Tech Sucks
Confessions from a Disaffected Worker in the Midst of Many, Many Layoffs
Working in tech was an accident. I didn’t fall in love with the sleek Apple aesthetic as a urbane, hipster 20-something. I’m not a programmer or good at math nor do I particularly care about “innovation.” (In fact, I’m starting to detest it.) I’m a literary nerd, at heart. (Shocker.)
Tech was never my dream job. In high school, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were treated like secular business gods, but that never appealed to me. I wandered into tech after getting a masters in writing (like an idiot), and desperately wanting to make enough to make rent. (A noble goal.) Now, eight years into an accidental career later, I’m ready to share my conclusion.
Tech sucks. And not in a small way.
Granted, I don’t work for a big name. I work for a moderate-sized tech company that occupies a niche so small most people don’t know what I do for a living. (And for that, I can only say, thank god. People who work for big tech companies have worse PTSD.) However, I am enough of an expert to say one thing with my whole chest.
Tech is morally bankrupt, sure, but anyone who cares about morals was left to die on a rock with circling seagulls, so what do we care?
Tech sucks and is stupid.
But how can you say that? Is this another victim of a recent layoff, unable to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation and embittered by a few bad experiences. Well, first of all, no, not yet. Second of all, a little bit, kind of. Thirdly . . .
Tech sucks.
I consider myself reasonably bright. I’m a hard fucking worker (Midwestern, ex-protestant), and I do more than my fair share of work. Like an idiot, I went to school for writing, because no one’s going to teach robots how to write anytime soon. (Spoiler alert, it was one of the first things they taught the robots to do and now everyone in my industry in panicking.) I am not unique in that regard. The constant threat of automation is real. Even the engineers are sweating at this point.
You might think this is a problem with AI. And, yes, in fact, it is. But AI is more the petrol someone threw on an out of control fire on a garbage island floating out in the Pacific. Tech is morally bankrupt, sure, but anyone who cares about morals was left to die on a rock with circling seagulls, so what do we care? What I take issue with most is that it’s dumb, boring, and staggeringly ineffective. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s take a little walk through my job history.
I’ve worked at three tech startups so far. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “tech startup,” has Latin roots which means, “to make no money.” Basically, a bunch of investors (people who seem to make all their decisions via putting up pictures and throwing them at dart boards) are going to keep beating a dead horse a little longer until it delivers on the proof of concept. Or, maybe it’ll all go bankrupt and somehow they’ll still retain some of that investment, possibly through taxes. I don’t know, I don’t claim to understand it.
What this means for the day-to-day of a tech worker, is you’re under pressure to perform, to do really, really good. To make long complicated lists about your goals and hopes and dreams and how they tie into the grand vision of the company. If you work really really hard, and show up for your company and treat your coworkers you won’t get a sizable raise. Image and ego stroking are the only things that matter.
Tech executives are the dumbest people in existence. Not all of them. Occasionally you get a once in a lifetime/generational talent. There are some who are generally smart and competent and kind to their workers (I’ve met at least 2-3). More often than not, they’re people who went to fancy schools, have rich parents, or have sweet-talked themselves into the role through sheer force of will. (This type is much less common.)
I am of the opinion that CEOs are the dumbest people alive. Most CEOs I’ve met shouldn’t be allowed to order their own food at a restaurant, let alone be responsible for the livelihoods of people who depend on them. Are there good, honest, hard-working executives out there who actually seem to be smart and know what they’re talking about? A few. And those people are diamonds in the rough and their teams will follow them to their deaths. Because most of them are narcissist pieces of shit. Which, let’s be clear, would be fine. If they were smart. Or good at their jobs. Or cool. Or had any redeeming qualities.
They don’t.
Harsh, you say. I’m being mean. Yes, I am. Because behind every press release with a smiling man or woman in a business suit talking about their secret to financial success, is a trail of broken lives of the people they laid off to make that happen.
To make a business profitable, to go public, to get bought out, to make any kind of money, you have to make the product worse, the workforce smaller, and squeeze as much profit out. There’s a term for this. MVP, which stands for the Minimum Viable Product. It’s the shittiest possible thing you can get people to pay for without them rioting in the streets.
And why does this matter? Why do we care? Do we care? I care. I care a lot. Because a lot of people give their time, money, and resources to make this happen. Sometimes, globally. You work with people in another country who make 1/10th of your salary (not an exaggeration, I looked it up), who get treated even shittier than you do. You make friendships. Get involved in their lives. And then they get let go. Sometimes it’s because of performance. Sometimes it’s because they pissed off the wrong person. Sometimes it’s for no reason at all.
