- This topic has 115 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 4 months ago by
Coronita.
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August 2, 2021 at 9:26 AM #822742August 2, 2021 at 11:30 AM #822746CoronitaParticipant
[quote=svelte][quote=Coronita]
Your concerns about code stealing, licensing, etc are overblown. The code isnt important enough or revolutionary enough to be worth stealing in most of these fintech startups….and you wont be able to tell if you are the guy obtaining the code from the the cheaper outsourced labor, do the code review, and the gitlab/github checkin, which you would do if you were trying to pass if off as your own code…at these fintech startups, no one gives a shit… thats why these people can get away with what they are doing…its one of the reasons why i got out of these fintech startup bay area pushes i generation ago. the goal is short term exit strategy and to cash in…different for the few of us that are in the game trying to make a difference, where we use our rental income to pay the bills so we can try to find an opportunity we enjoy doing … hopefully ill get there one day.[/quote]Yeah that sounds pretty unrewarding…prototype code to entice investment. There was a point in my career about 10 years in when I realized that none of the code I had written was still in use – none! It was kind of depressing.
After that my batting average was much better, but looking at the shelf life of most code it is only 5-10 years in my experience. Then it gets replaced. If it doesn’t get replaced, it really falls into the “technical debt” category.[/quote]
Svelte. At this one large company. I think I worked on a total of 3 versions of a licensing/DRM/subscription system.. When I left that big company after doing 2 tours, they were still working on licensing/drm/subscription. And 2-3 years after when I met up with the architects and senior managers…Guess what they were working on still? Yup licensing/drm/subscription.
I don’t know, but for a lot of engineers. I think it’s the awesome situation to be in. I mean think about it. You can design/architect/implement all this technology using the latest and greatest technology and tools (I mean for god sake, we were spending $10-20k on a hardware web services accelerators that no one else was using and willing to spend money on). And after 1 year of development, the system for (political and not technical reasons) doesn’t get used, so no engineer has to stay up in war room duties to triage and fix production issues…And then the next year, when the political winds change, a brand new architecture and tools, technology, to do the same exact thing, that somehow is better than the previous version (when none of the learnings of the previous iteration went into the current iteration), only for that new “better” system get shelved for political reasons 1 year later… I love the efficiencies of big bureaucratic US companies. And you wonder why these companies can only afford to give their workerbees 1-3% COLA raises. lol….
At least with the startups, there’s a clear goal and exit strategy. Get bought or go IPO and collect money…Works when you are young and don’t care. I’d highly recommend it to those who are in the 20ies and early 30ies. And hopefully you can make enough dough to do what you really want to do by the time you’re in your mid 30ies.
August 2, 2021 at 11:37 AM #822747scaredyclassic
ParticipantMost human effort is pointless or actually backwards moving.
August 2, 2021 at 12:23 PM #822750CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone][quote=XBoxBoy][quote=deadzone]It is so obvious that a large percentage of folks are just effing off most of the time with this work from home situation. [/quote]
How is that different than all the effing off they were doing while at the office?[/quote]
Similar but far worse. You don’t think the fact that folks are sitting at home with absolutely no visibility from supervisors or management has an impact on productivity?
And to Flus comment, of course there is an over abundance of meetings in corporate america. But being physically present at a meeting is surely more productive than sitting at home “virtually” attending the meeting while you are literally whacking off.[/quote]
Lol…Most of those meetings people are mentally whacking off except the bloviators. Reality is these people, who seem so “amoral” are simply taking advantage of existing inefficiencies that Corporate America has already established for some time, and taking it to another level by actually profiting off of it.
Of course there are some companies that you can’t do this in. Those defense/public sector jobs where you have manager checking you and watching you where hours completed per day matter more than the actual work completed…Beancounting ridden company, which in itself is a miserable place to work imho.
August 2, 2021 at 2:22 PM #822752XBoxBoy
ParticipantIn a crazy twist relevant to this thread, I found out today that about 1/3 of our development staff is working on a “side-project” in their “spare time” while working from home. Something they hope will allow them to quit and create their own startup company. Of course upper management knows nothing about this.
