Tech crash?

Or maybe just tech bailout? If they're woke enough. Linked by Powerline:
You have a certain fire in your 20’s. Ready to reform and change everything. You get noticed when you perform. Promoted, bonuses, etc. But eventually you keep hitting the same problems or gatekeepers over and over. I recall asking an older coworker (mid-thirties at the time) what drove him, and he said he just does it for the paycheck now. I’m at that point. Lost the fire for career and collecting my paycheck for other purposes in life where the fire has been rekindled.
I worked remote for 5 years at a prior job and this was never the case. There’s something special about this combo of remote and “your feelings are valid”.
I know this isn’t just my company because I’ve interviewed at many other companies (Big Tech and Unicorns). Awful conduct at interviews. Demoralized employees who show up late, unprepared, or absolutely do not want to be there.
Things my coworkers spend an enormous amount of their day on: – Coming up with a “clever” new Zoom background each day (something Harry Potter or Star Wars like children) – Clever Slack emojis – Reddit style responses in threads (“First!) and other low brow irony for the lulz.

3 comments:

David Foster said...

I have mixed feelings about remote work. It is certainly nice for employees to avoid daily commutes, it is nice for employers to avoid playing for office real-estate, and it is good for the organization as a whole to be able to draw good people from a wider geographical range. But...

I do think something is lost when casual, random contacts are lost...I know of several cases where such contacts led to important new product/market initiatives, and I can also think of at least one significant historical example. And I don't see how this can be completely simulated online.

The quoted individual's point about the combo of Remote with 'your feelings are valid' is an interesting and worrying one. Although I suspect there are plenty of companies and other organizations where political toxicity was extreme even before remote work became common.

Texan99 said...

I've done a lot of telecommuting. It worked for me because my clients could tell whether I'd done work that was valuable for them without monitoring to see my physical attendance anywhere. If they thought my work suffered from a failure to collaborate, they could speak up. I never had any trouble finding a way to collaborate by phone or written communication. I preferred long hours of working alone with only that professional contact that was really necessary, and it was never important to me that it be face-to-face. Certainly there's value in the exchange of ideas, but need they be exchanged in person?

Christopher B said...

As with most things, I think there's a difference in attitude and results if the remote relationship is expected and defined upfront versus something like the COVID lockouts. Though the writer doesn't come out and say it explicitly, he appears to be referencing the latter more than the former.

After reading the piece I don't think it was necessarily just working remotely that caused the issues. He notes that many of the companies created environments that centered much of an employee's life on the company via social activities outside normal office hours. When COVID blew that up, especially with the curtailment of many other sources of socialization, people's support systems dried up and blew away. Remote work, the continuing 'great sort', and the imminent retirement of the Boomer generation are also leading to the employee churn that affects productivity.