Hacker News Reader

Comment by anticorporate | Hacker News Reader

I worked at a food co-op for the first three years of my career. After spending the next dozen or so years in tech, I'm now reapplying to co-op grocery jobs.

Money isn't everything.

View on HN

Although it's nominally and legitimately a "co-operative", the Co-Op in question is a large national supermarket chain in the UK.

Working there is like working any retail job, and a far cry from a small community co-op.

Traces its roots to the Rochdale pioneers. I'd say it's not just "a" co-op, it's likely the oldest in existence on Earth.

But yeah, working there is not going to be too much different to working at any other store.

Still, don't underplay that. Having something you can go to, walk away from without having to bring home any work, get your 30-40 hours/week (and they'll pay a decent living wage), so you can pay the bills and keep your creative energy for your art... it's not a bad way to be.

The Co-op in Sandwich, Kent is still locally known as the Pioneer!

As they say - name checks out. I have been really into the idea of cooperatives lately. It is a topic that deserves more light seeing the extreme centralization of corporate wealth. Sadly most non-legal info about co-ops out there always goes back to Mondragon. There needs to be more media about non-corporate organizations. US farming and electrification was largely driven cooperatives, for example, but one rarely hears much about it.

I personally like cooperatives too. I’ve always wondered if instead of a tech union a cooperative might be a better fit. No solution is perfect, though. Lots of people want to make an income and not deal with the now governance part of their job. You also have people that are attracted to those kinds of organizations who also desire the governance part. Which goes back to the trope about those that should have authority don’t often want it.

Yeah money isn't everything after you made a bunch. What.

Well, our society defaults many people to serving money so having escaped the immediate serfdom of debt and even short term cashflow, people can make more balanced choices.

This was me. I loved my co-op job, but I had no family money and no prospect of ever being able to buy a home on that income.

I worked in tech long enough to pay off debts, put a down payment on a house, and no longer have to live in fear of a minor crisis bankrupting me. I didn't got rich, I stayed long enough that after leaving tech I could continue to work a normal job until normal retirement age - the thing that used to be in reach for the working class, but no longer is. The continue pursuit of money beyond a basic safety net wasn't worth the harm.

I still love technology. I have no love for the tech industry.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com