It’s a fascinating idea to me that maybe companies suddenly start loosing work from home employees because they’ve had enough time to pursue their start up dreams… Suddenly your employees are your competitors!
August 2, 2021 at 3:17 PM #822753Anonymous
Guest[quote=XBoxBoy]In a crazy twist relevant to this thread, I found out today that about 1/3 of our development staff is working on a “side-project” in their “spare time” while working from home. Something they hope will allow them to quit and create their own startup company. Of course upper management knows nothing about this.
It’s a fascinating idea to me that maybe companies suddenly start loosing work from home employees because they’ve had enough time to pursue their start up dreams… Suddenly your employees are your competitors![/quote]
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Like I keep saying, this work at home concept is clearly unproductive and ripe for abuse. Management not having any visibility into their employees whereabouts is not sustainable. Anyone who thinks this can continue forever is in fantasy land.
August 2, 2021 at 3:49 PM #822755Participant[quote=deadzone][quote=XBoxBoy]In a crazy twist relevant to this thread, I found out today that about 1/3 of our development staff is working on a “side-project” in their “spare time” while working from home. Something they hope will allow them to quit and create their own startup company. Of course upper management knows nothing about this.
It’s a fascinating idea to me that maybe companies suddenly start loosing work from home employees because they’ve had enough time to pursue their start up dreams… Suddenly your employees are your competitors![/quote]
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Like I keep saying, this work at home concept is clearly unproductive and ripe for abuse. Management not having any visibility into their employees whereabouts is not sustainable. Anyone who thinks this can continue forever is in fantasy land.[/quote]
If you only look at it from the employer’s point of view I agree with you, but I’m fascinated with the idea that in the next year or two we could be seeing an explosion of new startups. These are people who used to think they needed to go to the office every day and work a job. Now they have been working from home for the last year and found they like it. The boss is making noise about getting people back into the office and these folks are thinking about an alternative to what they used to do. It could be really interesting to see this unfold.
August 2, 2021 at 3:50 PM #822754CoronitaParticipant[quote=XBoxBoy]In a crazy twist relevant to this thread, I found out today that about 1/3 of our development staff is working on a “side-project” in their “spare time” while working from home. Something they hope will allow them to quit and create their own startup company. Of course upper management knows nothing about this.
It’s a fascinating idea to me that maybe companies suddenly start loosing work from home employees because they’ve had enough time to pursue their start up dreams… Suddenly your employees are your competitors![/quote]
This was going on even before remote work, although now it’s just makes it a lot easier. Given the right motivation, anyone will do this under any condition. It’s just a matter of motivation when one comes to the realization that they will never obtain their financial goals from their job alone and that they won’t just “take it” as is.
When I was at a big employer, while several of us were working on trying to move up and get promoted, a coworker of mine was a Senior Software Engineer and just put his minimum 40 hours/week, didn’t go after the high profile projects, and kept with the easy low hanging fruit projects and did enough to get by. He kept his office door closed most of the time.
It turns out he was studying for his real estate license, operating as a real estate agent for the few years, started his own real estate brokerage firm the next few, and then ended up being one of the top brokers in 92130, all while he was employed as a senior software engineer at this big company. He was paid decently, and when raises and bonuses where handed out, they weren’t that much lower than anyone else…And when the company did layoffs, of course he was laidoff, but so were a lot of people that worked their asses off..The difference? When he was laidoff, he was laughing his ass off because he was planning to quit anyway, since his firm already had like 15 people and he wanted to do it full time because the money was way better. He was happy to get laidoff because they gave him a huge severance package, and he never needed to go back and work for someone else again. I think during that time he bought like 10 SFH in 92130 when things were less than $1million each…and he’s one of those guys that never sells. So… he killed it.
Those of us that use to work 50-60+ hours for those small incremental raises/bonus that after taxes are the dumb ones…We we busying making other people rich, lol.
