It irks me to no end how much software engineers love to self-flagellate. If I had never met a software engineer before and just read HN my takeaway would be that all software engineers are privileged assholes who live in a bubble, get paid way too much, on top of that cheat on their hours, and provide functionally no value to society. In real life this is obviously not true.
Especially love the classic “Well, that’s not normal, only what I am familiar with is normal, because everybody thinks like me”-flavored responses. Obviously it’s not normal to work overtime or crunch because I’ve never done it. (Just ignore https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunch_(video_games) and go back to shittalking SWE.)
This “debate” has come up a few times in the streaming community.
Viewer: “Streaming is so easy, you’re basically not even working, streamers are so privileged.”
Streamer: “Can you act?”
Viewer: “No, but what -“
Streamer: “Ok so you can’t act. Have you ever tried acting out a play, but it’s 6 hours long and also hundreds of people get to shout obscenities at you, and also you’re sometimes obligated to respond to their disturbing comments completely ad-lib without breaking character, and also you have to be juggling at the same time?”
Viewer: “… well I still think <INSERT JOB> is harder”
It doesn’t take a genius to realize there a different dimensions of difficulty and yet somehow many people can’t
Especially love the classic “Well, that’s not normal, only what I am familiar with is normal, because everybody thinks like me”-flavored responses. Obviously it’s not normal to work overtime or crunch because I’ve never done it. (Just ignore https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunch_(video_games) and go back to shittalking SWE.)