[xpe]

> It's also not unreasonable for people to expect more from their job than a simple transaction.

This. Finding the balance is challenging.

- It is often unhealthy to expect too much from work.

- most software/hardware tech employers ask employees to be more than contractors and to care more than just a paycheck

- at the same time we see corporate decisions that are largely shortsighted, and sometimes even self-defeating.

I don’t have a history of belonging to a union, nor promoting worker-owned cooperatives, but I am a student (so to speak) of public policy and history. To use political economy terminology, we often see misaligned incentives: people with a little technical experience, calling the shots on everything from where we work (office, remote, etc) to how we work (remember cubicles? They were better than open office for anyone like me.)

Software and hardware engineers have been a key differentiating factor for tremendous technological advancement and meteoric corporate growth. Why don’t we have more influence on how we work at the least?

One key aspect seems damning: could it be because for most of us, as we get successful, we don’t pay it forward? And where are the ‘politically active’ retired engineers? Many of us cash out and become investors ourselves. I suppose we get working on other interesting technical problems and treat the lack of workplace control as immutable? To some extent, I’ve seen the problem and it is us.

Or maybe the business world is structured so that being “just a worker” relegates you to a second class status. Maybe there’s no point in hoping even a group of 1,000 of the relatively wealthy of us (to throw out a number: let’s say we define that as having net worth over $2M in the USA) could’ve made a difference? But I know this isn’t true; I largely notice a gaping hole where collective organizing could be.

Of course, there’s plenty blame to go ‘round. Anyone who seeks venture-capital has to make a Faustian bargain, trading a blood infusion for improbable expectations of growth.

The tech industry has grown so rapidly, adding people at a breakneck pace, that maybe we don’t think of this as being important. New SW/HW hires at least get paid well, we tell ourselves, even if they don’t really get to shape or work places as much as we should.

Our negotiating power is not as strong as it once was, and it isn’t getting any better, in my view. Will we act? Soon? Ever?

[eropple]

You ask good questions. Historically, no, software craftspeople and technologists do not pay it forward. In my experience, my parents' generation of engineers were more of the "someday, I'll be that boot" variety. I see a little less of that in mine, but still plenty of it; that's how startups mostly operate today. But I have a little more hope for the next generation to mount more resistance to it.

There will always be toads, but there might be some people in there, too.

[marcosdumay]

> It is often unhealthy to expect too much from work.

There is a famous prayer where one asks to be strong enough to change the things one can, humble enough to not requiring the changes you can't, and wise enough to know the difference. I don't remember it literally, but should be easy to find.

Anyway, work from home just got promoted from something you can change into something you can. As it happened, the healthy thing changed from not expecting it into demanding it (if you want).

[theonlybutlet]

That's a great point, misaligned incentives. And I'd add to that misaligned goals.

The engineer who wants to deliver their project in return for their salary, in contrast to the sociable c-suite exec, who wants to cosplay the work environment of yesteryear.

This applies to the wider corporate world and not even just the tech industry but I understand it's relevance as this is HN.