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Top Coders Tell Agents, "Show Me the Money!"
theodp writes "So, you're a 10x developer or a 25x programmer, but not getting paid like one? Keep your chin up! BusinessWeek reports that Silicon Valley is going Hollywood and top software developers can now get their very own agent through 10x Management, which bills itself as 'the talent agency for the technology industry.'"
residuals on the software I write?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...10x unemployment line looking?
In all seriousness, working for someone else sometimes sucks. Being in management and already having to deal with headhunters on top of all of the bloated resumes sucks. Adding in another agent is just one more thing that those trying to hire doesn't need to deal with.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Developers who want to be paid really well should do what I did, go where the money is.
First step, learn the ropes.
Second step, use your knowledge of software to program your way to riches.
No?
Finding God in a Dog
...to sell my services as a professional Slashdot spam article submitter instead.
Who the 10x developer or 25x programmer is is often highly context dependent. And it also tends to discount people who play supporting roles, who I think can often be even more valuable than your main developers.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.
But I will do implied for union scale......
These guys take the same cut as hollywood or sports agents do: 15%
Say you're a top flight programmer with an expected $150K+ salary... that's over $25K a year to the agent. Not a bad deal at all for them.
15% is a very reasonable cut to do basic business management and cold calling for freelancers. It is much better than what a lot of "recruiters" (aka pimps) take as a cut for their "consulting agencies", which can be as high as 80% of the hourly rate. Even using something like TriNet to handle most of the business stuff still doesn't compare because you still have to either find someone with business contacts or do all the calling yourself on unpaid time (which you then need to charge for later as part of your bill rate, or starve).
I really hope this practice starts putting some downward pressure on the pimps and time wasters who populate the IT recruiting market to start doing better work for a more reasonable rate. Nobody deserves 80% of a developer's pay just because they made a few phone calls. I would definitely consider working for or with a group of freelancers if someone was handling the business side at 15%.
I am a programmer in Sydney, Australia, and for a few years I have had a contract management company handling all my sourcing and negotiations. They get 2% and I make the final decisions on accepting the work. The demand for non permanent programmers to tackle one-off projects is huge here, especially from the financial sector. Conversely the supply of decent people to fill it is low.
I see that it's time to accept that technology means not everyone has to work. We create our own social model, we can change it. Why can't we accept a 20 hour work week for the same standard of living? What else is technology good for if not to help us?
Oh, because the business representing them asserts that that is the case. I think an agent for freelancers is an interesting idea. but others are saying that's not new.
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Did they patent the business method? I have been working through similar agencies for years, they charge $1-2 per hour to do the billing and get me new jobs. Nothing shocking here.
Basically looks like a recruiting company that has found a novel way to search for programmers.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You are joking, right? Translators face an increasingly tough market. Sure, there will always be some documents that need smooth, polished renderings into a foreign language. But the truth is, a lot of more informal texts that used to go through professional translators at decent wages are now just put through Google Translate for free. Machine translation is not perfect, but it's often considered good enough
I struggle with this trend with my own clients, who don't send their texts to me unless they feel they absolutely have to, and are pretty upfront about the fact that they'd rather gamble on some lost sales due to low-quality machine translation than pay the high rates professional translators demand.
seriously. Can we? You're not a star. You're not special. You're a cog, and you will be replaced by an Indian or Malaysian or some other *-ian that makes less than you do because they don't have indoor plumbing and clean air/water.
If you want a good life you need to start protecting it. That means Unions + a strong Federal Gov't (states are too weak to stand up to corps).
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I would clearly deserve to be recognized as a Top Coder through representation by such an agent, if it weren't for those Dunning-Kruger assholes.
And that's supposed to be news?
Common practice for high-end/specialist freelancers here in northern europe at least.
I commonly work with one agent(who's also my lawyer), and sometimes with another agent, in a slightly different field. In fact, if you get a trustworthy agent, it's one of the best way to sort out the "grinders"(clients who try to pile on more and more work on a project), scammers and other undesirables.
In fact, those two agents and those of us who use their services have formed a guild of sorts, blacklisting bad clients, blacklisting devs who negatively impact the reputation of freelancers by being scammers or just failures, helping each other out in case of sickness, or just the need for a vacation, yet we still compete with each other in bids for projects etc, so yes, it requires blacklisting out the sociopaths that can't cooperate.
