[ZunarJ5]

It would be nice if the employer also cared in return, however in my experience, this is exceptionally rare. I think more than a fair share of us here learned our lessons in investing ourselves rather sharply. It rarely, if ever, pays off for the worker.

[atoav]

This is my experience as well.

As a former freelancer the standards I hold myself to are exceptionally high. Then I got employed and carried that standard with me (still do). The problem is that this means work will be pushed my way, because I am sometimes literally the only person who can do it within a day instead making it a month long project.

This led then to such an amount of work that I could mo longer hold that quality level, which made me unhappy. Of course I complained all the way, with no real change.

The only thing that worked was a strategic leaking of the fact that I was looking for positions elsewhere, suddenly a whole lot of concessions were made, and since then it has gotten better and I got much better at rejecting work.

Care too much and you burn out and get replaced.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Care too much and you burn out and get replaced

... or you become a menace to your boss. :-)

[paulcole]

In practice what would an employer caring look like to you?

[ZunarJ5]

You know what caring looks like. You experience it in your personal relationships every day. The disconnect isn't knowledge, it's incentives. The practical answer is straightforward: predictable schedules that people can plan around, living wages that are indexed to the COL, transparent paths for advancement, respect for work-life boundaries, investment in employee development beyond immediate productivity needs (i.e. good healthcare for the worker and their dependents), genuine sick leave without retaliation, respect for physical and cognitive limitations, and protection from arbitrary termination.

But you're asking the wrong question. The real question is why, despite decades of evidence showing these practices improve retention and performance, they remain exceptional rather than standard. The system isn't broken; it's working exactly as designed. It is optimized for wealth extraction, not value creation.

Public companies are legally obligated to maximize shareholder value. Every dollar spent on employee wellbeing that doesn't directly boost quarterly metrics is arguably a breach of fiduciary duty. Middle managers who genuinely care get promoted out or pushed out. The few companies that do care either have unusual ownership structures (co-ops, private ownership with values-driven founders) or are temporarily buying talent in hot markets. Once conditions change, watch how quickly that 'caring' evaporates.

So yes, we all know what caring looks like. The question is why we keep pretending the current system has any mechanism to deliver it at scale.

[atoav]

When I was producing no-budget movies (people work for you without pay!) the secret trick was to keep a mental list of why people were here. Diana the camera assistant was here because she liked to learn, John the actor was here because he liked to try some things out, Linda was here to meet people, Joe was here because he is your friend.

Now you only need to make sure the basics (food, shelter, etc) is alright and that everybody gets what they came for each day.

So to answer your question: What it looks like for an employer to care depends on the specifc employee. Some may just look for financial benefits, others (like me) may just want to be given the time and means to do their job well, yet others value free rime more than money, or a better office, more autonomy within their domain or whatnot. The wishes are many.

But you need to first get the basics right, and many fail at that.

[awesome_dude]

There are employers that care - they genuinely try to keep their staff engaged, and happy. They also, when times are hard, are the ones least likely to make people redundant, they hold on as long as humanly possible.

Then there are the employers at the other end of the scale, those who couldn't care less about their staff, they think that they pay the staff and that's all that's required of them, and everything that goes wrong is the staff's fault.

So, in practice, the employers that see their staff as human beings rather than "resources" to be exploited is a bloody good start.

[BobbyJo]

What risk/return are they expecting employees to accept? What risk/return are they willing to accept? Any advantage they give themselves over the employee, to me, means they don't care.

[koakuma-chan]

Employer who pays themselves less than they pay their employees.

[cyberax]

Stock options.

[MrDarcy]

To be fair, he says in TFA he wants to recruit like a cult. I don’t know many cult leaders who care about their followers, so at least he’s honest if not psychopathic in the way he says he’s going to abuse you before he does so.

[aleph_minus_one]

> I don’t know many cult leaders who care about their followers

My impression is that cult leaders often do care about their followers. The problems rather start when the cult member becomes disobedient - this is when matters become very dirty.

[throwmeaway222]

Yeah they're literally paying you money so they don't have to.

[hexage1814]

It oftentimes feels like you are paid way less than you actually gave to the company – assuming you actually worked hard and cared.

In my country it's like "Well, the company broke all records of profit, we earned 500 million dollars more than last years. Here, have this box of chocolate as a gift. Keep the good work guys"

[jodrellblank]

Maybe this opinion would have more weight if you respected that humans are not perfectly spherical massless money sinks.

[awesome_dude]

No. They are profiting from your labour, and returning a smaller portion of that profit to you.

Your work creates the profit that your salary comes from, the employer takes a cut of that and gives you what they deem they can get away with.

[mrbungie]

Not to invoke a true scotsman fallacy, but most knowledge/white-collar workers I know aspire to be more than just being a cog on a payroll.

[atoav]

No, they are giving you a tiny fraction of the cake you earn them. The fact is that you are there to make them money.

[hinkley]

Maybe this opinion would have more weight if you didn't use a throwaway account to post it.

[NegativeK]

That, at best, is dehumanizing the employer. There is no corporate structure that exists without humans making the decisions at some point in the chain. The decisions might be abstracted or broken into small chunks, but it's still humans at the bottom.

And humans that replace caring with money are assholes.

[RobRivera]

I missed this clause in

checks notes

Literally my entire career.