[kerbs]

I think the point is that these are not real problems.

My wife works in healthcare, and agree that our "problems" are paltry relative to what they deal with.

"Instead of 6-3 your hours are now 6-to-6 3 days a week because we lost coverage in the evening. Tough noogies"

She gets paid 1/2 what those with 4 years of experience in our field get, and works on brains and spines.

[ryandrake]

I've worked roofing jobs, carrying heavy bags of shingles up ladders to the roof in >40C temperatures in the summer. I've cleaned filthy toilets. I've worked in a factory where the noise and hot stench of plastic injection molding machines would give you burning headaches for hours. These experiences don't invalidate the problems of tech workers, but they help me put them in perspective. Having the choice, I will choose sitting in an air conditioned office dealing with impossible deadlines and soul-sucking meetings any day of the week.

[amotinga]

same. any meeting is just 'me time' chilling for an hour.

[wombat-man]

yeah, I've known people working in Law and Banking. Lawyers at big firms work grueling hours until they get promoted enough.

One of my friend works at a major consulting firm, he knows they just grind new accounting grads until they burn out every. year. They just hire new ones the next year.

Banking analysts, actually pretty much everyone in banking is in what sounds like an unending grind. The exception I've heard is if you can somehow push through as an IB and make it into being a VP you can calm down.

So, yeah. Meetings are boring, the work is sometimes uninspired but things are pretty cushy for us right now.

[ipaddr]

Remember we are talking about senior developers. People with 15, 20, 25 years of experience. By that point in law you are not grinding.

[theshadowknows]

Yeah I’m a “sr architect” on an enterprise team where I work. I work from home in my home office and I get to see my wife all day or play with the dog. But at the same time I have dozens of people screaming at me over Teams it email or sometimes just calling me. Everything is always top priority. Everything is mission critical. Every project deadline is static and can’t be budged even a little bit. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve worked in factories before. And gas stations. And warehouses unloading trucks. I know what a hard day is like in a physical job earning a fraction of what I earn now. But at the end of the day it’s also about what it costs to earn that salary. And when sr leadership refuses to listen or understand something and when projects change wildly or have no direction…it might not be the same as unloading trucks of heavy boxes in the summer…but it really, really sucks to work so hard and build things that are genuinely cool only to have then be pulled into meetings the next day asking why you suck at your job.

[mental1896]

Relatively smaller problems are still problems. Rather than diminishing the significance of certain perspectives by calling them "not real", we should be acknowledging issues like this at all strata.

[pydry]

There are people out there that make your wife's problems look paltry too.

You can safely dismiss almost every problem in the world with your approach.

[kerbs]

Sure, but software engineers are at the top. There is no career where the reverse of your example is true.

"Our jobs aren't that bad – do you hear what they do to software engineers?"

[pydry]

Software engineers are not at the top. Billionaires are.

I earn a decent chunk but I'd still have to earn my current wage for about a million years and pay 0% taxes to have as much as Jeff Bezos does.

[jxidjhdhdhdhfhf]

Plenty of poor people around the world make way less than your wife and work the same or more hours. So, I guess tough noogies to your wife. If she's not literally starving then she has no right to complain ever about anything since starving people exist.

[kerbs]

The point I’m making is that software engineers have developed a habit of bemoaning about how their jobs don’t bring them to the peak of self-actualization.

But we have, by far, the most intellectually stimulating and flexible careers in the world. And nowadays, get paid ridiculous to boot.

So why is everyone complaining? What is everyone aspiring for?

[restalis]

"So why is everyone complaining? What is everyone aspiring for?"

I can only speak for myself here, but I know it's a valid point for many that followed the same path I did. The work I come about to do requires constant and intense mental activity on non-repetitive tasks. That takes a lot of energy. Twenty years ago, the computer engineering university faculty I've been through saw constantly the highest rate of dropout in its freshman and sophomore years, compared to any other kind of school out there. The touted reasons were mostly that there was simply too much work, that it was too grueling, too hard. The ones that prevailed weren't necessarily the smartest or the most diligent of all. They were, however, the most passioned about the computer engineering field. One had to have it to fuel the energy demand of the work necessary both in school years and after. The money is good, but that alone didn't seem to cut it. The work conditions in office are nice, but those weren't nor aren't what kept me in the game. (There were times when the space I worked in had no heating in the winter and was often smoked in, with me as non-smoker.) What I see in my peers' complaints nowadays is something that hits on the root of what made me wake up and continue every day. And the worst part is that the decision makers don't seem to be aware or caring. The mood is more like "I pay them, therefore I saddle them with whatever I see fit". So to answer you, what I aspire for? I aspire for a better fit, for both myself as someone good at something, which (from a self-development investment prospective) it makes sense to strive to do as much of it every day, as well as for the client benefiting my work/skills. I also think it's just ethical to rise awareness (even by complaints, if it has to be) when I see (my) resources misused and degrading of performance/potential in general.

[jxidjhdhdhdhfhf]

Working conditions can always get a little better. And if you don't ask for it, you won't get it.

[redisman]

Agreed. If you’re not working the literal one objectively worst job in the whole world you should never complain about anything

[alenmilk]

I think the problem here is motivation and keeping it up for so many years. Maybe there is a trick to it. Idk.

[adamredwoods]

Book & YouTube talks:

Dan Pink - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us