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Comment by americanmotto | Hacker News Reader

Agree. I've said for ~10 years now, that it seems the American Dream has transitioned from "Anything is possible as long as you work hard enough." to "Do as little as work possible to get the same paycheck." Something has definitely changed in the culture.

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What could have possibly changed in the last several decades that might have affected someone's willingness to give their job there all?

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.

The moral failing is definitely in how corporations are lead and how work is rewarded. I don't blame anyone for not being passionate about a job that barely pays a living wage. In fact, I think it's incredibly harmful for a country when work is not properly rewarded.

I wonder if the tide will ever turn? That it would become a competitive advantage to build enterprises with values other than maximizing the returns to their shareholders.

Companies no longer reward loyalty or working hard on the whole, so I'm surprised that you are surprised. Those at the top reap entirely outsized rewards, the company does stock buy-backs, and the workers get table scraps.

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 majority of jobs are low wage with no future prospects, and quite a lot of jobs have bosses or—worse—shareholders taking away the profits for their own private climate devastating opulence. Why would you work hard for these people? Why would you do anything more than the absolute minimum?

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.

> Why would you do anything more than the absolute minimum?

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).

Personal satisfaction, like exposure, is not legal tender.

While this is obviously true, the long term effects of a positive, growth mindset are more likely to have an effect on your net worth than if you cannot or will not take pride in working hard and doing the best job you possibly can.

This reads like its from a questionable research paper funded by an HR group with the sole aim of gaslighting workers into working harder for less money. I’m not buying it.

It is certainly questionable research, but from the lived experience of a superannuated engineer (me!) not an HR group.

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.)

If your boss or—worse—your shareholders are making significant money from your work, and spending it on furthering the climate disaster (like most bosses of large companies do) then I would argue that, no, your work is actually making the world a worse place.

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.

Working smarter and for better companies/people is what got me more money, not working harder

Working smarter and for better companies also got me working harder. I simply work harder when I'm working for a company I care about, on a job I care about, when I feel appreciated and have the freedom to contribute in a way that works for me.

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.

Im trying to understand why you made these points, I think you misunderstood what you replied to.

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?

This is not correct for a lot of jobs. For people with white-collar 'careers', maybe. But not for many other people.

Keep in mind that this "positive, growth mindset" means quitting your job for a better one if you're not going to get promoted in the job that you have. That, or starting your own business. Many companies have made it abundantly clear that there's no positive growth inside their company for ordinary workers. Only for the wallets of the managers and shareholders.

I earn my paycheck and no more. When I work on my personal pet projects, that's where the passion and personal satisfaction is.

You want excellence? Treat me excellently and you'll get it.

If the tasks or people suck, giving shit is tiresome. Way better to do half assed job and spare some mental energy to use on your terms in the evening.

No that's not how it works unfortunately. You are supposed to do overtime and answer emails on your weekends. Fuck that.

American Dream made sense when one person in the family worked for corporations. When everyone flooded the labor market, and automation made workers much more productive, wages got depressed. Now the American dream is propaganda for getting 30 year mortgages from banks and working to pay off the money you rented.

Sorry but this sort of drive is a two way street. If the company's not going to promote me and will drop me as soon as they've burned me out, I'm most definitely not going to "give my all" to the company.

The company needs me, I don't need them for my self gratification. I just need a paycheck.

MBAs instead of promote-from-within. Bringing along egotistical bean-counter superiority with typically vastly inferior performance. Seeing this trend in big tech has me very bearish - the non-tech MBAs just can't execute on long-term big bets that require the deep understanding/cross-cutting coordination that comes with career insiders.

Is the problem of outside MBAs their lack of deep understanding? Others here have argued that the promotion of outsiders erodes loyalty and passion of the workforce towards their jobs.

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.

Actually, MBA schools actively teach people to be shitty to their employees and instill a sense of superiority. It's a scheme of sorts.

Executives from corporate America led by people like Welch treated workers like cogs, which eventually taught employees to treat employers transactionally.

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