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Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

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Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#41

Post by SyneRyder »

joe-collins wrote: post #35
rjbwork wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame the email spam. It's made email nearly useless for me in my career except for when I worked at a global investment bank as an intern many years ago. I'm mid 30's principal and I basically ignore email. I check it once a week I'd say. The absolute bulk of communication in my career has been via hipchat/slack/teams, fogbugz/jira/azure devops/monday and our source control systems.

Agree. 33 years old, gmail, with a handful of other accounts used to corral expected spam from low quality websites. My inbox is 100% automated messages, and the only one going back through July that I explicitly solicited is from a concert ticket purchase. Email, like the telephone, is polluted into uselessness.

Assuming you're a developer, by 33 you should have programmed email filters to handle this. The whole point of email is to have it automatically prioritized and sorted before you even start reading it. If your inbox is 100% automated messages, something has gone seriously wrong.

I wonder if Gmail is part of the problem. All the spam I receive at a Fastmail-hosted account is coming from hacked Gmail accounts. Google is doing nothing to stop it, even though a very simple filter at my end can automatically flag it. Gmail's outgoing mail servers are getting reported into blocklist reputation oblivion in recent weeks - could be worth switching to a paid provider.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#42

Post by canadaduane »

spookthesunset wrote: post #37
giantg2 wrote: post #3

I have noticed that communication has gone substantially downhill since the pandemic. Even communicating with people like some doctors, paralegals, and nurses has been tough. There's some incorrect information in my kid's medical file. It's basically impossible to get it corrected. The courts will also take the word of some nurse who entered the note over the parent. Why? Simply because they're a nurse. Yet they're s…

Nobody wants to fucking do any work anymore. I hate to blame it on all this remote work crap but I highly suspect it plays a lot into it. When everybody is a small rectangular box featuring a head and shoulders, the human connection is completely gone. It's all fake internet shit now so who cares? Plus all interaction has to be gated through meetings and shit. Things happen much, much slower. I dunno man. It isn't th…

I wonder if we're going through a transformation period where we don't yet have a grasp on the cultural habits and institutions that make our hybrid online-offline worlds fulfill our human needs--like meaning, significance, belonging, achievement, etc.

I suspect there are some things we took for granted in a "fully offline" world that we haven't figured out yet. Things like how "being seen" while working helped establish self-confidence; or, "overhearing" a conversation in the office helped make work a social-first experience.

I'm trying to understand what some of these might be, because I want to help cultivate the solution at relm.us. My personal work is to better understand psychological human needs and translate the fulfillment of them into an enabling social (spatial) platform.

Maybe it's the answer, and maybe it isn't. But as you've outlined, the cost of not understanding the problem are very high.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#43

Post by slt2021 »

humanistbot wrote: post #20

> more often than not I would need to write follow-up emails after an email communication would go unresponded to for over a week I know this is a "kids these days" anecdote, but I'm seeing a big generational gap in this kind of activity. I was in a frustrating conversation with an undergrad intern who hadn't responded to an e-mail. I was trying to make it a learning experience: at least in this workplace, if I send…

people are overloaded these days. You can only expect something if (1) the person is your Direct report and (2) if there is tracking item in JIRA or something.

in all other cases - it is not business critical and it is person's courtesy to reply you on time

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#44

Post by danbmil99 »

As an aging Boomer I find this ghosting shit completely unacceptable. Are Millennials really such delicate flowers that they can't be bothered to tell someone they're not going to hire them?

I have the funny feeling they're importing these practices from their dating life. I would find it unacceptable in that context as well, but to be honest as long as I stick to my age range I don't see that happening. Our generation was just brought up better than that.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#45

Post by wswope »

giantg2 wrote: post #16
wswope wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's some incorrect information in my kid's medical file. It's basically impossible to get it corrected. Not the case, chief - that's covered by HIPAA. If you submit a formal correction request, they're obligated to respond or land in very hot water with HHS. If they disagree with your correction request, you have the right to get a statement of disagreement added to your records. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-i…

I believe that only applies to the general record, not the notes which are generally not included with the patient-available record, right?

If I’m reading you right, you’re talking about something like Epic’s “sticky note” system, where providers can leave general comments about a patient not associated with specific encounter? That’s a really good question - and one I’d have to leave up to an attorney. My naive guess would be that the patient’s right to access those may depend on whether or not a practice is using them to store health information, or just general non-medical tidbits (I believe some orgs tell staff not to keep any PHI in them as a matter of policy).