Don’t for minute thing this doesn’t happen even if you work at a company that well compensates you with stock/options/bonus. I have plenty of friends that work at qualcomm as managers/directors, and all of them do the same thing. They all run their side rental business…A director friend just bought homes in Denver, Atlanta, Riverside this year, on top of the few they bought last year and the year before….I guess the job is easy enough in corp R&D at QC that plenty of people moonlight even while being well paid with RSU stock grants and bonus.
Common thing with these people is the same thing. They know how to take care of themselves and are smart enough to figure out not to count on a company to take care of them….especially when companies reward people with simple COLA adjustments YOY.
Short of a massive stock option appreciation, its unlikely a salary alone will make anyone whole in this market, especially this housing market. That’s just reality. The quicker one learns this in life, the better of one is sooner.
A lot of successful companies started from people that worked for another company. As long as you aren’t stealing code, it’s really not a big deal. At least now that people are home, they aren’t going to be using company resources to do it. Even for my work, I don’t use the company computers I use my own dedicated hardware which is 4x faster and doesn’t have all the monitoring software watching me. Since all the code is checked into gitlab and/or github in the clouds, doesn’t matter.
August 2, 2021 at 3:58 PM #822756CoronitaParticipant[quote=XBoxBoy][quote=deadzone][quote=XBoxBoy]In a crazy twist relevant to this thread, I found out today that about 1/3 of our development staff is working on a “side-project” in their “spare time” while working from home. Something they hope will allow them to quit and create their own startup company. Of course upper management knows nothing about this.
It’s a fascinating idea to me that maybe companies suddenly start loosing work from home employees because they’ve had enough time to pursue their start up dreams… Suddenly your employees are your competitors![/quote]
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Like I keep saying, this work at home concept is clearly unproductive and ripe for abuse. Management not having any visibility into their employees whereabouts is not sustainable. Anyone who thinks this can continue forever is in fantasy land.[/quote]
If you only look at it from the employer’s point of view I agree with you, but I’m fascinated with the idea that in the next year or two we could be seeing an explosion of new startups. These are people who used to think they needed to go to the office every day and work a job. Now they have been working from home for the last year and found they like it. The boss is making noise about getting people back into the office and these folks are thinking about an alternative to what they used to do. It could be really interesting to see this unfold.[/quote]
As a boss, if your workers are finding a way to get what you thought would take 40hrs/week to get done what they are getting done in 20hrs/week and moonlighting the rest of the 20hrs/week. That’s not their fault. That’s your fault and your poor management for giving them 40 hours to get it done when it only would take 20 hours…or that’s the fault of your shitty company that makes their workers waste 20 hours/week in useless meetings, when it only takes about 20 hours/week to do the real work.
I’ll be honest. Working from home, there were times many times I was dialed into “status meetings” that lasted hours while I was changing my oil, picking up my kid from school, dropping them off, or washing my car…My contribution was the standard 10 minute status update from mobileland, and the rest was listening to every other bean counter bloviate. If you have more than 5 people in a meeting and it lasts longer than 20 minutes, it’s, it’s going to be a waste of time. People check out at the 20minute mark and if you can’t get to the point within that window, the rest people will just be mentally masturbating. It’s going to be a waste of time. At the end of the meeting, there was no decision made that was any better than before the meeting. The only thing that was accomplished was my car was clean, an oil change was done, and my kids got to go see their friends or attend a school event without the need of juggling a carpool.
August 2, 2021 at 4:09 PM #822757CoronitaParticipantActually, talking to more people who do this…
A few folks I know actually use Upwork do to their work…lol…
No wonder this company is doing well. It’s like an auction for hired work….
Might have to try it some day…Can’t resist change. As Star Trek will say… Resistance is futile.
