Why Do So Many Tech Workers Dislike Their Jobs?

Nerval's Lobster writes: So what if you work for a tech company that offers free lunch, in-house gym, and dry cleaning? A new survey suggests that a majority of software engineers, developers, and sysadmins are miserable. Granted, the survey in question only involved 5,000 respondents, so it shouldn't be viewed as comprehensive (it was also conducted by a company that deals in employee engagement), but it's nonetheless insightful into the reasons why a lot of tech pros apparently dislike their jobs. Apparently perks don't matter quite so much if your employees have no sense of mission, don't have a clear sense of how they can get promoted, and don't interact with their co-workers very well. While that should be glaringly obvious, a lot of companies are still fixated on the idea that minor perks will apparently translate into huge morale boosts; but free smoothies in the cafeteria only goes so far.

Comments

Major disconnect from layers

[mwfischer]

The grunts know how things work and what's possible in the infrastructure.

Managers have an idea how things.

Directors don't know how things work.

C level has no idea what they even have.

--

Essentially if you're not on the front lines for long, you have no idea what is actually going on.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The only difference between tech and other jobs is that tech people think the C-suite SHOULD know how the IT stuff works while other professions accept that it is their job to make sure the next person up the chain knows enough to do their job. The C-suite, whose job is to guide the company strategically, does not need to know how the hardware and software works on a detailed level, or at all really.

The assumption of intellectual superiority of the IT worker is the problem. The problem is that IT workers are on average "smart", younger than average, ambitious, etc. Management exploits perks as a recruiting tool and then... depression... work is still work, even with a ping pong table. These kids would be just as depressed without perks but management needs to compete.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[HornWumpus]

In other words most tech workers are whiny bitches.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[taustin]

I'd be more inclined to limit it to "all young people." The older they get, the more jobs they get fired from, the less likely they are to continue to same behavior (though some never learn).

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[Archangel Michael]

I am assuming you've never had a C type person make huge IT decisions without having even consulted with IT.

In my 30+ years of experience, I've seen enough clueless C types make clueless decisions because some dude in a suit with a briefcase sold them a nice fat lie.

In our case "All it will take are a couple IP addresses and a server. No other IT is required" If it takes IP addresses and a server, it requires IT support. And in this case, the product was so fucking horrible that it requires regular (several times a week) IT support, just on back end crap from a product designed so bad that it just breaks every two weeks from design flaws.

Or this, "We've already bought it, you WILL support it" (with no additional IT funding for more IT help) multiple times over.

Or buying a mom and pop application with no Enterprise class requirements in its design. "What do you mean you don't do LDAP for authentication. There is no fucking way I'm entering 16,000 users by hand"

The issue with certain people is that they want "Shiny Pretty Technology" without caring, or wanting to know about what it actually takes to run. And it happens in enough organizations that I know that it is not an exceptional experience.

You're right, the C types don't know shit, which is why they should stay out of shit that they have no clue on. Yet they think they know better than the people who REALLY do know whats going on. In short, IT is a bastard child in most organizations, one that has more power than most of those C types actually know.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[plover]

It's a huge problem when the CIO isn't an engineer. That's simply a disaster in glorious slow-motion Technicolor. Look at the time-lapse downfall of HP from a respected engineering company to one that's known today only for selling printers that are cheaper than their overpriced ink. (Thanks, Carly, I'm sure this country could use a genius of your caliber at the helm.)

But the more common source of discontent happens when developers are tossed a pile of requirements and told "shut up and make this X." Every developer I've known will have serious questions about those requirements, because they're always filled with errors and inconsistencies. In most cases the flaws are not evident until after development has progressed beyond the Rubicon. Being able to discuss the requirements with the stakeholder, to make suggestions on how to improve the product, to develop the best possible X to further the business, that's what developers crave. Give them that, and a steady paycheck, and you have happy people with satisfying jobs.

And if you tell them "hand this coding over to Haich WunBee over at Outsorcery, Inc.", don't be surprised if satisfaction drops.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more inclined to limit it to "all young people." The older they get, the more jobs they get fired from, the less likely they are to continue to same behavior (though some never learn).

Biased opinions like yours regarding millennials is what discourages younger generations from respecting those who are: already established, who didn't have to worry about a great recession caused by the previous generation that is constantly threatening the potential job and stock markets, who didn't have to be concerned with competing against off-shore, who knows that they will at least be able to collect Social Security, who is the generation that put little to no effort in raising their children (these now millennials) other than shoving a TV in front of them while said parent is partying in a garbage can downing beers and listening to Sting.

