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uleekunkel t1_j5bx4vv wrote

Reply to comment by Dissenting_voice in What High Tech and Media Layoffs Say About the Economy by PleaseThinkFirst

I don't totally disagree, but a lot of the "work" in tech is problem solving. It doesn't have a visible achievement meter in a lot of cases until the problem is solved. Experience and intellect can lead to some people solving problems faster, but it doesn't make them worth less than someone who needs to grind it out.

I liken it to a time I had some drywall repaired. It took the guy maybe 20 mins, but it wasn't cheap. It was skilled labor, so I was paying for expertise more than time.

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Dissenting_voice t1_j5cafcg wrote

> but a lot of the "work" in tech is problem solving. It doesn't have a visible achievement meter in a lot of cases until the problem is solved. Experience and intellect can lead to some people solving problems faster, but it doesn't make them worth less than someone who needs to grind it out.

This describes virtually all work that isn’t mindless, production line or autopilot work . It really describes hospitality work.

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uleekunkel t1_j5ccgfs wrote

Sure, I'm not suggesting it isn't. But there's a difference with hospitality where you have to be open and have people physically present X number of hours per week or you can't deliver what you're selling.

I have a quality bar I have to keep with what I deliver, but staring at datasets has a point of diminishing returns. At a certain point I have to start making hypothesis and designing tests and that doesn't always look like me typing furiously. And it can happen at 9pm as easily as 11am.

There is fluff in tech, there's fluff in just about any large organization in any large industry. But what the work looks like is probably not perceptible except my peers and boss.

For what it's worth I want to break into hospitality (small occupancy hotels)

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throwaway92715 t1_j5dsoju wrote

The difference in hospitality is that if you and your team do a really good job, the restaurant might double its profits for a night. In tech, if you and your team hit it just right, your firm could qualify for nine figures of progressive funding and IPO with a multibillion dollar market cap, catapulting the owner's wealth into the 0.01%. Guess which one is gonna pay six figures.

A restaurant is limited by the size of its kitchen, the number of seats, local demand, parking... A tech company is not nearly as limited by scale factors like that.

Tech companies are usually limited by their high risk of failure, but that risk is mainly held by the investors, not the owners and employees. If you can get funding, you can pay yourself gravy for as long as it lasts, as long as you don't violate a contract or screw yourself some other way.

Some are just grifters who are bluffing. Others really are potential billionaires with brilliant ideas. It's a gamble. People gamble when they're flush with cash, and the upper class in the US has been for awhile.

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Dissenting_voice t1_j5cd6gk wrote

For the love of god, stay out of hospitality.

E. Lol, ok. Forget what I said. Get in to hospitality. In fact, I will sell you everything! Oh, and be sure not to do any research. Your passion and good idea is all you need.

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quantumfucker t1_j5ddmg2 wrote

I don’t think anyone wants to leave tech for hospitality lmao

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uleekunkel t1_j5dea8a wrote

If you're in tech and surrounded by coworkers who love their tech jobs I wish I had that.

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ten-million t1_j5czkj4 wrote

For a while they were idolizing failure, writing articles about how much they learned by failing, even TED talks about the benefits of failure. But not one of them lost their own money. Nobody lost a house. All of it was other people’s money. It’s easy to think you’re a genius when the money is so stupid. Tech bros are a pretty arrogant lot, very similar to young Wall Street bros.

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throwaway92715 t1_j5dsiag wrote

Yep. You're not getting paid for working hard and being a good worker. You're getting paid for doing the thing that makes the money go up. That can take 30 seconds or 3 years.

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saintpetejackboy t1_j5i5bes wrote

I like this post. I've been developing proprietary software pretty much my whole life and I learned a long time ago to take things at a relaxed pace. I'll work to burnout and crush the tasks of entire teams, solo. The worst part about all of that, though is:

1.) Some management or clients will then come to expect the same performance 24/7/365

2.) Most projects never actually "end". You just unlock more work, known as scope creep :/.

If the task was: "Hey, move these bricks to the other side of that patio", you could look at the pile of bricks and know how close you were to getting finished.

Software development and a lot of other IT jobs are more akin to somebody saying "Hey, move every third brick to the other side of that patio and stack them in the shape of a tesseract", and you look over to the pile of bricks, which happens to just be an endless interdimensional vortex vomiting "brick-like" shapes that make it hard to tell when you've actually encountered the third "brick"... you begin doing all this, knowing full well that there is no way to eventually stack them into the shape of a tesseract.

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Battystearsinrain t1_j5eqp10 wrote

Right, X service is down or some business partner cannot do X, you fix it, and that includes troubleshooting, etc.

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rulesforrebels t1_j5gb6ik wrote

A lot of jobs involve creativity and problem solving yet people are productive

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