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Silicon Valley Ruined Work Culture
- Thread starter Septimus Prime
- Start date
I am surprised by the sentiment many people are showing here. Sure, forcing people into something they dont want is shitty, but I work at a very modern startup like company since 2 years now and its the best job I will likely ever have. Great tasks, endless possibilities to develop and shape the company, relaxed coworkers and yes we do use the table tennis table during our midday break.
I like it. And all the perks it brings. I still work 40 hours a week with fantastic work life balance. Every once in a Blue moon I'll stay longer for some reason but it barely happens. I work from home 3 days a week, but days on the office are great. Free snacks and half an hour of Smash Bros with co workers is great. I still leave at 5pm sharp every day.
To add some more: 5 weeks of PTO. Benefits. 401k match. Comfy chairs. Two 32 inch monitors in the office. Ergonomic mouses and keyboards. Noise cancelling headphones. We have a shuffle board and table tennis. Free coffee and soft drinks. Very well paid. Amazing cutting edge projects. It's fantastic.
To add some more: 5 weeks of PTO. Benefits. 401k match. Comfy chairs. Two 32 inch monitors in the office. Ergonomic mouses and keyboards. Noise cancelling headphones. We have a shuffle board and table tennis. Free coffee and soft drinks. Very well paid. Amazing cutting edge projects. It's fantastic.
Dito. Its still what you make of it, but the hellish painting people see to have of it in their heads is rather baffling to me.
Lot of the whole point of making workplace feels like a fun place like google or facebook is to keep you in the office longer. Idea is to merge work and home imo.
Thats not entirely true though. Sure its a perk for a company and some might exploit that (which is bad), but its also mostly about finding a work structure that actually leaves you comfortable, trusted and focussed without feeling tied to your chair and being afraid someone will snitch on you for looking at your phone for 5 minutes or standing in the kitchen to talk with a colleague.
You can have that type of structure while still having clear rules about no overtime. What is the negative then? I really think its the way to go forward by educating your own employees to better prioritize their time and focus, while giving them a space that allows and facilitates growth.
Feels like envy to me, sour grapes and all. Or a total lack of experience with the reality of what it's like working here. Either way it feels ignorant.
Our company actually tries to educate on and facilitate that type of culture shift for companies in our state and its amazing the kind of positive impact it can have on companies and employees. So I can see some people either a) having bad experiences in a shitty company or b) not having much experience with that type of work.
Shitty companies are still shitty though, no matter the structure.
edit: well and to be fair c) There are people who obviously arent the type for that style of working, and thats alright. Not everyone needs to like every approach and its no different here. Just still a bit baffled by the vocal majority here screaming about this dystopian hellscape.
You just described half of Era. People will flock to anti work or anti capitalism threads like zombies. They will read snippets of the article and post their opinion with little sense in reality. *shrugs*
I'll just drink my free coffee and play Smash in a few minutes with my co workers.
I love my free coffee and beer and chilling with coworkers after work is done.
Ah, the table Tennis is neat too.
Ah, the table Tennis is neat too.
I made a career switch from financial services pushing 80+ hours a week sometime.
I think I enjoy my 45 hour weeks with free breakfast, lunch, and snacks. I also enjoy not having to wear a suit or button down every day.
I think I enjoy my 45 hour weeks with free breakfast, lunch, and snacks. I also enjoy not having to wear a suit or button down every day.
I worked in start ups for many many years, in silicon valley and elsewhere, and I think the work environment in most startups is horrible.
It's fine to disagree, but I don't think you should assume that anyone who doesn't share your view about that culture is envious or ignorant.
Yah, I guess my experience has been overwhelmingly at companies that do it well and treat their workers really well. Ironically, it's a lot of the same companies ERA loves to hate. I do agree though, I could not possibly go back to an "old school" corporate environment; it does not fit or jive with me at all and feels extremely unproductive and full of useless, backwards practices. I feel so much happier and more satisfied with work since I got int otech.
Pretty much, and ERA does the same with the games industry, which is near and dear to me. Know very little, but like to talk and judge a whole lot.
Sipping on some great kombucha right now with a side of apple chips, while getting ready for some delicious free lunch with my awesome coworkers followed by arcade shenanigans and some afternoon meetings.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Same!
Sure, maybe it's not a great fit for you. Calling it a toxic work environment since you didn't like it or had bad experiences with a particular set of companies or because an article says so is also wrong. Anecdotally, everyone I know out here is quite happy.
