The Burnout Machine

Originally written by Biozombie, published in 2600 Hacker Quarterly, Autumn 2024

Let’s get real for a minute: the tech industry loves to sell us on the myth of the "dream job." You know the pitch - beanbags in the office, free kombucha on tap, and "Agile" processes that are supposed to make everything more flexible, more efficient. But the reality? It’s a meat grinder that chews up developers, sysadmins, and infosec pros and spits them out the other side - burnt out, disillusioned, and disposable.

We’re living in a world where billion dollar tech companies expect us to live and breathe code, demanding 80 hour weeks under the guise of "passion." And what do we get in return? Burnout, anxiety, and the constant threat of layoffs. It’s time to face facts: this industry is not your friend. It’s a machine, and unless we start organizing, it’s going to keep grinding us down. It’s time to talk about unionizing tech jobs.

Remember when Agile was supposed to save us all? Flexible sprints, self-organizing teams - yeah, right. In practice, Agile has been twisted into a tool for management to push us harder and faster. They say it’s about "responding to change over following a plan," but let’s be honest - it’s about dangling more carrots and keeping us on a treadmill that never stops. The sprint becomes a marathon, and we’re the ones paying the price.

And then there’s burnout. We’re in an industry where burnout isn’t just common - it’s expected. If you’re not pulling all-nighters, you’re "not committed." If you’re not answering Slack messages at midnight, you’re "not a team player." This culture is toxic, and it’s only getting worse. The relentless churn of projects, the constant pressure to innovate, and the ever-present threat of obsolescence create a perfect storm of stress. And what’s the industry’s solution? A mindfulness app and a lecture on work-life balance. Give me a break.

Let’s talk about job security - because there isn’t any. The tech industry loves to hype itself as a meritocracy, where the best and the brightest rise to the top. But in reality, it’s a meat market. As soon as you’re not "on the cutting edge," you’re out. Outsourcing, contract work, gig economy bullshit - it’s all designed to keep us insecure, to keep us grinding away at the next big thing with no guarantee that we’ll have a job next week, next month, or next year.

Companies love to brag about their innovation, but the real innovation is finding new ways to make us disposable. Permanent employment? That’s for suckers. Why pay benefits and offer job security when they can churn through contractors and freelancers like cheap code? And don’t get me started on those non-compete clauses - designed to keep you locked down and terrified to make a move that might actually be good for your career.

And let’s not forget the ethical side of this equation. We’re being asked to build the future, to develop AI, blockchain, and all the other buzzword technologies that are supposed to change the world. But at what cost? How many of us have been forced to work on projects that make us sick to our stomachs - surveillance tech, data mining tools, algorithms that reinforce social biases - because we don’t have the power to say no?

That’s the kicker. We’re the ones building the damn future, but we have no say in how it’s built. We don’t get to decide whether our code is used for good or for evil. And as long as we’re isolated, as long as we’re afraid to speak up because we might lose our jobs, nothing will change.

This industry isn’t going to fix itself. The billionaires at the top aren’t going to suddenly grow a conscience, and they aren’t going to give us the power to push back. That power has to come from us - from organizing, from resisting, from breaking - unless we organize, unless we unionize.

Unionizing isn’t just about getting better pay or benefits (though we desperately need both). It’s about taking back some control. It’s about having a say in how we work, what we work on, and how we’re treated. It’s about saying no to the endless churn, the burnout culture, the gig economy bullshit.

And don’t let anyone tell you it’s impossible. The Alphabet Workers Union at Google? They’re showing us it can be done. They’re standing up to one of the biggest companies in the world and saying, "Enough." We need more of that. We need to take that energy and spread it across the industry - across all the companies that are profiting off our sweat and tears.

Hackers, we’ve always been about more than just code. We’ve been about freedom - freedom of information, freedom from control. Unionizing is the next logical step. It’s about taking the hacker ethos into the workplace, about organizing to protect ourselves and each other.

• Start the Conversation: Talk to your coworkers. Break the silence. The first step to organizing is realizing you’re not alone.
• Support Existing Efforts: If you’re in a company where union efforts are already underway, get involved. If not, start thinking about how you can start one.
• Use Your Skills: We’re hackers - we know how to communicate securely, how to organize without being detected. Let’s use those skills to build something real, something that can stand up to the powers that be.
• Push for Ethics: Let’s make sure that any union platform we build isn’t just about wages and hours, but about ethics too. We need to have a say in what we’re building and how it’s used.

The tech industry is a runaway train, and if we don’t do something soon, we’re going to get run over. The burnout, the job insecurity, the nightmares - it’s all going to keep getting worse unless we take a stand. Unionizing isn’t just a nice idea - it’s a necessity.

So let’s do what hackers do best: let’s disrupt. Let’s take the tools they’ve given us, the skills we’ve honed, and use them to build something better. Let’s unionize. Let’s take back our industry, take back our jobs, and take back our futures.

The future of tech is being written right now, and it’s up to us to decide what kind of story it will be. Let’s make it a story we can be proud of.