Gen Z is coming into the workforce and — in the grand tradition of what Millennials cringe-ily called “adulting” — they’re complaining about how much easier older generations have had it financially.
Based on my own experience (albeit in Germany) that’s all too often a problem we create ourselves. Devs don’t like to be late or seem bad, so they’ll take deadlines seriously, even though deadlines are almost always made up and irrelevant.
This is of course not helped by the fact that most of us actually like what we do. Last week I closed my work laptop where I wrote a deployment pipeline, and opened my own laptop - to write a deployment pipeline.
It’s different in the U.S. Germany doesn’t have America’s “Protestant Work Ethic” bullshit where you’re expected to work your ass off and go well above what is required of you if you want to get ahead.
I never went along with that nonsense myself, which is why I’ve probably never succeeded in the corporate world.
Well, first of all, that term has been coined by Max Weber, who wrote that at least in part about Germany as well.
Anyway, the behavior you described is also kind of self inflicted pain. Developers simply don’t have much room to grow, unless you want to get into management, and there are countless cushy, well paying, but somewhat boring jobs where you can just coast along doing 40h. And that’s perfectly fine. But for some reason, Americans seem to be unable to get out of their total competition mindset and absolutely need to grind all the time and especially need to talk about how they are grinding.
It’s been drilled into us for many years that hard work means you’ll get ahead. That’s something Republicans like to say a lot when things like structural racism. The myth that all it takes to stop being poor is working hard enough. Never mind that some people work two full time low-wage jobs just to keep their kids fed.
That should only be occasional tho. If you struggle to meet deadlines all the time, something is wrong. You’re either understaffed, mismanaged or maliciously exploited.
Based on all of the people I know who work in IT, mental health seems to be a sacrifice that often has to be made in favor of meeting deadlines.
The entire tech sector took off when they realized they could exploit our autism for profit
Based on my own experience (albeit in Germany) that’s all too often a problem we create ourselves. Devs don’t like to be late or seem bad, so they’ll take deadlines seriously, even though deadlines are almost always made up and irrelevant.
This is of course not helped by the fact that most of us actually like what we do. Last week I closed my work laptop where I wrote a deployment pipeline, and opened my own laptop - to write a deployment pipeline.
It’s different in the U.S. Germany doesn’t have America’s “Protestant Work Ethic” bullshit where you’re expected to work your ass off and go well above what is required of you if you want to get ahead.
I never went along with that nonsense myself, which is why I’ve probably never succeeded in the corporate world.
Well, first of all, that term has been coined by Max Weber, who wrote that at least in part about Germany as well.
Anyway, the behavior you described is also kind of self inflicted pain. Developers simply don’t have much room to grow, unless you want to get into management, and there are countless cushy, well paying, but somewhat boring jobs where you can just coast along doing 40h. And that’s perfectly fine. But for some reason, Americans seem to be unable to get out of their total competition mindset and absolutely need to grind all the time and especially need to talk about how they are grinding.
It’s been drilled into us for many years that hard work means you’ll get ahead. That’s something Republicans like to say a lot when things like structural racism. The myth that all it takes to stop being poor is working hard enough. Never mind that some people work two full time low-wage jobs just to keep their kids fed.
Some of the hardest working ppl get shit pay.
That should only be occasional tho. If you struggle to meet deadlines all the time, something is wrong. You’re either understaffed, mismanaged or maliciously exploited.
Sounds like the average American worker to me.