No Stupid Questions

This is quite a relevant question for me. In Greece there isn't a lot of innovation and the government doesn't really give a shit to fix the root problems, all young people that can change the scene leave for better countries.

That leaves us with very few companies that do something respectable and are worth working for, and a ton of gambling companies that feed off of the uneducated people. Those gambling companies are making huge profits and doing very well in general, so working for them is usually a nice experience from what I've heard of.

It's often tempting, but I can't justify participating in this disgusting industry to get more money, benefits and time. It would never sit well with me, but it always feels unfair how many jobs there are for that industry compared to anything else.

Definitely. I'm a whore.

As long as it isn't something obviously evil like religion.

Unless you're supportive of the concept that you're a non-capitalist drone working to make a capitalist rich... You already do

I currently do! I work for one of the huge mega tech corporations.

They pay me very well, I have great benefits, and a I get a ton of paid time off. They don't work me too many hours. They were very flexible with me when my wife was in and out of the hospital. They give decent annual raises and bonuses, and great stock bonuses.

Unless something changes, I don't see myself leaving, even though I know I could get money by bouncing around, because my job is very easy and the pay is very good for how easy my job is.

To a certain degree, there ain't really that many companies that are ideologically aligned with me lol

Absolutely. And I did so to afford my family's medical needs, food, shelter, etc. The pay was almost 3x what I made previously, which wasn't a lot. Benefits, flexibility, all that shit. And then they laid off my entire team hahahahahaha

and I'd do it again

I work as a consultant so I'm always dealing with different customers. We had one client who operates payday loans. I refused to do any work for them and thankfully my company didn't argue when I said I couldn't morally work with them.

That said, I have a child with autism and I'm spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on getting him the help he needs. My companies insurance sucks and I saw a job posting at Raytheon I was a perfect fit for. I'm still conflicted on if I should apply just to get better insurance and help my family.

It's a trade-off, so it depends on both how good the pay is and how opposed the company is.

I'm currently working for a crypto company, and have worked for other similar ones in the past, and these all tend to be libertarian types which I don't agree with, but they pay well.

On the other hand, a previous employer tried to get Saudi Aramco as a client, and I made it clear that I would not support this. Fortunately those talks didn't come anywhere.

So yes, there's certainly a line.

No. I actually did quit a job in the past when I realised they are buying email lists to send around "newsletters".

No. Worked for a facility that did lethality testing on various animals for potential drugs. I recognize the need for such things, but it wore on me until I had to quit.

Nope. Any job I had where they required me to do something I thought was unethical like selling credit cards or upsetting I just refused to do it until they let me go. I would rather enjoy being unemployed than stoop to that bullshit.

Oh 100% I'll take a job with any company for the right pay and benefits. It helps that I'm an IT guy so any nastiness the company is involved in isn't directly my job.

I currently work for a national company that does contract work for food processing plants, so plenty of nasty stuff involved, but my hands stay clean as I primarily manage their ERP software and build reports and workflows to hopefully help keep what happens at the plants as above the board and by the book as possible

I feel it out. To some degree EVERY job has SOMETHING that opposes my ideology. So I play it by ear.

Like there was one company I worked for that used invasive telemetry on a product. But still I served as best I could.

Then a couple months ago I was approached by a couple that was dealing with a website issue. After an hour of talking about the issue the owner said, "oh, btw, this is a p*rn site site."

My conscious bothered me. I had to walk away, despite the fact that I really needed the money.

I don't know about ideology, but I definitely don't believe in the industry I work in. I work for a WISP; wireless ISP. We provide internet and L2 connections to remote places: homes and oilfield sites. It's the 2nd such job I've had in 20 years.

The first was back in the late 2000s. The equipment was either cheap, or way too expensive, and needed to be replaced every five years to keep up with customer expectations. I remember my old boss once texting me around 2005ish all proud that he was sustaining 5mbps through the gateway. Today thats a single Netflix stream. The 2 and 5 ghz bands were overcrowded and noisy. The government licenses and equipment manufacturers were not at all in tune with the reality of last mile delivery Ubiquiti and Mikrotik were the only affordable options. Everything else was too expensive.

