While reading up on the urban rent phenomenon, one of the things I noticed was that there’s a lot of animosity for the young techies who are supposedly responsible for driving up cost of living. People refer to them as “dudebros,” which I’m pretty sure came from feminists, who really hate them. So what’s the beef with these guys?
I can understand where economic resentment comes from, but even that should be tempered by the knowledge that these guys are about the most heavily exploited professional work force in modern times. Sure, they are paid a lot and given perks, but they have no job security to speak of, they are subjected to forced overtime all the time, and their employers, in collaboration with national politicians, are constantly trying to undermine their bargaining power. Are there any tech unions of note? Is there anyone arguing on their behalf in front of congress saying that Zuckerberg et al don’t need access to hundreds of thousands of new H1-B workers every year?
There are a lot of tech workers in Seattle, so while I know people who have done well for themselves, I’ve also met a few who have been blacklisted and/or simply ejected after a certain age. Microsoft is not the worst offender in this regard (as far as tech companies go, it’s a good place to work), but layoffs are common there, too. Amazon, according to what I’ve heard, is terrible. Unless you want to be Jeff Bezos’ slave for 70% of your waking hours, don’t bother. I’m not sure about the culture down in San José, but it can’t be too different. Basically, those who have made it – most of whom are over 40 – have great lives, while the others work themselves to the bone and pray they can keep up.
The compensation is good, but on an hourly basis it doesn’t add up to great. Baseline hours at Amazon are said to be 60 per week for a developer hire. Your starting salary is about $100,000. That comes out to about 8,300 per month, which works out to just under $35 per hour (with two weeks of vacation time and a few sick days). Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, consider that urban public school teachers with seniority can do a lot better than that on a per hour basis, and in addition to rock-solid job security and great benefits, they get their summers off. Maybe you think you’ll be doing a lot better at a company like Amazon after you get some seniority. Think again. Chances are you’ll be laid off before that happens. The average employee doesn’t last two years.
So you’re making $35 per hour, which is significantly better than most of your young peers, and you don’t know the next thing about the city you’ve moved to. Never fear! Real estate developers have you covered. For only $2,000 per month, you can live in this swank, convenient apartment we just built on top of the rubble of a place that used to house low-wage workers. Nevermind that we built it on the cheap, and it will be a decaying eyesore within a decade’s time — the city is just so awesome and progressive you’ll have the time of your life in the few hours of leisure time you have every week.
This is the techie “dudebro” reality, and if you ask me, it kind of sucks. But the feminists hate these guys. Why?
It’s because they haven’t (yet) figured out how to take their money. Young professional men are not getting married at high rates, and most of them don’t have time for a girlfriend. Women are very time-consuming, hence the romance fantasy of the unemployed billionaire, who keeps up his fortune by issuing orders to subordinates every now and then like some contented silverback gorilla placidly munching bamboo shoots in a jungle grove.
The other problem is that as much as women like the idea of getting paid $100k per year, they don’t generally like spending 60 hours per week under a corporate whip. Not that I blame them for that, but come on girls, be realistic…
So the problem is really that all this profit is not going to the feministas. The traditional vector does not apply in this case. However, as we can see from the above, that isn’t the tech worker’s fault. No, it is all the other bastards who have figured out how to milk him for every ounce of energy and profit they can while he’s still young, leaving nothing for the girls.
If the women really want to derive some benefit from these guys, instead of hating on them and denouncing them as sexist, racist assholes, which only plays right into the hands of their employers (having a politically marginalized workforce is awesome — ask Stalin about that), they should team up with them and demand better job security, better working conditions and less exploitation. But that will never happen, because the feminists aren’t very imaginative people.
