> We are overpaid for incredible working conditions
I have to disagree with this for a number of reasons. By and large in tech people work overtime meaning per hour pay is lower than what you think. To be decent at your job you need to constanty learn, also not factored into wages.
The working conditions are horrible. You sit at a desk, usually in a crowded lowd office, which is highly detrimental to your health.
Often you need to commute long hours meaning you are detached from social and family life. Many struggle with starting a family.
Moreover, you have to constantly chase small tasks, constantly shifting focus and have to deal with obnoxious managers.
All things considered, tech is not a well paid job. Not by a long shot. While we "enjoy" sitting in offices and an apparent high income - at an enormous cost for us - the guy next door owning a corner shop enjoys a family life, likely owns a property and doesn't need to worry about keeping pace with daily changes.
I'm going to be honest with you, working in tech myself, these points feel incredibly out of touch.
> The working conditions are horrible. You sit at a desk, usually in a crowded lowd office, which is highly detrimental to your health.
In many professions you're expressly forbidden from sitting, even when carrying out tiring physical work. Most tech employers are willing to purchase an adjustable standing desk should you request it.
Outside of tech, people are frequently prevented from hydrating, nourishing, or relieving themselves unless given permission to do so by their employer.
> Often you need to commute long hours meaning you are detached from social and family life. Many struggle with starting a family.
This is in no way exclusive to tech workers. If someone earning a tech salary cannot afford to live reasonably close to their place of employment, how long do you think the commute is of the person serving them coffee or cleaning their office? We also benefit from having the option to work remotely.
> Moreover, you have to constantly chase small tasks, constantly shifting focus and have to deal with obnoxious managers.
Again, not unique to tech workers and certainly less impactful. Tech managers have relatively little power in comparison to other sectors. In the service industry your manager can effectively fire you with no oversight by simply not scheduling you. A server will be expected to manage 4 or more tables at a time, remembering who ordered what, even when interrupted by requests from other customers.
> All things considered, tech is not a well paid job. Not by a long shot. While we "enjoy" sitting in offices and an apparent high income - at an enormous cost for us - the guy next door owning a corner shop enjoys a family life, likely owns a property and doesn't need to worry about keeping pace with daily changes.
Most people working in tech enjoy those things as well. If you can't, you might consider re-evaluating your situation.
So.. exactly like most every other job in other sectors? With the added benifits of zero physical dangers, no exposure to the elements, no personal costs for tools, and comfy office chairs? There are innumerable trades people who envy such perks.
Long commutes, time away from family, not having family, skipping vacations, and working in crowded spaces are all par for the course in the modern economy. Id say more but it is 5am and im already late.
Exhibit A of the kind of thinking the OP is talking about. Try exchanging jobs for a week with 5 other randomly selected people in the U.S. much less third world countries and see who doesn't fight tooth and nail not to go back.
Please rattle down this list to a hotel employee. Gardener. Flight attendant. Bike mechanic. Store clerk. Teacher. Builder. Some poor fuck slaving away in a dead-end back office job.
I guarantee you that in the absence of witnesses half the people will give you a good walloping.
Lol. When I was a student, I worked all sorts of shitty jobs. Here's how it looks when I compare overtime hours I worked in different places.
1. Factory work: no overtime ever. It's against the safety regulation. When the bell rings, you must go home or punitive measures will be taken against you.
3. Working as a waiter / room service: you fight for overtime because you get paid extra. Especially if you do overtime on holidays. It's hard, but is totally worth it.
2. Other shift-based work, s.a. night guards, cleaning, cab dispatcher. It usually happens if the next shift is tardy / stuck in traffic etc. It's annoying, but doesn't happen a lot.
3. Bakery. Holly hell! You have to show up at work at like five in the morning and you get two breaks during the day when you can sit down. Your day ends up around five in the afternoon, unless it's a holiday when everyone wants extra donuts / cakes / pastry, then you go home at eight in the afternoon. No pay can possibly justify this, but you work for pennies.
4. Newspaper. Every now and then you need to sit in the office an wait for the important game to finish so that you can publish the score the day after. Meh. It's fine. You spend time sipping tea and chatting to the other person staying with you.
5. As a programmer: you switch your status in Slack to WFH. Also, the amount of overtime work I ever put in as a programmer was negligible. I know people in game development work their butt off and do a lot of overtime. But that's unique to that field. The rest of the programming world just doesn't see overtime at all. Well, maybe NOC, but they aren't really programmers.
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6. I'm not a doctor, but my wife is. Doctors work the most overtime of all professions I know. They don't even really have that as a concept as, for example, if you are a surgeon, you just keep going until the surgery is done. If it takes days, then it takes days.
Do you mean "IT" as in the people who deal with technical issues / supplies that the company is facing (they might be working in shifts). Another way to use "IT" is to refer to the whole group of people who operate computers on a more than user level, but mostly including people who'd self-identify as programmers.
If you mean the former, then yeah, these people might work in shift, but usually don't (they might work in shifts only if the organization they support needs 24 hour technical support, or NOC, as I've already mentioned), which most organization don't need. This technical support interpretation of IT is very rarely programming anything (exceptions are SREs or PEs in large companies where there's so much complexity in their in-house infrastructure that they need tech support to program).
In the later case, there's no need for most of IT to work in shifts. Definitely not at night. Same way how there's no need for accountants to work in shifts (and definitely not at night).
My side gig which is not tech made more money than i ever did as a tech “worker”. That’s when i realised that we are living in a bubble. Step outside of it and you’ll be surprised at how much your mind’s being wasted by sitting on a chair all day chasing jira tickets like a drone (no insult intended). Our minds are designed to be analytical and organised. That’s precisely what can give you a massive competitive edge.
We like to discover, learn and master. Just as you learn a new technology in no time so can you learn how build a small business and be damn good at it.
The big tech giants are paying enough that most engineers don't consider the risk of opening their own business to be worth it.
Owning the shop provides intangibles like being your own boss, somewhat less sedentary lifestyle, more community interaction, etc. But the financial rewards are most likely no better than being a developer at a FANG.
That corner shop may have been started decades ago. The opportunity to buy it at a reasonable price has probably long past.
I have to disagree with this for a number of reasons. By and large in tech people work overtime meaning per hour pay is lower than what you think. To be decent at your job you need to constanty learn, also not factored into wages.
The working conditions are horrible. You sit at a desk, usually in a crowded lowd office, which is highly detrimental to your health.
Often you need to commute long hours meaning you are detached from social and family life. Many struggle with starting a family.
Moreover, you have to constantly chase small tasks, constantly shifting focus and have to deal with obnoxious managers.
All things considered, tech is not a well paid job. Not by a long shot. While we "enjoy" sitting in offices and an apparent high income - at an enormous cost for us - the guy next door owning a corner shop enjoys a family life, likely owns a property and doesn't need to worry about keeping pace with daily changes.