Biases are bad generalizations as you can tell: Don't use them. Each individual should be treated uniquely.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[TWX]

You can physically look at a plane. You can touch the plane. You can even conduct real-world experiments like windtunnel tests with smoke introduced to observe with the naked eye how the machine might fly, and you can grab the wings and pull them in different directions to see if the fuselage cracks.

With computers and telecommunications equipment the bulk of what actually makes it special is in the abstract. You can see devices and cables, but what actually makes the processing and traffic flow function properly cannot be touched, and in some cases isn't well-represented even when data is captured and plotted, and worse, seemingly small changes in this abstract layer can have far-reaching consequences.

That's the problem when someone that doesn't understand the technology dictates technological decisions for IT, they have no idea what it takes, so they cannot evaluate if their IT people are honestly telling them of the minefield in front of them or if the IT people actually are lazy; they fall into MBA-whip-cracker mode to make it happen, and the IT workers are left with the stress of being between the unstoppable force and the immovable object.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[KGIII]

I owned my own company for a long time. Eventually I was kicked out of my own server room by people I paid to do a job. You know, I listened. I could do the job well enough but they could do it so much faster. Eventually I no longer even maintained my own code. "Code comments go in the code and not on a pile of coffee soaked index cards, asshole." Again, I listened. Sure, I could do all those things effectively - efficiently if you don't count my time but I paid experts because, well, they were better at the job than I was.

I suppose you could have called me a CEO, I mean I technically was, but we weren't real big on titles. Hell, my company paid me less than some of my employees made (of course I had the cookie jar).

I guess my point is that not all bosses think they know everything. My understanding is the new parent company has kept the culture much the same. It was not entirely uncommon to see a curious look when I admitted I did not know something and would like to consult with someone who did before making choices. I can only surmise that the behavior is due to ego.

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[BVis]

That's the new American Dream. It used to be "work hard, play by the rules, you'll get a middle-class existence and the chance to provide better opportunities for your children". Now it's "Get some socially inept chump to break his back without paying him overtime and keep all the money for yourself".

Re:Major disconnect from layers

[KGIII]

I'd like to think so. But... Well, no. Not everything, not even close. Though I learned from mistakes and already knew when to ask for help. I think a big thing is knowing your limits and being honest with yourself where those limits are? I can only guess, really. I also didn't chastise people for making mistakes, for a variety of reasons. What I did do is get a bit unhappy with someone who thought they were capable and then made mistakes instead of asking for help. It was usually a very short and brief problem - we fostered the idea of being able to ask for help.

Nobody knows everything and knowing your limits is essential. I mentioned earlier that employee salaries are actually a really tiny percentage of the expenses. If you worked for me and needed help then we will hire help - we will find the best out there and pay them what they truly are worth. If you really wanted then we'd send you back to school to get additional education - and those percentage points were still fairly trivial. If your boss tells you the business isn't making enough money to give you a raise they're a liar. Or, well, the business should probably be in receivership.

I don't know... I guess I type out these long replies because there's some hope that there are others who can and will do. I also hope that those who are in crappy situations get the hell out. Do you know what I learned? It seems pertinent at this time. If you give a person their desired salary when they start and tell them to just come ask when they feel they deserve a raise - they'll go YEARS without asking for a raise. Sometimes they do crazy stuff like try to decline a raise - you have to convince them to take it. I know it sounds counter-intuitive but it's very true. If they know they're appreciated and they're making enough money they are content. They might even be happy.

Finally, absolutely true. The company would certainly not have survived without the people who worked to make it happen. It was a very successful company, it still is really. The people who were there in the beginning probably don't have to work any more but a number of them still remain with the new parent company. I made sure that each individual was truly aware of how much appreciation I had for their talents, their willingness to work long hours if we got too busy - because I'd screwed up and not properly bid something, and their ability to just be open and honest humans. I asked a lot, was given a lot, and have tried to show how much it mattered.

Maybe someone will see this and a light will click on. There's even a few former co-workers that hang out here and this may make them smile. Too many people have jobs they are not happy with and, really, there's no need of it.

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at all the freebies here, if you can find a break in your 80-hour work week, you'll totally dig them!

Re:Heh

[hey!]

One thing I've noticed is someone who is very good at a tech job isn't just twice as productive as someone who is lousy at it; the discrepancy could easily be 10x; or it could be that he produces positive progress and the lousy guy produces anti-progress. This is clearly true for software developers, but I've seen it happen with network administrators too: small cadres of happy, super-productive admins outperforming armies of miserable tech drones.

But the thing is if you don't understand anything about (a) the technology or (b) human beings, how do you get a worker to be more productive? You make him work longer.

I'm not talking about striking while the iron is hot. When opportunity produces the occasional 80 hour work week, that's a totally different matter than having no better idea of what to do than setting unrealistic goals and leaving it to workers to make it up through sheer, unsustainable effort. Too often in the latter case you end up producing the semblance of progress. Yeah, I finished the module but someone's going to have to throw it out and rewrite when it blows up in the customer's face.

Re: Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how pay has been cut - one of the ways - inflation is the other.

When I started, you could work a 40 hour week - less, we took long lunches with our boss there.

Then, after the dot bomb crash, there were a LOT of tech workers running around, so we had to take pay cuts to work - at least we younger guys. The older guys - 30 something's - were left in the dust.

Then, we had to work more than 40 to make dwadlines.

Then it turned into if you got your work done in 40 or less, you don't have enough work. But if it takes you more than 40, it's because you are not smart enough to get it done on time.
Catch-22.

And, over the past decade, pay has gone down, back in 99, a C programmer around with 5 years of experience made about 80k.
Now it's 65 and in 00 money, that's 40k.
So, we're working much harder for half the pay - and food is on us.
And the poor bastards who were let go after 09 were never hired because businesses figured out that they can just their current workers work harder. Don't like it? There's a line behind you.
There is no shortage of STEM workers. Obama needed to stop listening to tech industry lobbyists.
Read here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/07/college-calculus

Special

[mobby_6kl]

Probably because they think they should be special and immune from the shit everyone else deals with.

Re:Special

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay close attention to this useful idiot, kids: This is what happens when you take the corporate cock up the rump too many times, and start the enjoy the feeling of getting totally buttfucked by the monkeys that like to call themselves your betters.

Instead of this listening to this useless tirade of "in my day, we got fucked 2x a day and liked it, you whining proles! We have always been at war with Oceania", turn your attention to a far better and more useful lesson:

Life is what you make of it. Never yield to retards that loudly claim the dear and righteous status quo is right to try and hold you down. Make the world do what you want, or die trying.

All change is dependent on this type of person, and not the LOL OH WELL I LOSE BUT YOU WILL TOO HAHA type like Mr AC #1138 above me here. These types of nonpersons litter the graves of humanity, totally forgotten by the world they took it up the rump from.

Remember: 200 years from this moment, every living human on this planet will be naught but dust. How will history remember you?

There are many reasons.

[dablow]

Some places have no idea what a sysadmin or software engineer is supposed to do. They assume we are all one and the same. So you will be harassed for any problem that involves using electricity.

Some places refuse to follow or put in place process/policies/limitations and enforce them in order to make the workload manageable.

Some places refuse to see the value in our work; They only see it as a cost center to be minimized at all costs, morale be damned.

It is a thankless job (and who cares about being thanked, show me the money lobowski!), yes most place refuse to pay what the position should be paying. So you either end up with subpar employees or are forced to work with subpar employees that cause a lot of problems you need to cleanup.

And the list goes on and on.

Re:Losing at capitalism 101

[TheGratefulNet]

it most certainly IS factory-style work here in the bay area.

95% h1b, from 2 countries (guess which; neither is US). all are under 40. most are under 35 yrs old.

as soon as you grow and get experience, you have eaten the forbidden fruit and you know how you should NOT be treated. at that point, they dispose of you and from then on, you will have nothing but 'short stays' if you are even lucky enough to get short term contracts.

tech work is mostly just unskilled labor, banging out bullshit code, full of bugs to never be fixed and replaced with some new buggy shit. lather rince repeat.

I'm fed up.

Maybe becuase

[John Napkintosh]

All the jobs I've had involve doing work.

Free Time is the only currency worth a damn

[captjc]

Every company that gives perks like that is only because they want you to stay all hours of the day and night. Sure, that is great and all and the money is wonderful at those places, I'm sure. However, the only thing that many of us care about is actual free time.

It seems like the whole culture is pushing this "Work your life away because it is the American thing to do" agenda. "40 hours a week is for lazy gits who will get nowhere in the workplace." Hell, where I work, don't work less than 90 hours a week if you want to make it through your next performance review. Most people start with at least 7 "use it or lose it" personal days and god help you if you actually try to take one. I am lucky because, as a contractor, they actually think twice about making me stay late as it is costing them. Salaried, I would never want to work there as that kind of environment is toxic to one's health and soul. This kind of shit is what makes tech workers hate their jobs.

Work to live and not live to work, words to live by.

What I don't like

[transporter_ii]

A lot of tech work is reactionary. And if all you have to do is put out fires, it isn't terrible. But you are usually expected to work at other things between fires. Which means the second you start doing one thing, you have to stop and go fix six other things. Always feeling like you are getting pulled in eighteen different directions sucks.

Companies don't get it....

[clifwlkr]

I've been in the software industry for a bit, and am appalled at what companies think attract great talent. It is so far off base today, that no wonder people aren't happy. Let's take a look at the things they believe are great:

Open office environment: What they say is it is great collaboration. What it really means is that you sit at benches back to back and face to face with your coworkers all wearing headphones. None of them talk, you have little personal space, and if you don't actually want to listen to music, you hear 3 different songs through the headphones. Never mind the Skype calls going on around you, or everyone's computer/phone./tablet all going off at the same time as the company wide email goes out. Good luck concentrating.

Game room/exercise room: What this means is more distractions for the young workers who already can't focus on their task for five minutes and get something done. Now they need to bug you to play with them and wonder why you say you don't have time as we are already way behind. So now you end up doing their tasks while they are shooting pool just to make sure the client gets what they were promised. Basically, more people NOT working while at work, forcing you into more hours to pick up the slack. BTW, how many hours a week does your company actually expect out of you?

Agile: A form of development co-opted by management and companies to micro manage you at every possibility, without actually establishing any direction. Yes, I know this is not how it is supposed to work, but after being in many companies doing it, it is all too often done this way. Everyone gets creative about 'what they did yesterday', and 'what they will do today', yet we still don't have a clear direction on 'what the heck we are doing'. That gets frustrating.

Unlimited vacation: What this actually means is no guaranteed vacation. You get to take it 'if you have time'. So the people who don't actually work take tons, and those who actually care about delivery get squeezed down. Reward is opposite to accomplishments

No Real WFH: Most places frown on WFH, as you are supposed to be collaborating. So you sit on your bench desk with trendy uncomfortable chair with said coworkers all plugged into their music not talking anyways. Why couldn't I work from home?

Quality of code: This one is debatable probably, but in the last three to five years the quality is so poor it is scary. People are rushed and rewarded for 'just getting it out' even though it fails all the time. How about rewarding people for putting something out that actually works and is stable? Could we actually teach proper coding in college?

What I really want is an actual office with walls and a window. Give me a door that I can leave open most of the time when people have questions, but I can close when things are crazy or tough. Give me co-workers that want to solve real problems, and care about unit tests, comments, and making a GOOD solution. Pay me for delivering quality, and more importantly, stop trying to figure out if I am operating at 100% efficiency all of the time. Define what the heck we are trying to accomplish up front, and then iterate rapidly on the solution. That would make me happy, anyways.....

Rant off.....

Re:Companies don't get it....

[phantomfive]

Unlimited vacation: What this actually means is no guaranteed vacation.

Take your vacation, man. You're shirking your duty if you don't. When someone says, "you have unlimited vacation," they are trying to take money from you. It is in no way rude to take the money back.

If you aren't sure if you'll "have time," plan your vacations several months in advance. Even if you stay at home for your vacation, you'll feel better if you take them.

So does everyone else.

[coldsalmon]

"That's why it's called work," as they say. I laughed at the very misleading graph showing 19% of IT workers vs. 22% of non-IT workers saying they are very happy at work. That is a difference of 3%, but they made the graph on a scale of 19-22, so it looks huge. It's also not clear how much the authors cherry-picked data to support their thesis. On every measure cited, IT employees score poorly -- but do they score better in other areas that weren't reported? Why do they only report those who answered with a 9 or 10? How many answered with a 1 or 2?

Re:Because it's soul-killing, uncreative shit.

[LessThanObvious]

Agreed %100. I'm not sure why companies seem to think engagement in your work just happens naturally. If I have no reason to care about the continued existence of a company and care nothing about the why behind anything they are trying to accomplish, it's just about making money for someone else. That doesn't interest me in the slightest. More than anything I'd like to work for companies where there is a good reason to be passionate about the company's mission.

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it has something to do with companies gleefully grinding down their employees with 80-hour work weeks before replacing them with an Elbonian who works for six cents a day. Or maybe it's related to the company-wide policy "No Dev Left Behind", where each programmer has his own clown car full of Pointy-Haired-Bosses to help him brainstorm and debug. It might even be the business language flooding tech meetings. "We're synergizing bold new paradigms for market leverage."

But if you ask me, the number one mood-killer for me when it comes to technology is from within. I'm talking about the 'elitist programming culture'. Hacker News is the perfect example of this. "You use an Object-Oriented language? Puh-lease. I write in a language so obscure and difficult to comprehend nobody has ever actually finished a program in it ('apps' used to be called programs, FYI)." Everybody's gotta fluff up the release announcement for their stupid web-based whatever with fancy technical jargon and a pretentious academic tone. Every program, product, and library must have a logo, a mascot, a "Philosophy" page, and a lower-case name with a random vowel omitted (Bonus points if you use the domain as part of the name, like .io). And last but not least, there's the bewildering tendency for tech-related stuff to get sucked into political horseshit now. "Are Tech Companies Excluding Women?", "Is Google's New Image-Recognition Program Racist?", "10 Tech Companies You Won't Believe Donated to This Candidate! Get Outraged!"

I like programming, but I really don't like the overhead it brings in. It's not about solving puzzles anymore.

Treated as an expense, not an asset

[NitroWolf]

One of the major problems with IT and engineering departments is that they are treated as an expense. They are something distasteful but necessary to the business, but the business would rather do away with it if it could. When you and/or your department are viewed like that, it's hard not to become cynical and annoyed with the other departments.

Often times IT is the gatekeeper of information and much like dentists and doctors, they are often times the bearers of bad news, even though they aren't the cause. They are just the messenger, but when you're told "No, you can't access Facebook during work hours," the IT department is often blamed, even though they didn't make the policy.

Engineering is seen as an impediment to sales and progress because they are the ones that have to keep saying "No, it's not ready yet." or "No, we can't do that." Engineering is like the police department... everyone hates them until they need them. Then when that need is over, it goes right back to hating them.

Work-life balance

[larryjoe]

Things that are high on my work satisfaction list:
Work-life balance
Work-life balance
Work-life balance (did I mention work-life balance?)
Good working relationship with my boss
Good working relationship with my coworkers
Non-stressful commute

Things that don't matter:
Work satisfaction (it's work; I get my enjoyment from the part away from work; hence the supreme importance of work-life balance)
How well the company is doing financially (unless I'm going to be laid off soon or I own a huge amount of company stock)
Lunch or snacks (free or otherwise)
Promotion and titles (unless they come with financial compensation and I'm not yet adequately compensated)

Things that sort of matter:
Financial compensation (but only up to the point where it meets my needs, some wants, and savings requirements for retirement; past that it doesn't matter)
An office (cubicles and open space are horrible; I would trade an office for lowered financial compensation)

Even companies that have good reputations emphasize the lunches, cubicles, money, and work satisfaction but never mention work-life balance unless it's redefined to mean the exact opposite. Even here on slashdot, none of the moderated comments mention work-life balance.

Re:Losing at capitalism 101

[Ol Olsoc]

Have you ever worked in a unionized environment before?

Ther are now a lot more people with apocryphal hate stories about union their experiece than there are Union employees.

They are damn near gone! You were successful. You killed them. Crack a beer and celebrate.

But no, we're going to hear a lot of "first hand personal experience" stories for the next hundred years.

So celebrate your crowning achieveent that your employercan fire you for wearing the wrong color shirt. Or for the LULZ for that matter.

Because one thing is for certain. union or not, the employee remains the number one enemy.

Re:Why? WHY???

[ShanghaiBill]

Honestly: they don't pay me enough for what I do, nor do they pay me enough to put up with my boss.

It is obvious that they do, or you wouldn't still be working there.

Pro-tip: Bad attitudes are highly correlated with low pay. If you can't find a better position in today's job market, the problem is with you.

lack of sane hours

[epyT-R]

The primary reason is lack of sane hours. Period. Most of the ailments they have can be traced to lack of good sleep and exercise.

Re: Why? WHY???

[BVis]

No, management is paid to get the most work out of you for the least pay. "Motivating" people to work these days frequently takes the form of "work harder or we'll fire you", instead of something constructive like making the employee feel involved, or valued, or anything else but a greedy lazy interchangeable cog.

And I don't see where GP mentioned unions. He mentioned "job descriptions", which are difficult (or, frequently, impossible) to enforce without a union. This should not be the case. If I get hired to write code, and the first day of work I get told I'm going to be doing sysadmin work instead, there's not much I can do about it except quit. If job descriptions were enforceable, I would have the right to say "That is not what you hired me for. Make my job duties line up with the description that I accepted or face large fines." Employees should not have to suffer for management's incompetence or lying.