Might not work quite as well in the US though, US geeks seeming content with being exploited and seeing banding together in mutual defense as anathema......
I used a few
Two workers would probably be cheaper actually because you wouldnt have to pay various insurances on a part time person, and dont heve to worry about overtime if they go over 2 hours.
the top 1% get 99% of the money. basketball ex: if you are the one-and-only LeBron, get you some. if you are the starting forward for Fordham...good luck with that.
My ex was a translator and she was constantly complaining about the steady decrease in work because of machine translations being used. The machine results were crap, but they were free, so the businesses didn't care.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Headhunters with staggering levels of pretense have been around the software industry for as long as I can remember. These guys decided to try out a new label. Big deal.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
i voluntarily worked a 20 hour workweek for years and absolutely loved it. for once in my life i finally achieved the elusive work-life balance. i never had a problem paying any bills and have more savings than ever.
unfortunately my boss eventually asked me to go back to full time and i did. the only better thing is the more money but once again i hate getting home at 6 or later and having little left of my day.
the only other negative thing about going part time is it's not like your workload cuts in half too. i had the same amount of work and less hours to do it, so some days were extremely stressful.
I'm a 1X programmer, but when it comes to writing user manuals, I can crank out a rough draft in a few hours and a polished version in a day. (The downside is putting out a gorgeous, finished user manual, only to have the front end guy change around the menus and graphics the next day. Doh!)
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
A 40-hour work week pays for our current standard of living. A 20-hour work week would reduce that standard of living.
There are some people, and a considerable number of them, for whom that doesn't really matter. Cheap house, cheap car, decent food, good computer, good internet. I don't need that many luxury goods. I just wish I had more time to make use of what I have.
More importantly, if people are becoming more efficient (since machines and computers can assist with or even take over some tasks that humans used to do), but don't work less, then we must find more to do. Finally and perhaps more interestingly, working less may make people more efficient, which should presumably increase the standard of living.
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
On the other side you have HR costs (both going through the interview and hiring process and doing ongoing paperwork that is approximately fixed per employee). I suspect you are right that full-time benefits are more expensive, but hiring people isn't free.
On the other hand, halving the workweek to 20 hours a week without significantly raising the hourly wage (or salary equivalent) of workers would just mean a lot more people being paid not enough to live on. It's an incomplete solution to the problem of unemployment. Social credit or basic income guarantee are more complete solutions, but it's unclear what variant of that actually makes sense and those ideas are far, far left of the Overton window in the United States.
is called "Smith"...
A) reduce the work week gradually. 38 hours, then 36, you get the idea.
B) have basic healthcare provided, This means preventative care, ER visits, and some relatively well-known and general diseases. If you want cancer, chronic diseases, etc covered, you'll need to pay for supplemental insurance, just like today. This would significantly lower the bill on businesses hiring individuals
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Australia reduced it's maximum work week to 38, all the employers just reigned their employees to contracts that expected unpaid "reasonable overtime" every week. Reasonable being 2 hours or more.
My ex was a translator and she was constantly complaining about the steady decrease in work because of machine translations being used. The machine results were crap, but they were free, so the businesses didn't care.
They've also taken a clue from Project Gutenberg, the last time I saw a rather major translation project (English -> foreign) it went like this:
1. Start with machine translation - it's faster to correct than start from scratch and their equivalent of OCR.
2. First round pass by third world worker who knows it as a foreign language
3. Second round pass by a native who will do QA until it's "good enough"
I've found you can also improve quality considerably "on the cheap" if you do reverse translation and try various synonyms and different sentence structures until what you get back double translated resembles what you originally wrote.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
First post a story about how difficult is to get a well paid job in the IT field because of the inmigration policies, and then post an obvious advertisement that starts with the phrase "So, you're a 10x developer or a 25x programmer, but not getting paid like one?".
Am I being paranoid?
I have a no nudity clause in my contract.
But I will do implied for union scale......
What an amazing coincidence! As your employer, we also have a no-nudity clause in your contract....
I'm genuinely curious to know whether that has ever been formally challenged.
