Comment by sorenjan

Comment by sorenjan 4 days ago

16 replies

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> How petty are the tyrants.

Having to work in an office for $300k/year is an incredibly privileged position. There are so many people that have it much, much worse, and calling it tyranny is so out of touch it's a bit distasteful. I'm not disagreeing with the points that you probably can get your work done remotely or that companies should respect their employees, but tone it down a few notches. And the organ transplant thing should be a conversation about social security and health benefits in general, it's not really a remote work issue.

haliskerbas 4 days ago

Just because we have it great as tech workers and much of the rest of labor is absolutely fucked up in many ways, doesn't mean we should stop fighting to make our situations even better and use the privilege to advocate for those in worse situations.

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  • sorenjan 4 days ago

    I'm all for workers right, unionizing, and not letting companies take advantage of you. If remote work is something important for you, you should make that clear for companies that wants to hire you.

    But I'm sure there's plenty of people who would gladly trade their tyranny for a well paid office job in a safe part of the world. I'd also like to add that American tech workers are pretty uniquely well off, working in an office for a fifth of an Amazon paycheck is the norm for a lot of us. Nobody likes to commute, I'm not defending unnecessary mandatory back to office policies, just adding some perspective.

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    • fnordpiglet 4 days ago

      While all this is true I only get to live my own life and my experience is mine. Someone else having a worse one doesn’t mean I have to put up with petty micromanagement simply because others do. But my point doesn’t stop with me and it extends to everyone who puts up with petty tyranny of management in every situation. It’s always petty and it’s always tyrannical and it should stop. It doesn’t help the employee or the company. It’s just about petty exertion of power in all its forms across all classes and professions.

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    • pm90 4 days ago

      I don’t understand what your point is. To express gratitude? That tech workers have privilege? How far are you willing to go down that path? Should we be grateful that we have running water, 24 hour electricity and don’t suffer from constant hunger, because a depressingly large percentage of the worlds population does?

      The world has many problems and we have to deal with them and with our own. The people that are in this forum are incredibly privileged. I don’t think it helps any kind of argument to keep bringing it up though.

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      • sorenjan 4 days ago

        > Should we be grateful that we have running water, 24 hour electricity and don’t suffer from constant hunger, because a depressingly large percentage of the worlds population does?

        Actually yes, I do think we all should be very grateful for that and other conveniences we get to have because of all the hard working men and women that make it possible. To take them for granted is being spoiled IMHO. You think the people that fix our water pipes, service our electrical grid, or grow our food would agree that tech workers that can't work in their pajamas from home live under any kind of tyranny? There are Russian missiles destroying those very things 1000 km from here everyday, and you want to defend calling back to office policies tyranny? Please get some perspective, everyone have problems but there are different degrees of them.

        > That tech workers have privilege?

        Yes we do, and a lot of it. Does that mean we should keep quiet when we're treated poorly? No, of course not. Everyone has had a boss they didn't get along with, or company policies they didn't agree with. Use words like tyranny if it makes you feel better, but don't expect everyone else to agree with such hyperbole. You don't even have to look for suffering outside of the US either, there's plenty of Amazon warehouse workers or delivery drivers that would love to switch places with AWS employees for half their pay, even if they would need to commute.

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    • haliskerbas 4 days ago

      You're right, there's plenty to be grateful for, and even folks working for the same tech companies have it worse in non-U.S. offices than their U.S. counterparts.

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dnhxqd 4 days ago

Why is it mutually exclusive? There are tyrants in all aspects of life, rich or poor. Privilege has nothing to do with it.

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Root_Denied 2 days ago

The difference between someone making $50k/year and $500k/year is functionally irrelevant as compared with the C-levels. It's a rounding error to their multi-million comp packages.

There shouldn't be anything distasteful about advocating for yourself and others who rely on their labor to survive, even if they're well paid for that labor.

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adamking 4 days ago

> Having to work in an office for $300k/year

More like $98k/year on average

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  • sorenjan 4 days ago

    As a senior person at AWS? Even so, that's more than most engineers earn at the end of their career here.

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fnordpiglet 4 days ago

I didn’t ask for pity I pointed out their requirements are petty and in the labor market it’s my choice as a worker to not take their offers no matter how much money they throw around. I am fortunate that I’m in demand and make a great living. This gives me more power to refuse their petty mandates, but that in no way makes it any less petty or tyrannical. Most people don’t have my optionality but that doesn’t mean I can’t call things the way they are, because it’s petty and tyrannical for everyone everywhere who doesn’t have to be in the office but is forced to be.

There are petty tyrants in all aspects of our lives and your boss being a petty tyrant spans classes.

Saying organ transplant is a health care issue misses the point. Even with the best health offerings you have to take powerful immunosuppressives for life. People who are severely immune compromised live longer the more they can isolate from infections. But requiring them to go into a crowded open floor plan office in a company mandating presenteeism is a, risk adjusted, significantly worse trade for the immune compromised. (Speaking as someone whose wife is in this situation)

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givemeethekeys 4 days ago

300k a year is what they get paid for making the company 3-4x as much, if not even more. If they can generate that value remotely, then being forced to waste another 1-2 hours of your life every day to go to the office should be worth even more pay.

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