And this is why I emigrated to the EU, and work for companies that respect the 40 hours work week. Crunch time always feels like “you’re doing it wrong” to me. And so I am still in front end development, mentoring nowadays, managing more than coding, and still liking the work.
I believe the phrase is “induced demand”.
Not questioning your experience or perspective at all, nor trying to whaddabout / trolley, genuine question:
Do you reckon being Canadian / English speaking / etc played into this? Particularly the Canadian part - I believe INS is more relaxed about their northern neighbours. Or did your experience match that of, say, your Indian colleagues?
ETA: “trolley” is how the bbs is autocorrecting t. r. o. l. l. today.
Ooh, that’s going to make for some interesting ethical quandaries.
Very fair question, and I can say it has been similar for non-white people in tech. It is absolutely a privilege situation, but in this case it’s the privilege associated with H1B, which is the “fancy” visa. Only “the best people” get those, so I think INS gives them a pass, whether consciously or just because they choose to focus their limited resources on migrant blue collar workers instead (and are thus racist and classist by default rather than intention). That visa has a lot of class associated with it, which is why Former Guy slashed the number of them to play to his audience.
When I overstayed my visa for six months that one time, I never even got a letter asking me to leave. Surely INS knows where I lived, but they really didn’t seem to care. Mind you, I didn’t dare leave the country (and I missed Christmas with my family that year) because I would not have been let back in. However when I did get a new visa and did the performative cargo-culty “official re-entry” in Vancouver, they didn’t bat an eye at the six month overstay period which was surely obvious in my records.
Even to this day, when I enter the US (which I do almost weekly for work) they never ask me about that. They ask a lot of other probing and insulting questions about my personal history (some US border people are real dicks) but nobody has ever said anything about the H1B abuse that is likely right there on their screen every time they swipe my NEXUS card.
Unless your former employer is a billionaire sociopath and doesn’t just call INS, but push them to raid your home as a lesson to his H1b hostage workers…
Yeesh, good point. I didn’t include the Musk Factor in my calculations. Now I do worry about those folks. 
Oh, look, “Pedo Guy” has returned to expose a new enemy! Justice will always come to those who call playboy billionaire Elon Musk on his BS.
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