I'm no expert on Australian law, but for employment law and tax purposes here in the UK, the actual working arrangements can be at least as relevant as any theoretical employment arrangement set out in a contract.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I had this same idea back in 1999. Why shouldn't top software programmer/developer/engineers have agents similar to sports agents or hollywood agents. They would be constantly looking out for a better position or your next position if you are coming off of a contract. They would also negotiate the best contract for you. They would know the market rates for your skills and would tell you how to be more marketable. They work for you and that they get 10% of you salary. Companies would love them because they don't have to pay the placement agency the finder's fee or the higher bill rate for contract positions. Programmers would love them because they get better jobs at better salaries or a higher percentage of the bill rate. Agents could have many programmer clients so they could earn a decent living too.. A win, win, win situation.
You are probably thinking that is what recruiters today do. WRONG. Recruiters act as the middlemen and only get paid if you take the position they have available. They don't work for you. I am talking mostly about contract positions here. Consider what a recruiter will say, if you desire a higher rate then what the company is offering. They will try and talk down your rate. If you don't take the position, they make nothing, if you take a reduced rate, they at least make something. Also, consider if you want a higher rate after being on contract a while. A recruiter will never tell you to leave the job and find another position. They don't work for you.
Top programmers (100K+) should have agents. The 10% you paid the agent would be worth it just to negotiate better starting contracts and raises. This does not count the value of their services of always being on the lookout for that ideal job. How many of us spent time looking for a better jobs when we are employed?
I'm suspicious that this is just an fancy marketing gimmick by the agency. but I like the idea. Over the years I've worked with many programmers and I've noticed a huge range in talent. It's interesting because that range rarely occurs within a single company. Instead some companies attract very good talent and some attract mostly mediocre.
I've seen small companies with just a few excellent programmers produce systems where larger companies with many more mediocre programmers have struggled.
The question is, how can you tell the difference? It's extremely hard to pick them. Merely listing some nice projects on their CV doesn't help, because the IT industry hides it failures. We have all seen projects that were a disaster but everyone smiled nervously and declared an outstanding success. Technical interviews by interviewers without a chip on their shoulder help, but only when you work with someone for about a year on a hard project do you really get to see how they perform. Mates referrals don't help, because mates look after mates no matter how shit they are.
I like the idea, but I'm yet to see an agency who could consistently deliver good programmers. The *best* idea I saw was at a big company who only hired people who were the top of their class.
IT apprenticeship seem better then a BA/BS or more in CS for helpdesk / desktop / networking.
A mixed tech school / apprenticeship will be good for tech / IT work and it will take less time / lower cost then college
Simple. On the other side of the globe, there are people who'd do the same work for a tenth of the price.
That's why.
BTW, which of you modded the parent "insightful"? Everyday more morons collect at this website.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Exactly what constitutes a Top, Best or Ultimate programmer?
Is there a list somewhere I missed?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I am happy at my company, but when I get C++ jobs that want to pay 50-60k I always email back and let them know that is a 125k job! do it.
when you're employed at will. And the billionaires will never stop gunning for what you have. No matter how little it is. That level of greed knows no bounds. Heck, it's what they do. They've got nothing else.
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you're the arrogant twit who thinks he's not about to get replaced. But nice try. Good enough is always good enough. Microsoft proved that. And desperation is an excellent substitute for passion and pride.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Bosses that use face time as a performance metric are toxic anyhow. Sooner is better then later.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Where I work (state government) we have the option of reducing our work hours by up to 30% (which could be used to either shorten the work day/week or take long vacations)... since the state is always looking for ways to save money management has to file a large amount of paperwork if they deny an employee's request for this. The trade off is that most benefits (regular time off, retirement service credit, and of course salary) are pro-rated as well. Still a lot of people (like newlyweds, new parents, people continuing their educatinon, people who travel the world every summer) take advantage of it and everyone wins. Even the taxpayer because, as you said, it's not like the workload is cut - same amount of work for less hours and less pay.
It's a case of the Golden Child vs. the Goat. I've seen this stupidity in action for decades.
