This IT Presentation just made me Sad (Recruiting GIANTS)

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**Compel**

So yeah, I read this article from Alex St. John (one of the creators of DirectX) at the weekend and, yeah, working in the software industry, I've just ended up feeling, pretty much gigantically disheartened with the whole mess. Fortunately being in the UK, we're somewhat protected from the worst of it all but even then, I hear about things that sound a little bit too close to home, even though I work in general IT rather than specifically games development.

So, original presentation is here: http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/download/Recruiting%20Giants.pdf

But, I'll quote anyway. Mostly because I hate the whole, comment-and-link thing and, also, well, I kinda don't want to add more traffic to the site.

Spoiler:

Alex St. John wrote:

State of the Market
• Huge WW competition for talent
• Any CS degree has a job
• Rapid churn in employees
• Big players with bottomless pockets for top performers
• Spoiled kids who know their value
• A sea of floating mediocrity
• Poor work-ethic and shipping discipline (Educated idiot syndrome)

Who are you really recruiting and retaining?
RULE 1: You don’t recruit and retain male engineers you recruit and
retain Wives and Girlfriends
• If the wife or GF is unhappy the engineer is gone
• If the relationship breaks down the engineer is gone
• The paycheck goes to HER
• Why does SHE want her husband or BF to work for you?

Coding is NEVER work, it’s a calling
RULE 2: Coding is NOT WORK
• People who think it is… aren’t real software engineers
• Real engineers want a team and a mission that requires long hours and
sacrifice.
• Real engineers want to live in “the zone”
• Real engineers want to be accomplishing great things through technology
• Real engineers don’t burn out until their wives or GF’s do.
• Real engineers want to be constantly challenged
High expectations, long hours, new challenges and a customer/market
driven mission are motivating for real engineers.

The Artificial Deadline
RULE 3: Software is abstract and impersonal, engineers are motivated
by tangible goals
• You ship happy customers not software
• You are accountable to customers not dates or requirements
• Use your customers and your market to help you ship great software and
reward your engineers for their MARKET achievements
*How DirectX got shipped

Incentives
Real engineers don’t value money, they value their relationships and their
achievements
• The unexpected bonus
• The money is for the wife or GF, they don’t “feel” income. Consistent income is
taken for granted, they feel “Change in income”. Bursts of unexpected bonuses for
achievement and long hours work well while controlling overall compensation costs.
• The “key-man bonus”. Privately offer your leaders achievement bonuses for the
success of a project, everyone else will FOLLOW their lead.
• GIANTS can be worth 10X-20X ordinary engineers… are they compensated
like it?
• Stock Option Programs
• Bonus Programs
• Potential money is worth more than actual money. Progressive retention programs

Incentives
The customer, peer or executive review
• What do you do to make them feel that their work and contributions are
important/relevant/noticed?
Team Mobility
• Engineers want to change jobs for new challenges, to learn new skills or to
dress their resume’s.
• Organizations composed of specialists are fragile. Cross-training people and
keeping internal mobility high makes the organization more resilient to churn
and less likely to experience unmanaged churn.

Managed Churn
People are going to move on, be in control of the terms and timing of
their departure.
• Have employee reviews consistently under scheduled conditions. Doing this
“synchronizes” departures around circumstances favorable to the business.
• Make sure your people know the definition of “departure on good terms”
• Between projects, NOT in the middle of a project
• With plenty of heads-up to their manager
• With a smooth handoff to a successor
• On positive terms with no negative influence to co-workers
• After 3+ productive years at the company
• Reward “Departure on good terms”

Part 2

Spoiler:

Alex St. John wrote:
The Young the Old and the Useless
• Nothing beats youth for speed and innovation
• Hire for passion, persistence and IQ. (grades, experience, etc. who cares, people with
passion, persistence and IQ will learn)
• Work them “too hard” it’s good for them and the only way they get seasoned
• Get them as interns while early in college if possible
• No entrenched bad habits, haven’t learned wage-slave mentality yet, don’t need to be untaught…

• 5 kids/old mentor engineer is about right
• Be on the look out for the holy-grail… the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found
on open source forums)
• They have no social skills
• They generally marry the first girl they date
• Can’t make eye contact
• Resume and educational background is a mess… because they have no social skills
• They work like machines, don’t engage in politics, don’t develop attitudes and never change jobs

