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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#181

Post by anonymous5789 »

nostrademons wrote: post #147
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.

I felt like most of my managers at Google tried pretty hard at this. We certainly did have conversations about what I wanted long-term within my career and how that might best be accomplished within the organization. Ultimately, I ended up deciding that what I wanted couldn't be achieved inside Google, but they certainly made the effort.

At five years there, I have yet to have that conversation. 1:1s are either what I'm working on or more promises about "this will make a really strong promotion case." Namely motivation for working on whatever shit work needs doing next.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#182

Post by capote »

Though I do understand most of the criticism this piece is getting in this thread, can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Culture aside, crying at your desk aside, spare me the extra layer of fake, pointless language to disguise what is happening. I expect professionalism and respect from an employer, and that involves being straightforward, respectful, and to the point.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#183

Post by ryandamm »

aleyan wrote: post #80

Issues raised in the article aside, I am here to argue semantics. The article used the word start-up 3 times, plus one more in the title of his book. The company he worked for however, HubSpot is 10 years old and public and thus by definition is not a startup. Other two companies mentioned, Amazon and Netflix are both over a decade old and public and thus are not start-ups by any stretch of the imagination. Startups…

I have a related quibble: a lot of companies are called 'tech companies' when, in fact, they're consumers of technology, not producers of them.

If your primary innovation is business model, and all the interesting tech you end up working on is purely a result of your scale, well, you're not a tech company. You're a company.

Those companies are probably great (or at least, so far as great == profitable/growing), but calling them 'tech' loses sight of what's interesting about tech to me. I'd argue that true 'tech' companies create technology as their primary or near-primary focus.

So... Uber? Not a tech company, I think. AirBnB? Not tech. Apple? Tech. Google? Tech.

(And yes, I'm aware these companies I call 'non-tech' are probably solving hard, tech-related problems; their developers contribute MLOC to open source projects, and they even release internal tools as open source. But to me, what you sell defines what you are as a company.)

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#184

Post by quanticle »

bigiain wrote: post #173
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.

I try to do it a lot. I often have conversations that go something like "Thisis me taking my $companyName hat off and speaking with my 'friend of $employeeName' hat on, but as much as this will cause me problems I realy suggest you consider $significantCareerEnhancement even though it will cause me $problemsIfYouMoveOrLeave as a result." (I'm also surprised/disappointed at how rarely that advice is taken - there's a…

So many devs tell me "I'm not ready for a mid level role yet" or equivalent, even when thay _clearly_ are...

There's a difference between being ready for a midlevel role, in the sense of being able to take on the responsibilities and requirements, and wanting to take on the midlevel role. For example, if a developer sees that the "seniors" on his team 1) don't get to program as much, because they're in meetings all the time 2) have a lot more stress, because of having to take responsibility for design decisions 3) don't get compensated very much more and 4) sacrifice their ability to switch jobs easily by becoming more specialized in the methods and practices of the company they're currently working for, I think it's entirely rational for the developer to not desire that promotion.

But, of course, it's not politic to say, "Oh, I don't want that promotion, because it's a lot of work and I don't see any upside to it," so people make euphemisms. Saying, "I'm not sure I'm ready for that," is a good way of demurring while not causing offense, and simultaneously leaving the door open so that they can be considered for a promotion in the future.

The next time someone says that they're not "ready" for a mid-level role, I would like you to ask yourself, "Are they not ready, or are they not willing?"

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#185

Post by x0x0 »

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…

The jump to Lyons entered employment under false pretenses / with this book in mind doesn't seem justified by anything I've read.

It seems more like he found himself in a somewhat ludicrous situation and wrote a book about it.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#186

Post by bigiain »

ghaff wrote: post #35
CPLX wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes he's doing PR for a book by telling bits and pieces of the same story in other media. That's what writers do for a living. If you genuinely want to get a read on the guy listen to this long form interview on Fresh Air from a couple days ago: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journa... He comes across as quite lucid and nuanced in my opinion, and also credible, as he has been covering the tech…

I have a certain level of discomfort with embellished storytelling presented as journalism (think Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson though I don't put Dan at that level). And, in his book, Dan makes some cracks that are arguably reverse-ageist. That said, I find it's a cogent perspective even if it probably shouldn't be taken as literally accurate reportage.

While I get what you're objecting to, the world would have been a lesser place without HST's writing (in my opinion anyway).

There's a broad grey line between "factual objective news reporting" and "storytelling" and the word journalism isn't specifically defined enough for it to be strictly towards the news reporting edges of that grey area. As Wikipedia puts it (with all the lack-of-credibility of quoting Wikipedia as a source, I'll admit): "Journalism, however, is not always confined to the news media or to news itself, as journalistic communication may find its way into broader forms of expression, including literature and cinema."

To me, journalism as commissioned by The Rolling Stone is _supposed_ to be "embellished storytelling". The front page of the NY Times? Sure, that's supposed to be "news" not story telling. But a long-ish form article in the "Sunday Review" section of the Times? At least my expectations lean closer to a Rolling Stone story than a hard hitting fact checked piece of investigative journalism...

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#187

Post by mikekchar »

esbranson wrote: post #167
chrisyeh wrote: post #125

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration…

> Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas. That's nonsense. A right to opinions that don't "misrepresent others' ideas" is essentially no right at all.

Consider the following situation: esbranson, in a post on HN, consoled the parent poster. "That's nonsense", he exclaimed, reinforcing the idea that Dan Lyons should not be misrepresenting other people's ideas.

I have misrepresented your post in the same way Dan Lyons misrepresented the parent poster. I took a quote out of context and used it to espouse exactly the opposite intent of your message.

I have to admit that I thought long and hard about even clicking on the article because I do not want to give Dan Lyons more credibility. His history for writing sensational stories which damage other people is rather legendary. Despite his famous apology, I have not seen him improve in any way what so ever. I honestly wish people would stop publishing his work. This is unfortunately unlikely given his talent for inciting outrage and convincing people to click on his articles (which I have once again done :-P ).

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#188

Post by x0x0 »

hartator wrote: post #4

> She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her 28-year-old manager that she had two weeks to get out. I think that's a bit funny that the author implies you can't be good as a manager at 28. Specially when you are writing an article about bias.

it seemed to me like Lyons is implying the manager is callow

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#189

Post by alsetmusic »

nostrademons wrote: post #147
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.

I felt like most of my managers at Google tried pretty hard at this. We certainly did have conversations about what I wanted long-term within my career and how that might best be accomplished within the organization. Ultimately, I ended up deciding that what I wanted couldn't be achieved inside Google, but they certainly made the effort.

I spent nearly a decade moving up within another hugely successful tech company and every manager I ever had took time with me once or twice a year to discuss my goals and to outline steps I could take to reach them. Perhaps this is a cultural trait of successful companies (those dominant within their field) that helps them reach such heights.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#190

Post by rpgmaker »

CPLX wrote: post #9
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…

Yes he's doing PR for a book by telling bits and pieces of the same story in other media. That's what writers do for a living. If you genuinely want to get a read on the guy listen to this long form interview on Fresh Air from a couple days ago: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journa... He comes across as quite lucid and nuanced in my opinion, and also credible, as he has been covering the tech…

There was another, longer excerpt featured on HN recently does anyone have the link? I think it was also on the NYT. Or maybe it was a profile about HubSpot written by another person. Not sure anymore.
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