It's really common in any industry that isn't the tech industry, because as the article clearly states the root cause is that "business people" i.e. the non-programmers don't understand programming work and (more importantly) don't want to understand it, not even a little bit. In fact they may take open pride in not understanding it. Note that although the title is "I've been employed in tech" his examples are not tech firms.
People in that environment quickly realize that their bosses can't tell the difference between someone who is hard working, motivated and skilled, and someone else who is a lazy incompetent bullshitter. Indeed they'll probably prefer the latter, especially if that person is the Right Sort Of Person. Nor will they listen to the right people, and often they have no idea even why they employ developers at all except that they are expected to be innovative in some abstract way. At some point this realization dawns and the devs discover that they can just ... not work ... and nothing happens. Nobody notices, nobody cares. The salary keeps rolling in. At first they may think, OK, I'll use the extra time for something work related, like taking online courses. The article mentions Coursera. They first take courses that seem maybe relevant, then they move on to skills their employer doesn't need but might look good on their resume. Then they exhaust the potential for using work time for learning and if they can get work-from-home, may start to just spend time taking care of the house, watching TV or sleeping.
I've seen this happen to a friend. His motivation is gone years ago. His project is nearly a sham that loses money hand over fist and likely and always will, his bosses don't care because he's there to tick the box labelled "we are innovative", decisions get made based on ideology first and what makes sense second, and yet he is very well paid. So, he just enjoys it, whilst dreaming about maybe leaving and doing his own company.
People in that environment quickly realize that their bosses can't tell the difference between someone who is hard working, motivated and skilled, and someone else who is a lazy incompetent bullshitter. Indeed they'll probably prefer the latter, especially if that person is the Right Sort Of Person. Nor will they listen to the right people, and often they have no idea even why they employ developers at all except that they are expected to be innovative in some abstract way. At some point this realization dawns and the devs discover that they can just ... not work ... and nothing happens. Nobody notices, nobody cares. The salary keeps rolling in. At first they may think, OK, I'll use the extra time for something work related, like taking online courses. The article mentions Coursera. They first take courses that seem maybe relevant, then they move on to skills their employer doesn't need but might look good on their resume. Then they exhaust the potential for using work time for learning and if they can get work-from-home, may start to just spend time taking care of the house, watching TV or sleeping.
I've seen this happen to a friend. His motivation is gone years ago. His project is nearly a sham that loses money hand over fist and likely and always will, his bosses don't care because he's there to tick the box labelled "we are innovative", decisions get made based on ideology first and what makes sense second, and yet he is very well paid. So, he just enjoys it, whilst dreaming about maybe leaving and doing his own company.