Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by williamcotton 1118 days ago
It’s nothing like dating. Employees need a paycheck. It’s an asymmetric relationship. This becomes very apparent during economic downturns!

There’s really no use searching for the perfect job when the market is flooded with candidates and you have young children and mortgage payments due, yet you have to act like every job you’re applying to is some gift you’ve been searching for your entire life!

2 comments

> Employees need a paycheck. It’s an asymmetric relationship. This becomes very apparent during economic downturns!

While this is certainly true, there still are usually enough jobs that fit the broad parameters of "pays enough to eat and take care of my rent". If you have a choice of a good boss at lower pay, or an a-hole boss at higher pay, you should take the good boss every time.

We spend 1/3, or more, of our lives at work, and life is far too short to spend any of it taking orders from an unpleasant, incompetent, or abusive a-hole. Not only will this make your time at work miserable, it will also lead to poor sleep and spending far too much of your "free time" brooding about your job. In that type of situation, you're not giving them 8 hours per day, you're giving them 24 hours per day. Eventually that's gonna take a toll on your physical and/or mental health. Don't do it.

This is also important if one wants to grow in their career. It’s hard to grow in a position that is only asked to do what they’re told. As a result, they won’t progress to a higher-level position and will lose money in the long-term. In other words, short-term thinking loses out, even economically.
Not in this job market, certainly, but that article was from 2019, where market dynamics were very different.