So, I just need to rant for a minute about what’s just happened. It’s made me feel fairly disposable as a worker. I work in I.T. support. I help people who can’t operate technology with highly complicated issues. I am highly skilled, well trained and I have a diverse set of understanding for technical issues.
Last year I took a new job. The old job was an MSP, or Managed Service Provider; if you don’t know what that is; an MSP is the IT department for companies too small to have an IT department. That’s the summary. The new company is both an MSP and an ISP as well as just about everything else you can imagine for IT… hosting webpages, and all the associated nonsense, phones/VoIP, colocation (Datacenter stuff)… everything. Basically, when someone was signed onboard with this employer, we did it all.
Starting out, everything seemed fairly normal, a bit more involved, since we do more than the last company, but nothing too crazy. The part that irked me, is that as MSP, we own a client, we do everything for them, including, but not limited to all their computer/server/network work (which I expected), but also their phones, internet service, hosting, email, etc. everything… which is a bit more than I expected, but I was managing okay.
In March/April, things changed in my personal life, where I was having to drive my SO to work (she doesn’t have her license, and we don’t live in a place where she can reliably get a taxi/bus/other transportation), the problem is that her work is 3-11, where I work 9-5, in another city. So I tried to work with my workplace but they wouldn’t let go of working from the office, so I ended up on an insane schedule of commuting to the office (over an hour drive each way), then leaving the office at 1PM, to be home for 2PM, to get her to work for 3PM, then GOING BACK TO WORK. I wasn’t able to keep up with my workload… in addition, I’m driving her home at 11, getting home at midnight, then getting up at 5-6AM to get a shower and do it all over again. I couldn’t sustain that for any reasonable length of time, and I burned out. My doctor issued a notice to my workplace that I am unable to continue working for the time being, they accepted it and I went on disability as of early may, until now.
Currently, I feel much better, compared to when I was burning out in April, and I feel a lot better about going back. The SO has also been working on getting her license and her own car, so within a few months I won’t have to even think about whether she can get to work or not, since she will have a car and her license to drive herself there. A week or two ago, I contacted my workplace to let them know I was ready to return. We had a few emails back and forth to resolve the matter of the doctors recommendation and disability diagnosis. Once all that was completed, I thought I was ready to go. Big nope.
I got word yesterday that instead of bringing me back, they’re laying me off.
So not only did they have the callous attitude to force me to drive to the office and back several times a day to try to maintain a poor life scenario (I asked to WFH, which they absolutely could do, since they did it over COVID without significant issues)… but when I burned out as a result of their ridiculous demands, and took some time off, instead of welcoming me back and holding my position, they filled in the gap while I was out on disability, and laid me off when I was able to return.
I feel so abandoned. I won’t complain about “where’s the loyalty” because there’s never been a time in my career where “loyalty” has ever been something I’ve felt that my workplace ever gave me; and all evidence I’ve seen says that companies have zero loyalty to anyone. Maybe one day in the past that was true, but it’s definitely not been true for the entirety of my working career; but here I am, a highly skilled individual, with specific skills that will absolutely help the company succeed, that they know I have, that they’re just going to throw away… and for what?
The excuse they gave me was financial downsizing, but it’s a company of about 12-18 people, so it’s not like my job was part of a larger dismissal of people, they’ve lost, laid off, or otherwise shed employees at a very slow rate. Some of my (now former) coworkers have said that several people who have voluntarily left their positions, have been replaced during my time away; but me? no. Apparently my knowledge isn’t worth enough to them.
I’m currently on the hunt for a new employer. IMO, these guys are fools to throw away everything I know. The only challenge I face right now is finding someone who will see my value. IT support jobs are usually underpaid in my local area, and too many companies are going return to office and I’m not easily able to find remote (WFH) type employment. The jobs are there, but it’s hard to find one that’s worth my time. The core issue IMO, with the low pay, is that it’s a non-union position, but if I can find a union job, I’m all in.
