In a world like that, the people who just "do a good job" are characterized by some level of stubbornness coupled with an ability to navigate this kind of environment. Should that really be the key skill that matters? Is not being sufficiently stubborn "a form of systematic corruption"? That seems like a fundamentally uncharitable perspective that also provides no real solution. When that's how you see the situation, what can you do about it?

My experience has been that changing environment and process to actively trust people and, crucially, clearly signal that trust improves things far more than blaming people. If you expect people to phone it in, they probably will; if you can establish real trust instead, they'll go out of their way to make something work.

Yes if business priorities change I could end up out the door, and that happened once, but no hard feelings. I quit all my other jobs anyway and there was nothing malicious either way.

The clothes on my back, and those if my children, the house we live in, the car we drive all were paid for by my employers. Yes it was a transaction, but a beneficial one on both sides. It’s all good.

You're also selling yourself short. You paid for all that stuff. Your employer paid for the work you did, and probably took more whenever they could; through on-call, off hours work, etc...

I try to comp my time, but I know I put in more then I'm compensated for, even when I was technically "hourly". I'm fine with that, but I expect to take back when I need it.

Why is it a character weakness? Why is it bad for you?

By putting in low to average effort and switching jobs often, I doubled my salary in 5 years. All the while, I've had tons of time for vacations, hobbies, and having a life outside of work. And I've never gotten a single negative performance review. All my 1 on 1 feedback from managers has been glowing.

If a company could use half the labor to get twice the profit, they'd do it in a heartbeat. That's the purest essence of capitalism. Why should I behave differently? The guy on my team who works nights and weekends to get assignments done gets paid the same as I do. He's just more miserable for it.

Sounds like you're talking about the extra time that some places seem to expect. If that's what we're talking about - I totally agree that it's not worth it.

Edit: if I could double my output and know that my salary would double too, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I've never found a company with a comp structure that can actually achieve that. It's far more effective to just go on autopilot for a year or two, then get a 30% raise at a new job. Rinse and repeat.

I don't think the formula is particularly linear. Double value produced means double the salary is likely the wrong equation, but it is right in principle.

If you work hard you will be developing a lot more relevant skills than floating along. This makes you more valuable. Not everyone recognizes, or is willing to pay for that extra value in salary or promotions. But some people will, and some people are.

In the event you strike out on your own as a freelancer or your own business, working in that manner becomes your lifeblood that will make or break you.

I get more reward and fulfillment from my hobbies and personal relationships than I'll ever get from creating another CRUD app for ${boring_business}. Half effort leaves me more energy for those things, and half effort still gives me more than enough experience and talking points to nail my next interview and demonstrate value to hiring managers.

> In the event you strike out on your own as a freelancer or your own business

I have no intentions to do this, but if I ever did, then as my own boss my performance would be directly tied to what I earn. So yes, I'd have a much different approach.

I didn't say that.

I said they should 'do a good job'.

As should the other company staffers, execs and the company as a whole.

It's difficult to measure employee productivity. Sometimes, managers don't care. Sometimes employees make every effort to hide their lack of productivity.

Despite that we might think of companies as 'evil' - most of them are not. We're all human, none of us like laying people off or firing them. It also comes with negative political consequences i.e. the person you fired may never be a good reference in the future. The manager may have negative incentive to let people go, as their 'worth' is founded on headcount. And truly the vast majority of employers just don't want to layoff or fire if that don't have to.

What this means is that there is quite a lot of 'grey' in the system, and there's a lot of goodwill assumed by all parties.

Everybody is saying that they want to do 'remote work' and at the same time signalling that they may 'want to do the least, because technically, I'm getting paid for that?' - in a situation wherein there is quite a lot of 'trust' expected?

How do we expect employers to 'trust' workers in a 'very noisy productivity assessment channel' with this kind of approach?

It just won't work.

There isn't enough time in the world to be looking over each other's shoulders like that (I particularly don't like Amazon's approach for example).

So the onus is on us to 'do a good job'. It doesn't mean 'break your back' - it means try to do what is expected, keep your chin up, grind through it.

I feel that if people could see the big picture, and see that mountains are climbed one step at a time, that morale across the board would be higher. 'Passion and inspiration' are nice, but fleeting, whereas 'grinding' through the issues is how most things ultimately get done. In this way, they might be more personally incented to 'fix that bug' or 'get that build out'.

Things like that teach me that corporate "good will" is an elaborate show. You are an expense to them, a necessary expense to achieve a certain output. You are paid your market value, not penny more. If they can pay you half your salary to get the same output, they will. If they can lay your team off and get significant cost benefits, they will. You are disposable. That doesn't mean they're bad people, they're just doing what any self-serving profit-seeking bureaucracy would do.