Sometimes you’re the one who gets let go. It’s easy come, easy go with these things. If you’re in the country with more labor laws, you cost more but there are more potential risks to firing you out of the blue. And that’s how tech companies see you. When they say AI won’t take jobs, it’s bullshit. They salivate at the idea of replacing you with something easier, cheaper. They resent you for the money they have to pay to you. They underpay you, lie about it, and gaslight you. If you wanted to unionize or even fight back, you’d be gone in a heartbeat.
These people will leave you to die. Make no mistake about that.
And this, to be clear, is at the good tech companies. This is at companies that aren’t overtly racist, sexist, whatever “ist” you want to pick. This is at the companies where you don’t have to lie to cover your boss’ ass. This is in a country with some (but not enough) protections from labor. Your colleagues overseas have it even worse or better depending on where they are, but neither of you have any power when the axe comes down.
I’ve never had a chance to join a union in my life. And a union (which I support, btw) is just the mere possibility of protection depending on the situation. The law is complicated and takes time and doesn’t factor in missed pay checks.
All I have is my likeability and competence. Being one of the top performers means surviving the first three rounds of layoffs, but will you survive the fourth?
And what is it all for? What does all the destruction and madness and destruction signify? Fuck all. To aid in some niche layer of a thing that can do a thing for bureaucratic nonsense. Maybe a product that can fulfill some requirements of compliance. (In those companies lucky enough to have regulation of any kind).
No one has any sense of scale either. Whenever I see low level people betray each other for a raise of $1,000 a year, I find it pathetic. This ain’t Goldman Sachs, bitch, where do you think you are? People in mid-level payroll providers will sell each other out like they’re Leo DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street. They never got around to the end of that movie. They assume it ends well for him.
As for the rest of us, we get drunk at the yearly company meeting and put our stories together and count on our fingers how many months of salary we can count on or if it’s time to jump ship. Do you swim to shore or try to make it to the next port?
And it sucks, because a lot of us are smart. We have ideas and thoughts, and if we had something real to work on, something that mattered, god who knows what we could accomplish. But jobs where you get to work on something that you care about are even more expensive and jobs that serve the public come with a near 100% burnout rate. So you choose the lesser of 10 evils and pray to get past the automated screening system.
Tech sucks because it’s a massive waste of time and resources and it’s destroying the planet.
Tech sucks because the CEOs who make the big decisions are sociopaths who describe loving their children as being “neurochemically hacked.”
Tech sucks because you have to play the game and pretend you care and say the buzzwords so you and your dogs don’t get thrown out in the cold for another month.
Tech sucks because it compromises your soul.
Tech sucks because it takes your youth and vitality and joie de vivre and doesn’t even want you to write anymore, because having a human write an email just takes too much fucking time.
Tech sucks because it is the center of moral decay and a complete waste of time and energy. If Silicon Valley sunk into the sea it’d be no great loss, but they’d just underpay people from Hyderabad to take over their jobs the next day.
Tech sucks. As much as it will financially destroy me, I pray the AI bubble bursts any day now. I’ve become like the middle aged men who worked at manufacturing factories that I thought I was better than in my 20s. Trying to stay relevant one more day. Trying to make it to something approaching retirement. A fate I thought I escaped by going to “college” and learning “a skill.” Something that doesn’t matter anymore. Because they don’t want it to. Because people with skills can argue for better salaries.
Tech sucks, and soon as I can figure out an exit strategy that still lets me pay my bills I’ll be gone and never look back. Or I’ll stay half-sunk in this swamp until the day I stop drawing breath.
Because my dogs and loved ones have to eat, and I have parents to see through old age, and people count on me. Many miles to go before I sleep, and all that jazz.
Johnny Silverhand said it best in Cyberpunk 2077.
“I saw corps strip farmers of water ... and eventually of land. Saw them transform Night City into a machine fueled by people’s crushed spirits, broken dreams and emptied pockets. Corps’ve long controlled our lives, taken lots... and now they’re after our souls! V, I’ve declared war not because capitalism’s a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by. This war’s a people’s war against a system that’s spiralled outta our control. It’s a war against the fuckin’ forces of entropy, understand? Do whatever it takes to stop ‘em, defeat ‘em, gut ‘em. If I gotta kill, I’ll kill. If I need your body, I’ll fuckin’ take it! Fuckin’ hell ... You still don’t see it. But you will one day.”
-Johnny Silverhand, Cyberpunk 2077
Is there hope? Of course, there is. There is always hope. As long as you and I are on our own two feet (or sitting or whatever), there’s hope left and life to live and a chance to get out of this never ending rat race.
But not for tech. Let it burn. Let it all burn. When we’re done, maybe we can talk about making something that actually matters.
Tech has become a means to permit overreach into personal data and its a big problem since overreach is for wanting control. Anyway, it needs a major overhaul and maybe just outlaw it unless its used for the health and well being of the planet.
The tech world was insanity. The vaporware of middleware. The accounting tricks and investment schemes. I “did well” but I hated it. I also think we’d be better off without most of it.