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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.

116 comments
  • 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.

  • 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.

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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 if the offer lets me do some good in the company. if im just a worker who has no say in anything, then no

  • 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.

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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 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 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.

116 comments