The Old Goats
Seasoned veteran's, married, 9 kids, severely battle scarred, seen and
done it all… need balance in their dotage
• The good ones are often deeply entrenched in big organizations where they
are very well paid and difficult to pry out. They’re too “comfortable” to
recruit, or they can afford to do whatever they like.
• Can’t be recruited with money… can be recruited with a lifestyle change… and
a challenge
• Make great mentors for kids
• Offset the expense of hiring them by hiring a lot of junior engineers to work
for them

The Useless
Wage slaves… Hate em!
• Sandwiched between the young and untainted and the grizzled war veterans is a
vast sea of The MEDIOCRE. Mediocrity comes in all shapes and sizes but the most
troublesome form is from people who have ACCEPTED it.
• They know their market value and perform exactly to it and no more
• They are opportunistic about dressing their resumes or getting a 5% raise by job hopping
• “Balance” is their priority in life… they see their job as WORK that they need to do in order to
pay their bills and pursue the interests that they are ACTUALLY passionate about
• They are generally specialists who have stopped learning. They have entrenched habits and
attitudes that can’t be changed.
• The can cost more to have on a team than the incompetent because it’s often more work to
fire them than it is to manage around them and they are proficient at lingering near the
boundary of productivity.

The “Educated Idiot”
A great number of kids have grown up having never had a menial job, had to earn and/or
sacrifice for something they wanted, played a team sport, or faced adversity they’ve
overcome. They enter the work force with spoon fed educations, prestigious degrees, an
inflated sense of their own value and a disastrous work-ethic.
These kids are characterized by;
• A tendency rationalize their first failures as victimization
• Give up and quit easily
• Quick to adopt “wage-slave” habits
• Develop sour attitudes towards their job and employers
• Difficult to mentor or challenge
• Inability to focus or finish
These kids are often highly sought after and snatched up by traditional employers right out
of college… you don’t want them… Look elsewhere for the self starters that have struggled
to overcome adversity and lack of opportunity, they are much more valuable and loyal if
you can find them.

The NOT male engineers…
1. Technical women are often quickly promoted for a
variety of reasons
• Stronger social skills make them better managers
• Better communication skills often make them better
architects, technical writers, QA, or technical support
people
2. There may actually be more female engineers but
nobody can identify them…

Words of advice
• Invest in the young and driven and the seasoned and wise
• Churn and burn to find an “optimal” team
• Avoid Wage-Slaves and Educated Idiots if you can identify them
• Have the discipline to push out the mediocre, it’s nearly impossible to fix an
organization where they have become entrenched
• Don’t waste time managing the weak, you can’t help them
• Recruit and retain the wife or GF
• Non-aspergers technical women are often your best managers and producers
• Don’t promote great nerds unless they really demand it or warrant it, just
compensate your top performers in proportion to their value. They often make
better mentors than managers.
• Long hours and overcoming hardship together binds teams

So, yeah, that happened. Being one of the people that would probably fall in somewhere around "wage-slave" and "educated idiot" I don't think I've ever really felt quite so disheartened about my career, nor the hypothetical thoughts of any management, now or in the future.

**Polonius**

There's a lot of harsh stuff in there, and I'd certainly fire any manager I caught putting that stuff down on paper... but it's not that far off from reality.

Entrenched employees that do the minimum are, if not the worst, difficult to work around.

**Compel**

Yeah, though the concept of, an employee has to be the best around, or should be gotten rid of, isn't the most heartening of concepts.

**ulgurstasta**

Yikes, the open contempt in this is stunning! Really show how they see workers as livestock

**Grimdark**

Alex St. John wrote:
• You ship happy customers not software

BS
Customers are NEVER happy.
The objective is to amicably close the project with a satisfied customer. The customer will never be happy, if only because he had to pay you.

Alex St. John wrote:
Incentives
Real engineers don’t value money, they value their relationships and their
achievements

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I guess I can pay expenses with relationships and achievements? Or the occasional trip after the burnout.

So, yeah, that happened. Being one of the people that would probably fall in somewhere around "wage-slave" and "educated idiot" I don't think I've ever really felt quite so disheartened about my career, nor the hypothetical thoughts of any management, now or in the future.

A wage-slave is exactly what he is looking for (the asperger engineer), at least in the Shadowrun meaning of the term.
I never heard the term 'wage-slave' outside that RPG.

How old are you Compel? How long have you been in IT? This stuff shouldn't get to you.

**Ahtman**

Grimdark wrote:
I never heard the term 'wage-slave' outside that RPG.

