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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#361

Post by sokoloff »

ageofwant wrote: post #358
sokoloff wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that raises average programming wages significantly is likely to reduce peak programming wages. (Companies are unlikely to just take the increase in wages as a hit to profitability. They're going to shave the peak and put everyone into tighter "bands" than is currently the case and probably dismiss some of the lowest performers [which might be healthy, of course].)

As I'm a "average programmer" I'll probably benefit from a significant raise is average programmer renumeration. As will, by definition, the vast majority of programmers. As a self confessed "peak" programmer you believe you have little need of a union to further your cause and you may very well be right. This does not change the fact that the majority of the fraternity will. The fact that you may be adversely effect…

Ages ago, I probably was. I no longer am, but that's largely irrelevant and I'm more than happy to hold my own union or not.

Where do you think the "significant raise" will come from? What tactics will a union employ to cause that happen and if successful, what will the side effects be?

Programming is already an incredibly high leverage and highly lucrative field. If you don't have leverage now, will you really have more with a union? (To be clear, I don't believe that unionizing would significantly raise programming wages.)

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#362

Post by ageofwant »

morgante wrote: post #336
martin1975 wrote: post #259

Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cau…

There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the productivity of different programmers in the same company. Denying that doesn't make it untrue. The best way to punish the Bezos of the world is not to work for them. Which it seems like more and more people are—most of my friends wouldn't even consider a job at Amazon.

I suspect that this is the case for any profession. I'd also wager that those productive individuals represent a small minority of the workforce. All things being equal I would like to see those individuals being paid "vastly" more than the average. I can assure you that a 10x more productive programmer is not paid 10x more.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#363

Post by muraiki »

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…

Your idea of "vocabulary misunderstanding" is similar to what the philosopher Wittgenstein calls "language games". He believes that it is the duty of the philosopher to help clear up the misunderstandings present when two people are trying to communicate with the same vocabulary but are actually playing different language games. It's been a long time since I studied him, but I think that I can at least recall this much correctly. :) You might be interested in reading more by him.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#364

Post by naasking »

morgante wrote: post #336
martin1975 wrote: post #259

Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cau…

There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the productivity of different programmers in the same company. Denying that doesn't make it untrue. The best way to punish the Bezos of the world is not to work for them. Which it seems like more and more people are—most of my friends wouldn't even consider a job at Amazon.

> There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the productivity of different programmers in the same company.

That seems true for every type of job.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#365

Post by morgante »

naasking wrote: post #364
morgante wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the productivity of different programmers in the same company. Denying that doesn't make it untrue. The best way to punish the Bezos of the world is not to work for them. Which it seems like more and more people are—most of my friends wouldn't even consider a job at Amazon.

> There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the productivity of different programmers in the same company. That seems true for every type of job.

Actually the level of difference varies between jobs substantially. Many low-skill jobs exhibit little-to-no differentiation between workers (it's hard to be much more efficient as a security guard, for example).

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#366

Post by loup-vaillant »

chrisyeh wrote: post #194
T2_t2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I appreciate the thoughtful comment. And I wouldn't dispute that we believe that lifetime employment by a single company is unlikely to be offered or accepted in today's world. But Dan Lyons is misrepresenting us when he implies that we believe that employees should be loyal to companies even though companies show no loyalty to employees. We're not pro-corporation or pro-employee; our point is that work is a voluntar…

> Dan Lyons is misrepresenting us when he implies that we believe that employees should be loyal to companies even though companies show no loyalty to employees.

I didn't read it like that. It's pretty clear from your statement (even taken out of context) that you expect lower loyalty on both sides.

On the other hand there are bosses that would like loyal employees, even though they're not loyal themselves. They may even get a simulacrum of loyalty, as the fear of unemployability increases with unemployment itself. (Unless we take rather drastic measures, unemployment will continue to rise. Next in line are drivers.)

Beneficial mutual relationship under Ricardo's law of comparative advantage is great, but we must not forget that some people, organization, or even countries, may have no comparative advantage. What are we to do with them? We can let organizations and countries collapse, but surely we shouldn't just let people die?

Finally, it's not clear that work is really voluntary when the alternative is not being able to eat: employers face this conundrum much less often than employees do. There's a fundamental asymmetry there that when strong enough turns "voluntary" into plain old blackmail. (As a white male programmer, I don't believe the asymmetry I face is that strong. The neighbour who works at Starbucks however…)

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#367

Post by golergka »

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.

It does.

However, it's the matter of how strong that causation is and how hard are you going to rely on it. Because if you think that someone in their 30s is likely to be be significantly more experienced and wise, it also means that you should think that someone in their 50s is likely to be significantly burned out and slow.

My point is: the correlation (and underlying causation) is there, but it's not strong enough, compared to differences between individuals.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#368

Post by ozim »

sleepychu wrote: post #123
themodelplumber wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gantt charts helped me and a group of subcontractors compete against some huge corporate teams. It's legit to complain about a lack of gantt charts.

The format is pretty unfriendly to the user though and rigid time planning is pretty pointless for problem solving exercises, IMO. What do you think makes gantt charts great?

Looks like they were able to coordinate with multiple teams using gantt charts. Probably taking into account fuzzy nature of time planning. So I would not think about gannt charts as rigid time planning it is just a tool so it depends on how you use it.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#369

Post by state_less »

chrisyeh wrote: post #254
chris_wot wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you address the power imbalance between employees and employers? Do you address that an employee in such a culture is viewed as a disposable resource and no loyalty towards them is necessary, no matter what they do? Or do you address that corporations are run by people, who each have lives and that those who are older, female or who gave young families they must support and who they want to spend time with don't f…

1) We do specifically address the power imbalance between employers and employees. Because managers typically have more power in the relationship, it is critical that managers take the initiative to prove themselves trustworthy. Now that talent mobility has increased so much, employers who continue to treat employees as disposable are going to have a hard time attracting the best talent. This doesn't mean that all co…

Employers with short expected employee timelines leads to a culture of highly disposable workers for the majority of employees, since most employees are less powerful. Not everyone can leave in two years to work for Google, Facebook, etc.. due to children or wanting to have a life outside of work. This culture and the disposability of employees leads to high demands and negatively impacts employees' health. If the employee doesn't meet the demands they can be disposed of in this exploitative relationship that is now couched as being the new normal and to be promoted.

I agree with point 3) people should have a safety net. Maybe some of the problem with this culture would be mitigated, since people would have a net to fall back on and wouldn't fear for their survival. But this plan also costs money. So companies with this sort of work culture should be paying the taxes to support the employee they laid off. Once you take the increased taxes into account, then you might see a more rational approach towards the average employee that is thrown out instead of retrained. Does the hyper libertarian mindset take into account this negative externality? Or do they simply try to dodge their taxes in offshore accounts or move their headquarters to avoid paying the tab?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#370

Post by thieving_magpie »

I like the part where he shits all over software and romanticizes early 19th century woodworking in factories. Yes - I'm sure those were just lovely conditions to work in. We created laws to protect laborers and children as a direct result of those conditions - but let's all whine about how Amazon views its employees as a 'team' and not family.
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