Take two coders of roughly the same skill. One has flash and a high reputation, the other is plain spoken and just says what works and what doesn't. Management gives them both a task that has an unexpected issue and delivery is delayed. When the Golden Child has trouble management goes "that was much harder then we thought, lucky we had our ace working on it, or things would have have been much worse." When The Goat is late it's "so-and-so is just average, it's not a surprise they can't get the job done in time."
Now add in the cost and visibility of the 10x or 25x parachute in super coder who is so extra special they have an agent!!! No matter what happen management is going to conclude that they made a good investment in the high priced person. If they say otherwise then it would reflect badly on them. Any internal dissent by existing staff will be seen as sour grapes/incompetence. If there is a failure it will be laid at the feet of anyone but the Golden Child. No manager is ever going to admit they made that kind of mistake.
I wish I had understood this better earlier in my career. I could be sitting on my yacht right now if I had understood how much you can get for the right kind of hype.
Why is Snark Required?
You want a meritocratic, agile, decentralized Union that represents a Hacker/techno-utopian ethos, with blackjack and hookers and bitcoin micropayments? Then make that union!
Well, that would take about pi microseconds to collapse from the metastable state you describe into one of the binary stable states of either a "mediocracy tyranny" or Lord of the Flies.
Because if you give the unionized team the ability to choose who to hire and fire (hey, this is a meritocracy, right?) then the floors of many cubicle halls will run red with the blood of the unpopular developers. Even in a purely democratic collective, witch hunts leading to termination will become commonplace. I know, because I have witnessed developers "marked for death" in standard corporate environments where it's typically hard to convince the management to cull those considered "dead weight".
When management finally gave in, it led to a Reign of Terror akin to the French Revolution. There were multiple terminations on the "hit list" that were executed, before the purge finally turned inward and culminated in the termination of the highly-skilled developer who acted the part of Robespierre in organizing the terminations of the unworthy. He was eventually devoured by his own purge that had grown out of control, as it were.
Or, like I said, it could devolve into mediocracy where union developers threaten to file a grievance if someone in management makes their own Excel spreadsheet without a union "brother" developer involved. And no one gets fired, ever, except due to layoffs and then only in reverse seniority order. This is outwardly a very tranquil, boring, stable state, but that is merely the velvet glove over the iron fist of mediocrity that crushes developers' souls.
So, a union could start out like you describe, but ultimately I don't believe it is a stable state. But damn, maybe I'm just jaded by experience. Feel free to prove me wrong by setting up an awesome union like you describe and be sure to publicly mark the anniversaries of it running smoothly (in order to get the word out). It would be awesome to be wrong about human nature in this regard—I'm fairly certain I'm correct, though...
Not at all. You'll notice that the technology has improved, energy efficiency has improved, and American productivity has gone up as a result. Where did those gains go? Not to the working stiffs.
Workers today have a better standard of living, but have had to rely on credit to maintain it because the wages haven't gone up (adjusted for inflation).
In other words, the technology has enabled Wall Street to enjoy a better standard of living on our unrelenting 40 hours a week.
I have never worked 40+ hour weeks for extended periods in my whole career, as an employee, freelance contractor/consultant, or running my own "real business". I think I can honestly say that my contribution was still valued everywhere I've ever worked, I've never suffered for not putting in a bunch of unpaid overtime on a regular basis just to be seen, and the businesses I started are doing OK so far. Of course, I was also lucky in the sense that the guys I worked for and with as an employee were all decent people and more interested in getting a good job done than stereotypical poor middle management.
Then again, if you're any good as a coder then you can choose not to work for silly people, at least not for long. It's just a shame how many professionals in the field don't realise that and allow themselves to be exploited for years until hopefully they learn better. Listening to an enthusiastic 25-year-old talking about how great it is that he works 60 hour weeks writing code because his employer brings in pizza if they're still there at 19:30 and buys lunch as well on weekends is like listening to a documentary about Stockholm syndrome.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
All you have to do is found a company and get a successful product on the streets.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That type of translation is fairly bad. Like, really bad.
You can't translate word by word even if by some insane miracle the grammatical integrity of the sentences remains intact.
Literal translations are shit. They do not take into account that you can't literally translate phrases but rather need to replace them with substitutes in your target language. Semantics of words also widely differ between languages. Words can have multiple holonymes and they can differ between source and target language and you need a lot of context. Since holonymy also tends to shift over time you will have to build an awefully huge database for semantic relations that also includes time period and cultural bias. The research has already been done, building the database can be automated to some extent but the most egregious words will have to be manually corrected.
