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There’s a big difference between somebody not being your friend and somebody being your enemy. I’ve had a similar experience with a sub par employee, who at som

There’s a big difference between somebody not being your friend and somebody being your enemy. I’ve had a similar experience with a sub par employee, who at some point admitted that he wasn’t doing his best at work because he was "only there to exchange his time for money, not make any meaningful contributions". That guy was absolutely immersed in internet culture, making him less self-aware and very unpleasant to work with.

lloeki 1y ago
This mindset existed well before reddit; hell, it existed well before the Internet. Some people simply show up at work solely to put food on the table, doing the minimum amount of work so as not to get fired.
- rectang 1y ago
  The mindset exists because historically commercial entities have often been horrendously abusive to their workers. Dickens, anyone? The flip side is the terror of an entrepreneur seeing their enterprise struggle.
  - mythrwy 1y ago
    That is the antidote the toxic attitude. Go into business yourself for a bit and see the world from an entirely different angle. If you don't make it and come back to employment (most likely) you will be a much humbled and more enlightened person.
    - pixl97 1y ago
      I mean really no, and yes I've been on both sides. Owners have skin in the game. That's why when Musk says we should work 80+ hours a week he should be summarily ignored. He stands to gain billions while the rank and file stand to gain ulcers and an investor class that fights against them getting health insurance. The number of absolutely toxic business owners is insane.
      - Ferret7446 1y ago
        The number of absolutely toxic employees is also insane. Are businesses justified to treat employees as if all of them were that toxic? Should not employees then not treat their employers as if all of them are toxic?
        rectang 1y ago
        I think it’s important to distinguish between human leadership and the capitalist entities they work within. I’ve worked for multiple small businesses, led by wonderful humans, which ran out of money. When those businesses went under, it tore their leaders apart to let workers go — but those leaders were still constrained in how the could act by economic realities. There are both leaders and workers who are too cynical about each other. But it makes sense to be guarded with every company, even if I think it’s debatable how best to act — and how we might dream of improving matters at the macroeconomic level.
      - mythrwy 1y ago
        I don't disagree about the number of absolutely toxic business owners and I've worked for a few of them. But there are some real bad employees too that don't understand how the world works. Maybe the toxic business owners should work in the coal mines for a bit?
    - hmcq6 1y ago
      You don't solve the problem by "humbling the workers". The solution is rewarding people when a company is successful and more importantly not punishing hard workers. Right now people are under the impression that slacking and working hard will be equally rewarded, because that is the truth. Hard workers also get laid off so that CEOs can make a few extra bucks.
- hyperadvanced 1y ago
  In some sense this is the standard gambit of wage labor. If you want people to act like they have skin in the game, then they must have that. Tech is notable as a field for incentivizing overperformance and mission-driven-ness.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Only in places with SV like culture. In many countries being a developer is a plain office job just like everything else, and everyone that doesn't want to move into management after reaching seniority is seen as a failure.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  Showing up to work and actually doing their job, even if it’s the minimum, would be an upgrade over the Reddit toxic mindset I was describing about. The problematic juniors show up to their jobs determined to be uncooperative, sow discontent among coworkers, stonewall progress in meetings, and think they’re just going to job-hop to the next company before the performance management catches up to them. They see the jobs or even the concept of working to live in general as a scam and feel like they’re winning some deep cultural war if they collect paychecks while making life difficult for their manager.
  - pydry 1y ago
    Who would've thought that decades of wage repression that fell especially badly on the young would lead to a surly and uncooperative workforce.
    - jdlshore 1y ago
      Programmers are incredibly well paid.
      - rangestransform 1y ago
        Just the existence of the Bay Area tech antitrust suit and the pittance of a settlement should tell you otherwise. Who knows how sky high developer salaries would be if those companies hadn’t conspired to lower salaries during such a strong and low-interest-rate economy.
      - lovich 1y ago
        A subset are paid incredibly well. For arbitrary lines im going to put that at 250k+/year in comp by year 2-3 of your career. Another large cohort is paid pretty well with salaries from 110k-150k by that same point who have effectively no negotiation power and are given “take it or leave it” deals with the only leverage being to find another job And even for the incredibly well paid ones, as the other commentator noted, there’s documented proof of organized wage suppression by the corporations
      - 1y ago
zwnow 1y ago
This mindset is completely sane. Sorry but if you work 40+ hours a week and barely can afford a vacation there is no reason for me to work hard. Especially not if I see managers with new cars every year.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > Sorry but if you work 40+ hours a week and barely can afford a vacation Software developers are relatively highly paid. When they start acting like they’re minimum wage workers flipping burgers at a dead-end job, they’re missing the big picture. That’s the problem I’m trying to communicate.
  - zwnow 1y ago
    This is a generalization. Salary in Europe is different to salary in the USA for example. I earn median wage currently. Also lots of non degree having devs out there that aren't 6 figure earners.
    - jimbokun 1y ago
      That's the tradeoff you're making for universal health care and generous public benefits.
      - imtringued 1y ago
        I don't know why you come up with an ideological statement like that. The management culture, anti software/nerd mindset among the population and eastern European competition in the offshoring market have a much bigger impact. E.g. even though Germany is practicing mercantilist beggar thy neighbour export surplus policies, the country has failed to become an exporter of software or be known for quality software. Anyone who wants to work in the software industry is better off leaving the Eurozone and going to Switzerland where they get paid more in addition to the things you claim are the cause.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Then find a different job with better compensation.
jjav 1y ago
> "only there to exchange his time for money, not make any meaningful contributions" I sometimes wish companies were more open to accepting these roles, instead of the up or out model. There is in many teams a lot of busywork that for various reasons can't be automated (or new incoming busywork that takes over when the older one gets automated). If an employee is content with just handling this kind of lower level busywork and go home at 4:30pm in exchange of not pursuing raises and promotions, there's nothing wrong with that. That work still needs to get done, so rather than getting a never ending stream of junior new hires constantly having to get trained, I'd be fine with having someone who is happy to stay at that level and take it easy.
- jrozner 1y ago
  Up or out generally stops once someone reaches engineer or sr engineer. Most of the time a jr engineer is going to need substantial mentoring and support. Them never moving beyond that point likely results in a net negative gain if you need another person always available to provide that for their entire time there if it goes beyond 1-2 years.
- aitchnyu 1y ago
  How do candidates express that in interviews?
- Jensson 1y ago
  > I sometimes wish companies were more open to accepting these roles, instead of the up or out model. But companies live or die by talent / passion density. If you try to only hire talented / passionate people, then many of them will still just be fit for grunt work so grunt work still gets done. If you on the other hand hire for grunt work you wont find much talent at all so company fails after a while.
  - II2II 1y ago
    Companies require different attributes in various roles. Those attributes extend far beyond passion and talent. The trouble with hiring based on those two attributes alone is that you're setting up a culture where the people who do the necessary grunt work are failed hires and where the employee themself feels held back. In otherwords, you are setting up a toxic workplace.
x0x0 1y ago
I've had the same experience -- employees who do the minimum and then whine when (one case) asked for a raise or he'd quit and I said sgtm; and (a different person) I chose to mentor and promote other people on the team. Some people can't wrap their minds around the idea that our interests aren't always aligned, but sometimes they are and also why would I invest in someone who doesn't invest here. Mentoring and promoting people is one of the best pieces of my job, but my time is finite and I want to also spend it productively :shrug:

