[p4wnc6]

It's unfortunate to see that you rage-replied item by item, not bothering to read the overall context before firing off irrelevant commentary that was addressed later.

Manager types definitely do systematically have a dehumanizing agenda, as was well-researched in e.g. Moral Mazes, among other places.

[dpark]

I read your post before I responded. Most of the stuff is completely irrelevant to the original topic and you're creating a problem with salary negotiation that does not exist. You do not have to have deep conversations about your eating habits as part of a salary negotiation. And you should not. If you delve into some deep discussion about your vegan beliefs every time someone asks why you don't want a free ham sandwich, you are creating weird social tension. For bringing your own lunch to meetings when they keep forgetting vegan options, that's still my advice. You're an adult. You can bring your lunch. You can also handle it if someone asks why you don't eat the provided food. You're an adult.

"Manager types" are just people. They are generally people who were doing your job a few years ago. You don't help yourself by pretending that your managers are amoral and unsympathetic. But frankly, if you want to imagine that as reality, then do so, and you know exactly how to handle it: take care of yourself and stop expecting your manager to.

[p4wnc6]

You continue saying a lot of stuff that's just not relevant. No one's talking about diving into deep conversations about eating habits in salary discussions. I'm saying bringing up eating habits at all -- even just the slightest bit -- to say that the suggested benefits-based compensation they are offering is not actually something you are able to extract value from -- merely that causes lots of problems with lots of HR/recruiting/hiring folks.

And when companies tell you they will accommodate your diet -- and you make plans based on that promise -- then when they fail to keep up their end of the bargain, you do need to talk to them about it, and it usually does bother them that you won't just be quiet and accept worse treatment, much the same way it bothers them if you won't just let someone else's questionable jokes slide and you instead feel it's proper to raise a formal complaint or something.

> "Manager types" are just people. They are generally people who were doing your job a few years ago. You don't help yourself by pretending that your managers are amoral and unsympathetic. But frankly, if you want to imagine that as reality, then do so, and you know exactly how to handle it: take care of yourself and stop expecting your manager to.

This again is such a bizarre kind of reply and just doesn't seem connected to what I'm saying. It's not really true that most managers were doing the same job as me a few years ago. I've never been managed by a person who was ever a software engineer. I've only been managed by people who started out doing other things and eventually came to managing software engineers through other routes.

There's also zero pretending going on. Moral Mazes is a sociological research book based on years of collected data. These are not my opinions. It's simply an established fact about the way status hierarchies work within bureaucracy. There's no disagreeing with it. Whether "manager types" are 'good people' outside of work is just not relevant. What's relevant is the way they perform the social construction of value within the context of management hierarchy -- and this has been well-studied and it's well understood that this does lead to dehumanizing behavior, even from well-meaning people. Management and HR exist to protect the company, even if it means acting in dehumanizing ways to subordinates (and it often does).

The only pretending I'm seeing is that you're pretending your responses are somehow connected to what I'm saying.

[dpark]

> I'm saying bringing up eating habits at all -- even just the slightest bit -- to say that the suggested benefits-based compensation they are offering is not actually something you are able to extract value from -- merely that causes lots of problems with lots of HR/recruiting/hiring folks.

I'm saying you are wrong. The reality is that recruiters and HR do not care about you. They don't care if you eat the free lunch. They don't care if you're a "team player". They don't really care if you're qualified except to the extent that it will reflect on them. They're just doing their jobs. The idea that most recruiters will be offended because you don't want the free lunch is kind of ridiculous given that the recruiter will never see you again after you sign the offer letter. To the extent that a recruiter asks why you don't want the free lunch, it's either personal curiosity or more likely an attempt to find a way to make you consider it a valuable perk.

If you're being argumentative and demanding an extra $5k/year because you aren't going to eat the free lunch, I'm pretty sure you're the one causing the problems. If you want a higher salary, tell them you want a higher salary. If you don't care about the free lunch, tell them so, so that they stop trying to pitch it as a valuable perk. But don't argue that you deserve a higher salary specifically because you aren't going to eat the lunch.

> And when companies tell you they will accommodate your diet -- and you make plans based on that promise -- then when they fail to keep up their end of the bargain, you do need to talk to them about it, and it usually does bother them that you won't just be quiet and accept worse treatment, much the same way it bothers them if you won't just let someone else's questionable jokes slide and you instead feel it's proper to raise a formal complaint or something.

You need to decide what you care about. Do you want the company to accommodate your diet or not? If you don't want them to, then stop asking them to, and don't make plans assuming that they will. You don't "need to talk to them about it" if it's something you don't actually care about. And if you really do care, then you should be prepared that it will likely make your manager uncomfortable because you're delivering criticism and while people should welcome constructive criticism, a lot of them are really bad at accepting it.