Worst of all is translating from English into just about anything. That language is rife with words that are rich in the multiple holonym department. With the added fun of polysemes. It is also famous for its fair share of homographs. Then add in the cultural dimorphism of English(UK)/English(US). An Englishman calling you an ass might refer to you as a donkey. A US American calling you an ass will propably refer to a popular body part that's fond to be sat on. The former is noteworthy, the latter is punchworthy.
Witticisms and word play are hard to translate and need to be completely rewritten in the traget language. I've read a couple of good Terry Pratchett translations and even more really bad ones.
If I need manuals I will get a professional to write them. If I need a translation then I will hire the original writer to have a sit down with a professional translator. And I marvel at the prices they ask. They are like 10% of what they should ask.
20 minutes into the future
:>)
No, I think the invasion is from Canada. There's a geographically defined region called the TMZ, or Thirty-Mile-Zone = Studio Zone around Hollywood. More about it after a word from our fine friends up to our north.
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Psych and Monk and quite a few shows are produced and filmed in Canada, despite being set in Santa Barbara, CA (as in California CA, not Canada CA), and San Francisco. You see quite a few canadians on american shows, but every now and then, the canadian shows are even cooler: ReGenesis
DaVinci's Inquest
Made in Canada
Even more rarely, there are Canadian TV shows that actually play up their canadian-ness rather than hiding their location as being a non-descript USA-ian city like Los Angeles:
Rookie BlueDaVinci's Inquest
Don't forget about the statutory (well, actually "contractual" rather than statutory) TMZ, or Thirty-Mile-Zone = Studio Zone around Hollywood :
Entertainment industry unions currently use this area to determine rates and work rules for union workers. The zone also largely determined the location and success of the original movie ranches in or near Hollywood.So yes, unions do play a strong role in Hollywood productions by setting the costs for doing production within a particular region. They keep the prices up to a reasonable level that accomodates the pay desires of the teamsters, actors, and other guild and union members.
What union represents computer programmers? There were some weird fights here in La Jolla as to which union (or even whether any union at all) ought to represent the graduate-student-teachers (also known as TAs = graduate teaching assistants). The final result is at the UCSD website and is that the graduate students are members of the United Auto Workers union: Graduate students appointed as teaching assistants, associates, readers or tutors (ASE'S) are represented by the Association of Student Employees/UAW under a collective bargaining agreement with the university. All salary payments under these titles are subject to a deduction of 1.15 percent for union membership dues or a 0.92 percent agency fee deduction for students who choose not to become members of the union. The university/UAW Agreement can be retrieved electronically at http://ogsr.ucsd.edu/ase.htm
Because with actors, management doesn't have the option of replacing one George Clooney with a dozen nobodies from Hyderabad. And customers don't pay for the reputation or image of the 'star' creator (actor, director, etc.). So that becomes a commodity.
Or, using a sporting analogy, you can't replace one 350 pound linebacker with six 110 pound Chinese guys.
Have gnu, will travel.
To many, coders are programmers
They aren't
Programmers program - from the inception phase all the way to the completion
Coders, on the other hand, only code, as instructed
That 10X management agency can't even differentiate the two
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
1. Start with machine translation - it's faster to correct than start from scratch and their equivalent of OCR.
Not always, in my experience - the bad translation may trap you into not changing it too much, with the result that you end up with sub-optimal results. Like with some code, it's often better to throw it away entirely and start from scratch rather than trying to polish a machine translation.
On the other hand, if the goal is merely to produce "something that's comprehensible", I suppose it will work.
Esli epei etot cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.
The legendary 1000x programmer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_I65LA4sns#t=208s
What can a 1000x programmer do?
- Max out the input capacities of six keyboards simultaneously
- Hack lighthouses, power grids and satellites in realtime
- Produce code so beautiful it makes female programmers wet
"10x" and "25x" programmers sound just as ludicrous to me...
Protip: Productivity can NOT be measured in lines of code...
Good, so I can get the same services as here for a tenth of the price as well. And why does your logic never seem to apply to managers, CEOs and other cancer cells?