The cellular companies should have destroyed WISPs entirely by 2015. They had the tech, the financial resources, the frequencies, the government cronnies, and an existing customer base that grows every year. Cell cards are easily added to laptops and tablets. They have access to frequency licenses that us small wisps will never be able to afford. They have relationships with manufacturers who won't even look at us. But they keep targeting cities and population centers. I don't understand why they fall short on rural distribution. Especially since governments keep giving them money to do exactly that (instead of giving it to the companies who are actually trying to do it).

Then along comes Starlink. Say what you want about Musky, but Starlink for the most part works, and they are slowly eating our lunch. They have a reach and flexibilty we will never be able to match due to geography and money. Even if we had unlimited money, no-one is going to run fiber through the Rocky Mountains let alone build towers all the way from Calgary to Kelowna.

Between cell and Starlink I honestly expect to lose the entirety of our residential customer base by 2030. Maybe we'll keep a few old timers who don't want to change and a few small businesses who want to be able to call in for support. Our saving grace will be the bigger businesses who want or need higher upload speeds, L2 circuits, and support. Even those will thin out because it will cost us more to service them than they are willing to pay.

The governments are clawing back frequencies to auction off to bigger players and forcing CBRS and licensed channels down our throats. Manufacturers are more and more moving to the cripple-ware pay-to-play model, and they want subscriptions for management software.

That said, my pay cheque has never been late, I'm learning a lot of cool stuff about networking, and the boss is willing to invest in growth. The company itself has it's fingers in other pies and the owner is fairly business savvy. It's the wisp side of things that I don't have a lot of hope for.

Depends but pretty much sure.

I'd rather take a lot of money from someone I hate so I can donate it to stuff I like than a little money from people already doing what I want.

Obviously good pay is subjective but at the end of they day you need to eat and pay for housing. Not everyone is going to ideologically match with their company.

Also how else can these companies change if everyone buys the corporate line who works for them.

Yes. I don't care about anyone else's ideology. I work, and in return, you pay me. Seems simple enough.

I think I can distill many of the replies to this question in a few checks that may apply generally (exceptions abound, and i could just be wrong)

1. Are you intimately familiar (subject matter expert level) with the nasty outcomes of what you would be doing on a daily basis at this company? If yes its better it was YOU and not somebody else.

2. How much separation is there between what you do and the nasty outcomes? If you pull the trigger on a drone.. I get thats unacceptable to some people.

3. Does not doing the activity make something else even more worse? (Frying pan vs. Fire dilemma)

4. Are you only doing this because there's no other real choice? (Poverty)

Yes, but I wouldn't be very good. Just good enough to keep the job.

Would? Yes, I do.

I'm actually about to face this question down and I am dreading it. I love the job I have now, but the pay isn't there and it isn't going to be, so I have to leave. I have been WFH for 7 years now and have been following the trends in the workplace and I am so terrified of how toxic the landscape has become. Especially in any part of the VFX industry which I am trained to be in, so I am having to look wide and hope I can spin my skills and Applied Math degree into something meaningful to a company that will pay me what I'm worth.

Maybe a little off-topic, but I guess I just needed to get it off my chest.

I have worked for the last 6.5 years at a faith based credit union ($400MM in size) despite being an atheist. All of our meetings start with a prayer. They have been good up until recently where we've done more and more investment real estate lending and that doesn't sit well with me with our housing crisis in the US. Have a 3rd interview with a regional bank ($14Bn in size) to move to more C&I and CRE loans instead of single family homes. I know they are still involved in it but I'm not going to be the one writing loans on investment properties. They also do a lot of affordable housing lending and community reinvestment in distressed areas.

No, but i am lucky to have the choice not too.

Only very briefly if I really needed the money. I used to work a corporate job and for a while I was a contractor doing data analysis. Those jobs left me feeling like I wasn't doing anything of value and that was enough to shift me into the public sector, which I enjoy immensely. I'd rather not go back but I could see myself needing more money than is generally on offer in public service.

If I opposed the organization ideologically I'd probably sell plasma before I took a job there. But I don't have a family relying on me so that makes it easier.