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#46

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

logicalmonster wrote: post #36

IMO, here's 4 partial explanations, that I may or may not be right about. 1) Companies fear being sued for discriminatory hiring practices. There is zero risk of being sued if you keep your mouth shut and don't communicate with candidates. There is a minor risk of being sued if you give any feedback, even if you don't intend any offense. Sadly, the legal culture means that the safest thing to do is ignore candidates.…

1- only reasonable if the companies staff are prejudicial against protected groups. Granted this is true of most companies, so perhaps reforming toxic culture should take a higher precedent if lawsuits are so scary…

2- have you had an hr job? I haven’t, but have had the misfortune of working closely with several different hr agents and the shit they deal with is exhausting.

3- accurate

4- this is losing its efficacy as even the poors are realizing all the glitz is for show when the cashier wearing a corporate mandated pride flag and blm patch will still mutter slurs under their breath.

I would add 5- recruiters have had the tables turned on them for the first time nationwide outside of history books about dead or dying people. These folks weren’t trained to sell but to extract and most people simply aren’t elastic enough to adapt as fast as their potential victims are adapting.

6-generational and class divide. There’s the generation and class of people who bought homes, second homes, summer cars, boats, rvs, and had litters of children on meager salaries. Many of these folks aren’t well educated or informed and have no way to conceptualize how much the world has changed around them as they’ve sleepwalked through life working, raising children, and watching television. Even if they can conceptualize a piece of the new world they inhabit it’s rare that they can reform their entire worldview to incorporate the new information and adjusting their opinions is an entire other bag of worms.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#47

Post by patrick451 »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #46
logicalmonster wrote: post #36

IMO, here's 4 partial explanations, that I may or may not be right about. 1) Companies fear being sued for discriminatory hiring practices. There is zero risk of being sued if you keep your mouth shut and don't communicate with candidates. There is a minor risk of being sued if you give any feedback, even if you don't intend any offense. Sadly, the legal culture means that the safest thing to do is ignore candidates.…

1- only reasonable if the companies staff are prejudicial against protected groups. Granted this is true of most companies, so perhaps reforming toxic culture should take a higher precedent if lawsuits are so scary… 2- have you had an hr job? I haven’t, but have had the misfortune of working closely with several different hr agents and the shit they deal with is exhausting. 3- accurate 4- this is losing its efficacy…

> 1- only reasonable if the companies staff are prejudicial against protected groups. Granted this is true of most companies, so perhaps reforming toxic culture should take a higher precedent if lawsuits are so scary…

You seem to be assuming that lawsuits are only filed for legitimate grievances. It's easier to never have to deal with a lawsuit than try to prove you didn't discriminate.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#48

Post by [deleted] »

logicalmonster wrote: post #36

IMO, here's 4 partial explanations, that I may or may not be right about. 1) Companies fear being sued for discriminatory hiring practices. There is zero risk of being sued if you keep your mouth shut and don't communicate with candidates. There is a minor risk of being sued if you give any feedback, even if you don't intend any offense. Sadly, the legal culture means that the safest thing to do is ignore candidates.…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#49

Post by troon-lover »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #39
shapefrog wrote: post #31

> 1. Is it normal practice to ghost applicants at the staff-level interview process? Apparently yes. Also, am I meant to follow up after the interview, write a thank you message etc? Reminds me of this gem (2019) - I've been hiring people for 10 years, and I still swear by a simple rule: If someone doesn't send a thank-you email, don't hire them. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-write-thank-you-email... > 2. Co…

> Reminds me of this gem (2019) - I've been hiring people for 10 years, and I still swear by a simple rule: If someone doesn't send a thank-you email, don't hire them. https://www.businessinsider.c A fuckin thank-you email?! That lady is out of her gourd. I didn’t receive a response (even an automated email rejection) to over 50% of the hundred or so applications I submitted during my last job search. Half of the com…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: When did corporate America become so flaky?

#50

Post by [deleted] »

danbmil99 wrote: post #44

As an aging Boomer I find this ghosting shit completely unacceptable. Are Millennials really such delicate flowers that they can't be bothered to tell someone they're not going to hire them? I have the funny feeling they're importing these practices from their dating life. I would find it unacceptable in that context as well, but to be honest as long as I stick to my age range I don't see that happening. Our generati…

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