t much better before capitalism. But it was less all-encompassing. Feudalism was a shitty structure, worse even than capitalism tbh. But it was much easier to escape it. Not just in the “survivalist hippie camp” that still exists now. But even in everyday life. The system wasn’t shaping every facet of human existence. Only production relations (which is the big one yes). But capitalism has shaped everything around us. Our places of work, sure, but our personal lives. Our inner lives. Everything has been commodified. Mental health, religion, wellness, friendships, love and relationships, families, sickness, children etc. etc. etc… That is the main reason capitalism is worse than anything before it. No other system had the capacity to destroy the planet. None. To destroy all life in it. All in the name of profit. An immaterial, formless concept. Not even a real thing. And there’s not much we can do it seems. I mean there is, and I think it’s pretty clear. But I bet even that gets commodified soon. Bring on the politicians/capitalists death match reality game shows I guess…
This mythic past where our jobs meant "more than money" and we "contributed to society" never existed anywhere
Probably around the time they took away pensions
I don't know man, I've always liked the idea of a project outliving me. Though for the sanity of future engineers I hope that is not the case. Today's solutions are usually just tomorrow's problems.
On a long enough timeline, all things end, and tech has hyper accelerated timelines.
I was once interviewed by a guy who asked for my biggest failure, which was basically "favorite open source project didn't work out". He let me know he worked on an early competitor of the X windowing system and really believed in it. And we laughed about that. (He hired me).
So yeah, I kinda agree with this job hopper guy on everything but legacy, but only because we really don't get to have a say on what our code ends up meaning to anyone. The sands of time are nothing compared to the brutality of tech stack churn.
Who invented Google home? Like, what's the person's name? What about the person that designed the Sonos Move?
There's no legacy. There's business objectives and getting those completed so upper management can move their plans forward. Who gets them there is irrelevant.
Google did
Seriously, nobody is going to remember you. Like 3 generations down, you'll even be a tiny blip in your descendents world. Even most billionaires will be remembered through an encyclopedia entry and nothing else.
Agreed, something has gone wrong if I individually am so important that what I leave at a job is considered a legacy.
All I want is for the things I work on to be useful for the lifetime of the product and some appreciation from management for putting in the work while getting paid well.