> Changing your employer is much simpler than changing your government.
Making changes at your place of employment is often impossible. We get direct chances to change our government every X years. And changing to a different employer often isn't that easy for many folks.
> I have a family to finish raising, so yes, I'm powerless to change my circumstances.
Where do you live that changing teams or changing employers can’t be done until you raise a family? No offense, but in every case I’ve heard someone use that explanation, it’s just been an excuse to avoid the effort of change.
> One gives up a lot of freedom to be an employee.
As an employee I can walk away from my job any time I want and just get another. If I had my own business that would be way harder.
Because of that I feel actually more free and independent as an employee. You just need to make sure to have a good financial buffer so that losing/switching a job won't hurt very much. Then your employer also can't pressure you too much.
I kind of wish that was true. What I do now is almost completely different from what I was hired to do at my current job. Other people leaving, me getting to inherit their projects and responsibilities on top of my own, and yet my boss (who is also brand new because my previous boss resigned recently) wants to get settled and get to know me before recommending a promotion.
Yeah, I'm not waiting that long. For him it might have only been a few weeks, but for me it's been over three years.
> Please - quit your overpaid tech job and actually work to change the status quo. No one is saying you have to accept the status quo.
False dichotomy. You don't need to quit your job to work to change the status quo. Indeed, you can often effect change much better from inside an important organization than from outside it.
> the best way is to change the job in such a way that people will want to take it
This isn't a change, it's what we have now. The problem is that the kind of people that want to take it are not the kind of people you actually want doing it.
> Career changes are literally one of the easier things in life to do if you’re determined
What nonsense. What makes it hard is everything around it. People can't choose to take a 50% pay cut to change careers. They can't let their families starve or lose their homes for it. They can't move move when they need to take care of a loved one.
This idea that changing your mind is the hard part is absolute bonkers unless you're so privileged that you don't care about the real externalities of those choices, or you don't have any.
Phrases like this one only worsen the situation, as for the majority of the world, that's simply not true. If, for you, all you have to do is change your mindset then good for you. You're very, very lucky. But please, don't assume everyone is as privileged.
You should absolutely change jobs if your current one is immoral, and careers if it comes to that. This much is obvious.
The problem is in the hurdles making that difficult or unrealistic. In America, this process could leave you and your family homeless, maybe bankrupt if anything goes wrong. This fear leaves (maybe most) people in jobs they know to be immoral, and society is that much worse off because of it.
I think you should be doing whatever you can do* to create a society in which people are not forced to act immorally, such as you have been.
> I'm not sure it's always obvious to ourselves when we have.
Agreed. Some people would have to change employers in order to break through the ceiling, or to even see how they're limiting themselves. And for some of them: why would they?
> and ask yourself "what must be true for 'I can't afford to change jobs' to also be true?"
There's only one thing: I can't find another job.
> There are definitely situations where whatever must be true is not that unlikely, and there are definitely employers who use them as leverage against their workforce.
Except none of that is happening here, they can leave whenever they want. They just don't want to because they feel this is the best job they can get given their particular circumstance.
People really don't have the sort of freedom to make choices that you're assigning to them. There's a thousand mitigating circumstances that limit peoples' options and can preclude the sort of risk taking that you're valorizing and shaming employees for not taking.
> My point is simply that such job changes are costly in time, money, and effort
And that's where I disagree. When I said there's no downside, I meant it. Changing jobs has been only an enriching experience for me. As long as you're savvy with your finances, it's no sweat to find another job. On the other hand, if I ran a business that started to tank, I think that would be far more stressful (thankfully mine never did).
I agree that running your own business should be a desirable goal, but I think you can make a great living working as an employee. It depends a lot on your interests. Both approaches have their benefits and pitfalls.
> Perhaps find an employer who wouldn’t treat you like a slave if legally allowed?
Are you wealthy enough to stop working entirely? If not, you (and most of us) are a slave to the system. Yes you can choose to change employers, but you cannot choose to stop working if you want to eat, have a home, electricity, etc.
Employers are not your friend. They don't pay you because they're "nice people".
Making changes at your place of employment is often impossible. We get direct chances to change our government every X years. And changing to a different employer often isn't that easy for many folks.
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