Thus the relationship between an employer and an employee is always transactional, and any feeling otherwise is an illusion. It's not evil - it just is.

The only asterisk to all of this is if you're at a more community-focused organization like a non profit. But the vast majority of companies that employ HN readers are not that.

First - you're mixing streams here.

This is not 'amoral'.

This is just people trading services.

It's not 'amoral' of you to not keep the plumber on when he's done.

Second - companies actually do avoid layoffs. Most companies could layoff 10% right now and not skip a beat. Especially white collar. Google could dump 1/2 it's staff and be just fine.

Most companies have slack and generally avoid doing layoffs unless there's a special situation.

"the relationship between an employer and an employee is always transactional, and any feeling otherwise is an illusion."

Generally, this is the case, yes, why on earth would anyone think it's anything else?

Why on earth would a company employ people otherwise?

But again, once people are employed, they're not doing to drop them instantly.

It's all besides the point, in any case, one should be aspiring to 'Do A Good Job'.

> Most companies have slack and generally avoid doing layoffs unless there's a special situation.

You're just making arbitrary claims here - the fact that companies can and do lay people off without notice and, sometimes, without severance, still confirms the nature of what I'm saying. It's all feel good until it isn't.

> why on earth would anyone think it's anything else?

I don't know; ask the others in this thread. There are plenty of people here claiming that they owe their company things (time, emotional investment) that go beyond the scope of their employment contract simply because it's "nice."

> once people are employed, they're not doing to drop them instantly.

This is simply not the case. Or, rather, it can be the case so easily and at any time that it's foolish to assume otherwise.

I've seen far too many corporate moves that were driven by executives looking to goose the stock price to believe that. You can argue that it's the executive's job to goose the stock price, and thus they "have to" lay off people in order to avoid taking as much of a financial hit in a recession or whatever, but that just gets us back to the original position: the company has a minimum amount of loyalty to me, and, in return, I have a minimum amount of loyalty to the company.

In the face of a major recession, execs are not laying off to 'goose the stock' they are adjusting to the situation.

Of course it does happen, but in the grand scheme of corporate development across all industries, it's not hugely common.

There is a difference between 'loyalty' and 'doing a good job'.

It's not expected that companies will keep contractors for the long term, but they still would be expected to 'do a good job'.

And of course companies do not lay off talented people unless they have to - that makes no sense.

Even the most darkly cynical and Machiavellian Execs will try to keep talent if they can, otherwise, they can't make money. So more appropriately, employees will at least be held onto to the extent that they materially create value.

But again, even in that context 'Do A Good Job'.

Honestly, if even it's a crap company, it still makes sense to 'Do A Good Job'. Even in the face of grind.

The only time I think it makes sense to 'not' do a good job, is where it would be truly utterly futile or illegal etc..

If someone is in a bad situation, they can eventually move on to where their 'good work' is more appreciated / better compensated.

Loyalty isn't a huge requirement, but doing good work is.

My current employer, fortunately, does. Even before COVID, they were flexible w.r.t. work from home, and the management is more than willing to let you do your thing as long as you're delivering results. I will, and have, repaid that flexibility by going above and beyond in handling issues that weren't strictly my responsibility, working late on more than one occasion to ensure that deliverables got out the door in time.

However, I have had the misfortune for working for less understanding management. I've had management say, with a straight face in a team meeting, "If you're working from home, you ain't working." I've worked for management that openly ridiculed employees who had to take time off for family medical emergencies. You can be sure that, in those situations, I clocked out exactly when I considered my shift over.

The former is the employer's problem and as far as the latter, I assume in this discussion that the employee isn't committing borderline or outright fraud with respect to the job description laid out in the contract. Considering how many people get hired to do flex work like security guards or to deprive competitors of talent, plenty of employers are aware of this dynamic.

However, my goodwill only goes as far as "at will" employment protects me, which isn't very much.

Something tells me that the commenters in this thread who are defending the idea of working hard just for the good fuzzy feelings have never been through a bad layoff.

If those sound like awfully specific examples, they are. Each one of them actually happened to someone I know.

Nobody has that objective except the very passionate. A company will happily do a shitty job if it will still get paid. See IBM. See Facebook and Google on customer support.

> Doing the 'bare minimum' to keep a job is actually generally far under-performing

My manager hasn’t seemed to notice that I work a 1/3 of what I used to now.

This is very cynical and pretty much wrong.

I would put that attitude probably in the bottom 20%. I think most people want to do a good job.

It's also kind of toxic because unfortunately it spreads.

