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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

This. Feelings became such a driving force lately, no matter where you look. Politics, business, it's all about how people "feel". And not even really how the feel, but more about the pretending of how they feel.

Your example trends a little bit on the extreme end of the spectrum (I totally get your point, so), but the truth is that for a lot of people that is a truly good experience. IMHO companies are abusing this for cheap employee motivation and PR.

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Is it really abuse, though? Asking employees to volunteer their time to charity has got to be pretty low on the list of scummy ways to boost motivation and PR.

When the pay is lousy feelings become important.

I have found the opposite for me. I'm not the feelings guy, but these days I seek more of the kinds of compensation that generally are not tracked and taxed by the state. So I care more about flexible schedules, vacation time, etc. I need to make a certain amount of $ to maintain my lifestyle, but otherwise I'm trying to maximize those other things. I can imagine for many people, their feelings is another kind of compensation that doesn't get tracked and taxed by the state.

> So I care more about flexible schedules, vacation time, etc.

Would you still care about it if you were paid 3x or would you work for a couple of years and peace out?

Unlikely. I'm a single parent. No amount of money can purchase my kid's childhood back for them, or me. I've already declined offers to double my salary, because I'd have had to travel for work regularly. That being said, there is surely some threshold of income past which I would be willing to change at least some things up.

When the pay is good, feelings are important too. Consider, if you're well paid, your skill set is (probably) in high demand in the industry and getting a similarly high pay at other places is (relatively) easy.

At that point, feelings play a pretty important role in getting you to stay.

> When the pay is good, feelings are important too.

When the pay is market then the feelings are important. When the pay higher then market, the feelings are not important. That's how finance keeps the talent. That's how Uber got away with what it got away with until it became clear that its employees were not going to become insta-rich after the IPO.

These examples are everywhere.

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