lloeki 1y ago

This mindset existed well before reddit; hell, it existed well before the Internet. Some people simply show up at work solely to put food on the table, doing the minimum amount of work so as not to get fired.

rectang 1y ago
The mindset exists because historically commercial entities have often been horrendously abusive to their workers. Dickens, anyone? The flip side is the terror of an entrepreneur seeing their enterprise struggle.
- mythrwy 1y ago
  That is the antidote the toxic attitude. Go into business yourself for a bit and see the world from an entirely different angle. If you don't make it and come back to employment (most likely) you will be a much humbled and more enlightened person.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    I mean really no, and yes I've been on both sides. Owners have skin in the game. That's why when Musk says we should work 80+ hours a week he should be summarily ignored. He stands to gain billions while the rank and file stand to gain ulcers and an investor class that fights against them getting health insurance. The number of absolutely toxic business owners is insane.
    - Ferret7446 1y ago
      The number of absolutely toxic employees is also insane. Are businesses justified to treat employees as if all of them were that toxic? Should not employees then not treat their employers as if all of them are toxic?
      - rectang 1y ago
        I think it’s important to distinguish between human leadership and the capitalist entities they work within. I’ve worked for multiple small businesses, led by wonderful humans, which ran out of money. When those businesses went under, it tore their leaders apart to let workers go — but those leaders were still constrained in how the could act by economic realities. There are both leaders and workers who are too cynical about each other. But it makes sense to be guarded with every company, even if I think it’s debatable how best to act — and how we might dream of improving matters at the macroeconomic level.
    - mythrwy 1y ago
      I don't disagree about the number of absolutely toxic business owners and I've worked for a few of them. But there are some real bad employees too that don't understand how the world works. Maybe the toxic business owners should work in the coal mines for a bit?
  - hmcq6 1y ago
    You don't solve the problem by "humbling the workers". The solution is rewarding people when a company is successful and more importantly not punishing hard workers. Right now people are under the impression that slacking and working hard will be equally rewarded, because that is the truth. Hard workers also get laid off so that CEOs can make a few extra bucks.
hyperadvanced 1y ago
In some sense this is the standard gambit of wage labor. If you want people to act like they have skin in the game, then they must have that. Tech is notable as a field for incentivizing overperformance and mission-driven-ness.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Only in places with SV like culture. In many countries being a developer is a plain office job just like everything else, and everyone that doesn't want to move into management after reaching seniority is seen as a failure.
Aurornis 1y ago
Showing up to work and actually doing their job, even if it’s the minimum, would be an upgrade over the Reddit toxic mindset I was describing about. The problematic juniors show up to their jobs determined to be uncooperative, sow discontent among coworkers, stonewall progress in meetings, and think they’re just going to job-hop to the next company before the performance management catches up to them. They see the jobs or even the concept of working to live in general as a scam and feel like they’re winning some deep cultural war if they collect paychecks while making life difficult for their manager.
- pydry 1y ago
  Who would've thought that decades of wage repression that fell especially badly on the young would lead to a surly and uncooperative workforce.
  - jdlshore 1y ago
    Programmers are incredibly well paid.
    - rangestransform 1y ago
      Just the existence of the Bay Area tech antitrust suit and the pittance of a settlement should tell you otherwise. Who knows how sky high developer salaries would be if those companies hadn’t conspired to lower salaries during such a strong and low-interest-rate economy.
    - lovich 1y ago
      A subset are paid incredibly well. For arbitrary lines im going to put that at 250k+/year in comp by year 2-3 of your career. Another large cohort is paid pretty well with salaries from 110k-150k by that same point who have effectively no negotiation power and are given “take it or leave it” deals with the only leverage being to find another job And even for the incredibly well paid ones, as the other commentator noted, there’s documented proof of organized wage suppression by the corporations
    - 1y ago