'Doing a good job' frankly, often does not even mean working harder, from a lower-performing perspective it usually just means actually paying more attention and being more conscientious.

And yes - in a large corporate situation, it's very often sometimes to feel the impact, be recognized etc. etc. - but that shouldn't dissuade from basic professionalism.

If you're truly only 1/3 as productive, your manager surely notices, but there's probably little they can do about it. It may not be to their benefit to even try to fix it.

This is what I mean by systematic decline - this is how bridges never get built, and they go 10x over budget.

This is why NASA spends $200 Billion on only a few launches.

It's why Ford/GM can't innovate.

What Space X and Tesla are doing is in some ways spectacular, but in other ways, they are just doing what they are supposed to, and they can, because people are just doing their jobs.

Life is a giant Prisoner's Dilemma. We can all spend our time trying to do the minimum, or even taking the cream off the top while nobody is looking, in which case, when everyone starts doing that it all comes down - or - we can try to be consistently conscientious.

I'd buy that most people want to do a good job. I doubt very much that many care much about doing so, beyond what's necessary or what they expect to gain them greater compensation, at the job they do to earn money to pay the bills. Everyone I know with even a little of that "spark" has had it extinguished by experience. Usually before they're 30. Most reserve their good work for things that pay little or nothing. They care a lot more about that.

For real, If there is any single problem with the world its people doing too much. The oceans didn't fill with plastic from people sleeping in. The air didn't fill with CO2 because people clocked out early on Fridays.

Take a step back and look at life. Why should it even be work? Do birds sow seeds? Are monkeys bad programmers? Or, are they just monkeys?

So many, especially systematic problems would be much better resolved when people did their jobs a little better.

Montreal just built a rail line for $500M that may likely become redundant. That's bad, it matters. It's mostly a leadership / management problem of course.

The basic structure of small consistent pay bumps was extremely effective when people stayed at companies for decades. Work twice as hard and make 2 percent more for the next 30 years, that’s a big bump. Pensions pushed that out so even people nearing retirement still had reason to care.

I am not recommending people do the minimum, just acknowledging how people respond to incentives.

So I’m basically just vegetating until I quit.

That's an extreme example, but even in a "good" system, management is notoriously blind to the actual value of an engineer. In a perfect system, performance could be measured empirically and compensation would be based on that. But no one on earth has figured that out yet, and something tells me they never will.

Imagine a world in which it's very difficult to assess performance, because that's often the reality.

How does this system flourish if everyone is doing the minimum / least?

It doesn't. It fails.

'Do A Good Job'.

That the performance reviews say are a secondary factor.

If you all stop doing good work, it will fall apart quickly and you will all be poor.

I'm replying late, but wow, this is a gem of an argument.

Really? The economic incentives that create this lucrative field in the first place are all gonna collapse if devs realize they don't need to bust ass at their job anymore? It's amazing that you think the individual work ethic of engineers is the only thing holding the tech economy together.

To give an example, at one of my previous jobs, for several years in a row I was noted by my managers as being a high performer and someone who would be ready for leadership. Despite this, I got an average (you did good but that's it) performance rating, because only a few people could get the higher rating. The first year I had just joined so I was excluded by default, the second/third year other people ranked higher and because that rating only went to about 2 people, I missed out. When after this my manager approached me about a lead role, which was extra responsibility but no extra pay, I was pretty much done.

When I was in my 20s-30s I hated people who seemed like they checked out, but I understand that a lot more now. Again, I'll do a good job regardless and if I don't get rewarded for that, I'll find the door and go elsewhere, but I completely understand why people who don't have that luxury or drive would rather keep their heads down and just go through the motions.

So you 'did a good job' and the company maybe indicated there was a future for you, but they couldn't fulfill it. That's not hugely nice.

But can you fathom for a minute that it seems your peers were doing 'An Even Better Job' and perhaps better suited for advancement? At least in the eyes of the company?

Put on your 'Management Hat' for a moment and understand that maybe it's unfortunate you thought there was an opportunity where there was not, but that those kinds of indications are fleeting anyhow.

Someone thought they were going to Lead the League in Scoring until it turns out they didn't.

At very least, despite the companies misrepresentation, a lack of professional maturity for young devs. to assume that 'hope' is a guarantee of anything. When you're a manager, you're a manager, before that, it's all talk.

This scenario isn't even a 2 out of 10 in terms of the mistreatment or misappropriation of employees - it's just a mostly normal thing that happens in noisy channels.

Maybe they were thinking of advancing you - someone else came along. That's life.