I don't recall hearing it in that RPG, but I have heard it outside of it several times before. Now being one of them.

**Polonius**

There's actually pretty compelling evidence in Organizational Behavior which states that people aren't as motivated by salary as you'd think.

Keep in mind, the theory assumes that the salary will be there, and at least within approximate market range. But, research has found that salary is what they call a "hygiene factor," in that workers aren't impressed by it. They require it to even show up, but paying them more is not as likely to build morale as you'd think.

What does build morale, especially among higher functioning employees, is the idea of ownership of the work, of having a say, and of doing something meaningful.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
Grimdark wrote:
I never heard the term 'wage-slave' outside that RPG.

I don't recall hearing it in that RPG, but I have heard it outside of it several times before. Now being one of them.

I've certainly never heard it in the context of highly compensated tech workers. I get the idea: "they work to live" instead of "living to work." Amazon has a pretty similar corporate culture, where they expect crazy hours and total commitment. Not my cup of tea, but to each his own, I suppose.

**kronk**

Polonius wrote:

What does build morale, especially among higher functioning employees, is the idea of ownership of the work, of having a say, and of doing something meaningful.

I'd rather be a Yes-Man, middle manager making mad jack, yo!

**Chongara**

Does this mean I should expect my employer to start finding me dates?

**Compel**

Grimdark wrote:
[
How old are you Compel? How long have you been in IT? This stuff shouldn't get to you.

About 5 years. Yeah, it shouldn't and probably wouldn't normally. Just the fact that it's so, well, blatant and brazen has left me rather, well, disheartened.

**Jihadin**

Holy Crap.....Holy F Crap.......Holy JCrap.....Trump rub on them?

**Grimdark**

Ahtman wrote:
Grimdark wrote:
I never heard the term 'wage-slave' outside that RPG.

I don't recall hearing it in that RPG, but I have heard it outside of it several times before. Now being one of them.

I might be mixing up cyberpunk 2099 and shadowrun again. Aren't the megacorps's workforce called wageslaves?

I also guess it's because people try to be on their best behavior when near a foreigner.

Polonius wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
Grimdark wrote:
I never heard the term 'wage-slave' outside that RPG.

I don't recall hearing it in that RPG, but I have heard it outside of it several times before. Now being one of them.

I've certainly never heard it in the context of highly compensated tech workers. I get the idea: "they work to live" instead of "living to work." Amazon has a pretty similar corporate culture, where they expect crazy hours and total commitment. Not my cup of tea, but to each his own, I suppose.

Crazy hours and total commitment is understandable.
If the project is approaching the end and we've got to put the final nail in the coffin I think it's okay to do it.

Otherwise I don't work in an environment where hours are cheap or disposable.

Compel wrote:
Grimdark wrote:
[
How old are you Compel? How long have you been in IT? This stuff shouldn't get to you.

About 5 years. Yeah, it shouldn't and probably wouldn't normally. Just the fact that it's so, well, blatant and brazen has left me rather, well, disheartened.

More or less the same as me then.

I dunno, it's come to the point where I've achieved a little stability and I can see what's what most of the time.
I still take pride in my trade, so I can be positive and energetic while working.

That stuff is true, though. Just like clients wouldn't call you if they could, it's not like my boss is ecstatic at the prospect of paying me each month.
You don't make money by giving it away

I had the 'opportunity' to do a bit of HR, and(aside from the stuff in the article) we were looking for fresh guys who would have to move here. If single, they don't have many distractions after work for six months. After a year they would have either adapted to the job or in the worst case they would be let go.

**MrMoustaffa**

Yeeesh, really glad I didn't go the tech route. At least with government work they're not looking to actively fire you after a couple years or expect you to devote your life to your job.

It's not a bad thing to like your job if course, but you need to have a life outside of it. You shouldn't be devoting every fibre of your being to a job that is actively trying to churn through employees in particular.

The most painful part is that they know what they're doing, especially in who they're hiring to get the best workers. The sad part is they're learning how to screw these loyal workers over more and more every year. My dad works for a big IT company and the amount of friends and coworkers he's seen get laid off after being loyal to the company for decades is staggering and downright depressing. They're all being rotated out for these younger "temporary" workers, and the only reason my father hasn't been replaced is that his position has to be filled by a experienced worker with experience in leadership and management.

