Are you against this? Flexible working hours that can bend to accommodate very malleable human lives seems better than rigid adherence to traditional schedules for the sake of it.
Yeah, if a person really feels the need to sleep in, I can't imagine their productivity would be much different if you had a culture for pressuring for adhering to schedules.
I think many people to fail to realize that writing software is very unlike producing widgets in a factory line. Some people hit periods of high productivity when they work quietly, alone, for an hour or two. And you might get more in that 1-2 hours than you would all day with the constant distractions in the modern office.
I normally have about a 3-4 hour window in which I can be extremely productive when coding. The rest of the day it's extremely difficult for me to get anything substantial done.
I imagine what dionidium is getting at is the lack of good, reasonable cause to either not show up or be late. For example, I'm fortunate enough to have a high paying job in the finance industry and our office/company is pretty laid back and very good about the work/life balance thing. But managers here would react in two different ways to people being out late drinking and oversleeping vs. there being a massive accident so you decide to turn around and work from home. It basically boils down to responsibility, usually, for most managers. If you are supposed to be somewhere, be there, unless there are truly unforeseen and unusual circumstances. How else will they know if you will make it to a client call early in the morning? Or meet that deadline? The younger crowd seems to be largely detached from the idea of responsibility that was drilled into previous generations.
I think what dionidium was getting at was he only had about 20% of the story and filled in the rest in an uncharitable way. If dionidium is not the manager of that employee, dionidium does not deserve or require an excuse or explanation. If they are the manager then this complaint shows a lack of management skills and/or poor office culture.
"I'm feeling sleepy and will be in later" is an employee being upfront and direct that they will not be productive and do not want to be the source of waste in the office. This is an employee that should be rewarded and encouraged. An office culture where this type of message is ok should be encouraged.
What you don't want is a toxic culture where everything needs to be explained and justified to an office full of scorekeepers and clock watchers. The people that do care are the ones that shouldn't care and should probably be minding their own business.
In dionidium's scenario it is very possible that employee worked it out with their manager and the message was a courtesy message. It is very possible they are tired from putting in a late night the night before. It is very possible they are tired due to "truly unforeseen and unusual circumstances."
Etc.
> The younger crowd seems to be largely detached from the idea of responsibility that was drilled into previous generations.
My father graduated college making $42k/yr. Inflation adjusted, that was about $60k/yr in today's dollars. I just graduated, have experience in the field, and am getting a salary of $35k/yr in today's dollars. Meanwhile, upper management is getting millions.
In that kind of work environment, why _should_ I care? It's not like they're going to fire me.
I'm always kind of fascinated by posts like this on this site. Could I ask what field you're in that pays 35k/yr, apparently in the US, is in the field of your degree, and yet is somewhat related to Hacker News? Or are you not in tech at all and this site is an outside interest? Or maybe you're just in a rural area?
I don't mean this to sound challenging out all, I'm just kind of curious.
$35k isn't an unusually low starting salary for lots of tech jobs outside major hubs. IT positions, starting network techs/sysadmins, hacking on PHP/Wordpress, that kind of thing.
Under the broad umbrella of jobs-you-can-land-with-a-degree-containing-the-word-"computer", there are a great many that aren't making Facebook creepier, or making Gmail's interface worse, or other, similar, very high-paying jobs.
There are even, believe it or not, many that don't pay as well as not really understanding how to write code, but nonetheless somehow landing a position writing enterprise Java or DotNet at some boring bigcorp, then never leaving because you never actually get any better at programming than when you started, but these people don't seem to care and there are a few competent people here picking up your slack, so why risk going somewhere else? AKA the broad middle-tier of people working as software developers.
I work IT in Springfield, MO. Most lower level positions here have been outsourced or centralized to a tech hub of the country, so to get an "entry level" position requires a four year degree plus a year or two of experience. IT contracting jobs also just pay $10-12/hr here.
> Or maybe you're just in a rural area?
It's rural compared to the big coastal cities, but is still the third biggest city in my state. IMO, it shouldn't just be giant cities that experience economic growth, it should be everyone. The fact that this hasn't been the case in my area leaves me and many in my area bitter about the state of the economy.
Relocation isn't an option. My family lives here, my wife's family lives here, she has a career started here, and we can't afford the massive amount of instability that a move to a high COL area would bring.
Feel free to ask more questions. The more that rich people hear from folks like me, the more they'll understand the current political climate.
Thanks for the response. I was really just curious, I didn't mean to set off a mini-storm. It's just interesting who reads this site, since the topics are pretty highly directed towards startup and developer culture.