Wish me luck!
Sorry to hear you’re going through this. I had similar thing happen to me a while ago. Same industry, I was a sys-admin at an MSP contracted to a specific client.
Got in a car accident, hit-and-run by another driver. Luckily I was not seriously injured, but my car was in the shop for 5 weeks. My spouse and I only had 1 car then, so I had no way to get onsite easily. Public transport sucks where we live, the fastest bus route to my client was an hour and 20 minutes. It used to take me 15-20 minutes to drive in the car.
I requested to work remote until my car was back from the shop, (my insurance didn’t include a rental at the time.) My MSP responded, “it’s not our problem that you got in a car accident, figure out your transportation.” They wouldn’t even compromise and let me work remote for 2-3 days of the week, even though they had presented their company as being remote-work friendly.
I wish there was a tech workers union I could join, it would have been so nice to have them start kicking some ass on my behalf.
The company doesn’t care about you…
Agreed. If someone proposed a tech workers Union, I would sign up. The problem is that unless everyone agrees, there’s always going to be some fresh-faced person straight out of college/uni who is willing to work outside the Union who will work for next to nothing.
I imagine such an organisation being something akin to the stone masons or nurses association… Where people from all different employers and walks of life are represented as a group.
Until something like that happens, I’m afraid we’re stuck. We will be exploited and taken advantage of whenever and wherever management thinks they can get away with it.
The company doesn’t care about us.
Such a person is called a scab.
Scabs should be considered bad members of society, because they are bad.
They harm their own interests by siding with employers. They make life miserable for the entire working class, while helping billionaires become even richer.
aaah, I have difficulty with some of the terminology, and you’ve filled in a gap. Thanks.
IMO, a lot of the recent college grads would just be happy to be employed for more money than they would be at pretty much any other job that they’ve worked; so little more than minimum wage. Where I am, minimum wage at full time hours gets you just over 30k/yr, so companies offering 50-60, a bit less than double that, seem appealing to those who are recent grads, but the problem is that for someone who just racked up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with college/uni, doesn’t really understand that $50k/yr is massively underpaid for a high-skill position, even an entry one. I was an inadvertent scab when I started, but that was over 10 years ago, when things were a lot cheaper, I could get an apartment when I started, for around $600/mo, and now the same place would easily be double that.
I’m not excusing my behaviour at all, just trying to provide context. I was paid less than $50k/yr when I started, and it took me a while, about 3-4 years in the industry, until I demanded more. Fact is, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I have very quickly lost potential employment because I “asked for too much” during early stages of the interview process. I’m okay with that. Those people clearly don’t know what the value of I.T. is, and they may never realize that their poor excuse for infrastructure and IT support, is because they can’t attract talent offering so little.
The addage of “nobody wants to work anymore” is both true and false. Nobody wants to work for the wages that companies are offering. It’s a multi-headed demon that needs to be understood more than anything. Companies have enjoyed stagnant wages, and increased worker productivity as a result of technology for a long time, along with rising costs of goods sold, all contributing to their profits; in many industries, companies are no longer satisfied with less than half of the cost of goods sold going to profit, and they want more. More for them, less for everyone else. where everyone else includes their clients, workers, support staff… everyone. More for the shareholders and c-levels and less for the people who actually do the work. This drives the working class into poverty, while the rich become richer, and it’s no wonder that things are so messed up right now.
The line goes up.
The workforce varies in terms of easiness to exploit, but the software industry is not prospering, and cannot do so, merely from the labor of workers without more than a few years of experience. Creating broad class solidarity both within industries and across them is an objective clearly within reach, even though the road will be difficult, uncertain, and at times dangerous.
The claim is completely false.
Conceding it may be true also concedes a charitable interpretation, one outside the intention of the phrase as it is being proliferated.
The intention is gaslighting, defamation, and manipulation.