**whembly**

Healthcare IT industry is really a "niched" industry in that IT pie... it's generally very stable and conservative (meaning, we're not at the bleeding edge of tech).

In other IT industries, man... it's gotten cutthroat over the years, but you can pull some bank now working in consulting.

**Wyrmalla**

I invite you to read Tales from the Trenches. I read that and Not Always Right religiously at one point, before my apathy led me to strangling budgies as a hobby...

**Sinful Hero**

Some good ideas for industries other than tech actually.

Mediocre workers who do the bare minimum to not get fired are the worst. Nothing holds a team back for years than that garbage. I've worked with several, and my wife has had to deal with it too. God forbid they get promoted to a team leader position. When you're trying to beat the rain, or just finish a job a day early you can count on that gakhead to slow you down just enough to screw the whole crew over.

**Polonius**

What's really staggering is that the OP article has a problem with wage slaves, or the mediocre, which aren't people that do the minimum to not be fired. He literally defines a problem class of worker as:

"They know their market value and perform exactly to it and no more "

So, his problem is that some people do the work they're paid for, and not more!

**Mario**

Polonius wrote:
So, his problem is that some people do the work they're paid for, and not more!

It's harder to extract value out of your employees if they are trying to do the same for themselves through their own work. He wants loyalty and dedication (80 hours per week would be nice) while offering nothing comparable in return (just the illusion of creating great work).

**Tannhauser42**

Jim Sterling has a few (well, rather a lot) of choice (read: NSFW) words to say regarding Alex St. John's words:

Spoiler:

**chromedog**

Grimdark wrote:
[I might be mixing up cyberpunk 2099 and shadowrun again. Aren't the megacorps's workforce called wageslaves?

Shadowrun called them "Sararimen" (pl. Sarariman - "salaryman" - which has its roots in the then contemporary japanese business culture colloquialisms).

Cyberpunk used a variety of derogatory and semi-derogatory references to corporate slaves (

) I don't think one stood out in particular. BTW, what was cyberpunk:2099? I'm familiar with 2013, 2020 and 203x but 2099?

**LordofHats**

He might be confusing the tabletop with recently the recently announced video game Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red, makers of The Witcher series).

**Mdlbuildr**

The problem with elitist pricks is...well...they're elitist pricks...

I wonder if he refused his paycheck when he was developing DirectX.

**Grimdark**

chromedog wrote:
Grimdark wrote:
[I might be mixing up cyberpunk 2099 and shadowrun again. Aren't the megacorps's workforce called wageslaves?

Shadowrun called them "Sararimen" (pl. Sarariman - "salaryman" - which has its roots in the then contemporary japanese business culture colloquialisms).

Cyberpunk used a variety of derogatory and semi-derogatory references to corporate slaves ( ) I don't think one stood out in particular. BTW, what was cyberpunk:2099? I'm familiar with 2013, 2020 and 203x but 2099?

You're right, it was 2020(never player che original)
Mixed up the cyberpunk and the marvel2099 line

**Fido198674**

Polonius wrote:
There's actually pretty compelling evidence in Organizational Behavior which states that people aren't as motivated by salary as you'd think.

Keep in mind, the theory assumes that the salary will be there, and at least within approximate market range. But, research has found that salary is what they call a "hygiene factor," in that workers aren't impressed by it. They require it to even show up, but paying them more is not as likely to build morale as you'd think.

I hate this crap. My employer lives by this it seems. Were on the bottom end of competitive on pay with other hospitals (waiting to finish school, again, to jump up somewhere else) even thought they will say otherwise. You know who says "Money isn't a big issue or motivator" PEOPLE WITH MONEY.

**treslibras**

From the point of view of someone who has no clue about people and no respect for them either (e.g. start-ups who want to grow aggressively) it often works that way: Pay them gak, make them work really hard and cover it up with a big brush of "being part of The Hippness".

Hmm, looking at Apple. maybe that guy is not that wrong, after all....

But what you are actually doing is putting money in building up employees with promise - and pushing them directly to your competitors once they have reached a certain "maturity". Because some random guy thinks you can keep them in your company shouting SHAKA all the time and being nice to their partners while making them work like monkeys. You are directly financing your competition.

We are very happy to have a lot of "mediocre performers" in our company because they are reliable, trustworthy and loyal. And they do not cry every time they need to do a necessary but routine job. And most projects, especially in IT services, need those qualities much more than ultrahigh performance in programming and no social life. Needless to say, we do not condone regular overtime and overtime accounts are capped at 60 hours.
Regular overtime makes people sick and tired and sad, and we want our people to be healthy, awake&creative and happy to work for us.

