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Comment by webwright | Hacker News Reader

I've always believed company culture comes down to 1 thing: peoples' belief about how awesome their life is going to be next month... In other words, optimism and stuff to look forward to. Whether that's fabulous wealth, fun social time with coworkers, etc-- you have to have faith that things will be awesome in the future or you start looking.

Doesn't matter how many scavenger hunts or catered lunches you have.

Of course, you can get "awesome inflation". Day 1 at Google, maybe you're blown away by the catered lunches and at-desk free pedicures. A year later, maybe not.

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"Of course, you can get 'awesome inflation'. Day 1 at Google, maybe you're blown away by the catered lunches and at-desk free pedicures. A year later, maybe not."

The phrase you are looking for is "stuck on the hedonic treadmill": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

I don't think it's that binary. There are definitely times where I've been on teams where I knew things were looking grim, but where I felt a bond with my everyone, and it was a fellowship that made us dig in to give our best effort. That can be very sustaining (moreso if you feel good about your future team-finding skills, I suppose).

I think it's a mistake to be focusing on the 1 month time frame. You dug in because you valued the people you were working with, and thought that digging and giving your best effort were likely to be enough to pull you through. I've been on teams like that with (10%) pay cuts and was happy I was there. Things did improve.

However, I was there 2 years later and it was happening again. None of the core issues had been addressed or were open to being addressed, and I was happy to be laid off. The majority of the other employees left within the following year.

Good people, interesting technology, but the corporate culture was dying. The company still exists, and the continued emphasis on good customer service and niche market keeps them running (from what I've heard from current employees). I'd be surprised if the software technology has improved in the past 5 years, but it still does what it has to do.

That's a good point-- the horizon that people care about probably widely varies... But people want to climb mountains. If you can say with a straight face, "I really don't think it's going to get better than this," I don't think you can last long!

Your example isn't grim. There's a grim facet, but there's a huge social bond that is emotionally rewarding you. If work sucks but you LOVE your co-workers and can't imagine life without them, you can be optimistic about next month: "Work might still suck, but my peeps are my life and my joy!".

If (for the stuff you care about) there is clearly greener grass on the other side, I think you're on borrowed time.

Yeah, but you are not looking at the entire situation: you digged in _because_ you valued your coworkers and you grew or had a good emotional bond with them.

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