I'm glad you seem to want to 'Do A Good Job' regardless, but it should be noted that you're not comped for future prospects of advancement. So in this situation just 'Doing A Good Job' would be an expectation of the job. Not some thing you do on the condition of some future event.

If you are mistreated, obviously, that's not good, and it's the company leadership 'Not Doing a Good Job' but I don't see a strong indication of anything other than normal operations here.

Trust and loyalty are 2 way streets, the social contract has been broken by corporations

What’s the alternative, against their will employment? That sounds like it would suck all around.

This is universally how people with actual leverage (i.e. high performing athletes, Fortune 500 C-level execs, etc) get paid.

There is generally surplus value in any exchange of goods or services that benefits both parties.

Some people insist that if the employer captures it, they have stolen it from the employee, and others think that if the employee captures it, they have stolen it from the employer.

The fact is, it's up for grabs, and what I think is salient morally, is that neither party created it alone.

(I'm making an assumption here that you're not big on Marxism, I guess—maybe you do agree with both propositions)

"If I make a penny my boss makes a dime, that's why I shit on company time."

And, pretty much all of those deviations from theory end up going against workers and in favor of employers. Labor markets aren't truly free because most people can't afford to just quit their job one day, then walk across the street to their former employer's competitor and negotiate a more suitable contract. Health insurance is so expensive that most people probably couldn't afford the amount of coverage they need without the subsidy their employer provides. Meanwhile, employers get away with stuff like union busting, just like Amazon is accused of doing, because "punishable by fine" really means "perfectly legal, as long as you have enough money," so that regulatory fines get treated like just another "cost of doing business."

Is it any wonder the only narrative about the employer/employee relationship we ever hear is the one that's favorable to the more powerful side?

Second - professionals have incredible power and market wages are what they are. Most corporations do not profit in some exceptionally linear way beyond employees.

The 'Giant Lie' is that corporations are some magical entities that collect magic surpluses and shareholders and owners run off or private jets.

The vast majority of companies are not hugely profitable, and most small and mid-sized one's are not. Especially not in some disproportionately 'non linear' way.

Stock prices may be crazy - and those who trade stocks may or may not be making bank - but that's a very odd historical situation we have where shares are trading at absurd levesl relative to profits. That's a market 'dysfunction that may or may not be around for a while that some people managed to make money from, like Bitcoin, it's just a Ponzi-ish thing that has happened.

Corporations are not drowning in profits, and White Collar employees soak up the vast majority of corporate spending.

FYI everything I'm saying applies to mostly white collar professionals, for unskilled labour it's a different story.

First - side point - I didn't indicate that people should be outputting 'maximum work quality effort'. Just 'Doing A Good Job'.

Second - more salient - yes, comp is a big factor, I understand that, but it's a little bit of a marginal issue among professionals.

For workers who can reasonably negotiate a salary beyond the prevailing labour wage, it should be assumed they have market value commensurate on some level with their value.

Corporations are not some vast powerful entities that absorb all the surpluses for their shareholders. It's risky for them.

I would argue that White Collar professionals are in fact absorbing most of the surpluses.

Google could lay off 1/2 it's staff and still make just as much money.

Your point becomes much more relevant when the power asymmetry is stark, when employees have no differentiable skills or power like Amazon employees.

For them, yes, it's a different discussion around regulations, unions etc. and only when those basics are satisfied would it be fair to implore workers to consistently 'Do A Good Job'. But for processionals, it should be a matter of very basic integrity.

Employees are never paid for the marginal value they provide, because for among other reasons, there’s no such thing. You could come up with an infinite number of different ways to calculate that, which could all produce a different value. An employee is either paid something close to the equilibrium price for the labour they’re offering, or something close to the average equilibrium price of all employed union members, if they’re a union member.

Fighting over surpluses is a very healthy dynamic, it’s a mechanism for individuals and organisations to understand the importance of each other’s contribution, produce price signals and improve the efficiency of the system. Instead pretending that a salary negotiated 10 years ago still matches the value of my contribution produces all sorts of distortions (eg productive employees being blocked in less productive organisations).

Isn’t doing the minimum exactly the same as the company paying workers the least amount they can get away with?

I just hope it doesn't mean HN is transforming into Reddit, with all the zero sum game people scaring and demotivating each other.

Then like the cops in the prisoners game you are tricking yourself at playing the zero sum game because of trust issues.

I personally have not seen much correlation between pay working hard and getting pay raises, it seems about as likely as getting one for doing the minimum, and the effort to dollars ratio is usually not worth while. I don't want to put in 50% more effort only to get a 5-10% raise. Plus, as stated before, switching jobs results in much bigger pay increases making the raises irrelevant.