Obviously, there are some rotten apples everywhere and serious low performers can drag you down. But the fallout from bad relations/mood between workers, constant turnover and constant stress is much higher than the fallout from individual underperformerance (unless you are notoriously late in your project, and everything depends on that one guy).

Fido198674 wrote:
Polonius wrote:
There's actually pretty compelling evidence in Organizational Behavior which states that people aren't as motivated by salary as you'd think.

Keep in mind, the theory assumes that the salary will be there, and at least within approximate market range. But, research has found that salary is what they call a "hygiene factor," in that workers aren't impressed by it. They require it to even show up, but paying them more is not as likely to build morale as you'd think.

I hate this crap. My employer lives by this it seems. Were on the bottom end of competitive on pay with other hospitals (waiting to finish school, again, to jump up somewhere else) even thought they will say otherwise. You know who says "Money isn't a big issue or motivator" PEOPLE WITH MONEY.

What the studies actually show is that up until a certain amount, your satisfaction and motivation move in correlation with your salary level. If your salary goes beyond that point, your satisfaction does NOT raise in correlation anymore, i.e. the positive effect of "mo' money" becomes much less poignant, and can even lead to a decrease in motivation.

Because money is only a means of access to commodities. And by commodities I do not mean "miniatures" or "food" but existential safety (enough food, shelter etc), safety from insecurity and risks (having to worry about next month or a hospital stay) and social stability (being able to live according to the standards of your peers).

Obviously, you are still far from that point/amount.

**Col. Dash**

Wow. Its and interesting article and makes me glad I do not work in that environment, I don't think they would like us much. I do RF communications(extremely small field, I am one of three people in all of DHS that does the particular job I do) which depending on where you are depends on the level of tech. In government we are mostly 20 years behind and despite having great ideas and forwarding them up, the higher ups do what they want. Myself and some of the FS guys figured out we could save millions upon millions of dollars and increasing efficiency doing a lot of work ourselves(its even in our job description) but higher ups apparently know better and ignore us.

We are definitely repressed and not encouraged to use initiative. We had a genius new guy join us, he was all hardcore, came up with improvements, streamlined some processes and was an absolute winner. He still is the same grade he was when he came in despite his achievements and now has adopted the "do your job and go home" mentality the rest of us have. I would definitely say we are wage slaves. But I have no problem with that, it affords me the hobbies and lifestyle I enjoy which according to that report is not what they are looking for.

More pay would be nice but its not the end all be all. We get plenty of leave so more leave wouldn't be that impressive(wouldn't turn either down though). We leave our work at work and never have OT. I think at least in my organization the biggest boost for morale and incentive to improve productivity would be having people higher actually listen to the SMEs in the field who are actually doing the work instead of just running with half cocked hyper expensive projects.

They actually had a feasibility meeting in DC that the guy I mentioned above went to as a tech SME consisting of a variety of field people from various involved branches to discuss the most effective ways to complete a project. The project manager and his higher ups took the results and went a completely different direction costing tens of millions more. And don't think we are just low level minions, we have 2 masters, an electrical engineering BA and an Information technology BA, with numerous certs and 125+ years of experience between the 5 of us. We know what we are talking about. I digress but that's part of the problem, we have all this and these higher ups, most of whom have never served time in the field or even looked at a radio, think they know more. I don't know what you would call it, not employee appreciation, maybe employee acknowledgement?

**Polonius**

treslibras wrote:
Fido198674 wrote:
Polonius wrote:
There's actually pretty compelling evidence in Organizational Behavior which states that people aren't as motivated by salary as you'd think.

Keep in mind, the theory assumes that the salary will be there, and at least within approximate market range. But, research has found that salary is what they call a "hygiene factor," in that workers aren't impressed by it. They require it to even show up, but paying them more is not as likely to build morale as you'd think.

I hate this crap. My employer lives by this it seems. Were on the bottom end of competitive on pay with other hospitals (waiting to finish school, again, to jump up somewhere else) even thought they will say otherwise. You know who says "Money isn't a big issue or motivator" PEOPLE WITH MONEY.

What the studies actually show is that up until a certain amount, your satisfaction and motivation move in correlation with your salary level. If your salary goes beyond that point, your satisfaction does NOT raise in correlation anymore, i.e. the positive effect of "mo' money" becomes much less poignant, and can even lead to a decrease in motivation.

