I agree with the content of this post, but it seems like pure complaining rather than programmer humour, so I downvoted it for not suiting the community.
Mods, what are you doing letting this on here?
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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Let's stop mincing words here.
You want me because I have a particular set of skills that you think will be helpful to you in your pursuit of profit.
I want your job because I can leverage the skills I have for money and benefits that will provide food, and shelter.
Your main concerns are profits.
My main concerns are survival.
Employment is where these things meet in the middle. Let's not pretend that we're here because we're friends. We are not family. Fuck you, pay me.
Short version. My boss pays me enough so I don't quit, and I work hard enough so he doesn't fire me.
Unfortunately, many companies don't care about PR anymore. In the past, some would try to appear "we are family" to retain employees. Now it is everyone for themselves.
some would try to appear “we are family” to retain employees
Nope. Rule of acquisition 111. They claim that everyone is part of a happy family because family is easiest to exploit.
HOW DARE YOU ASK FOR COMFORT IN YOUR ONLY ONE LIFE???!!
Yeah its shocking we are not incredibly grateful isnt it.
"Nobody wants to work"... :)
What about us resonated with you?
Your offer to pay me.
You can buy loyalty. Give someone a high paying 3-year contract and they'll probably work to the end of it. But of course HR doesn't want to hear that.
Shocked Pikachu
People will work FOR MONEY!??!
- every HR team ever.
Ours tried to explain to project leaders that employees are not mostly interested in their salary, but in praise. That went over well.
As someone who works for a living: praise is nice, but pay is required.
... Fuck you, pay me.
It's either a business relation on both sides or it's a personal relation on both sides.
I was in Tech in Europe through the transition from when employees were people and the company was loyal to them and expected loyalty to the company in return (the age of lifetime employment), to the world we live in now were employees are "human resources", and for a great part of that period there was this thing were most employers expected employees to stay with the company whilst the company needed them and be dedicated to the company, whilst in return they treated employees as a business relationship with (in Tech) some manipulative "fake friendship" stuff thrown in (the ultimate examples: company paid pizza dinner when people stay working on a project till late, or the yearly company party, rather than, you know, paying people better or sizing the team to fit the work that needs to be done rather than relying on unpaid overwork) - still today we see this kind of shit very obviously and very purposefully done in places like Google.
Of course the "humour" part here is that plenty of managerial and HR people in companies still expect that employees are loyal to the company even all the while they treat them as disposable cogs who it's fine to exploit without consideration for their feelings or welfare - or going back to the first paragraph of this post: they relate to employees as a business relationship whilst expecting the employees related to the company as a personal relationship (often a "second family").
If I'm working late on something, I expect to be paid for that time and the company can provide a meal.
You're not paying me? I'll see you later then.
The amount of underpaid/unpaid overtime I've heard of is terrible. At this point I will always ask if someone gets paid 1.5x if they're hourly working overtime, or if they're classed as salary exempt from OT pay. The former is blatantly illegal yet still happens often enough, while the latter can be legal but is usually taken advantage of with no compensated days.
Days in lieu, from working OT on salary.... IMO, is required.
I don't work for free; if you're paying me to be present for specific hours, regardless if it's salary or not, then I expect to work during those hours and not any other time.
If, as a salary employee, I'm paid for results and as long as I meet my deadlines (and deadlines are reasonable) I can work whenever, then yeah, I'll probably put in unpaid OT sometimes. I'll tell you something though.... With my level of experience, it would be unusual for anything to take so long that it requires that I work more than what is typical.
The part about asking what about the company resonates with you is a good interview question provided you hire for the long term. If you hire for a specific project what loyalty are you expecting?
BuT We'Re A FaMiLy HeRe!
My loyalty is for sale.
I care about what work I do. I tend to ask about the project at the end of the technical round.
The HR is not going to hear about that.
I am not interested in the company's history, their mission/vision and other propaganda.
All I need to know about the company is, if they will actually pay me on time for the work I have done and that they are not going-under and defaulting on payments.
And since I do care about the work that I do, it matters to me, what will become of the project after the company gets the worth out of it.
And that is where all big-names fail miserably.
You are selling a smartphone/ laptop/ a cloud connected camera/ any product that uses multiple components with their own use?
At the end of support period, you are to openly distribute the documentation for all components.
That way, a camera out of an old smartphone/laptop won't require reverse engineering to be reused with a Pi or sth.
A monitor screen out of a laptop can be used as another monitor, without having to buy another controller from a shady site (yeah, I call AliExpress, a shady site) and the existing eDP controller can be reused, without requiring an Oscilloscope.
When your web-service goes down, the user can make their own interfacer and use the camera on their personal cloud.
Regarding the payment info is why we need to have companies be more transparent all over the world. In NL it is already mandatory for companies to post some form of an annual report (sometimes very basic) and you can buy them for like 8 euro's or something. That way you can check those and see if how the company is doing in broad lines. If you notice that on their last annual report there iare red flags you can ask about that in your interview or just straith up deny working there since there is a risk they will miss payments.
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Yeah I'm not asking questions about the technical stuff I'm actually interested in to an HR drone
The answer to "What about us resonated with you?" would be:
"The job description you put up."
Once I started burning companies the way they've burned me for years, employment got a lot better.
Fuck me? Nah, fuck you.
you won't get a good referral!
bitch, they won't call you anyway. I gave them my boss's personal cell number(my cousin).
I've been asked for a referral twice in my life. Both times the person the referral was for still worked for me, so I got them to write it and just sent it on.
If somebody wants more money than we pay I won't stand in their way. I also don't care if you get a good employee or not. Shit, I'd write a complete dumb-ass a glowing referral if you're a rival company.
You're married to your cousin? (/sarcasm, mostly)
Your cousin is Art Vandaly?
I actually kinda agree with both here.
It sucks working with someone who is utterly disinterested in the work, if it's anything above rote work.
Asking the candidate what they found interesting about it is at least a basically fine idea. If they can't answer when you ask, that actually is kinda concerning.
Big difference between asking and expecting them to volunteer the information.
At the same time, if the people interviewing you can't even pretend to show basic conversational courtesy by asking some basic "what do you do for fun" style questions or anything that shows they're gonna be interested in the person they're looking to work with, that's a major concern.
I disagree because most people are applying for everything. So many people are putting in dozens of applications a day. "What resonated with you" is the fact that they're hiring at all. You can learn to love a job and find satisfaction in the work even if the company didn't "resonate" with you.
Right? What resonated? Well it mostly the need to not starve to death and have a roof over my head. What about you?
Sure. I wouldn't disqualify someone for being ambivalent towards what we're working on, but the person who seems interested is gonna be better to work with.
Likewise when looking for a place to work, if the tangibles are equivalent I'll prefer the place with better intangibles.
I'm not in HR or management, so I don't care about cost effectiveness or productivity beyond "not screwing me over". From that perspective, it's generally nicer to work with someone who finds it interesting than with someone who doesn't.
There's no point asking "why do you want to work here", because the answer is obviously a combination of money and benefits, and how food and healthcare keeps you from being dead.
I can't fault an interviewer who's clearly trying not to ask the obvious question and instead actually ask how the candidate feels about the work instead of disqualifying them for not volunteering the right answer.
It's not unreasonable for an employer to ask a candidate how they feel about the work anymore than it's unreasonable for the candidate to ask about the working environment.
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I couldn't give less of a fuck about any company or their "projects", selling a product is not a mission to empower users and help the world or some bullshit like that.
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