Would you work for a corporation that you oppose ideologically, if the pay is good?
I was wondering , if you will be ready to work fof an organisation that you oppose ideologically , for instance you are against big oil but you get a job interview in exxonmobil with good pay , would you consider it ?
*Edit : Recently a friend of mine got a marketing job for a company that had shady business practices , selling their product to gullible parents. Since it was a marketing job , the pay was good but my friend left it within a week , saying it does not suit his ideology.
I consider most “for profit” corporations as corrupt and amoral.
So, yes. Those are the only ones who pay close to a living wage.
Many NGOs and not for profits pay well.
That must be location-dependant. I worked for a non-profit for nearly 5 years, a good sized one. The pay was significantly below the for-profit sector, and the organisation was pretty toxic to boot. I have many friends who did similar, and my assessment is that mine was probably the best experience. Burnout is the norm. Toxic culture is the norm. Underpay is the norm. It's not an experience I'd be excited to repeat.
I think you can apply that to any area regardless of whether they are for or non-for profit.
No experience I've had in the corporate world has been as bad as what I saw everywhere in the non-profit world.
Not saying that for-profit companies don't have these problems, not at all, but not to the same extent.
I don't think that's universal. I work for a NFP and the pay is about the same but the work environment is far, far better.
Glad to hear its not universal.
Agreed. I wouldn't want to, say, work for a defense contractor, bit I've worked in traditional finance for years now, and I definitely disagree with it.
I've done this. I was working for scraps out of college as a community reporter when an ostensibly conservative online news organization offered me an 80% pay raise and the opportunity to do most of my work from home. I was young, recently married and wanted to start a family, and we needed the money. The bigger salary was nice, but over the course of two years I spiraled into a deep depression and began to loath myself and what I did. It was so bad I began looking for a way out after the first six months. Eventually I got out (took a pay cut to do so) but am now in a much better place personally and professionally. I would never do anything like that ever again.
Glad to know things are better now !
There is 1) work you can do to improve this messed up world, 2) work that leaves it as messed up as it already is but doesn't make it particularly worse, and 3) work that actively seeks to make it worse.
I'll do #1 for free or at discounted rates, #2 if the pay is good (this is what I generally expect to do these days), and avoid #3 to the extent that I can. Though if the pay is ridiculously good, maybe that transfer of assets from the bad guys to me could be considered an improvement in the world in its own right ;).
This is my kind of logic, surely taking money from those with less morals is better than not since I decreases their influence (in theory)
No matter how good the pay, the resulting cognitive dissonance would overwhelm me eventually and either lead to a mental breakdown, or me quitting. It wouldn't be worth it.
Definitely. I'm a whore.
As long as it isn't something obviously evil like religion.
What about something obviously evil like selling personal data as a business model?
Or drilling oil
Name a successful tech business that doesn't sell user data. Some companies, like Google, just make it their only business model.
Does Google sell user data? They profit from it for sure, but they keep it to themselves to do so as far as I know.
Technically they sell ads that rely on user data they collected. I was just trying to say they are uniquely evil in that their entire business model revolves around user data while claiming they are a search company or OS company or email company whatever project they will start and kill next.
Most POS companies like LexisNexis are very open about their business model being people's personal info.
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.
Can you leave Greece as well?
Not really, and I don't actually want to.
Thankfully I'm working for one of the companies that are an exception and are actually pretty innovative, it's not bad despite the pay being a bit worse and the hours longer.
Unless you're supportive of the concept that you're a non-capitalist drone working to make a capitalist rich... You already do
I think it's more a question of where the line is. You virtually always have to compromise in at least some small ways.
Would you work for a company where the CEO is an outspoken bigot? What about a company that constructs weapons for the military that you know will be used to kill thousands? Or one of those scam call centers, where your entire job would be scamming the elderly? Or taking to even more extremes, what about a criminal gang where you may have to directly kill people? For that matter, what about indirectly killing people, like if your employer is a massive polluter?
Some of these I'm not even certain of my answer for. In my current situation, I'm well off and don't need to worry much about pay and finding work is easy. But what if I was in a desperate situation, where I was struggling to find work that paid enough to sanely live on? I know I'd definitely have a lower threshold then, but where exactly it lies is hard to say when I'm not in such a situation.
It's the same with boycotts. If you're in poverty and the only close store is a Walmart, good luck boycotting them. You do the best you can within the means you have.
Not only is the answer no, but I'm currently taking a pretty big pay cut to work for a non-profit that I believe in. When you work for scum you start to lose your soul, and it's hard to have any pride in your work knowing your only contribution is enriching your boss. Now my work goes towards a good cause, and I'm far more motivated to do well at my job.