I don't know what kind of "questionable jokes" you're referring to here. Joking needs to be pretty inappropriate before a formal complaint is justified. Not, "I'm slightly uncomfortable and annoyed", but "This is sexually inappropriate or truly harassing".

> This again is such a bizarre kind of reply and just doesn't seem connected to what I'm saying.

It is a direct reply to your repeated comments about "manager types". I really don't think it was hard to connect "'Manager types' are just people." to "Manager types definitely do systematically have a dehumanizing agenda".

> It's not really true that most managers were doing the same job as me a few years ago. I've never been managed by a person who was ever a software engineer. I've only been managed by people who started out doing other things and eventually came to managing software engineers through other routes.

So you have only worked places where the first-level managers had no engineering knowledge. Bleh. If you're working at small companies with no more than, say, 5 software engineers, I could see how this might make sense, though I can't personally imagine being happy in a job like that. If you're working at medium or large companies that have a significant number of software engineers and they are not putting engineers in as at least first-level managers, then it's almost certainly managed poorly. I would expect software engineers to be managed by people who understand engineering, just as I'd expect nurses to be managed by people who understand healthcare, or lawyers to be managed by people who understand law.

Regardless, your idea that "manager types" are a thing just hurts you. You're creating this false split between managers and non-managers. You would be better off learning to empathize with your manager rather than assuming your manager is by definition a sociopath. Most people don't start their careers as managers, and there's no magical "amoral, dehumanizing" switch that turns on when someone adds "manager" to your title.

> There's also zero pretending going on. Moral Mazes is a sociological research book based on years of collected data. These are not my opinions. It's simply an established fact about the way status hierarchies work within bureaucracy. There's no disagreeing with it. Whether "manager types" are 'good people' outside of work is just not relevant. What's relevant is the way they perform the social construction of value within the context of management hierarchy -- and this has been well-studied and it's well understood that this does lead to dehumanizing behavior, even from well-meaning people. Management and HR exist to protect the company, even if it means acting in dehumanizing ways to subordinates (and it often does).

Somehow you've made the leap from bureaucrats being bureaucratic and managers acting to protect the company to managers considering it a problem that you don't want to eat a free lunch. How do you not see that this is nonsense?

Yes, managers protect the company. Yes, sometimes bureaucracies create actions that do not appear logical. Yes, managers may sometimes engage in behavior that their subordinates don't like. No, this doesn't mean that every manager will consider it a problem if you're a vegan. Most will not care, for the same reason they won't care if you drive a Honda or if you like to wear Gingham shirts.

> The only pretending I'm seeing is that you're pretending your responses are somehow connected to what I'm saying.

Yawn.

[p4wnc6]

Yawn indeed.

[notyourwork]

I read through this and you sound like a really high maintenance employee. Sorry Im on your side and sympathize with people having different dietary needs or choices but you are making far too big of a deal about food.

[p4wnc6]

The way it plays out with dietary issues is just one topic. I happen to be sensitive about it because I've experienced several companies treat me (and other non-meat-eating employees) pretty inconsiderately over it, and fail to address the problems at all even when asked politely.

But in a bigger sense the problem is that anytime an employee sticks up for herself or himself because they feel the company is treating them badly, they are labeled "high maintenance" as you say, or "not a team player", or in the most egregious cases, the mythical "toxic employee" -- all just code words for "why won't this person just be quiet and accept the shitty treatment like everyone else does?"

It's not high maintenance at all to stick up for yourself and be pedantic about things that really affect you and matter to you. But we're so conditioned that we have to be good little workers, displaying fealty to paternalistic companies, to whom we should be soo grateful to be so lucky as to be employed at all, that anytime someone talks plainly about the dehumanizing way the HR and managerial apparatuses are designed and made to interface with employees, then that person is treated like some kind of conspiracy theory wacko who can't just lighten up and deal with the company's bad behavior like everyone else.

If a company factors the value of a food benefit into your dollar value of total compensation (and they absolutely do and will often try to tell you that directly in negotiations when talking about salary), then you absolutely should counter them if you have a dietary preference that changes the picture.

There is nothing "high maintenance" about that whatsoever. It's simply called sticking up for yourself so you're paid fairly.

But here we are, having to argue even about whether an employee can raise the issue that that kind of benefit fails to count as actual compensation without thereby being a nutcase who is high maintenance.

This, by the way, is exactly the "red flag" kind of thing I mentioned, that the other commenter went on and on about how people won't care enough to actually think or act on it. But I mean if even just another casual observer on an HN thread is conditioned to think it's "high maintenance" then how much more will HR think so? Of course HR will think so.

Which brings me full circle back to my original comment, which is that I don't bring this stuff up in interviews even though I believe, ethically, I absolutely should -- because I try to conform and look like the no-weird-stuff "team player" just like everyone else.