zwnow 1y ago

This mindset is completely sane. Sorry but if you work 40+ hours a week and barely can afford a vacation there is no reason for me to work hard. Especially not if I see managers with new cars every year.

Aurornis 1y ago
> Sorry but if you work 40+ hours a week and barely can afford a vacation Software developers are relatively highly paid. When they start acting like they’re minimum wage workers flipping burgers at a dead-end job, they’re missing the big picture. That’s the problem I’m trying to communicate.
- zwnow 1y ago
  This is a generalization. Salary in Europe is different to salary in the USA for example. I earn median wage currently. Also lots of non degree having devs out there that aren't 6 figure earners.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    That's the tradeoff you're making for universal health care and generous public benefits.
    - imtringued 1y ago
      I don't know why you come up with an ideological statement like that. The management culture, anti software/nerd mindset among the population and eastern European competition in the offshoring market have a much bigger impact. E.g. even though Germany is practicing mercantilist beggar thy neighbour export surplus policies, the country has failed to become an exporter of software or be known for quality software. Anyone who wants to work in the software industry is better off leaving the Eurozone and going to Switzerland where they get paid more in addition to the things you claim are the cause.
jimbokun 1y ago
Then find a different job with better compensation.

jjav 1y ago

> "only there to exchange his time for money, not make any meaningful contributions" I sometimes wish companies were more open to accepting these roles, instead of the up or out model. There is in many teams a lot of busywork that for various reasons can't be automated (or new incoming busywork that takes over when the older one gets automated). If an employee is content with just handling this kind of lower level busywork and go home at 4:30pm in exchange of not pursuing raises and promotions, there's nothing wrong with that. That work still needs to get done, so rather than getting a never ending stream of junior new hires constantly having to get trained, I'd be fine with having someone who is happy to stay at that level and take it easy.

jrozner 1y ago
Up or out generally stops once someone reaches engineer or sr engineer. Most of the time a jr engineer is going to need substantial mentoring and support. Them never moving beyond that point likely results in a net negative gain if you need another person always available to provide that for their entire time there if it goes beyond 1-2 years.
aitchnyu 1y ago
How do candidates express that in interviews?
Jensson 1y ago
> I sometimes wish companies were more open to accepting these roles, instead of the up or out model. But companies live or die by talent / passion density. If you try to only hire talented / passionate people, then many of them will still just be fit for grunt work so grunt work still gets done. If you on the other hand hire for grunt work you wont find much talent at all so company fails after a while.
- II2II 1y ago
  Companies require different attributes in various roles. Those attributes extend far beyond passion and talent. The trouble with hiring based on those two attributes alone is that you're setting up a culture where the people who do the necessary grunt work are failed hires and where the employee themself feels held back. In otherwords, you are setting up a toxic workplace.

x0x0 1y ago

I've had the same experience -- employees who do the minimum and then whine when (one case) asked for a raise or he'd quit and I said sgtm; and (a different person) I chose to mentor and promote other people on the team. Some people can't wrap their minds around the idea that our interests aren't always aligned, but sometimes they are and also why would I invest in someone who doesn't invest here. Mentoring and promoting people is one of the best pieces of my job, but my time is finite and I want to also spend it productively :shrug: