I’ve been seeing more of this classist rhetoric on HN and I honestly don’t get it. If you truly care about workers, focus your energy on the corporations and politicians that are producing the system you are unhappy with. Belittling other, higher paid workers doesn’t advance anyone’s cause.
And FWIW, the jobless rate in tech is higher than most blue collar jobs and the national average. This guy seems good, but he faces a worse landscape for finding new employment than your fictional Joe Everyman.
Losing a job is hard for everyone, regardless of the type of job it was. Jobs are where most of our social interactions happen, and where many people’s goals and aspirations are kept. Having that ripped away hurts, regardless of the salary the job paid. Hopefully he was good at managing his money (I’ve known high paid workers that weren’t) and will land on his feet, but you don’t know his circumstances and calling him names is just being a dick.
> This guy seems good, but he faces a worse landscape for finding new employment than your fictional Joe Everyman.
Maybe this is true, I don't actually know. But I'm quite skeptical that someone who worked at Google for a long time, and has work with their name on it they can point to, who can work remotely, will have a harder time finding gainful employment than a physical laborer.
I'm not trying to pile on the "screw this guy for whining" train, but I think it is important to recognize the privilege of working in tech.
As far as classism goes, this person is closer to a tradesman than they are to a billionaire or the executive class. People really have no sense of scale here and they just end up promoting infighting. It’s not just plumbers/electricians/Amazon warehouse workers and everyone else.
> I’ve been seeing more of this classist rhetoric on HN
It has always been there. It usually gets downvoted away but it takes time. Inflammatory takes like this one are usually more popular when stories are fresh and then get downvoted as the story ages on. My theory is that these shallow, ragebait-ey takes appeal to people who are skimming stories for a chance to rage a bit, but then they get bored and move on to the next thing. It takes a while for people to read the story and come up with good discussion, which gets upvoted later.
The difficult irony here is that you think your attitude is progressive, but it is regressive because it makes solidarity (and therefore the benefits of solidarity: unions, worker power, compression of the income distribution) impossible.
You're not wrong but suffering isn't comparative. Because it's easier for someone to bounce back or have support in the transition doesn't mean it still doesn't suck.
I agree that it's a little hard to care about this author's situation as much as other stories I've heard in the past couple of years. But that said, losing a job like this is never a nice place to be, and I don't hate this person for having those emotions. People are allowed to feel things, shaming them for that is not nice.
But I would caution people against writing public statements like this when they are still in shock, you might regret them later, better to try and regain some balance first.
It was written on his personal blog, announcing to the community of people who look up to him (and yes, there's a community) why he won't be in the places they expect.
Adam was a UX Engineer who saw a job that needed doing, but didn't exist, so he willed it into existence. He found a way to use his talents to literally make the world a better place. (I don't care if you think there are more important jobs - the truth is that the internet mediates most of our societal interactions, and he was making it better for everyone.)
He was doing a kickass job at it too. He should be hurt and angry to have that rug unceremoniously pulled out from under him.
He doesn't need to pay lip service to starving kids in $REMOTE_AND_DESTITUTE_PLACE or self-flagellatingly privilege check. His blog isn't here for your entertainment, and he doesn't need your approval.
There aren't many companies that have such a symbiotic relationship with the web platform to be willing to fund people to make the web a better place. For a while, Google was the foremost place that did.
Adam is immensely talented and a wonderful person on top of it. Hopefully a great opportunity will snatch him up quickly. But there aren't many places to do the work he was doing. He deserves to be mad to see the job he worked so hard to build swept away by some antisocial business school bullshit. And as the people who will miss out when he's not there to make the web a better place, we do too.
You are using people from a marginalized group (the poor), of which I am assuming you are not a part, as a bad faith shield to justify your anti-worker viewpoint.
I am of two minds about this. As a matter of human disappointment, I totally get it. They liked working there. Now they don't. It's not their choice. And it sucks. This is extremely relatable.
But the naïveté and confusion on display in the post are extremely not relatable. What do you think a company is? What do you think a job is? What is it that you think you're doing there? And what is it that you believe you are owed?
On this front, this person talks like an alien -- or, more condescendingly, a child. I can't relate to it at all, nor do I think it's polite or kind to play along and pretend that their worldview is understandable.
Maybe -- maybe -- you could say something like, "look, these companies lie to their employees. They tell them that they're family, that they should bring their whole selves to work, that they are changing the world, that they matter to the company as an individual. You can't blame them for believing it."
