A Modern Employee Wants Love, Support, and Compassion
October 5, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Beyond Search is a “Wordpress” blog. I have followed with (to be honest) not much interest the dispute between a founder and a couple of organizations. WordPress has some widgets that one of the Beyond Search team “subscribes” to each year. These, based on my experience, are so-so. We have moved the blog to WordPress-friendly hosting services because [a] the service was not stable, [b] not speedy, and [c] not connected to any known communication service except Visa.
I read “I Stayed,” a blog post. The write up expresses a number of sentiments about WordPress, its employees, and its mission. (Who knew? A content management system with a “mission.” ) I noted this statement:
Listen, I’m struggling with medical debts and financial obligations incurred by the closing of my conference and publishing businesses.
I don’t know much about modern work practices, but this sentence suggests to me that a full-time employee was running two side gigs. Both of these failed, and the author of the post is in debt. I am a dinobaby, and I assumed that when a company hired me as a full time employee like Halliburton or Booz, Allen & Hamilton, my superiors expected me to focus on the tasks given to me by Halliburton and Booz, Allen & Hamilton. “Go to a uranium mine. Learn. Ask questions. Take photographs or ore processing,” so I went. No side gigs, no questions about breathing mine dust. Just do the work. Not now. The answer to a superior’s request apparently means, “Hey, you have spare time to pay attention to that conference and publishing business. No problemo.” Times have changed.
The write up includes this statement about not quitting or taking a buy out:
I stayed because I believe in the work we do. I believe in the open web and owning your own content. I’ve devoted nearly three decades of work to this cause, and when I chose to move in-house, I knew there was only one house that would suit me. In nearly six years at Automattic, I’ve been able to do work that mattered to me and helped others, and I know that the best is yet to come.
I think I am supposed to interpret this decision as noble or allegedly noble. My view is that WordPress professionals who remain on the job includes these elements:
- If you have a full-time job at a commercial or quasi-commercial enterprise, focus on the job. It would be great if WordPress fixed the wonky cursor movement in its editor. You know it really doesn’t work. In fact, it sucks on my machines both Mac and Windows.
- Think about the interface. Hiding frequently used functions is not helpful.
- Use words to make clear certain completely weird icons. Yep, actual words.
- Display explicate which are not confusing. I don’t find multiple uses of the word “Publish” particularly helpful.
To sum up: Suck it up, buttercup.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024
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I have read the blog post, and I’m not convinced of the assumption of “two side gigs.”
What the poster wrote is (at least) as logically consistent with someone who had two solo gigs, and traded both of them for corporate employment.
The blog post even explains why someone might do that, to anyone who believes that “being one’s own boss” is “a consummation devoutly to be wished.”
People make such trades all the time, for the reasons given, and for others.
Assumption-driven judgement is…assumption-driven judgement.