Because money is only a means of access to commodities. And by commodities I do not mean "miniatures" or "food" but existential safety (enough food, shelter etc), safety from insecurity and risks (having to worry about next month or a hospital stay) and social stability (being able to live according to the standards of your peers).

Obviously, you are still far from that point/amount.

Yeah, I'm not saying people aren't motivated by salary. You don't become an engineer or lawyer or whatever to not make at least a competitive wage in that market. What you cannot do is pay somebody 10% above market, and hope they'll be super motivated. But, you can pay somebody market salary, and get good morale through management.

A place that pays its employees less than market gets what it gets: people that can't get jobs anywhere else.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Col. Dash wrote:
Wow. Its and interesting article and makes me glad I do not work in that environment, I don't think they would like us much. I do RF communications(extremely small field, I am one of three people in all of DHS that does the particular job I do) which depending on where you are depends on the level of tech. In government we are mostly 20 years behind and despite having great ideas and forwarding them up, the higher ups do what they want. Myself and some of the FS guys figured out we could save millions upon millions of dollars and increasing efficiency doing a lot of work ourselves(its even in our job description) but higher ups apparently know better and ignore us.

We are definitely repressed and not encouraged to use initiative. We had a genius new guy join us, he was all hardcore, came up with improvements, streamlined some processes and was an absolute winner. He still is the same grade he was when he came in despite his achievements and now has adopted the "do your job and go home" mentality the rest of us have. I would definitely say we are wage slaves. But I have no problem with that, it affords me the hobbies and lifestyle I enjoy which according to that report is not what they are looking for.

More pay would be nice but its not the end all be all. We get plenty of leave so more leave wouldn't be that impressive(wouldn't turn either down though). We leave our work at work and never have OT. I think at least in my organization the biggest boost for morale and incentive to improve productivity would be having people higher actually listen to the SMEs in the field who are actually doing the work instead of just running with half cocked hyper expensive projects.

They actually had a feasibility meeting in DC that the guy I mentioned above went to as a tech SME consisting of a variety of field people from various involved branches to discuss the most effective ways to complete a project. The project manager and his higher ups took the results and went a completely different direction costing tens of millions more. And don't think we are just low level minions, we have 2 masters, an electrical engineering BA and an Information technology BA, with numerous certs and 125+ years of experience between the 5 of us. We know what we are talking about. I digress but that's part of the problem, we have all this and these higher ups, most of whom have never served time in the field or even looked at a radio, think they know more. I don't know what you would call it, not employee appreciation, maybe employee acknowledgement?

Government is a completely different kettle of fish. I work for the Feds myself, and while my experience isn't totally different from yours, I'm in management, so I have more of an idea for why progress gets bottled up.

I think that management in a lot of agencies does a poor job of communicating why initiatives aren't taken in. Sometimes it's just irrational fear by executives, but often budget or politics is a factor.

I'll agree that government, as the most hierarchical of organizations, is a tough place for go-getters.

**Ouze**

I just finished reading Disrupted, and from this thread, quite a few of you would enjoy reading it as well.

A lot of it is explaining how modern tech companies are full of gak, and how the current bubble is ultimately just to facilitate a transfer of wealth, and most of the new tech companies develop cultures dependant on milking low-paid millenials with low wages, "values" like long hours, sacrifice, etc etc while giving them stock options that often wind up being nearly worthless.

**AlexHolker**

I like the point Jim Sterling made comparing the games industry to World War One. I've talked before about the sociopaths that think of honour as nothing more than a weakness they could use to guilt other people into the meatgrinder, and Alex St. John seems to view passion the same way.

**timetowaste85**

I like my job. Between fun projects from time to time in the office, helping out our military, helping out people who can't go to a regular office (we run a mobile medical clinic), getting to travel the country (road trip!!) and occasionally getting to find that one of our reps screwed us over on costs and being able to call them out (I take a perverse pleasure in this)...yeah, I enjoy my job. And I'm upper management in it. But you know what? After my 8 hour shift I fething GHOST out of there! We have enough times where a 40hr pay period stretches into 50 that I don't feel bad on the few days where I do get to punch out at 8hrs/day. Everyone needs "me time". Whether it's painting, going for a run, swimming, reading, video games, or curling up on the couch with your SO, you need it. I need it. Burning yourself out is a no-go.