I wouldn’t say it’s false, so much as incomplete. It’s not a complete statement. Nobody wants to work for what is being offered. That statement is true. I certainly won’t accept minimum wage for my skillset, and bluntly, minimum wage, even where I am (where it seems to be higher than most areas), is still not a living wage. The only jobs that should be under the minimum requirement of a living wage, IMO, should be part-time; in that scenario, it’s less a matter of making enough per-hour to live, and more an issue of not working enough hours to cross the line of a salary you can live off of. Even part-time workers should be paid enough that if they were working 35+ hrs a week, they could survive independent of all other factors. Any full time position, even at minimum wage, should be able to support a single individuals survival in the modern world, in the country/state/region they live in. Full stop.
When people stop at “nobody wants to work”, that incomplete sentence seems to imply that the general public doesn’t want employment, they do, they just want employment that won’t lead to poverty and destitution. That incomplete statement is gaslighting defamation and manipulation. I agree with that. The general public, IMO, doesn’t want handouts, they just want to be able to live reasonably for the labor that they provide.
I’m sure this will be news to nobody here but I’m going to rant on a bit of a tangent here for a sec… but historically, a single family (say in the mid 1900’s (20th century), eg, 1950/1960), on a single income, could afford a house, a car, several children, and some other luxuries. Now, on a single income, a family can’t even afford rent while putting food on the table. There’s more than enough evidence showing how this all happened; looking at a larger picture than most people would, it’s clear that for profits, C-level pay, and the upper-class (aka 1%) the line went up, dramatically, but for workers wages, benefits and income it either stayed flat (which is a decline when you factor in inflation), or they literally went down. Very very few have seen an appropriate increase in wage over time, keeping up with inflation. Anecdotally, my wages even in my short career, even with job hopping enough to get somewhat near reasonable raises, I haven’t been able to keep up with inflation. I started my career in 2011, my first job hop put me at a fairly reasonable $55k/yr in the early 2010’s. According to the official bank of canada inflation calculator, that wage has the current buying power of a bit over $72k/yr. at my most recent employer, I wasn’t making over $72k/yr. I cannot keep up. It’s more than a 30% increase in inflation from 2011 to 2023, just based on that alone.
I don’t want more money. If I had a job that paid me reasonably today (around $75k/yr), and only ever kept up with inflation, then I would never feel the need to change jobs for financial reasons ever again. I’m sure there are other reasons why I would change jobs, but money wouldn’t be the deciding factor. I just want to earn enough to live. This is compounded by the fact that my industry (IT support) in my country, Canada, is notoriously weak in terms of wages. Looking at the website glassdoor.ca for my job description, I see starting salaries of $57k/yr or even $41k/yr. Yet, a comparable job across the border into the USA, is similar per-year, but the US dollar is worth more, so a $41k/yr USD job is worth more like $56k/yr CAD, and $57k/yr USD is worth nearly $80k/yr CAD. The issue there is that I cannot relocate. I have constraints on where I can live and what I can do about it due to my personal situation (separate from work). I like it in Canada, it’s a wonderful country for the most part; but the wages for my specific vocation are very very lacking. If someone offered me $80k/yr on the low end, I’d be very happy with my wage - provided I could keep up with inflation.
What’s stupid to me, is that everyone relies on the work I do in my chosen profession. Everyone from C-levels to worker bees doing the paper pushing for the business and everything inbetween, almost all of whom are making more than me, in most businesses. I am the glue that keeps everything operating. My friend, who works in tech as a developer/programming analyst, was given a raise last year to over $100k/yr CAD ( ~ $72k/yr USD ); yet, if we worked together, he would rely on me to keep all of his dev servers running. If I don’t do my job, he can’t do his. It’s a leaning problem, and everything leans on IT support. Whether I’m a sysadmin, or network admin, or network engineer, or helpdesk, his work relies on me and my team to do their job for him to be able to do his. IMO, that’s really stupid to have many, very highly paid resources, relying on some of the lowest paid employees in the organization in order to do their job. What makes this even more stupid, IMO, is that the IT team is usually much smaller than other teams and under-represented by unions or other means. The organization will literally cease to function if IT doesn’t do their job and something breaks while they’re unavailable.
