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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#221

Post by PhantomGremlin »

andyidsinga wrote: post #169
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've had several managers and mentors at Intel that we're sincerely interested in helping me develop my career. I'm not saying its universal, but I've seen some.

several managers and mentors at Intel that we're sincerely interested in helping me develop my career

I know that Intel has changed. A lot. But in the early 1980's Andy Grove (as President, before he was CEO) came up to Oregon to speak to the employees. Someone asked him when they were going to have showers for the employees. Andy responded "Intel is a place of employment, nothing more."

That's not easily forgotten, even though Intel did eventually install showers while Andy was still in charge!

Of course good managers care about their reports, regardless of the tone set by top management.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#222

Post by greenyoda »

anonymousab wrote: post #142
justin_vanw wrote: post #66

So does the author think that everyone is great at their job? What do you do when you have an employee that can't do the work and you are confident that they won't improve? Pointing out the age difference in the manager and the employee, and their sexes, is just baiting. Unless he wants to make the case that there was sexism or agism from the manager, or that the company engaged in sexism or agism, it is just a red h…

> If she couldn't do the job then there is no reason to be discussing this The creepy thought processes that go into calling it "graduation" (and throwing a party...) don't rely on any judgement about that employee's performance.

Who would even attend a party that their boss threw for them after firing them?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#223

Post by wirelessest »

dmix wrote: post #108
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…

Indeed. I've also noticed that we (as engineers and designers) have a better lifestyle in terms of treatment, job security and pay at these startups/tech companies - compared to the marketing teams which consist of the people who typically write these negative articles. Countless of these articles critiquing the tech work culture pop on HN and it's rarely ever written by devs/management. The tone always comes off as…

As an engineer and former Hubspotter, I think Lyons is pretty accurate, if filtered through a Main Street lens and embarrassingly self serving.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#224

Post by bb88 »

x0x0 wrote: post #185
rm999 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That was my read too after listening to the fresh air interview. He said he thought it could be fun working with a bunch of out of college kids doing something exciting in a growing company. He had that experience before, afterall.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#225

Post by justin_vanw »

sremani wrote: post #157
ryanSrich wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do when you have an employee that can't do the work and you are confident that they won't improve? Be an adult and make a tough decision without masking it as a great "thing" (aka: graduation)?

Yes putting the lipstick on the pig, and ritualizing it, makes this an emotionally sadistic exercise.

Oh, I get it, like when you go to a funeral and people try to focus on the the memories that make them happy, or find comfort in religious fairy tales about 'living forever'.

Or when people who are fired are allowed to 'resign' to save face.

I think this isn't as nefarious as the internet hive mind seems to think:

Imagine that someone quits to go onto better things, more money, etc. Of course you throw them a going away party. Then someone else is fired, but you want to let them save face. Do you throw them a party? You've established that people leaving on their own get a party already...

You guys seem to think that the answer is obvious, you tell everyone "so and so was just fired for poor performance, they are bad at their job and that is why they are unemployed now." and have the person do a walk of shame out the door and never feel like they can put it behind them or face any of their former coworkers again without overcoming a massive amount of shame.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#226

Post by bb88 »

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.

I don't think he was trying to imply that at all. The culture of youth means you're going to have some weird things like an older worker being fired by a younger one.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#227

Post by bb88 »

rwjwjuwjudf wrote: post #197
capote wrote: post #182

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 s…

Over my lifetime I feel like computers have gone from nerdy thing that nerds do to trendy thing that popular kids hire nerds to do badly and treat like garbage. I guess it's not really surprising that people known for poor social skills get taken advantage of like that, but still it bugs me because I identify with them.

Yeah... and the popular kids aren't that good at coding, just really good at being popular.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#228

Post by wirelessest »

eropple wrote: post #79
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…

I don't know Lyons, but I do know HubSpot, and everything he's saying tracks with what I've heard from other people. And not just people with the temerity to be old, but just with the misfortune to be able to read a social group and make some conclusions about it. The company is a culture mob, there is aggressive practice of neuro-linguistic programming all over the place (never mind that it doesn't work , of course)…

Ed, I like that you've kept that perspective without having to had experience it. TBF I don't think it's been like that forever, but it's definitely taken on the role of the primary Good Engineer Burnout machine in Boston.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#229

Post by ma2rten »

capote wrote: post #182

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 s…

> 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.

Yes, but it's just a creepy thing practiced at one company. The author somehow wants to generalize their experience to all startups.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#230

Post by ec109685 »

T2_t2 wrote: post #168
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…

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element…

Do you have a cite for being the 70's paradigm: "the business will employ you no matter what you do or how bad you are" - the classic 1970s Union paradigm

No Union protects employees no matter how bad they are.

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