I currently do. I worked for a European SME who was purchased by a fortune 500 company which are currently in the news for anti union actions in the US.
I am lucky enough that to fire someone in my country is a royal pain in the ass so I am always fine with calling out their horseshit in the internal company surveys.
To a certain degree, there ain't really that many companies that are ideologically aligned with me lol
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.
Lol - sounds just like me.
I also work for a mega tech, and I genuinely have concerns over some of the bad press we get.
But I find it hard to resist the benefits for me and my family. I'm now in the last 15 years or so of my career. I need to finish big, for my family.
Depends on how bad the company is and ig I'm in dire need of a job/ pay rise.
I've turned down jobs at Nestle and De Beers due to them being widely unethical and because I had a decent job at the time.
I currently do and I need to get out ASAP. I should've stayed in school, the pay is great but the self loathing isn't worth it
No. Never.
When someone depends from your income like a child, sometimes you can't say no even if it contradicts your principles, if you decide to put yourself through a rough time based entirely on ethics and moral, then do it by yourself.
I do. I'm riding out the clock. I've already put the time in and am grandfathered into better retirement/severance benefits than I could get anywhere else. I hate it, but I have a family to feed.
I have been exactly there and was so, so glad when I eventually left.
Could you switch and take a small hit on those big ticket items?
edit: Zero judgement here btw. Just an open question. Capacity to move those benefits varies wildly by country
Not really. I have unavoidable financial obligations coming soon that I will need this payrate for. I actually love the work I do, too, but I have a distaste for the employer, so it's a weird feeling. I get to play with Linux and containerization and Python, which I love, and I'm generally self-managed, so the only thing wrong with the job is that, at the end of the day, my work feels wasted where I'm doing it. On the other hand, I use the skills I gain at work outside of work on OSS stuff, so it's an OK tradeoff.
Nope. There's never enough money, and I'm not going to sell out for a fancier box and wheels.
Everyone has their own code of ethics, but I think almost every company has some things that might be controversial or that people don't like. Even some of my favorite companies have done things that I am really opposed to.
I would not work in a job where I had to directly do things that I was morally opposed to. But we live in a society where huge companies touch our lives in a lot of different ways. If you are too strict about it, you might find that there aren't many jobs available for you.
No, but i am lucky to have the choice not too.
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.
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.
Imo do it. RTX does fine work. They don’t exist to scam people. The primary problem with them is how governments use their tech. Even so, without them we would in fact be worse off. In this case your family comes first.
This is a great point. I've already decided to get out of Texas because of my family. For the longest time I refused to move because I felt like that was giving up. Especially since my district was pretty well split 50/50. However, the things that have happened over the last year have made me loss all hope. And there is no way in hell am I raising my daughter in a state that would put a bounty on her reproductive rights. What type of parent would I be if I didn't do what was best for them?
Sincerely, thanks. I think I just needed to hear someone else say what you said.
Yeah, God, that's a difficult position to be put in.
Sorry man - you shouldn't have to make choices like that... if you do have to take it, I'd try to ease my concious by redirecting their money. Like, I did that when I had to work for a for-profit contract company staffing Australias social services. KPIs for welfare phone lines staffed by undertrained whoevers. They'd penalise us for taking the time to help vulnerable people. Disgusting company - left the second I could afford to. I put something aside for local mutual aids and environmental groups.
God man - I'm sorry, that just sucks.
Good luck. Hope you can avoid Raytheon.
I'm sorry you had to work for a place like that, but glad to hear you got out of it. I seriously cannot believe people who own/run companies can sleep at night.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
depends if the offer lets me do some good in the company. if im just a worker who has no say in anything, then no
i think Nestle is one of the most evil corporations currently on the planet - not quite large euro bank evil but close. Being out of work for more than 6 months - still applied to multiple positions bc one can afford to stand on a soapbox only when one has the money to afford the soapbox.
Definitely not.
I think money can and will never play down the feeling of working for something/someone that is against your principles and ideology. Every day you get up to work, while drinking your morning coffee you will have thoughts and hate about the place you will start working after commuting.
And do not forget, you will mostly have friends with similar ideology, they will disapprove of this too. Good friends will stay nonetheless but discussions will arise portably more often than you’d like about your choosing a workplace that is against all you believe in.
When you just go and work wherever because the pay is good, then your ideology is not more than a façade you hold up for yourself.
It depends, big oil yeah I guess, but for instance a company that make face recognition camera used in China to basically arrest people, no. As for instance I'd never work for a far-right pro-life company.
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.
Porn sites are the next big thing, forget AI, ML
I'm only half joking, hear me out
As technology innovates, we need to adapt to it. Netflix's network infrastructure probably looks like a kid's science experiment next to the hub
i act my wage and i double or triple it when i work somewhere i don't like.
