A Guide to Surviving Techbro Capitalism, Part 3/3

How Do You Survive?

In Part 1 of this series, I described Techbro Capitalism and the causes and symptoms of what I called “Welchian enshittification,” the constant grind towards the dehumanization of the technical worker, their worsening work conditions, pay, and their eventual firing. In Part 2, I described the lies and manipulation companies use to extract maximum value from technical workers. In this part I will, finally, suggest solutions and techniques you can use to claw back living conditions and money from the predatory, powerful, and greedy companies that cheerfully grind down and fire the technical workers that generate the company’s value.

Sex work is real work, though, old-timey political cartoon. You’re alarmingly correct about the child labour and wage slavery, though.

If you are in a small shop, a startup, or you have influence in a larger company’s technical department, you can risk your career by consulting with a local labour union and attempting to unionize your workplace. Whether you succeed or fail, your future employers will avoid hiring a union organizer unless they are hiring for a union position. Union employees typically see substantially better pay rates and job stability. Both corporations and governments in the neo-liberal west are openly hostile to unions.

If you can move to the EU, where labour protection is stronger and there is a widespread willingness to strike in response to Welchian abuses of employees, you can and should do so. Your family will have a better life. You will have more vacation time, better health care and work benefits, time off after childbirth or adoption, etc. Two weeks of vacation each year is a social standard in America with no legal requirement. Canada has a legal minimum of two weeks. Four is the legal minimum in Germany. Six is the legal minimum in France.

Understaffing and lack of coverage is management failure, not a reason for workers to miss time off.

If you are stuck in techbro capitalism, your long term survival depends on understanding that you are one of the downtrodden masses in dystopian science fiction. Respond appropriately. The idea of a side hustle, or of grindset, are predicated on obedience to social convention that Welchian enshittifiers have explicitly abandoned. Loyalty is a myth that your company wants you to believe in but will never demonstrate. Productivity is a propaganda term for working harder without being paid more. For every dollar they pay you, your employer makes two dollars. Or five, or twenty, or a hundred.

Your employer would fire you in a heartbeat if it would increase revenue 1% but won’t give you cost of living raises to match inflation unless forced to. Your employer is given money for treating you as a replaceable cog instead of a human with dependants — dependants who your employer will cheerfully starve for greater profits. Your employer has every reason to lie to you and steal from you and will face no material consequences for doing so. Wage theft by employers cost workers in America $50,000,000,000 in 2022, and neo-liberal deregulation let it happen.

Here, finally, are your practical take-away items, my advice after two decades of work in the technical field in a neo-liberal economy.

Time for business owners to Find Out.

What, Exactly, To Do?

• Never stop submitting resumes to interesting jobs. If you have spent two years at a company you enjoy working at, and are offered 15% more to work somewhere else, remember that your company would fire you in a heartbeat.
• Interview regularly and take offers that pay you better. Remember that an employer who hears that his employee has a competing offer will seek to replace, not to retain.
• Negotiate aggressively for initial pay rate and raises.
• Recognize that interview questions about switching jobs too fast or gaps in the resume are a tactic to reduce your salary expectations. You are being negotiated with by an enshittifier. Immediately fire back with questions about employee turnover, why the role is open, and how long it’s been open.
• Do what you are paid to do and not a shred more; no unpaid overtime, no extra tasks. The company makes multiple dollars for every dollar they pay you already; they do not need your unpaid help.
• Do not trust anything your employer states or implies unless it is in writing. Promises that you’ll get a bonus, a raise, benefits, or a promotion are lies unless they are in writing, and sometimes even then.
• Spend your energy, your focus, and your time on improving your skills, your mental and physical health, and your relationships. Rest.
• Divorce your identity and your sense of self from your job. Find something that matters to you that your job can pay for. Do not give your employer the power to break your sense of self.
• If you can work two jobs simultaneously (e.g. remotely), do so. Chaos and the threat of layoffs at one employer matter less if you have a second job to pay the bills with.
• Use sick days. Use vacation days. Use health spending accounts. They are part of your compensation and your employer is already paying you as little as they can get away with.
• Remember that your company and your managers are actively and consistently lying to you. They will tell you that you’re not being fired the morning before they fire you. They will tell you a raise is coming when they have discarded the paperwork. Because of Jack Welch and his modern prophets Mark, Elon, and Jeff, there is no longer a social contract between employers and employees. There is no legal or moral obligation to be frank and open with your employer about your health status, sexual identity, or whether you have another job.
• Finally, I am not recommending that you treat a good boss as if they were an enemy. To survive techbro capitalism, the Welchian enshittification of the neo-liberal West, I am merely recommending that you recognize your employer is at best not yet your enemy, and that you should take what actions you can to survive the inevitable end of any individual job.