I mean working somewhere like Qualcomm or Microsoft when you care about FOSS, democracy, and the public commons, or a weapons manufacturer for a military that invades other countries and kills innocent people in their homes.
Alt text: A screen grab of an early Simpsons episode where a sign which is understood to have read “don’t forget: you’re here forever” has selected letters and partial letters covered with photos of Maggie so that it now reads “Do it for her”because morals are nice.
but being able to eat, and not be rained on and assaulted in your sleep is nicerer.
After college I worked a project management job for a while before going to grad school. I didn’t find it morally questionable, but I definitely found myself feeling like I was just working to make some rich guy richer. It didn’t help that the rich guy(s) (the owner and his son in law who was out CEO) worked in the same building. So I went back to school. Got my master’s. Ended up doing some contract work for the same company afterwards. Never felt more stuck in my life. Hated it. Did more grad school and when the contract work dried up I got asked to come work for another company but I still hated the bs corporate vibe, so instead I went from billing $80/hr to making $15/hr as a 911 dispatcher. Graduated and stayed in that field. I’m an emergency management professional now and while it’s not a lucrative field (thankfully I don’t want kids) I get a lot of satisfaction out of the work and I feel like my job matters.
Long story short, you choose what to prioritize in life. For some people making sure you/your family is well cared for will matter more than what you’re doing or who you’re doing it for. For others, you’ll take a pay cut to feel like the work itself matters or that you’re making a positive impact. Everyone has to balance what’s important to them.
OP, If morally aligning with your job matters to you, you’ll ultimately land somewhere you can stomach at least, because you won’t stop trying until you get there. Don’t blame yourself for having to do other work along the way to keep yourself fed and able to enjoy the ride there.
By doing the minimum required to not get fired.
I do that anyway
This is the way
Found a new job and took a 16% pay cut to escape an unethical situation. Last day in old job was today.
Congratulations! I hope your new job is rewarding and long lasting!
Thank you. Was in a love my work hate my job situation. I minimized my discretionary spending and saved for a year to be able to afford the pay cut. Keep minimizing until annual raise next year. Will be ok unless something truly calamitous happens.
Ability to afford food and rent is a pretty big incentive.
My day job is purely transactional. I used to enjoy working for this company but they’ve changed. Unfortunately my work permit is tied to them.
I have nothing. I need a paycheck. Finding a job in America is Hell.
ice applicants have entered the chat
God help me if it comes to that. Nobody is helping me and I’m getting desperate.
Take the $50k signing bonus and use it to fuck off to Belize or somewhere
probably does not come right away and I would not be surprised if ultimately they stiffed a bunch with that. Likely its something that gest “vested”
Wasn’t trying to project some bs but just highlighting the thought process ya know. Very unfortunate times and ignorant maneuvers.
They don’t take desperate people they take violent people.
If they’re desperate that’s more fuel for their racial hatred.
I like food and my basic needs covered.
But generally speaking, let’s see what we’ve got: Military is obviously out. Working for governments? Mostly out except for education related posts and some other niche stuff here and there. Banking out. Energy companies: mostly out except niche ones into renewables. Big tech like Amazon Microsoft Apple Google etc is out of the question. Car companies out. Anything owned by billionaires, out. Any sector that contributes to global pollution like meat industry, fishing industry, logging, Monsanto, 3M, DuPont etc etc out! Any company that employs people under minimum wage, out. Surely I’m forgetting a lot of stuff, but even with this small list, what the fuck is left?
As a government worker, I will say there’s a lot more than just teaching that’s morally filling work. A ton of government jobs are directly tied to keeping the public safe. Food inspectors, doctors, researchers, firefighters, even grant writers. It’s not all cops and politicians.
Fair point all these are helping the community, positive overall.
You can still work for advertising, something where I would never work.
I have worked for defense companies and would do so again.
Not to criticize or anything, you do you. But defense companies would be a definite no from a moral perspective, and advertising is the driving force of consumerism which is destroying the planet so yeah kinda no to that too.
My point being, it’s already hard enough to land any job, adding morality to the mix makes it nigh impossible to survive for most people. If someone has a choice, good for them. But I’m not gonna blame the average salary man trying to get by. Only the rich have choices.
I don’t.
Money can’t buy morals or ethics. If I hate the company, guarantee you I won’t be there in six months, let alone five years.
Maybe other people can. I can’t. Inevitably, I get into some kind of spat with a boss or a manager over morals, ethics, or how we’re being treated. Or how I’m being treated. And they make up a reason to fire me, or I get so mad that I quit.
Not at all. You run burnout territory. Get out quick.
By doing the absolute minimum or worse without getting fired. If you can get by as a -10x dev for Microsoft you’re doing absolutely fantastic. I.e. sabotage.
You can also try to push for change, apply for other jobs.
The other alternative is to disassociate and sacrifice your morals or somehow justify to yourself.
Not going to tell you what to do, keeping a well paying job when your family depends on you is totally understandable.
I worked at a company that made software for multi-level marketing companies (legalized pyramid schemes). Some of our clients sold snake oil remedies and were always getting in trouble for claiming they could cure cancer. I liked my coworkers and the job itself, but I hated the nature of what we were supporting.