IT support in a rural area is more or less what I was suspecting (yes, Springfield is Country). It's ironic that the tech age was supposed to bring in an era of telecommuting, when in fact it's brought in an era of greatly increased centralization. Small towns needed doctors and lawyers, they don't need software developers or high end tech support.
In theory the increase in cloud services could change that, but I don't really see the trend changing.
"Relocation isn't an option", well not with that attitude. Your excuse for why doesn't seem very good. In this thread about blue collar jobs, how many blue collar workers are in the US illegally and working their butts off in order to send just about everything they make to their family back across the border? They often have wives, sometimes children, extended family, depending on them. Quite a number of people here legally do the same, too. All relocated despite the same or worse conditions you use as excuses. Maybe they're just not as selfish? Selfishness isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's important to recognize.
Suppose you could find a job elsewhere for $90k+. If you can't, sure, that's a good reason why relocation isn't an option, and finding a job in a location you don't live in is by no means easy. But if you can, then you ought to consider moving, by yourself (since your wife is busy with a career), live in an apartment with one or two other roommates, and live frugally saving/investing as much as you can. Make visits back home when you can, but at $90k+/yr that shouldn't be so hard, depends on how you want to balance your triple sized income. (Higher COL areas will eat into that, but living frugally, not very much.) Do this for 3-4 years, you'll have made more than 10 years at your current location and pay, handwaving away taxes/bonuses/raises/better opportunities. Then quit and relocate back, except now you have a savings cushion and it only cost you another few years of your time.
Telling everyone to just move where the jobs are and live like an immigrant within your own country is why Trump got elected, and will by why similar candidates get elected in the future. Economic growth and development shouldn't be limited to only a handful of cities in the country. It's not good for our workers, society, or culture in general.
Not the GP, but I'm not a hacker, not rich, have a marginally IT-related job - but find the non-tech discussion on HN far better than most news/discussion web sites.
I do find it ironic for a commenter to be surprised at a lower-wage worker reading a thread about, per the title, blue collar wages. (And that a thread with such a title inevitably turns into a discussion of programmer wages ;-)
To be fair, it would be fairly unusual for a blue collar worker to be a regular member of a website focused on tech and venture capitalism. I'm sure the primary demographics of this site lean rich and urban.
Not OP but I've worked places that in London (not exactly cheap to live), they pay a junior developer £18,000 or so - which is under $23,000. In ad agencies, in particular, this seems quite common. Usually by job hopping said junior can bump that by £10k in one go but it doesn't stop the fact people will try it and see if they can get away with it.
I'm not surprised. There are a lot of jobs outside of the main metro areas that don't pay that much. They could be, for example, a DB admin for a non-tech company where their priority is not IT because IT is viewed as a cost center. Or perhaps a third party B2B company that is the low cost solution for a larger, more recognized company. You might be surprised what some people make in those cases.
I'm not sure how someone can just graduate and yet have meaningful experience in the field. Seems like only a very, very select few people can every really say that. Also, it's not clear if you and your father have degrees in the same field. If you do, part of it could easily be a supply/demand issue. I've heard similar stories from lawyers who enter the field and find it very difficult to get anything above 50k for a starting salary unless you went to a top school.
Those issues aside, your answer is basically my entire point:
"why _should_ I care? It's not like they're going to fire me."
I'm not sure why your employer won't fire you. Maybe they have trouble finding decent people to fill positions. I honestly don't know since I don't know what you do or who you work for. But regardless, your comment goes straight to the concept of work ethic.
It sounds like you are throwing work ethic to the wayside simply because you don't feel you get paid enough. That, in my opinion, is not the way to do things. Guess what, a lot of people are underpaid. I also have the viewpoint that you agreed to accepting the salary you are getting paid. They made an offer and you accepted it, presumably because it was the prevailing market rate for your skill set. If you feel that your compensation package is not appropriate then you should have a conversation about that with your manager - and leave the firm if necessary. It wasn't that long ago that I made about 45k. For the first 5 years out of school (starting in 2007) I worked for around that pay level. I did the daily grind and I tried hard to add value to the business where I could, because I wanted to not stagnate and just go through the motions because I viewed that as the worse path to take. I stayed late when necessary. Eventually another firm interviewed a bunch of people in my office, myself included, for a position that paid significantly more because they wanted to poach the right person to take onto their team. Guess who got the job. I even found out about 6 months later when speaking to the MD of my new employer that the CFO called him up and congratulated him on hiring me. I had no idea the CFO of my old company had me on his radar or was the type to make that kind of call. 3 years after that another opportunity presented itself solely because I had a strong reputation. That was another substantial bump on the pay ladder.