But I do. Those are such ridiculous lies that I somehow have more contempt for anybody who believes them than I do the liars, who I view mostly to be playing out a kind of benign social fiction that's transparently fake to everybody involved.
I agree that his situation doesn't meaningfully threaten his actual personal security. But this isn't the point of his post and like, shit dude, have a heart. It's not the misery olympics.
He has clearly invested a lot of his identity in his work at Google on Chrome etc - essentially his life's work. To have it flushed down the toilet via some opaque corporate process, cost-saving a company that basically prints its own profit has a terrible psychological impact... irrespective of whether investing one's personal dreams in a faceless multinational corporation was a rational idea in the first place.
Honestly, it's not as if the PMC classes have truly transcended the confines of generating someone else's profit, pushing them offside is probably quite unhelpful for solidarity in the labor movement, but whatever.
I think the more salient observation is that the author is completely detached from reality. Him writing:
"shoulder to shoulder with incredible engineers, planning ways to make web developers life's easier while raising the quality level of the web."
when Google is primarily responsible for flooding us with ad capitalism and ruining the web, portrays not only a profound ignorance of how corporations work, but a total dissociation from the -very damaging- effects of his work-seen-holistically on the real world. You don't get a free pass working for Google just because you can rationalize your particular niche as "educating users" and "raising the quality level of the web".
Towards the end, it seems to dawn on him that yeah, he "was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp". Let's hope he carries that understanding forward and distills it into a moral and ethical framework that can make the world better.
You are probably gonna get downvoted for lack of empathy but I completely agree. I feel bad for OP, but simultaneously if you are a technocrat who thinks they are somehow insulated or not part of the larger system, you need a reality check.
> I was supposed to help with the developer keynote, ensuring things matched reality and were beautiful. Gone.
Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes something like this needs perspective.
> Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes something like this needs perspective.
This is clearly a person who loved their job, and took it seriously. They had worked hard on something and were looking forward to sharing it. That, frankly, seems healthy. It's the only way to give your everyday life worth and meaning as an employee. It's certainly something that Google cultivated and encouraged. And it's shocking to have it vanish so abruptly.
If you take a more cynical, realistic view, you could never seriously engage with your work. You realize the company doesn't care about you, and you return the sentiment. That might be a more realistic way of viewing your situation, but it's empty of meaning or satisfaction. You'd be correct but unhappy all day every day.
I was always kinda jealous of people who could drink the kool-ade. And even if there's a certain satisfaction in seeing them get a reality check, it's also a shame that somebody who thought they had found meaning and purpose in a community suddenly realize they were just a tool the whole time.
yojo|10 months ago
And FWIW, the jobless rate in tech is higher than most blue collar jobs and the national average. This guy seems good, but he faces a worse landscape for finding new employment than your fictional Joe Everyman.
Losing a job is hard for everyone, regardless of the type of job it was. Jobs are where most of our social interactions happen, and where many people’s goals and aspirations are kept. Having that ripped away hurts, regardless of the salary the job paid. Hopefully he was good at managing his money (I’ve known high paid workers that weren’t) and will land on his feet, but you don’t know his circumstances and calling him names is just being a dick.
Vegenoid|10 months ago
Maybe this is true, I don't actually know. But I'm quite skeptical that someone who worked at Google for a long time, and has work with their name on it they can point to, who can work remotely, will have a harder time finding gainful employment than a physical laborer.
I'm not trying to pile on the "screw this guy for whining" train, but I think it is important to recognize the privilege of working in tech.
spacemadness|10 months ago
Aurornis|10 months ago
It has always been there. It usually gets downvoted away but it takes time. Inflammatory takes like this one are usually more popular when stories are fresh and then get downvoted as the story ages on. My theory is that these shallow, ragebait-ey takes appeal to people who are skimming stories for a chance to rage a bit, but then they get bored and move on to the next thing. It takes a while for people to read the story and come up with good discussion, which gets upvoted later.
dcre|10 months ago
fryz|10 months ago
cab11150904|10 months ago
[deleted]
sweezyjeezy|10 months ago
But I would caution people against writing public statements like this when they are still in shock, you might regret them later, better to try and regain some balance first.
pfraze|10 months ago
shuckles|10 months ago
cab11150904|10 months ago
Caring about marginalized and needy people = Cynical Loser.
someone7x|10 months ago
That person is basically you under less dire circumstances.
cab11150904|10 months ago
bsimpson|10 months ago
It was written on his personal blog, announcing to the community of people who look up to him (and yes, there's a community) why he won't be in the places they expect.
