I’m lucky that after all these years still get those moments of great enjoyment when at the end of doing something insanelly complex it all works
I just think it’s worth pointing out that that is an example of the work being engaging.
No one is so naive as to think that you work a job for anything other than money. The original post doesn’t even seem to convey that it’s bad to ask about the pay and benefits. It’s saying that if, when directly asked, the candidate has no answer to what seems interesting about the job they might not be a good fit.
You seem to be an experienced software developer. You’re easily qualified to do basic manual data entry. Same working environment, same basic activity. Would you be interested in changing roles to do data entry for $1 more salary?
I’m also a software developer, and I can entirely honestly say I would not, even though it would be less responsibility and significantly easier work.
Even the boring parts of my work are vaguely interesting and require some mental engagement.
It seems there’s this false dichotomy that either you’re a cold mercenary working 9 to 5 and refusing to acknowledge your coworkers during your entitled lunch break, or you’re a starry eyed child working for candy and corporate swag.
You can ask for fair money, do only the work you’re paid for, have a cordial relationship with coworkers, and also find your work some manner of engaging.
It’s not unreasonable for an employer to ask how you feel about the work, just like it’s not unreasonable for a candidate to ask about the details of the work.
Whilst I agree that it’s nice to get people who do get some enjoyment from the work, I think it’s unrealistic to expect to actually find it in senior professionals: maybe you’ll be lucky, but don’t count on it - such people need to have started with a natural knack for that domain, not having had all their enjoyment of that kind of activity totally crushed over the years by the industry (I’m afraid that over time having to do something again and again because it has to be done rather than because one wants to do it, crushes the fun out of any task for even for the most enthusiastic about it person), and not having been accepted or even demanded to get promoted to management as they became more senior because they were so good in the Technical side (were they’ll most likely suck, but that’s not consolation for you as they won’t be available anymore).
It simply is very unlikely to find experienced people combining all those things.
Further, even if you do manage to find such people, don’t expect that enjoyment of such tasks to be enough to drive an employee most of the time, since most of the work we have to do is generally something that needs to be done rather than something which is enjoyable to do.
If on the other hand you go for junior people who still retain their enthusiasm, you’re going to be “paying” for them doing all the mistakes in the book and then some as they learn, plus if you give them the really advanced complex stuff (say, designing a system to fit into existing business processes) they’re going to fuck it up beyond all recognition.
So statistically going for enthusiasm and experience is like hoping to win the lottery, whilst going for enthusiasm rather than experience is setting yourself up for a gauntlet of mistakes, mishaps, missed delivery dates and a result that if actually used in production won’t survive long before it has to be rewritten.
If you do need to hire people with actual experience, it’s more realistic to aim for professionalism as their driver of doing the work well and in reasonable time frames, rather than enthusiasm.
This is why, IMHO, asking people how they feel about the work is a bit silly unless you have yourself a truckload of recent graduates looking for their first job and you’re trying to separate the gifted from the ones who went for it for the money (and there you’re competing with the likes of Google and other companies with more brand recognition who will far more easily attract said gifted naive young things than the overwhelming majority of companies out there, so that too is probably not realistic an expectation)
I suppose Lemmy is frequented by older Tech professionals, hence the “you must be joking!” reaction to your idea that asking people how they feel about the work is in any way form or shape a viable way of finding good professionals.
I just think it’s worth pointing out that that is an example of the work being engaging.
No one is so naive as to think that you work a job for anything other than money. The original post doesn’t even seem to convey that it’s bad to ask about the pay and benefits. It’s saying that if, when directly asked, the candidate has no answer to what seems interesting about the job they might not be a good fit.
You seem to be an experienced software developer. You’re easily qualified to do basic manual data entry. Same working environment, same basic activity. Would you be interested in changing roles to do data entry for $1 more salary?
I’m also a software developer, and I can entirely honestly say I would not, even though it would be less responsibility and significantly easier work.
Even the boring parts of my work are vaguely interesting and require some mental engagement.
It seems there’s this false dichotomy that either you’re a cold mercenary working 9 to 5 and refusing to acknowledge your coworkers during your entitled lunch break, or you’re a starry eyed child working for candy and corporate swag. You can ask for fair money, do only the work you’re paid for, have a cordial relationship with coworkers, and also find your work some manner of engaging.
It’s not unreasonable for an employer to ask how you feel about the work, just like it’s not unreasonable for a candidate to ask about the details of the work.
Whilst I agree that it’s nice to get people who do get some enjoyment from the work, I think it’s unrealistic to expect to actually find it in senior professionals: maybe you’ll be lucky, but don’t count on it - such people need to have started with a natural knack for that domain, not having had all their enjoyment of that kind of activity totally crushed over the years by the industry (I’m afraid that over time having to do something again and again because it has to be done rather than because one wants to do it, crushes the fun out of any task for even for the most enthusiastic about it person), and not having been accepted or even demanded to get promoted to management as they became more senior because they were so good in the Technical side (were they’ll most likely suck, but that’s not consolation for you as they won’t be available anymore).
It simply is very unlikely to find experienced people combining all those things.
Further, even if you do manage to find such people, don’t expect that enjoyment of such tasks to be enough to drive an employee most of the time, since most of the work we have to do is generally something that needs to be done rather than something which is enjoyable to do.
If on the other hand you go for junior people who still retain their enthusiasm, you’re going to be “paying” for them doing all the mistakes in the book and then some as they learn, plus if you give them the really advanced complex stuff (say, designing a system to fit into existing business processes) they’re going to fuck it up beyond all recognition.
So statistically going for enthusiasm and experience is like hoping to win the lottery, whilst going for enthusiasm rather than experience is setting yourself up for a gauntlet of mistakes, mishaps, missed delivery dates and a result that if actually used in production won’t survive long before it has to be rewritten.
If you do need to hire people with actual experience, it’s more realistic to aim for professionalism as their driver of doing the work well and in reasonable time frames, rather than enthusiasm.
This is why, IMHO, asking people how they feel about the work is a bit silly unless you have yourself a truckload of recent graduates looking for their first job and you’re trying to separate the gifted from the ones who went for it for the money (and there you’re competing with the likes of Google and other companies with more brand recognition who will far more easily attract said gifted naive young things than the overwhelming majority of companies out there, so that too is probably not realistic an expectation)
I suppose Lemmy is frequented by older Tech professionals, hence the “you must be joking!” reaction to your idea that asking people how they feel about the work is in any way form or shape a viable way of finding good professionals.