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Comment on What kind of institutional gaslighting is this?

brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

I’m a skeptic when it comes to lots of things where the common man is getting fucked.

May I ask y’all how highly-paid individuals in high positions came to be that way?

Are they ALL the results of nepotistic practices, ALL inheritors of wealth? Or 80% got there that way?

(In the SF Bay Area, certainly seems I know high performers who work their asses off, make shit tons of money, get promotions before jumping ship to other companies, work at startups that get acquired…)

Disclaimer: not endorsing neglecting your family or personal life for a pipe dream of prosperity, just sharing one perspective

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wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The Bay Area is a well known warp in reality. Don’t expect your experiences there to map to experiences elsewhere.

And even so, it’s usually who you know, how well you can sell to VC, and luck that determine success out there.

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- brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  :) good point. Can be a nice reality warp, for the non-super commuters who can enjoy the weather by the Bay/Pacific.
  
  Edited in an obvious miss:
  
  Edit: I forgot, the argument could easily be “the vast majority of high earners got there by job hopping”!
  
  Luck really helps too. Pretty much a necessity.
  
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  - EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    A good point on the luck aspect, and you reminded me of the fact that people who already have money have “better luck” in the respect that they have more opportunities to try new things.
    
    It’s like one of those carnival games where you throw darts at balloons. Middle-class kids might get one or two darts while wealthy kids get 10. And the poor kids are the ones working at the carnival.
    
    Something like 20% of businesses fail in their first year, and 80% are gone by year 5. If you can afford to start 5 different businesses, your odds of one surviving long enough to get bought up by Google or something are much better than somebody who put their life savings into their company.
    
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    brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Absolutely!
    
    We built some proof for the darts phenomenon in an economics class. Professor gave everyone a certain number of pieces of candy. Everyone was allowed to trade for a while, then we counted candy at the end. (Might’ve been stipulations on how trades worked, can’t recall). As you’d imagine, any kid who started with 10 pieces of candy ended with more candy than any kid who started with 3 pieces. Powerful example 🍭
    
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EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In the current climate, internal promotions are a rarity. They say that you should be changing companies roughly every 3 years to ensure you’re getting paid what you’re worth, as pay raises don’t keep up with experience. New responsibilities come quickly while promotions and pay raises come slowly. The number of times I’ve heard somebody say that they left a job for an immediate 10-30% (or even 50%!) pay raise and reduced responsibilities for even the same job has gotten to the point where I just expect it now.

Like everything else, it varies, but company loyalty is long dead.

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- brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ah yes! Had to add:
  
  Edit: I forgot, the argument could easily be “the vast majority of high earners got there by job hopping”!
  
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  - EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah, and there’s the old saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Even ignoring the nepotism that that can obviously be applied to, there’s something major to be said about social networking and finding a good job (whether that’s a new job or a promotion within a company or even changing fields entirely).
    
    When I was in college over a decade ago, our school had a program set up with GDC (the Game Devlopers’ Convention) to send 3rd year students and put them up in a hotel for the duration of the convention so that they could meet industry professionals and see what was new in the industry. And right from the first day, our professors expressed how important going to the convention and getting to know the people in your major were because they could potentially lead to you getting your next job, whether your first year out of school or decades later. And that was years before the current climate of the job sector had really taken off. Some of those guys had been making games since the 80s or 90s.
    
    Make a good impression on someone, and they might call you about a new job opening before it’s publicly posted.
    
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    brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Makes some sense, eh? The social creature thinks to those with whom it has relationships when deciding who to nominate for an employment relationship.
    
    Certainly downsides, like missing better candidates you’ve never met and a bias against introverted or socially anxious candidates. That said, not a phenomenon I imagine changing much. So many applicants for every post - an IRL filter is effective at, if nothing else, shrinking the pool significantly.
    
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