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   Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:41 JST Avdi Grimm

   If there's one thing that's more and more clear to me over the course of my career is how much of developer culture is dedicated to making ourselves complicit in our own exploitation. Witness the absolute mindless doublespeak that passes for engagement on LinkedIn.

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     Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:35 JST Avdi Grimm

     in reply to

     And this is going to be hard because a LOT of programmers would very much like to keep imagining that they rule the home from their cat-tree. Even if that means imagining that their present state of unemployment is an issue with their skills rather than a meaningless externality of investor games. *Especially* if it means believing whatever they are working on is "innovation" rather than "an investor enthusiasm attractor".

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     Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:36 JST Avdi Grimm

     in reply to

     We have to talk about unions because talking about it pulls down the green curtain.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:37 JST Avdi Grimm

     in reply to

     We have to talk about unions, because the way "great employers" like Apple start actively persecuting people the moment they start comparing salaries reveals how flimsy the fiction really is.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:38 JST Avdi Grimm

     in reply to

     For a long time I had trouble with the concept of unionizing programmers, because it felt like we're already so privileged compared to blue-collar workers.

     What I realize now is that all that privilege vanishes like a mirage the moment people start talking about unionization. Or the moment interest rates go up.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:39 JST Avdi Grimm

     in reply to

     SV culture is an experiment in "what if instead of controlling the workers with Pinkertons, we engaged them in a vast shared delusion that they are colleagues with the bosses?"

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) and Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     Avdi Grimm (avdi@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 06:11:40 JST Avdi Grimm

     in reply to

     It's canonical that managing programmers is like "herding cats". This is more a more apt metaphor than folks realize. Owning a cat is about coddling a creature and treating them like a regal little Primadonna who "runs the place" - as an amusing fiction. Which is exactly the relationship the financiers have with developers.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 12:32:26 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Josh Susser
     • FrightenedRat 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

     @FrightenedRat @joshsusser @avdi Tech managers are managing the wrong things because tech companies are making the wrong things. It would be lovely to be managing the medium to high level architecture of worthwhile projects and mentoring junior folks to flesh out the details. But trying to achieve Google's strategic goals that mean forcing ppl under you to make their stuff worse? 🤮

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     FrightenedRat 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (frightenedrat@mastodon.scot)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 12:32:27 JST FrightenedRat 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

     in reply to

     • Josh Susser

     @joshsusser @avdi

     Shudders - why would anyone give up working on the code-face to become lumbered with management nonsense?

     I always thought the beauty of development and architecting was NOT having to get ensnared in that icky stuff in order to progress.

     When I was young I cluelessly thought I didn't need a union - if I didn't like my workplace I'd go elsewhere. But I got attached to projects & let myself be exploited.

     Older me knows a union isn't about just yourself but everyone together.

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     Josh Susser (joshsusser@neurodifferent.me)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 12:32:28 JST Josh Susser

     in reply to

     @avdi The career path for developers always seems to end in becoming a manager. I assume this makes it hard to convince developers to support the idea of unions. They think of themselves as future managers, the same way most poor Americans think of themselves as temporarily embarassed millionaires.

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     🦃 Kat Callahan :chiba: 🦃 (jezebelkat@famichiki.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Dec-2023 21:53:03 JST 🦃 Kat Callahan :chiba: 🦃

     in reply to

     @avdi

     My experience as a union organiser: there are only two classes, the labor class and the capitalist class. The blue-collar/white-collar distinction is a created one to sow division between workers.

     If you trade labor for wages, you are working class. Whether that is coding or factory line assembly. And management doesn't view you as differently as they want you to view yourself.