[p4wnc6]

The things you depict as "training" ought to be business-value-additive tasks that happen to be both my daily work and also tasks that facilitate the career growth I desire. If the business can't do that, then they hired me for the wrong reasons. If they can't fix it, but are happy with my performance on tasks not related to my goals, they may be disappointed when I leave, and hopefully learn that it's necessary to structurally build into the concept of hiring someone the need to empower their personal goal achievement, just as their labor empowers business success.

Also, there is no reason why compensation must be conserved when decomposed into some traditional monetary part and some part from goal achievement. It could just be that I become more costly to employ as time goes on while at the same time I never reach a degree of costliness that motivates my employer to end the relationship. In fact, that seems obvious and surely something businesses plan for when investing in a long-term hire.

Also, my value to the company is not only my short-term labor, but also my future stream of labor. If they want me to stick around such that they profit from that future stream, they may have to do things that reduce my short-term output. It all comes down to what is their discount factor.

Expecting zero support in this regard is the same as assuming a hyperbolic discount function (or an extremely low probability that you'll choose to continue with that firm).

Finally, some of this is simply non-negotiable biology. Self-Determination Theory and theories of heteronomous vs autonomous goal satisfaction are just biologically at odds with what you describe. Wise companies would factor this in rather than trying to shoehorn humans into non-human situations and require them to attempt to sublimate away the basic need or drive.

[danieltillett]

Yes there is some friction in the process of wage determination, but in aggregate anything that reduces your productivity will reduce your income.

I think we might be talking past each other a little. It is not that companies should not provide training (most good ones do as it is in their interest for many reasons), but that each person should take responsibility for their own career development and not expect this is something provided by their employer. Apart from the fact that any employer is unlikely to invest the ideal amount in your development (since you can walk out the door), the training provided by the company reflects the skills they want you to have, not the ones that you might most want to have.

Letting anyone else set your training almost certainly is sub-optimal for you. Developers need to get out of the mindset that it is the company that grows them and into the mindset that it is their own responsibility. Sure you might take advantage of the opportunities offered by the company, but don’t expect that someone else will be responsible.

[p4wnc6]

> the training provided by the company reflects the skills they want you to have, not the ones that you might most want to have.

This usually means you should leave if they won't fix it. They either bait-and-switched you into a job different from the job you signed up for, or else they did not understand their own needs and hired a wrong-fitting person.

I agree that developers are responsible for their own growth -- in the sense that they should quit jobs that are not imparting experience to them that helps them to reach their goals.

They should not, however, work that demanding yet not-goal-empowering job and also perform overly burdensome self-study, second jobs, night classes, etc., to make up the gap created by their employer's lack of ability or willingness to plan or manage correctly.

[sheepmullet]

> but that each person should take responsibility for their own career development

> not expect this is something provided by their employer

The best way to take responsibility for your career development is to insist it is provided by your employer and to find a better employer if/when that's not the case.

I only have X hours of high productivity a week. I need the high productivity hours to effectively learn but they are also the hours that really justify my high income.