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bad form to reply to myself (?) but the next paragraph at the UCSD link ( http://registrar.ucsd.edu/catalog/01-02/GradStud.htm )is quite a shocker for two reasons: All graduate students who are U.S. citizenatent agreement is harder to find. On purpose?s and appointed as teaching assistants or graduate student researchers or are employed by the university in other positions are required by the California Constitution to sign the State Oath of Allegiance. In addition, all graduate student appointees and employees are required by university policy to sign the university's Patent Agreement. Copies of both documents may be obtained from the student's academic department. [emphasis mine!!!!] [text from ucsd link above]
Note that while the United Auto Worker's agreement with the UCSD system is easily found by following the given URL link, the Patent Agreement has no given URL link and can only be gotten from the various departments at UCSD. How fucked up is that? It's like they don't really want you to be able to review the patent agreement wording before you have to sign it!
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And what's with the weird "State Oath of Allegiance" thing?? That's the first and only place I've ever heard about that!
The irony here is that the software engineer/screen-writer who originally created/coined the line "Show me the money!" was never paid for it.
If you're really a bad-ass programmer, why not just get a job in finance. Hedge funds and other investment groups pay insane amounts of money to recruit the very best guys. These jobs have long hours and don't have the longevity of other types of employment but the $$ compensates for that.
It's early still for the 20 hour work week to be standardized. But it's not too early for the 35 hour week to become normative. That's what I work, and it's fantastic. I just wish my wife could have the same schedule.
And really, in the tech industry wouldn't it be great if just the 40 hour work week became normative? Too many people are working 50 or 60 hours a week. If unemployment in the sector weren't at 2%, this would be a travesty.
I wonder if you could achieve good results by doing a machine translation and then hiring a native-speaker who is a copywriter, not a translator, to just rewrite the whole text into a form that would be pleasing to a native speaker.
That would remove the bilingual requirement, and the translated text would probably be much better overall, and cheaper.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I'd never participated, but I knew it was a coding contest site, and I was pretty sure they gave out prize money (wikipedia indicates I'm right). If they'd just been like, "we promised you money, but nope, we're not giving it", that would have been pretty news-like. But nope. Nothing like that.
This sounds pretty dumb. Like having headhunters bug you, only you're also giving them money.
Until the only jobs I can get don't pay a living wage or are so physically or emotionally hazardous that either regulation or unionizing is the best way to stop it, I do NOT want to work in a union shop.
Unions are great to keep employers from treating people as less than human. They are great if employers are making you sacrifice your family. They are great if employers are paying you $7.25/hour and think you should be grateful your job isn't outsourced to $OTHER_COUNTRY.
But that's not the world I live in.
As a person with a technical background in a metro area that isn't deep in recession, I have options. I can CHOOSE to work for a startup 24/7 and sacrifice my family and personal life for stock options that might never be worth anything. I can CHOOSE to freelance and actually make a survivable wage. I can CHOOSE to work for another company knowing that any full-time job I get will earn me several times the US federal poverty level for 1 person and enough to maintain a middle-class lifestyle for a family of 4.
As long as I and others in the industry have those choices, I don't see the benefits of unionizing outweighing the downsides.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I once worked for a company where you had to put in years in the industry (and usually the company) before you got to the upper echelons of the "technical" (non-management) career chain.
Yes, you might get some shortcuts if your boss thought you were a "golden child" but before you made your way to the upper decks, you had to prove yourself over and over again with a lot higher of a success ratio than a "normal" person would have.
This pretty much stalled the careers of those whose gold was just a thin veneer before they hit the highest ranks.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
.. and you need to perform according to the hype
A century of propaganda against Unions plus a few organized crime stories have made the word Union as bad or worse than Socialist in the USA.
Agents are individualized Union reps. Much more costly, wasteful, and powerless - they only with high demand individuals; who have some power.
"I'm an individual" each sheep cries as they move towards the cave... blinded by overconfidence unable to actually question the presented reality the wolf presents. That is the USA today. Growing up in the culture it is difficult for them to realize and foreigners can't be trusted, they just resent our freedom... we're #1. we're #1...
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Their response would probably depend on whether or not you were pointing a pitchfork at them at the time.