My point with the personal story is not to brag at all - hell, I certainly don't have some sort of prestigious job and there are plenty of people on this board alone that make more than I do. My point is that I highly recommend you change your mindset and the way you approach all of this. Ask yourself this. If I didn't work for the man, so to speak, as an underpaid entry level grunt for those 5 years, do you think I would have gotten that other job over my colleagues? That also would have not made the second job change (and pay increase) possible. Bringing it a little closer to home for you...if an employer interviewed you and your colleagues and had a job which paid a lot more, do you think you would get the offer or would someone else? Also, take a look at how someone successful in your line of work operates (a Director or MD, perhaps). Are they the kind of person that would share the same attitude as you? I imagine not. They would most likely either renegotiate their compensation or they would leave. I know that's how the higher ups would act where I am. The idea with all of this is to think and act like a successful person so that you can greatly increase your odds of success. It also has the benefit, in many cases, of also being the "right thing" to do. Contrary to popular belief, being a "company man" is usually still rewarded as long as you work for an employer which has basic common sense when it comes to employee compensation and morale.
And if all of that has not resonated with you at all, then consider this alternative argument. You can view it as that old joke about the two friends who are hiking and they come across a bear and one of them puts on running shoes. The other friend explains they can't outrun the bear and the first guy responds, "I don't need to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you". What I mean by this is that you are always viewed relative to your colleagues. So the first thing you want to ensure is that you are thought well of enough so that if the layoffs come around, you won't be on the list. That might be the case with you since you said they wouldn't fire you. The second part of that is to make it so that when an opportunity arises, you are on that list, whether for promotion, project, etc. My guess here is that you are not. So I assume that you are currently headed towards no-man's-land with your approach. They won't fire you but you will not be given the chance to shine because they see no upside in taking any risk on you. But if you really apply yourself you just might find that after a while your situation is looking very different. I sincerely hope this helps you in some way.
> Contrary to popular belief, being a "company man" is usually still rewarded as long as you work for an employer which has basic common sense when it comes to employee compensation and morale.
It is mind-blowing that anyone could write this summary, expecting it to be generally applicable, when every study of wages shows they have stagnated since the 1970s, and at the same time every study of production through the same time shows it is through the roof.
In short, you advocate enshrining a work ethic, while pretending it's okay for ownership to totally ignore a pay ethic.
It's something akin to Stockholm Syndrome, if you ask me.
I did mention a pay ethic and you even quoted it - "...basic common sense when it comes to employee compensation and morale." I also indicated that if the OP didn't feel they were being fairly compensated they should have a discussion about it and if the outcome is not appropriate that they should leave, presumably because there is either a mismatch of opinion regarding OP's skill set and what it is worth, or that employer is part of the ones that don't have common sense. Employees leaving is one of the natural checks on the power balance between employees and employers in the free market. And in the industry that most here on HN work for, it is easier than most to find a job elsewhere as the tech industry is in high demand for skilled employees.
It's not mind-blowing when you consider that productivity is heavily linked to technological advances. Let's take a historical example - the barcode scanner. Prior to its creation, cashiers had to know the price of all items or check the price tags that were manually stickered onto every item by someone else in the store. Then someone came along and made it possible to have UPC's printed right onto the original packaging and then scanned instantaneously at the register, with essentially no errors ever. That both reduced the skill required by the cashiers as well as boosting (drastically) productivity. Yet no additional effort, creativity, or skill was required on the part of the cashier. If a tool comes along that makes my job easier and/or more accurate my employer will pay for it, but I'd be really surprised if they suddenly gave me a pay boost because of it.
The other half of this is that welfare programs subsidize the lower income workers. WalMart would not be able to pay <$10 an hour if welfare did not exist. If people didn't have the government as a backstop, you can guarantee they would stand up and demand a higher wage so that they could meet their basic needs.
I think we should not use terms like "common sense" when describing totally uncommon practices.
Wages aren't stagnant by accident -- far from it. The constantly repeated, default decision by boardrooms to unlink compensation from productivity and thereby suppress wages is in fact the overwhelming, prevailing "common sense" of the really existing world. This goes hand in hand with the systematic expropriation by ownership of the surplus value created by workers.
This situation persists because persons with your perspective cheerlead it on, in part by moralizing on worker compensation while totally ignoring the moral calculus of ownership's claim to the surplus value created by workers. That's what you did here:
>Yet no additional effort, creativity, or skill was required on the part of the cashier [...] [therefore they deserve no share of their expanded productivity]
Fact: if additional effort, creativity and skill was a bona fide prerequisite for receiving expanded compensation linked to productivity, then dividend compensation for nonworking stockholders would never flow -- let alone grow to the astronomic, middle-class-savaging intensity it has today.