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.
No. I actually did quit a job in the past when I realised they are buying email lists to send around "newsletters".
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'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.
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.
Depends. Is more a smooth transition for me. Would work for Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Microsoft if the pay was alright. Wouldn't like to work for defense industry. Or big pharma.
Yes. Refused to work for apple as a soft. Eng. They were offering around 50k more. Ill never buy apple products either even if they come with infinite battery.
At my age? Yeah I would.
That all depends on the specifics of "good pay". I guarantee there is some amount of money that I'll accept to do practicaly any job. That may be far more than "good" though.
Would? Yes, I do.
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.
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.
Yes. I don't care about anyone else's ideology. I work, and in return, you pay me. Seems simple enough.
I guess it depends on how desperate I am. Currently if I was job shopping, absolutely not. I have an okay job that I can keep until I find one with a company that doesn't offend my sensibilities.
But if I'm desperate for a job? I have to help feed my family. They have to come first.
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.
Yes, but I wouldn't be very good. Just good enough to keep the job.
I know someone who works in big pharma. And just by saying those two words I know I’ve conjured a thousand images of overcharging for insulin and pushing opioids on people. But that really is just an internet distortion. I guarantee you this person I know sleeps very well at night having met people who are only alive because of their company’s product.
I'm studying to be a doctor specifically to avoid working for hugely unethical corporations. Even if I end up in the private sector (public healthcare is mostly free here), it'll be easier to justify saving lives vs. working for a defense contractor.
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)
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.
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.
Does not doing the activity make something else even more worse? (Frying pan vs. Fire dilemma)
Are you only doing this because there's no other real choice? (Poverty)
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.
I did this when I was younger. At first the pay was so good I didn’t mind, but about 6 months in the cognitive dissonance crept up on me and it became increasingly difficult to be productive. Eventually I self-sabotaged my own exit, definitely not a career highlight and not something I’d care to repeat. Thankfully things got much better from there, I was able to find employers who I aligned much more closely with and things have been great. So yeah, don’t underestimate the mission, have to factor that in too.
No. Don't need them.
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 was part of a group of people who got laid off from a small startup a few months ago. Many of us formed a discord group and have been supporting each other through the job hunt.
One guy who's been at his job for about a week recently said this:
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 currently do, and I subvert them every chance I get.
Nope! Already turned that real down decades ago.
Should watch The Devil's Advocate. Or The Firm.
Absolutely.
Short answer, yes.
Long answer, it's easy to say you will die for a cause while in a cushy position. Sometimes you will have to do things you don't agree with to provide for your loved ones. My current job allows me to provide without compromising my morals, but it would be dishonest of me to say I wouldn't if it didn't. As such, I don't blame the people who have.
Depends. I won't work for Raytheon regardless of how much they pay. Meta though? Maybe...
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
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.
Just finished rewatching Sorry to Bother You, and it deals with this dynamic wonderfully. Highly recommend anyone who works for a living watch it
Everyone has their price. It's just a question of how much.
It depends, but... mostly yes. I don't agree with most big companies ideologically speaking... I'd have a hard time finding work if I limited myself in that way.
Yeah, probably.
Depends on how good the good pay is.
In my current situation I definitely would . I've been struggling for a while to get any job that can pay be better than what I currently get paid .
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
Any chance the friend's job was Vector Marketing or "Cutco" knives?
Ya fuck cutco knives. When I was a lot younger I applied to their ad. The idea of selling knives wasn’t a big deal to me. But then they wanted me to write down a list of every person I knew, and then go sell to them.
I said fuck that immediately and bailed. No way I’m intruding on my friends and family to make some other cunt money.
I worked for them for a couple of months in college before I knew better, very shady shit.
All Googlers say yes.
I say no personally and have been turning down jobs where I despise the company.
They cannot be corrupt and amoral in the same time. Please choose :)
It really depends on the job. I'd probably work for any tech company if the price was right, but I wouldn't work for a right-wing publication or think tank ever.
Depends on how well the pay is and whether there is a healthy stage for me to voice out my opinion on the things and whether they would respect that.
Nope. To be fair I wouldn't look at the sticker price if it was a company of ill repute. I would have to be offered the CEO of that company so I can fix it. Only way.
No, unless:
But, of course, these scenarios are "once in a lifetime" kind of mental exercise. Nothing more. The answer is "no".
For the right money, I'd do most any job regardless of who it's with.
Yes. We will never be able to change the things we want to change unless we first understand them. Also, money.
Hell yeah. This planet is doomed anyway. I already do that earning a cool quarter mil a year. Honestlt couldn't give a shit about the rest of you