I've been thinking lately that we, as people working in the tech industry, especially in places like London, NY, SF, are in a unique position to self organize in a way no other group of workers is.
We are fortunate enough to live in a period that our skills are extremely sought for, we tend to work and specialize in code bases or technologies specific to a company, but we at any time we can take these skills and move away.~
The atmosphere and the general consensus in most companies tends to be that "no one is irreplaceable" which is true but it doesn't seem to take into account the cost to replace someone: You will need to find the right person, which means that some engineers' time will be spent on interviews, either phone ones or face to face, and not delivering "value" for the company; once you find the right person, you will then need to spend at least an extra month where that person is getting up to speed with "how things work" (paired with another person probably, even more time spent not delivering "value"), plus some more time for that person to actually become productive, and eventually after a few months, get in the position of the person that left.
Now, think in your immediate team, what is your bus factor? How many people would need to leave before it's going to be unsustainable for the feature/project/company to continue?
The usual counter-argument is that "it's easy to leave if you're young, but when you have family, you have to think more than just yourself" and I can totally sympathize with this. But as I said in the beginning, especially if you work for in one of the big hubs, and/or in one of the FAANGs, you could probably be in a new place within a week's time.
We don't need to "unionize" in the traditional term. The companies don't even have to
"acknowledge" a union. As long as we keep in mind how fortunate we are to working in tech
now, and we are determined to just walk away from places that we are not happy at, they
will come to us.
Until you compare your salary and expenses to that of someone who was working blue collar 40 years ago.
My dad made enough to support a family of four as an appliance repair man. He got a new car every so often, built a shop and had a home mostly paid for and we went on vacations. Going to the doctor wasnt a big deal and no one worried about being bankrupt from a hospital stay/
I am supporting a family of four and we get by. My car is 18 years old with 260k miles on it and I am hoping to get another 3-4 years out of it so the kids finish college. (community college, I am not rich and cannot afford anything else). The family is one major medical incident away from bankruptcy and I have good insurance
You tell me how good you have it and I will reply that is because you dont know how good it could be.
How can you be one medical emergency away? My max out of pocket is 7k, that covers pretty much any emergency. I already met this year and all procedures are free.
My wife had a brain surgery few years ago and our insurance company paid around 150k and we paid max OOP and not a cent more.
Example : My brother recently fell off a roof and broke his back. Paralyzed now from the waist down. Can't work. Insurance is now gone because he cant work to pay premiums. That first year was great... insurance covered everything. Now... his long term care will end up being medicare disability which means he loses everything he owns.
We are fortunate enough to live in a period that our skills are extremely sought for, we tend to work and specialize in code bases or technologies specific to a company, but we at any time we can take these skills and move away.~
The atmosphere and the general consensus in most companies tends to be that "no one is irreplaceable" which is true but it doesn't seem to take into account the cost to replace someone: You will need to find the right person, which means that some engineers' time will be spent on interviews, either phone ones or face to face, and not delivering "value" for the company; once you find the right person, you will then need to spend at least an extra month where that person is getting up to speed with "how things work" (paired with another person probably, even more time spent not delivering "value"), plus some more time for that person to actually become productive, and eventually after a few months, get in the position of the person that left.
Now, think in your immediate team, what is your bus factor? How many people would need to leave before it's going to be unsustainable for the feature/project/company to continue?
The usual counter-argument is that "it's easy to leave if you're young, but when you have family, you have to think more than just yourself" and I can totally sympathize with this. But as I said in the beginning, especially if you work for in one of the big hubs, and/or in one of the FAANGs, you could probably be in a new place within a week's time.
We don't need to "unionize" in the traditional term. The companies don't even have to "acknowledge" a union. As long as we keep in mind how fortunate we are to working in tech now, and we are determined to just walk away from places that we are not happy at, they will come to us.