Family of MSFT employee who died warn tech companies not to overwork workers

The sad part is that no one forces you to work that hard. You're free to say NO! and work less, even this will results being laid off. Only during 1:1s your manager may highlight that deadline is soon and would be great if the project would be delivered on time, and little hint about a promo. But you set goals and force yourself to do more, single night this less sleep doesn't hurt anyone. Then there are more such nights of coding and you feel barely alive. 90% work is done, only very little left to finish. And then bam!

Upd:

I didn’t mean that this is ok, I’m for workers rights.

> The sad part is that no one forces you to work that hard.

You are free to be poor, broke and homeless.

We really need a management class that doesn't insist on continuing the cycle of abuse on their underlings.

>We really need a management class that doesn't insist on continuing the cycle of abuse on their underlings.

This won't happen. Your manager puts pressure on you, they get pressure from their manager and so on until it reaches the CEO who might be getting pressure from investors/board.

Only fix is regulations from the government which seems to be a curse word by many posters on this site.

History is filled with people saying “this won’t happen”, only for that thing to happen.

Culture evolves and changes. What is acceptable in a culture evolves and changes with it.

Be the change you want to see, apply steady pressure, speak up when the opportunity arises, debate people who see things differently, and with time, many things can happen.

Most progress is hard-won.

This is like saying I can fix global warming by recycling better and going vegan. You are not wrong but it's also like trying to stop a flood with few sandbags.

I've had managers who tried. None of them lasted at these companies that did not care. They were politely told they were not meeting expectations and since they had mortgages and other stuff, they took a hint and moved on.

Again, this fight is political and not corporate. Make tech workers hourly and this will stop. There will also be plenty of tech workers who will fight against this tooth and nail.