Should watch The Devil's Advocate. Or The Firm.

I'm lucky enough to be able to have a lot of choice where I work - in a software engineer and there are any number of places where I could work and be paid well. Given that I feel some responsibility to work somewhere ethical - not everyone else has the opportunity to decide.

No.

Im a software developer and I never applied for any companies that were involved in gambling, predatory practices or fintech companies.

I work for a small < 10 employees company and it’s great.

Earlier in my career I probably would have. These days I'm an executive... I have a lot more of a choice about where I work, and a big part of my job is representing the corporation and motivating a lot of folks to work hard together to get its mission accomplished.

I don't think I could do that for a company that I thought was harmful or immoral, and I know I wouldn't want to.

No. Don't need them.

I worked in accounting. I've done it. There's not a hell of a lot of choice at the beginning of your career in public.

My personal line is anything defense related I guess

I don't oppose the corporation, but I dislike some of the things we make. If they ask me to work on something I object to then I'll worry about it then.

Depends. I won't work for Raytheon regardless of how much they pay. Meta though? Maybe...

I currently do, and I subvert them every chance I get.

No. I have gotten 2 offers to work for the NSA and turned them down hard. If I could stomach it, I could have a job working as an actuarial scientist for an insurance company.

I had a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very good offer from an English weapon manufacturer but turned it down because of obvious reasons.

I struggled with that for a bit at my current job. We make parts for oil refineries.

But we also make parts for power plants, amd chemical plants so... on one hand it's oil which isn't great, on the other hand I'm keeping the lights on.

Absolutely not. I have had recruiters contact me about "defense" (read: murder and imperialism) companies and flat out refused to even consider the jobs.

I hold the position that if I knowingly helped design a system that delivered a bomb which, for example, blew up someone's wedding party, I would have to pay the murdered people's families reparations out of what money I do have, and kill myself to atone for abetting that atrocity. Defense contractors are disgusting, I don't know how they can delude themselves into doing their evil jobs and keep living with thr shame.

I sorta do? My employer has been making commitments to improving things, and I'm involved in one of those projects, but they're a very slow ship to turn and I can't say I 100% stand behind what they're generally doing.

I joined out of a mix of necessity, opportunism and the chance to develop new skills, and grew to like the specific job I'm doing. I didn't have many choices for private reasons, but needed the money when I signed up, so in a way the money was good enough to compromise on ethics.

I got a permanent position now, and again, I stuck for personal reasons, to improve my future prospects and because I like the job, but for all the security a permanent position offers, I'm still planning to start looking for different opportunities when circumstances allow, unless the internal culture makes some masive progress in the next two years.

In the medium run? Not sure. I'd like to think I'd compromise money over ideology, but I also know that I tend to be selfish and really good at mental gymnastics to justify decisions. I would probably not sign on with Exxon, so there's definitely the severity of opposition to account for, but there isn't any clear line that I'd swear my life on. On the other hand, if the money was enough to support political causes that I feel (or tell myself) would weigh up the toll on my conscience, I might fold.

In the long run, I hope to get to a point where I can answer that with a firm "No". Maybe once life stabilises, I'll grow firmer in my convictions. Maybe once the question of pay shifts from covering necessities to the amount of luxury I can afford, the exact number will lose meaning. Maybe I'll find a place that I both support fully and earn enough at that any more would feel obscene anyway.

So basically, it comes down to the factors of

1. How strongly do I oppose the company?
2. How much money, compared to what I need to live, and compared to what I need to support a pleasant lifestyle?
3. Where am I on the scale from nihilism to idealism at the given point in time?

Absolutely.

I try to avoid to it but no job will be perfect. You could life style creep and that nice salary turns into handcuffs and you might have issues going back to making less at a more ethical company

Yes 100%. I get why everyone would say no, but as someone currently living in poverty without enough money to eat every day, if I could make enough money to live comfortably and the job didn't kill my body I'd work for anyone as long as the job was legal. I'd probably just shit talk the company in my off time or something, it wouldn't matter because I'd be able to afford to have off time.