I think it's more that most people are basically trying their best and that includes managers and top brass. Sometimes we get a glimpse when that shines through from the whole group.
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Sorry for the sarcasm, but it is very frustrating to see people standing around wondering at this change as if it's a moral failing when people have been pointing out for decades that those at the top broke the social contract and that there would eventually be consequences.
We're insulated somewhat from that in our industry, we're well compensated, but I don't blame others in other industries for responding to how companies focus their resources today.
I think this supposed American dream was only ever a ruse, a Hollywood propaganda. If it ever existed it only applied to a certain demographic and was never actually a possibility for majority of Americans.
In the past decades (since the late 70s at least) Hollywood has slowed down it’s propaganda machine in favor of more independent film making (or the propaganda has shifted elsewhere; mainly the military during this century), so the illusion of the American dream is slowly but surely wearing off. In the meantime our jobs suck just as much as before, possibly even more, and are paying even less.
For personal satisfaction? You are going to be there anyway, you might as well do a good job.
I’m not saying to put in more hours than contracted, but those hours should be high quality (or as high as you can make them, under the circumstances).
You want excellence? Treat me excellently and you'll get it.
As for gaslighting? Well, my aim is indeed to make you work harder. Not only that, but for you to have more money not less. At all levels — our society, the sector in which we work, our businesses as a whole and each team in those businesses — your success has a positive effect on everyone else as well as on you and part of that success will come as “legal tender”.
The flip side is that if we all drag our heels, everyone is worse off. I have sadly met many people in my life who seem to want everyone else to be as miserable as they are.
(Your comment way up this thread talks about jobs with low wages with no future prospects. You make a good point and those jobs really are different — one is unlikely to innovate oneself to greater wealth as a coal miner. Lots of us here on HN don’t fall into this category of work though, and yet, alas, I see the mindset of the low pay / low prospects worker more and more in the tech sector.)
This wealth gap that keeps increasing is not good for anyone (except for bosses) and it is literally destroying our climate, even if it makes your personal net worth increase, that isn’t good enough if it increases your boss’ net worth 100x that.
If you make me care less about the job and worry more about money, that's not going to help my productivity. If you want passionate and productive workers, you've got to give them something to be passionate about, but you also have to make sure they don't have to worry about money. If they're thinking about how they'll make rent or how they're going to pay for some unavoidable expenses, they're not thinking about how to solve an interesting problem for you.
He is saying you cant buy personal satisfaction, not that it has no effect on money earned.
PS - Maybe Im confused, can someone correct me?
The company needs me, I don't need them for my self gratification. I just need a paycheck.
I could imagine good outsiders who have the skills for long-term big bets are quite common. But then the erosion of the community inside the company could still foil such bets.
As an aside, this alternative narrative seems more palatable to MBAs then your version. Hence it might be more easily accepted.
Also relating to easter eggs, anecdotally I think there are far fewer of them in software these days for just that reason: when a developer puts in an easter egg, it's hard to prove categorically that its addition wouldn't have some unintended effect, and possibly very embarrassing to the company if a major issue was traced back to some joke added by a developer for lulz. Uncomfortable questions would be asked. Imagine if adding an easter egg to Windows ended up leading to the grounding of all flights, or caused a life support system to behave improperly. etc.
I know MS specifically banned easter eggs a long time ago on these grounds, I think it's a fireable offense but could be wrong.
I'd bet at least beer money that this was some "IC" career 747 guy (or bunch of guys) who organised, planned, and authorised this without actual authority, because he was "a 747 guy" and he tendered his retirement 3 months ago and today was his last day. And a delivery pilot who was either in on it or was prepared to claim plausible deniability and that he was just following the autopilots pre-planned route, which he assumed was fully authorised.
What's the huge risk? They're gonna fire him???
You also spelled 'bite' wrong.
I'll bet he knew exactly what was going on, because the perpetrator clued them in, and made sure they had suitable ass covering paperwork to show they were just flying the flight as per the delivered flight plan.
There may have been, maybe even probably was, a middling-senior manager involved here, but he was a "747 guy" as well, and today was his last day before retirement as well. And I'd guess all the "747 guys" have been there long enough to know exactly how to bury this paper trail, and possibly one guy who's prepared to "take the fall" if a board member or the customer bursts a coronary artery and demands a full forensic blame storm investigation - "Oh yeah, Bob signed off on that. He's got cancer, probably only a few weeks left, he was so happy to see the last one ever built fly, he started on the tools building them in the 80s. Last I heard he'd just sold up everything and spent his entire life savings paying off all his kids and grandkids houses and college loans. What a guy, huh?"
(I aspire to be Bob.)