so this topic doesn’t really fit anywhere else but I think since today is May Day we should talk about workers’ rights. It isn’t only about salary and getting paid well. It’s about getting paid for overtime, it’s about the availability of mental health help, it’s about removing all the unnecessary stresses that make work and jobs harder than they have to be.
I’ve read about workers rights but only in the last 6 months has it hit me hard how important it is. I’ve worked with jr devs who made way under the average income in my country. I’ve seen them put in insane amounts of overtime. I’ve seen them scared to even ask for a day off. I’ve seen a manager tell a dev to go home sick but don’t forget to take his laptop so he can work from home instead of recover.
It’s also hard to bring up mental health or burn out issues; they’re always waved away as a unique one time event that only happens because of this unique one time bug or deployment or whatever the emergency of the day is.
Basically we need to help each other out as software developers and as people. Perhaps share the link to this forum on Twitter or Facebook; ask your team members how they’re doing and if there’s anything you can help them with; spend more time with your family and step away from the screen a bit more.