On platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok there are these painful “day in the life of” videos. The people who post these videos present this weird-ass view of their workday.
It’s like watching that old tv show “LOST” where everyone is trapped on an island, living in a simulation and being brainwashed, and nobody can figure out what the heck is going on. Reminds me of the film out at the moment called “Don’t Worry Darling,” too.
All of this tech fakery is bad for your mental health and will create a level of envy that can destroy your life.
The dream life they want you to believe
Big tech has had an awesome last decade.
With record valuations and easy money flowing since the 2008 recession, there’s plenty of cash to burn.
During this era profits didn’t matter.
If you could sell a good hype story, kick the revenue can down the road, and become the cleanest dirty shirt in the big tech laundry, as a founder/CEO, you could shower your employees in perks.
This era brought us the “Unlimited Paid Time Off.” Work-life balance is so important, they say. You need self-care. You need family time. You need yoga. You need time with your cute puppy. Have it all!
So, you can take unlimited holidays and get paid. Sounds great, right?
LOL.
This new policy had the opposite effect. Big tech employees didn’t take time off because they felt guilty.
And smart workers figured out if they didn’t come to work enough they wouldn’t have a job to return to after their 1-year Hawaiian holiday.
The ultimate sign of entitled big tech adult babies
As a former lover of big tech tourism, I visited Google offices many times.
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- I told you I was a big tech worshipper (images of author)
Each visit I got to go to their cafeteria and stuff my skinny ass with unlimited treats. When I sat down with one friend at Google we spoke at a table with a beautiful view of San Fran.
Next to us were fridges full of unlimited alcohol. I thought if I got a job there I’d probably never do any work or always be drunk. He told me all the treats these companies offer for free are bad.
He put on like 50 pounds after his first year because all the calorie-rich hamburgers and thick shakes were too hard to resist.
Recently Elon Musk canceled paid lunches at tech giant Twitter. Employees went to social media and cracked it big time, showing just how entitled they’ve become.
‘He fired 3/4 of the employees. Now he’s planning to starve the rest.’
Elon worked out it was costing $13M a year to offer all this free food. Most employees weren’t even coming to the office so it was a waste. And he says there were more people preparing food than eating it.
One former employee claims he used to organize the lunch program. He says it ONLY costs $25-$30 per person per meal. For f*ck sake.
How bloody rich and entitled have these big tech employees become?
Most workplaces in the real world do not offer free food at all. You have to, you know, make your own food and wipe your own ass.
The problem with all this tech lifestyle p*rn
As research for this article, I watched a stack of “day in the life of tech” TikTok videos.
I saw employees rolling up to their tech offices in $200K Mercedes Benzes while doing basic jobs like assembling spreadsheets. I saw people taking naps. And boardrooms for adult babies themed like Harry Potter movies.
One employee even got to work late and complained about how hard it was to have to use the free valet parking at her office.
God forbid someone else would have to park her Range Rover.
This whole big tech lifestyle has become a joke. All it does is make people envious of a life that doesn’t exist.
Make no mistake, most people who work in tech work bloody hard. They endure long hours. They have tight deadlines. And they have to deal with a lot of elitism and “boys clubs” that offer jobs for the tech boiz.
The issue is this new online pandemic shows an unrealistic life that turns highly capable people into lazy slobs, who think their office is a 5-star hotel where services workers wait on them for free — with zero tips.
This tech lifestyle lures good people away from fields of work where they can make a genuine difference, and into a fake world of tech they may not be passionate about.
Oh, and before you decide to come after me with pitchforks, I am guilty too. I worked for a tech company that had these silly perks. I told myself I wouldn’t let it get to my head.
I did though.
When you’re surrounded by privileges many never get, it’s easy to get used to them and pretend everyone has them. That’s why we must remove the temptation.
The unlikely solution to big tech entitlement
Let me get to the brutal truth.
The majority of companies do not operate like big tech. The people showing this tech lifestyle are doing it for ‘likes.’
Thankfully the global economy is an efficient machine. As the recession becomes deeper it’s exposing big tech for what it is. It’s pushing down valuations and forcing them to get real and stop wasting cash.
What Elon is doing to tech employees with the little birdy app (rightly or wrongly) is only the beginning. Other tech companies will follow. There are already calls for Facebook/Meta to join the cost-cutting club.
The solution to big tech entitlement is to join an early stage startup or dare to build your own company. You’ll quickly see it’s not all big tech rainbow unicorns, free lunches, nap pods, and unlimited holidays. No.
You actually have to do the hard work in life to get the rewards. And entitlement is the #1 thing that’ll stop you getting what you want.
So let’s stop peddling a fake life. And let’s not complain when big tech companies remove these ridiculous perks, because let’s be honest, they were always an excessive privilege for the elite.