I don’t think you can separate one from the other.
The company was always getting screwed over by dishonest clients, but we never sued because it would be bad for our reputation. The financial pressure grew until we started acting like a much dumber business: taking bad deals, outsourcing to cheap overseas teams, forcing everyone to work crazy hours, doubling up on the “we all have to make sacrifices” kool-aid, the list goes on. I didn’t stick around for long.
I’d do it again if I had to, to keep food on the table, but that experience taught me there’s no “right way” to operate in a bad industry. Eventually you either assimilate or go out of business.
As an adult the very first thing we try to feed ourselves are our morals and principles. And once we find out that they don’t fill your stomach? Well. You’d be surprised what you’ll do to not starve.
name checks out
I envy the folks here who can lay their morals out on the table without having to sacrifice a roof or food on the table. Must be nice.
It’s never an easy decision to make and often you simply don’t have the resources to make it immediately; but if the work you do is immoral/unethical, your goal should be to remove yourself as soon as reasonably possible.
That said; sometimes even the need to provide for one’s self or family doesn’t outweigh the horrible things we’re asked to do. Where exactly that line is we’re unlikely to agree on; but in those situations sacrifices must be made.
You always have a choice, and it’s our choices that define us.
I get the vibe that it’s a lot easier if you’re not in the US. I guess there are a few worse countries as well…
That’s by design. It’s why regulations that give power to workers never pass, because it’s actually let emplyees apply pressure on their employees to be ethical, and employers don’t want that
I mean, if you find yourself in that situation, the ideal scenario would be that you exit that situation as quickly as possible.
So far, no free Americans are required to work for an evil corporation. And as far as I’m aware, most other countries do not force their laborers to work for evil corporations.
So looking for a new job is an option.
The next best scenario would be that you do everything you can to work ineffectively and waste their resources in just such a way as that they cannot fire you so that you, bit by bit, contribute to toppling their evil system.
Did you just “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” me?
Are you stupid?
Yeah, but not because of this thread. Plenty of other reasons.
But as we will see for so many others here, there are no moral companies, and even if there are no one is hiring.
So yeah, I could be completely moral. Lose the house to the bank. Not be able to eat. Not be able to provide for my family. We’d be destitute but I could confidently tell you that we were moral. What a win that would be.
There are certainly less immoral companies though. Avoid arms manufacturers, fossil fuel, big tech, the police and chemical manufacturers, obviously.
There’s vaguely ethical jobs in manufacturing, retail, government (e.g. parks, urban maintenance), academia, the NGO sector, and many other spaces
Ah yes, just avoid [lists all of the country’s biggest industries]…
Of course, and I think everyone has to decide what their line is, their own personal Rubicon and if they have crossed it or not. Those lines can shift too, a company that was okay last year may not be this year. It could be that all of a sudden you find yourself doing things you wouldn’t have dreamed of 5 years ago. Maybe it is time to look for a new role. It’s completely a personal decision.
The blind “Just quit your jobs” is what annoys me, and doesn’t add anything valuable to the conversation.
In my defense, I never said “just quit your job”.
I said, start looking for another one. There are other jobs out there. There’s nothing that forces you to work for, meta, or google, or alphabet, or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves.
If you are working for a company that you find personally immoral and you are bound to them because of financial reasons, then I will stand by the statement that one of the best things that you can do is to find a way out, and one of the best ways to do that is to replace it with a different job so that you do not financially suffer through the transition.
I don’t really get how anyone would interpret that as a blind “quit your job”.
Maybe stop huffing fatalism. its not good for you.
I gave clear and simple things that can be done by anyone with a minimum amount of effort to improve things. That’s all it takes to be moral, to be willing to improve things.
You’re right. Small steps matter, and I’ve made plenty myself to live and work more ethically. But that’s not what your original comment said. You said:
the ideal scenario would be that you exit that situation as quickly as possible
You suggested an oversimplified binary situation. That’s simply not realistic for most people. Suggesting be a half-ass employee isn’t meaningful advice either.
A better way to approach this is to recognize that everyone has a moral line they need to define for themselves, and to regularly reflect on whether their work crosses it. If it does, they can decide whether leaving is feasible, or start moving toward something more aligned with their values.
“Just quit your job” is not an answer. As The Good Place illustrated perfectly, modern life makes it impossible to be entirely moral. They highlighted that by buying a simple tomato you are indirectly supporting big farming, greenhouse gas emissions, unfair labor practices, even slave labor. By participating in society at all you are an immoral person.
So yes, we should all try to do better, but we also need realistic paths, not platitudes.
I was wondering how far I’d have to scroll to find a The Good Place reference. Thank you for your contribution.
The idea of being a slow and ineffectual worker is a well-known concept in the CIA’s counterintelligence operations manual.
It is a known and tried and proven method of destabilizing government organizations and institutions.
Apparently, I’m coming off as a dick, and that’s definitely not my intention. I’m sharing the information that I have.
If it doesn’t get received well, oh well. That’s on me for not communicating it effectively.
