Thank you for this kind reply; I needed it this morning.

I’m a bit perturbed by the overlap of “toxic-tech-broism” and authoritarian support; to a point where I sometimes want to escape corporate tech all together. I’ve posted a while ago on Beehaw asking how to transition from corporate to a possibly non-profit or government job instead; but my battery for this effort is depleted right now. There is an end in sight within a few months for this project, and my plan is to find a different job with a more progressive team hopefully.

May you also find peace in your own journey in this world; it’s nice to know it’s not a lonely route.

Recently learned that an individual who is causing the most strife and division on my team is super hard-core MAGA Trumper. It really brings a clearer picture on why he is attacking I and the other women on the team and why those he hired are only white men. I’m already nervous about the upcoming election, but to see a supporter so emboldened in his views in the workplace gives me a more in-your-face view of how these people want their day-to-day.

The scary thing is, this is legit how the marketing course I had to take taught the concepts. The whole course was from the perspective that people are too dumb or overburdened to make decisions on what products they should buy, so marketing and ads are our savior to take that oh so hard critical thinking away. I wish I was kidding, but everything about that class felt like “how can we abuse psychology to force people to consume.”

It’s all in effort of “line goes up” in the immediate short-term despite the fact that a year from now these companies are going to struggle to complete difficult projects. My company has layed off a number of 10, 15, 20+ year veterans because they were highly paid. Now there are gaps in knowledgeable folks to tap for help and Juniors are being forced to perform to a Senior level without proper support.

The pandemic growth periods caused every company to loose their damn mind to make growth projections based on those insane numbers for a time that should have been ruled out as an outlier. I know these MBA fucks had to take a business stats class, but literally dropped the fundamentals when they saw big $$$. Now they’re cutting the talent that fostered their primary growth and will be looking back 6 months from now wondering why they still aren’t growing. Well surely the Juniors aren’t working hard enough!

I’ve heard that about charities and non-profits; it’s just the nature of the work they do. I am worried about the grass not exactly being greener if I were to go that route. But at the same time if I found the right one, I know I would feel more motivated for the work if it was for a good cause. I’ve had to put in the crunch and grumble over last minute changes, but it’s one thing if it’s for keeping up with a competitors marketing promo vs assisting a system to support refugees. I like working with people, but I hate it when those people are profit driven.

Thank you for sharing your own experience. While part of me wants completely out of tech, I really think the right company culture plays a role in that. I wouldn’t mind staying in the field if I found something similar to your own job.

Out of curiosity, how did you find your current job? I’m used to using LinkedIn, but I feel it has become very Facebooky and very corporate America. I’ve heard of Dice and Indeed, but haven’t heard if one is better than the other for these types of jobs.

I’m so happy for you! You got this and you’ll do well!

Oblivion is hands-down one of my favorite games I have ever played and I feel it’s a more engaging game than Skyrim was. Sure it has its quirks and certain annoying features that are dated, but it captivated and locked me in way better than Skyrim. It was colorful, weirdly fantastical, and constantly had me going down random rabbit holes that revealed cool surprises! That is the Bethesda quality I desired that made me want to play their games.

If it was 2016 again and I heard this news about ES VI, I would be on the full hype train. But alas, we are post Starfield and I have lost any faith they will actually deliver on a decent follow-up. It was lackluster, boring, and all grey; nothing whimsical that used to draw me to their games. The doubling down on criticism tells me that creative spirit is gone and development has just turned into get the task done with a set time frame.

Best of luck with the bed bug situation!

I sorta started this week wanting a career change, I just don’t know what or how. I’m just so tired of being in tech because I thought it was a stable career path. But now all I see is a drive to crunch, offshore everything, and perpetual layoffs because the predicted growth didn’t hit “expectations” despite record profits. I’ve found a better position in comparison to my old one, but it is so hard to give a damn about “build X feature to deliver Y value” for bullshit things that are just selling services or more of X item.

I’m glad I’ve moved from a purely dev type role to more so project management/product owner stuff, but I hate being responsible for things that feel meaningless. I hate being the person telling devs to keep crunching to build out functionality to allow our product deals to be onnpar with our competitors; woooh developing for over-consumption! Then completely being neutured to pushback because it goes against what the business wants in profits; WLB be damned. I really want to find a way to transfer my skillset to a meaningful non-profit, an actually impactful company (if it exists), or maybe a museum or something else similar. Part of it is I don’t quite know how to make that journey or if those type of jobs are even available in my area.

Prior to Twitter being bought by Musk, I was pretty active on there due to being part of NAFO. Typically I would call out Russian disinformation regarding the invasion of Ukraine, but I noticed some of these Pro-Kremlin accounts had associations with gamergate. One individual had something like “gamergate survivor” in his profile and I proceeded to call him out for it. In came the false narrative and derogatory language, but I’m guessing my shitposting responses got to him. Within minutes of interacting with this guy, someone was trying to get into my account. Fortunately I had MFA setup, but the mere fact that this so called gamergate survivor launched an attempt to hack into my account tells me I struck a cord with him mocking the whole movement. It’s so damn childish.

This feels like the AI equivalent of men telling female workers to smile more. I’m totally sure that bias wasn’t cooked into these algorithms. Honestly, how is this not profiling for neurodiverse individuals?

I live in a very red state and until recently didn’t have the option to just jump to another more progressive state. But I also recognize that the ability to just jump ship is a privilege that the majority do not have. Even now I am on the fence because this is still my home where I have grown roots. The issue is those who decided to abstain or vote 3rd party in 2016 allowed for the rise of Trump. From there SCOTUS became a right-wing powerhouse and Roe was overturned. If Hillary had won in 2016, SCOTUS would have been provided justices who would not have taken that action. As much as I disliked Hillary, I knew she was the safer choice when it came to my reproductive rights and the rights of other minorities.

I cannot for the life of me find a gynecologist that isn’t some crazy pro-lifer obsessed with bAbieZ and the overturning of Roe only has made this worse. I’ve called gynos in my conservative state asking if they’re trauma trained and every damn time they act like they’ve never heard of sexual assault. It’s all talk of how can we get you to have bAbieZ because how dare you want to be a child free woman in such a godly state! How many other women are in my position in similar red states and delaying vital checks for cancer when the only providers want to shame you? All the decent gynos that I would have seeked care from have no desire to practice in a state that is so restrictive on abortion so instead it caters to the extreme.

As much as Biden’s backing of Isreal bothers me, I will still vote for him because the situation above will only get worse for I and other women. There’s also the whole war against Trans and Gay individuals by those on the right, and voting for Biden is another dam preventing their way of life being persecuted federally. The right is itching to hurt or even kill those they do not agree with and abstaining to vote just ushers this possibility to be greater and allow Trump to return.

Buzzwords sell. It’s the same shit in corporate America when they went bonkers for blockchain a few years ago, only to have all that money thrown into “research” flushed down the toilet. Like gee that money should have gone into a higher corporate tax payout versus a fancy headline for shareholders.

Same thing here, but with politicians wanting something buzzy for their next election.