I was wondering , if you will be ready to work fof an organisation that you oppose ideologically , for instance you are against big oil but you get a job interview in exxonmobil with good pay , would you consider it ?
*Edit : Recently a friend of mine got a marketing job for a company that had shady business practices , selling their product to gullible parents. Since it was a marketing job , the pay was good but my friend left it within a week , saying it does not suit his ideology.
I consider most “for profit” corporations as corrupt and amoral.
So, yes. Those are the only ones who pay close to a living wage.
Many NGOs and not for profits pay well.
That must be location-dependant. I worked for a non-profit for nearly 5 years, a good sized one. The pay was significantly below the for-profit sector, and the organisation was pretty toxic to boot. I have many friends who did similar, and my assessment is that mine was probably the best experience. Burnout is the norm. Toxic culture is the norm. Underpay is the norm. It’s not an experience I’d be excited to repeat.
I think you can apply that to any area regardless of whether they are for or non-for profit.
No experience I’ve had in the corporate world has been as bad as what I saw everywhere in the non-profit world.
Not saying that for-profit companies don’t have these problems, not at all, but not to the same extent.
I don’t think that’s universal. I work for a NFP and the pay is about the same but the work environment is far, far better.
Glad to hear its not universal.
Agreed. I wouldn’t want to, say, work for a defense contractor, bit I’ve worked in traditional finance for years now, and I definitely disagree with it.
I’ve done this. I was working for scraps out of college as a community reporter when an ostensibly conservative online news organization offered me an 80% pay raise and the opportunity to do most of my work from home. I was young, recently married and wanted to start a family, and we needed the money. The bigger salary was nice, but over the course of two years I spiraled into a deep depression and began to loath myself and what I did. It was so bad I began looking for a way out after the first six months. Eventually I got out (took a pay cut to do so) but am now in a much better place personally and professionally. I would never do anything like that ever again.
Glad to know things are better now !
Reminds me of the story of that guy that ended up working for the Fulon Gong cult newspaper, Epoch Times. His story was written about in the Atavist.
There is 1) work you can do to improve this messed up world, 2) work that leaves it as messed up as it already is but doesn’t make it particularly worse, and 3) work that actively seeks to make it worse.
I’ll do #1 for free or at discounted rates, #2 if the pay is good (this is what I generally expect to do these days), and avoid #3 to the extent that I can. Though if the pay is ridiculously good, maybe that transfer of assets from the bad guys to me could be considered an improvement in the world in its own right ;).
This is my kind of logic, surely taking money from those with less morals is better than not since I decreases their influence (in theory)
Definitely. I’m a whore.
As long as it isn’t something obviously evil like religion.
What about something obviously evil like selling personal data as a business model?
Or drilling oil
Name a successful tech business that doesn’t sell user data. Some companies, like Google, just make it their only business model.
Does Google sell user data? They profit from it for sure, but they keep it to themselves to do so as far as I know.
Technically they sell ads that rely on user data they collected. I was just trying to say they are uniquely evil in that their entire business model revolves around user data while claiming they are a search company or OS company or email company whatever project they will start and kill next.
Most POS companies like LexisNexis are very open about their business model being people’s personal info.
No matter how good the pay, the resulting cognitive dissonance would overwhelm me eventually and either lead to a mental breakdown, or me quitting. It wouldn’t be worth it.
No. Never.
I currently do. I worked for a European SME who was purchased by a fortune 500 company which are currently in the news for anti union actions in the US.
I am lucky enough that to fire someone in my country is a royal pain in the ass so I am always fine with calling out their horseshit in the internal company surveys.
Not only is the answer no, but I’m currently taking a pretty big pay cut to work for a non-profit that I believe in. When you work for scum you start to lose your soul, and it’s hard to have any pride in your work knowing your only contribution is enriching your boss. Now my work goes towards a good cause, and I’m far more motivated to do well at my job.
I currently do! I work for one of the huge mega tech corporations.
They pay me very well, I have great benefits, and a I get a ton of paid time off. They don’t work me too many hours. They were very flexible with me when my wife was in and out of the hospital. They give decent annual raises and bonuses, and great stock bonuses.
Unless something changes, I don’t see myself leaving, even though I know I could get money by bouncing around, because my job is very easy and the pay is very good for how easy my job is.
Lol - sounds just like me.
I also work for a mega tech, and I genuinely have concerns over some of the bad press we get.
But I find it hard to resist the benefits for me and my family. I’m now in the last 15 years or so of my career. I need to finish big, for my family.
Depends on how bad the company is and ig I’m in dire need of a job/ pay rise.
I’ve turned down jobs at Nestle and De Beers due to them being widely unethical and because I had a decent job at the time.
I currently do and I need to get out ASAP. I should’ve stayed in school, the pay is great but the self loathing isn’t worth it
To a certain degree, there ain’t really that many companies that are ideologically aligned with me lol
This is quite a relevant question for me. In Greece there isn’t a lot of innovation and the government doesn’t really give a shit to fix the root problems, all young people that can change the scene leave for better countries.
That leaves us with very few companies that do something respectable and are worth working for, and a ton of gambling companies that feed off of the uneducated people. Those gambling companies are making huge profits and doing very well in general, so working for them is usually a nice experience from what I’ve heard of.
It’s often tempting, but I can’t justify participating in this disgusting industry to get more money, benefits and time. It would never sit well with me, but it always feels unfair how many jobs there are for that industry compared to anything else.
Can you leave Greece as well?
Not really, and I don’t actually want to.
Thankfully I’m working for one of the companies that are an exception and are actually pretty innovative, it’s not bad despite the pay being a bit worse and the hours longer.
I do. I’m riding out the clock. I’ve already put the time in and am grandfathered into better retirement/severance benefits than I could get anywhere else. I hate it, but I have a family to feed.
I have been exactly there and was so, so glad when I eventually left.
Could you switch and take a small hit on those big ticket items?
edit: Zero judgement here btw. Just an open question. Capacity to move those benefits varies wildly by country
Not really. I have unavoidable financial obligations coming soon that I will need this payrate for. I actually love the work I do, too, but I have a distaste for the employer, so it’s a weird feeling. I get to play with Linux and containerization and Python, which I love, and I’m generally self-managed, so the only thing wrong with the job is that, at the end of the day, my work feels wasted where I’m doing it. On the other hand, I use the skills I gain at work outside of work on OSS stuff, so it’s an OK tradeoff.
Everyone has their own code of ethics, but I think almost every company has some things that might be controversial or that people don’t like. Even some of my favorite companies have done things that I am really opposed to.
I would not work in a job where I had to directly do things that I was morally opposed to. But we live in a society where huge companies touch our lives in a lot of different ways. If you are too strict about it, you might find that there aren’t many jobs available for you.