I work because this society threatens us with destitution if we do not. I have plenty of ideas, things to do. I have to put them aside for much of each week because I want to survive.
And? That's true of a lot of people, including myself. Do you think that's a new thing? As if not being a productive member of society leading to poverty is this evil new capitalistic creation? Or that pursuing your own ideas should not include the risk it does? It's amazing to me that you choose to work for someone for an agreed upon salary, providing stability and security to you, and then have an issue with the concept of work ethic because if you don't work for them or someone else you will be poor.
I work on side projects as I can. I don't quit my job because I don't know if I can survive as easily with my other ideas. It's a risky proposition. I choose less risk. You do the same, but seem upset at that concept.
No, but the extreme automation and beginning of human-like skills across all domains of knowledge are a new thing.
With automation of the essentials plus a bit more, we can finally start free ourselves from a lifetime of work. The wealthy already have, and choose what they wish to do. I only want that.
> As if not being a productive member of society leading to poverty is this evil new capitalistic creation?
No. That threat's always been there. But there wasn't a good answer how to fix it. Communism (ala USSR) certainly didn't work. They just changed the owner from a capitalist to a uncaring state. But one thing Marx failed to grasp was that computerization and automation was the way out of both old systems. That way, there's no compulsed labor.
> It's amazing to me that you choose to work for someone for an agreed upon salary, providing stability and security to you, and then have an issue with the concept of work ethic because if you don't work for them or someone else you will be poor.
Because it's not so egalitarian like you put it. You should full realize that there's a tremendous amount of asymmetry - They have the money, the legal, the govt clout. What do you have? Your labor. That's it. And you, the individual are expendable. I mean, who cares about where you sleep, what you eat, and basic necessities of life? I guess sleeping under a bridge is illegal for both the poor as it is the rich.
Unions served as a balance to that implicit, ever present threat. But they've been demonized long enough in this country, that US union membership is what, 15%? And in the tech sector, unions are non-existent. I certainly would want one myself.
If the employee knows that at the time the offer is made, then why would they accept it?
Because it actually is the prevailing market rate for their role and they know that. Also, let's not forget that there is always a large risk when hiring someone, especially as in the OPs case where they are recently graduated. The value can't be certain, so businesses are conservative until it can be proven to be higher. This is logical and expected.
But, they don't. And there's also a large risk when taking a job, especially when one is recently graduated.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy this idea that the business, the entity with all the power in the relationship, is entitled to be conservative but no one else is.
> The younger crowd seems to be largely detached from the idea of responsibility that was drilled into previous generations.
Previous generations had jobs for life. For a while now many companies have proved they don't care about the staff, and so it's not particularly surprising that staff don't care about the work.
> How else will they know if you will make it to a client call early in the morning? Or meet that deadline?
I guess it boils down to a matter of trust. You've hired someone to get a job done. If you don't trust them to do it, fire them and replace them with someone you do trust.
The whole "you need to be in your chair at 9am daily because it's the only way I know you'll show up to client meetings and meet project deadlines" seems bizarre and gaslighty. Why not allow people the autonomy to do their job in a way that best suits them in terms of maximizing productivity? If someone misses a client meeting or deadline, that's the signal that you have a problem.
It's another case of "if you want something, you have to pay for it".
The senior executives at my company are very responsible people, however, how could they be irresponsible? They make millions/yr, they have secretaries, and they a lot of autonomy in deciding how they should be judged. It'd be unusual for someone to be irresponsible in those conditions.
Meanwhile, worker bees balance sick kids, uncooperative coworkers, shifting priorities/deadlines, and taking the time to be price-conscious because they can't really afford to waste money. Is it any surprise that sometimes things fall through the cracks?
Sure, there are people who turn up on a tuesday and that's ill-advised. But presumably they're an at-will employee. If it's a problem, replace them with someone better. IF you can't find someone better at the same price, that's your sign that you're not paying enough for what you want. If you like the person, make the investment in their responsibility.
If they want me commuting during both morning and evening rush hour, they better pay a premium over companies that let me work around commuting. The extra 30+ minutes per day stuck in traffic or on trains does not come for free.
I think many people to fail to realize that writing software is very unlike producing widgets in a factory line. Some people hit periods of high productivity when they work quietly, alone, for an hour or two. And you might get more in that 1-2 hours than you would all day with the constant distractions in the modern office.