I wonder if what sort of work you can get out of the $10/hour android engineers, hmmmmmmmmmm
August 2, 2021 at 4:12 PM #822759CoronitaParticipantNeed someone to market your shit…. Also, no problem…Lol…
August 2, 2021 at 4:13 PM #822758CoronitaParticipantNeed a graphic designer or media specialists for your side hustle, no problem….
https://www.upwork.com/hire/graphic-designers/
https://www.upwork.com/cat/design-creativeAugust 2, 2021 at 5:13 PM #822761Guest[quote=XBoxBoy]
If you only look at it from the employer’s point of view I agree with you, but I’m fascinated with the idea that in the next year or two we could be seeing an explosion of new startups. These are people who used to think they needed to go to the office every day and work a job. Now they have been working from home for the last year and found they like it. The boss is making noise about getting people back into the office and these folks are thinking about an alternative to what they used to do. It could be really interesting to see this unfold.[/quote]Well of course they like it. They are getting paid full salary and bonuses to sit at home and in many cases do virtually nothing. Of course that is not a recipe for long term success. When I say do virtually nothing I’m talking about work related, I’m sure they are doing a lot of surfing, hanging at the beach, etc. during the work day.
For me I realized through the Pandemic and work at home that I don’t really like my job that much either. However, I am no more motivated to work a different job. I just realized that I don’t care to go to work in general, sort of like the epiphany the guy in Office Space came to after he was hypnotized.
August 2, 2021 at 5:22 PM #822762Guest[quote=Coronita][quote=XBoxBoy][quote=deadzone][quote=XBoxBoy]In a crazy twist relevant to this thread, I found out today that about 1/3 of our development staff is working on a “side-project” in their “spare time” while working from home. Something they hope will allow them to quit and create their own startup company. Of course upper management knows nothing about this.
It’s a fascinating idea to me that maybe companies suddenly start loosing work from home employees because they’ve had enough time to pursue their start up dreams… Suddenly your employees are your competitors![/quote]
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Like I keep saying, this work at home concept is clearly unproductive and ripe for abuse. Management not having any visibility into their employees whereabouts is not sustainable. Anyone who thinks this can continue forever is in fantasy land.[/quote]
If you only look at it from the employer’s point of view I agree with you, but I’m fascinated with the idea that in the next year or two we could be seeing an explosion of new startups. These are people who used to think they needed to go to the office every day and work a job. Now they have been working from home for the last year and found they like it. The boss is making noise about getting people back into the office and these folks are thinking about an alternative to what they used to do. It could be really interesting to see this unfold.[/quote]
As a boss, if your workers are finding a way to get what you thought would take 40hrs/week to get done what they are getting done in 20hrs/week and moonlighting the rest of the 20hrs/week. That’s not their fault. That’s your fault and your poor management for giving them 40 hours to get it done when it only would take 20 hours…or that’s the fault of your shitty company that makes their workers waste 20 hours/week in useless meetings, when it only takes about 20 hours/week to do the real work.
I’ll be honest. Working from home, there were times many times I was dialed into “status meetings” that lasted hours while I was changing my oil, picking up my kid from school, dropping them off, or washing my car…My contribution was the standard 10 minute status update from mobileland, and the rest was listening to every other bean counter bloviate. If you have more than 5 people in a meeting and it lasts longer than 20 minutes, it’s, it’s going to be a waste of time. People check out at the 20minute mark and if you can’t get to the point within that window, the rest people will just be mentally masturbating. It’s going to be a waste of time. At the end of the meeting, there was no decision made that was any better than before the meeting. The only thing that was accomplished was my car was clean, an oil change was done, and my kids got to go see their friends or attend a school event without the need of juggling a carpool.[/quote]
I generally agree with you about the meetings. But beyond that you are full of it. If you are working for me I’m paying you to contribute to my business, not take care of personal affairs. If you get done with your tasks in 20 hours then either 1. you did a half ass job, or 2. you need to ask your manager for more tasking or 3. preferably a motivated employee will take the initiative and find more things to do that contribute to the team such as taking lead on new projects, helping out teammates who are struggling, etc.
August 2, 2021 at 5:47 PM #822763an
Participant[quote=deadzone]I generally agree with you about the meetings. But beyond that you are full of it. If you are working for me I’m paying you to contribute to my business, not take care of personal affairs. If you get done with your tasks in 20 hours then either 1. you did a half ass job, or 2. you need to ask your manager for more tasking or 3. preferably a motivated employee will take the initiative and find more things to do that contribute to the team such as taking lead on new projects, helping out teammates who are struggling, etc.[/quote]
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