Businesses don’t understand the problem. It’s a matter of burn rate and the leaning problem of everyone relying on a single, unified system. I’m at the bottom of the stack, the network. That’s my focus. IMO, the network should never be in question. It should always work, and do the work it does quickly and effectively. A breakdown of the network precipitates a complete failure of the organization to do business. There’s no reason why the IT and support staff should be some of the lowest paid workers.
Okay, I’ll stop my rant for now, I just get so riled up by this. Management doesn’t understand and they probably never will.
What I mean is, if a claim is dishonest, given with an intention to manipulate or to mislead, then it is best simply to call out the deceitfulness, without searching for a more charitable interpretation.
I have a feeling that as tech matures as an industry, workers will start to unite. For now though, it’s somewhat still the wild west out there.
Tech is a tough nut to crack, because the platform economy, social media, and techno-utopian ideology has shaped much of the software industry into a kind of self-styled professional managerial class, its workers generally apathetic and often staunchly antagonistic to addressing structural issues.
Nevertheless, as software is a labor intensive industry, worker cooperatives may be formed relatively easily in principle, and many are being formed.
Software may be an industry that emerges comparatively early with strong representation by worker-controlled enterprise, without necessarily benefiting so directly from unions.
Software and the whole developer community will probably get it together before the rest of the tech industry does.
The main difference I see with programmers/developers/whatever (people who write software), is that they’re usually producing a good that can be sold, therefore their efforts directly relate to customer sales and customer retention from a business standpoint, thus they are usually better treated and compensated, but aren’t. I mean, none of the workers in the tech industry, IMO, are treated well… actually scratch that, not even just tech, any workers are generally treated poorly in the absence of a union, where they might be treated like they exist as more than numbers on a page, by force.
IT support and general IT staff are usually considered a “cost center” by management. Something you need, not something that you want, so workers in this field are generally taken advantage of whenever possible. Even medium-sized businesses generally only have one IT person if any at all (more than a few are hiring out to an MSP instead). The companies do not care about their IT staff, as long as they exist and can take blame for the technical things that go wrong, and with any luck, fix them and make the rest of the company productive to make money.
What many business owners need a lesson in, is the undeniable truth that companies are no longer selling a product, they’re information management companies that make money by selling products/services. Almost everything in the modern era is computer/network/server driven, whether in the “cloud” or not. The sales process relies on phones, which have almost entirely moved to VoIP, and email, and usually involves some server running CRM software or similar. Everything they do is on the computer now. Companies can no longer exist without the IT department doing their job effectively. That’s just one example, and you can cut and paste the ideas to pretty much any job in a business. There’s very few exceptions to this in most modern businesses. Unless the company is a tech-driven industry, and even then, IT is just a cost center. They don’t realize how important we are; not right now they don’t.
I think IT services (e.g. administration, support) and software development are effectively separate industries as concerned for labor organization. Business has clumped the two occupations into a single general category, but the reasons are in service to their own interests.
Software developers recently have not shown broad class solidarity or class consciousness.
Of course, some do exhibit such traits, and some have managed to find each other and to create pockets of organization and resistance.
Largely, however, the current generation of the occupation has been captured under the trance of techno-utopian ideals, as embodied in Silicon Valley, if not the more classically liberal ideals of Wall Street, and has been too comprehensively enclosed in its own bubbles to reveal any notice or concern that the systems operating from such ideals have been immense failures for the mass of the population.
I can definitely agree that the system has been an immense failure for the mass of the population. If the majority ever figure that out, then the thieves at the top are in major trouble.
This is altogether too true.
Tech is a mature industry. It is evolving faster than others, but fast change is its nature, and will continue in the future. Do you mean that the industry will evolve away from the platform economy and social media, which supports the private interests of sustaining harmful economic systems, rather than empowering personal agency among the public?