Nah, its heavily influenced by those companies. Companies have always tried to squeeze more time out of their workers for free before these recent technological advances; even before smartphones you had beepers.
That said, the current trend is to copy silicon valley's 'work culture' and why not? They are the current big industries of the US, and they have found a successful way of selling these perks as employee benefits when at the end of the day it's just a sneaky way of getting more hours out of them. Those beers/snacks, etc...are cheaper then overtime.
I think the bigger problem is that it's not a great fit for single parents, women, people who has to take care of a sick family member, people with certain medical conditions, people of certain personality types etc.
I did fine.
Also, not anecdotally, research showed that there is few things people regret more later in life than working too much. But research also show that long work hours hurt productivity, so it's not like SV is going to start give a fuck about what research says about its work culture.
I don't think most demanding jobs or careers are a good fit for the spectrum of workers you mentioned, why would Silicon Valley be any different? Not every industry is a good fit for every person. I've actually found most of my workplaces to be way, way more accommodating (extended parental leave, day care benefits, generous health insurance, leave of absence to take care of immediate family, medical accommodations and extended health benefits) than traditional companies towards basically all the groups of people you mentioned.
Very fortunate to be in the same position as well. It helps that I'm part of a small company too where everyone is close knit.
I think you assume that those jobs requires those long hours and that type of work cultural that currently exist in SV, and I wholeheartedly reject that premise.
I have tried very hard throughout my career to have the people who work for me stick mostly to 40 hours, and let me tell you, it can be hard, but not because I couldn't compete with other teams or companies on productivity, but because there is a whole lot of people in the industry who believe in long work hours and a very specific style of management as an article of faith.
I personally think taking a small hit to productivity in order to increase your workforce diversity in exclusivity is really worth it, especially since most of SV is not exactly working on curing cancer, but I don't think you even need to make that choice really.
p.s.
You know they used to write code before the dot com era, right? this is not the only way to develop software and there is no evidence that this is better (quite the opposite actually).
My issue isn't with there being fun thing in the office, I enjoy free food, fun activities, beer in my office, etc..but it's not worth it for a company that makes the actual work culture toxic, which mine does not. I think a poster said it earlier. 98% of all companies suck regardless of SV. But its starting to feel like a trend that companies can put decorations on top of bad work environments.
I recently went to my brothers office and it's an awesome time, food, drinks, robots, games, they go all out. The place has all the trappings of a SV type company. But they have such terrible crunch, intense one-upmanship on hours put in, terrible work deadlines, it's just not worth it. He works 75+ hours a week and all the arcade machines in the hallway don't make that better.
heh tbh this is not far from the kind of critiques I'd get.. "No one's gonna listen to you in your blue hat!"
o of course the lead designer who thinks of themselves as steve jobs has none of the technical knowhow the nearest junior designer would, fancies themselves like mr ipod - it's poetic how fitting it is, really.
also all the posts about the fooseball and whatnot in the studio - yes they're designed to have you stay at work longer, but they're also built as managerial traps. people start noticing the ones who use the arcade machine or attend beer-fridays frequently, and they can start using that to say you're not working hard enough.
"company culture" kool-aid is wild innit. if a studio i'm interviewing for touts their "culture" nonstop with their cereal bars and sleep nooks, but doesn't really mention work-life balance, it's become a big red flag for me.
I would agree with this with the caveat that the manager/team has a bigger impact than the overall company.
I wouldn't say envy so much as a lack of experience/knowledge about what is common and what is a stereotype.
All you Silicon Valley tech bros have it pretty good. I know a lot of people working in finance in New York and it sounds like a hell hole. They basically demand 60 hour weeks. Gotta dress sharp. No frills.
Silicon Valley smokes weed and microdoses psychadelics.
New York City you just do cocaine to keep up.
Silicon Valley smokes weed and microdoses psychadelics.
New York City you just do cocaine to keep up.
I love how it's always the worst companies that have the fanciest presentations about how they're committed to improve work life balance (I hate that term) and they have all these advanced metrics to track that. As if this is some complicated problem we need AI to solve.
Please
Once again, good thing we exempted those companies from most overtime regulations. Thanks, Clinton.
Same. I've flexed on that a little in the past, but usually only when work was flexing back.
I appreciate your cynicism, but I think it is slightly off the mark. Many of the perks are not about getting current employees to spend more hours working; they're about attracting and retaining talent.
There is a lot of competition over labor in SV, and offering good perks is a significantly cheaper way of convincing people to choose your company than getting into a salary bidding war.