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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#51

Post by ditonal »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #5

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in th…

Most of the positive things I read about company cultures, the "best places to work" lists, the glowing pieces on the founders, the TechCrunch articles, the phony Glassdoor reviews, are infinitely more self-aggrandizing fluff PR pieces than anything Lyons has written. No doubt about it, he's promoting his book and his show, but I'm glad some other sides of the story are being told.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#52

Post by x5n1 »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #23
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #5

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in th…

> Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? Look up "Fake Steve Jobs", it was a great read back in its day. He stopped the blog when it became apparent that Jobs was mortally ill. Pretty good insights into the "Silicon Valley" pathological culture. (It has long since mutated astonishingly from the simple Fairchild seed that named it.)

Not pathological, productive... productive damn it. And we won't hire you if you don't toe the party line and rhetoric. Ever. Enjoy being blacklisted for not behaving yourself. /s

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#53

Post by jim-greer »

ditonal wrote: post #47
jim-greer wrote: post #40

I don't know much about Hubspot, but Lyons should know that sudden firings without an explanation are not common. The norm is quarterly reviews, and firing only after you've had several negative ones. Extortion is obviously not common either... Content farms are also not common at solid companies - more typical of fly-by-night marketing-driven places without much real tech. The claim that there's a lot of pressure to…

I've worked at several tech startups with sudden firing. The "norm" from my perspective tends to be a one month Performance Improvement Plan, usually just serving as a paper trail with very little hope of getting off of it, though I've seen people just suddenly walked out as well. I appreciate Dan Lyons cutting through the bullshit on tech startups and I recognize a lot of what he's talking about from my own experien…

So people get 1 month performance plans after positive or neutral reviews? Or are these places that don't do regular reviews? I've honestly never heard of that. Want to name names?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#54

Post by k-mcgrady »

golergka wrote: post #33
pascalo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he doesn't need to imply it, firing someone without explanation is bad management, no matter how young or old you are.

This is correct. However, it's still strane to mention ages in this context. Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is. > She was white, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her latino manager that she had two weeks to get out.

>> "Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is."

How is that in any way a sound analogy? Your age likely has an impact on your experience. More experience doesn't necessarily mean you're better at your job but it's a decent possibility. Race has no impact on performance at all.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#55

Post by rhizome »

rm999 wrote: post #37
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #5

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in th…

He did start the book to sort of mock the company; from his NPR interview: >when I first sold the book and start to write it, it was meant to be sort of a modern-day "Office Space ... I wanted to write just a funny story about being in a kooky company. It was just a comedy. On one hand I think it's sort of disingenuous - the company culture was never a good fit for him and he shouldn't harm others because of his mist…

Infiltration is a time-tested and legit writer's tool.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#56

Post by joesmo »

"Treating workers as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded is a central part of the revised relationship between employers and employees that techies proclaim is an innovation as important as chips and software."

Really? I've never heard that and never met a single person who thinks this. I guess pieces like this just like to pull things out of thin air. It makes zero sense for any non-executive to think this way and most techies are not executives.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#57

Post by x5n1 »

dataker wrote: post #8

The philosopher Slavoj Žižek explains this with the ‘postmodern’ boss: >Not a master but just a coordinator of our joint creative efforts; the first among equals. There should be no formalities among us, we should address him by his nickname, he shares a dirty joke with us… but in all this, HE REMAINS OUR MASTER.

Well if they are joint coordinators, they we should share equally in the fruits of our effort. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to swallow the empty rhetoric these sorts of people and corporations put out which is totally insincere. But you are in this relationship, you need the money and don't really have a choice in the matter of rejecting the culture or the values being pushed upon you without consideration for your needs.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#58

Post by aianus »

halestock wrote: post #50
golergka wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. However, it's still strane to mention ages in this context. Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is. > She was white, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her latino manager that she had two weeks to get out.

Age implies wisdom and experience, which I think was the point he was trying to get across. Comparing it to race is just silly.

> Age implies wisdom and experience

Age implies obsoleteness and poor health. (I can stereotype too!)

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#59

Post by horsebattery »

xzi wrote: post #46
ThomPete wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can but it's extremely, extremely rare for the very simple fact that your primary skills as a manager is people skills and the ability to relate to other peoples situation. Something you normally won't be as developed at that point. At 28 you have more experience than a 18 year old, but not much and def not enough to be able to relate to a 35 year old person in most cases. So not sure I find it ironic. Rather I c…

I agree with everything you say. However, in my personal experience, the best manager I've had was 25 when I was 30. This manager realized he didn't really know much. So he stayed out of my way and let me make the technical decisions while he ran interference with the directors and VPs. Never had a more smooth working environment before or since.

I think for average people, such as myself, age is definitely an advantage in being a manager. I tried it at 24 and hated it, felt totally out of my depth.

Having been through and been humbled by many life experiences means I can show more empathy and understanding. On the other hand there are many very switched on young people, so like always we should ignore age and judge people on their merits.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#60

Post by deanCommie »

JayHost wrote: post #17

Amazon is new Walmart. They don't care that you don't like their work environment.They have money; you need money and have little options. I think instead of being interested in recycling talent; Amazon is interested in those who will take the most abuse.

Let's back off with the Amazon hate. Right below it on the same list is Google with an average tenure at 1.1 years. Nobody tries to use that as an argument that Google burns through workers who quit in dissatisfaction.
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