Adam was a UX Engineer who saw a job that needed doing, but didn't exist, so he willed it into existence. He found a way to use his talents to literally make the world a better place. (I don't care if you think there are more important jobs - the truth is that the internet mediates most of our societal interactions, and he was making it better for everyone.)
He was doing a kickass job at it too. He should be hurt and angry to have that rug unceremoniously pulled out from under him.
He doesn't need to pay lip service to starving kids in $REMOTE_AND_DESTITUTE_PLACE or self-flagellatingly privilege check. His blog isn't here for your entertainment, and he doesn't need your approval.
There aren't many companies that have such a symbiotic relationship with the web platform to be willing to fund people to make the web a better place. For a while, Google was the foremost place that did.
Adam is immensely talented and a wonderful person on top of it. Hopefully a great opportunity will snatch him up quickly. But there aren't many places to do the work he was doing. He deserves to be mad to see the job he worked so hard to build swept away by some antisocial business school bullshit. And as the people who will miss out when he's not there to make the web a better place, we do too.
rgreeko42|10 months ago
meepmorp|10 months ago
you gotta do more to make your point here, because that's not an obvious inference from what they wrote
cab11150904|10 months ago
Missed that by a mile.
dionidium|10 months ago
But the naïveté and confusion on display in the post are extremely not relatable. What do you think a company is? What do you think a job is? What is it that you think you're doing there? And what is it that you believe you are owed?
On this front, this person talks like an alien -- or, more condescendingly, a child. I can't relate to it at all, nor do I think it's polite or kind to play along and pretend that their worldview is understandable.
Maybe -- maybe -- you could say something like, "look, these companies lie to their employees. They tell them that they're family, that they should bring their whole selves to work, that they are changing the world, that they matter to the company as an individual. You can't blame them for believing it."
But I do. Those are such ridiculous lies that I somehow have more contempt for anybody who believes them than I do the liars, who I view mostly to be playing out a kind of benign social fiction that's transparently fake to everybody involved.
bitlad|10 months ago
Only when laid off.
plaguuuuuu|10 months ago
He has clearly invested a lot of his identity in his work at Google on Chrome etc - essentially his life's work. To have it flushed down the toilet via some opaque corporate process, cost-saving a company that basically prints its own profit has a terrible psychological impact... irrespective of whether investing one's personal dreams in a faceless multinational corporation was a rational idea in the first place.
Honestly, it's not as if the PMC classes have truly transcended the confines of generating someone else's profit, pushing them offside is probably quite unhelpful for solidarity in the labor movement, but whatever.
abc-1|10 months ago
As opposed to you, the perfect human?
> blue collar jobs would take much longer to recover
So what are you saying? We should treat everyone like shit so everyone is equal? Or that only blue collar people have the right to complain?
How about we focus on raising the quality of living for everyone.
cab11150904|10 months ago
[deleted]
armitron|10 months ago
"shoulder to shoulder with incredible engineers, planning ways to make web developers life's easier while raising the quality level of the web."
when Google is primarily responsible for flooding us with ad capitalism and ruining the web, portrays not only a profound ignorance of how corporations work, but a total dissociation from the -very damaging- effects of his work-seen-holistically on the real world. You don't get a free pass working for Google just because you can rationalize your particular niche as "educating users" and "raising the quality level of the web".
Towards the end, it seems to dawn on him that yeah, he "was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp". Let's hope he carries that understanding forward and distills it into a moral and ethical framework that can make the world better.
r00t-|10 months ago
wormlord|10 months ago
> I was supposed to help with the developer keynote, ensuring things matched reality and were beautiful. Gone.
Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes something like this needs perspective.
ertian|10 months ago
This is clearly a person who loved their job, and took it seriously. They had worked hard on something and were looking forward to sharing it. That, frankly, seems healthy. It's the only way to give your everyday life worth and meaning as an employee. It's certainly something that Google cultivated and encouraged. And it's shocking to have it vanish so abruptly.
If you take a more cynical, realistic view, you could never seriously engage with your work. You realize the company doesn't care about you, and you return the sentiment. That might be a more realistic way of viewing your situation, but it's empty of meaning or satisfaction. You'd be correct but unhappy all day every day.
I was always kinda jealous of people who could drink the kool-ade. And even if there's a certain satisfaction in seeing them get a reality check, it's also a shame that somebody who thought they had found meaning and purpose in a community suddenly realize they were just a tool the whole time.
cab11150904|10 months ago
[deleted]