Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

mobile.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 445 posts

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#381

Post by te_chris »

morgante wrote: post #338
ageofwant wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings comrade. I wholeheartedly concur. Its been a source of great confusion to me why otherwise intelligent and open-minded people are so steadfastly opposed to the one thing that can improve their earnings potential dramatically. I have observed a strong shift to the "left" in the last few years though, so I won't be surprised if this happens soon. I also expect that given the resources and capability inherent…

Unions will not improve everyone's earnings. They will compress the differential, and as someone who likes getting paid more than the average programmer I absolutely would oppose that. Doctors, dentists, and lawyers don't have unions. They have professional associations (which might be a good idea for programmers) but they still negotiate individually.

Doctors absolutely do have unions, Google the British medical association, or many others across the world

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#382

Post by jhbadger »

humanrebar wrote: post #342
mc32 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking beyond the best or the top ten percent should change some of the perspective. Not all workers will be of "the best". Most will be middlings. It's the middlings who need to worry about power imbalances and who take jobs with lousy bosses and put up with lousy coworkers. True, top talent has less to worry about since any setback in employment is easily reversible. Many (most) don't have that luxury. These are…

> It's the middlings who need to worry about power imbalances and who take jobs with lousy bosses and put up with lousy coworkers. In my experience, many people (I don't like the word 'middlings' for some reason) think job to job instead of about a career. And then they have job problems. Likewise, many people think paycheck to paycheck instead about longer-term finances. And then they have cash flow problems. Isn't…

What "better jobs" are you thinking of that a typical truck driver could be realistically trained for? It reminds me of when the US steel mills closed in the 1970s and 1980s and people said -- "we can just retrain these workers for a lucrative computer career!". Didn't really happen. The elimination of unskilled/low-skilled labor through automation is major problem for society that is only going to get worse.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#384

Post by jschwartzi »

muraiki wrote: post #363
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…

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 mu…

How much formal logic does he use?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#385

Post by Evenjos »

Working at various tech companies, I've observed a major shift towards the fine art of bullshit. Employees constantly have to prove their worth and put a fresh spin on how valuable they are to the company.

Talent and merit and work ethic is falling by the wayside. The top salaries go to people who make themselves sound talented and worthy, while the shove the actual work down the line. I've seen projects outsourced on nine levels. Everyone wants their cut.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#386

Post by Retric »

limelight wrote: post #329
incepted wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company Any citation about this claim? Because in my experience, it's completely incorrect. Outside of the US, lifetime employment is a heavily coveted goal, because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%. Inside the US, except for white collar workers in…

I think it's overwhelmingly a generational thing, not a "white collar" thing. Older white collar workers still want/expect lifetime employment, while young workers of all kinds are more comfortable with labor fluidity. The vast majority of my young friends are uninterested in jobs which would provide lifetime employment. (As am I.) Honestly, it was incredibly risky for HubSpot to hire Lyons and the outcome seems pred…

People don't want fluidity. A few moths of unemployment every few years wrecks most people's long term savings.

Now if you have no kids or major bills and a high paying job then sure it can feel like a vacation. But there is a reason unemployment is often considered one of the most stressful periods in someone's life.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#387

Post by chrisyeh »

wiz21 wrote: post #325
chrisyeh wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hope is that as talent mobility increases, the power imbalance will ebb. But it is rare for the power to be perfectly balanced.

"But it is rare for the power to be perfectly balanced." That's the difference between the powerful and the powerless. The powerful thinks the imbalance is a fact that will never change; the powerless thinks that must change. The problem in corporate world nowadays is that the powerful people disguise this difference all the time. For example : "hey, you can negotiate your salary and if you disagree, you have total f…

You're absolutely right that too many corporate employers take a "check the box" approach to being good employers. They strive to do well in rankings and to develop a good reputation, rather than focusing on treating people well.

But the bigger issue is that people have ended up in a position where they are powerless. And that is because the system doesn't see them as valuable. In an economic sense, unskilled labor isn't that valuable. But in a philosophical sense, those human beings are part of a society that should be looking out for them.

The best instrument of change in this case is government action (which I suppose means that holding this opinion also makes me a little bit socialist).

The root cause of the problem, at least in the United States, is that our educational system (aided and abetted by institutional discrimination and/or neglect) has failed to give many of its citizens the skills and knowledge they need. Furthermore, the social safety net is both inconsistent and insufficient.

As a mere business book author, I have a hard time tackling such problems, though I've certainly offered my opinions.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#388

Post by mc32 »

chrisyeh wrote: post #387
wiz21 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But it is rare for the power to be perfectly balanced." That's the difference between the powerful and the powerless. The powerful thinks the imbalance is a fact that will never change; the powerless thinks that must change. The problem in corporate world nowadays is that the powerful people disguise this difference all the time. For example : "hey, you can negotiate your salary and if you disagree, you have total f…

You're absolutely right that too many corporate employers take a "check the box" approach to being good employers. They strive to do well in rankings and to develop a good reputation, rather than focusing on treating people well. But the bigger issue is that people have ended up in a position where they are powerless. And that is because the system doesn't see them as valuable. In an economic sense, unskilled labor i…

I recall an example, a bit fuzzy, so I might be off on some. Over at Zappos, someone was great at their QA job (or something, bug good at it never the less), Zappos were able to improve process and this position and person were made redundant. Not her fault, but you cannot fault the company either. However, I do find fault in not training this person for an alternate path in the company. Of course it's easier to just hire someone new to fill in a new role then it is to retrain. Govt needs to incentivize retraining.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#389

Post by chrisyeh »

limelight wrote: post #329
incepted wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company Any citation about this claim? Because in my experience, it's completely incorrect. Outside of the US, lifetime employment is a heavily coveted goal, because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%. Inside the US, except for white collar workers in…

I think it's overwhelmingly a generational thing, not a "white collar" thing. Older white collar workers still want/expect lifetime employment, while young workers of all kinds are more comfortable with labor fluidity. The vast majority of my young friends are uninterested in jobs which would provide lifetime employment. (As am I.) Honestly, it was incredibly risky for HubSpot to hire Lyons and the outcome seems pred…

I think there are still plenty of people who would be willing to sign up for a lifelong job with a single organization, but it's nearly impossible for any organization to actually fulfill their end of the bargain. How many companies are likely to last the 40-50 years of a person's career?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#390

Post by ryanSrich »

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…

I see where you're coming from, but unionizing will lower wages for many many people. The great thing about being an engineer, designer, or developer is that you can negotiate far more than any other field or profession that I've seen. The difference in wages for a doctor (of the same training) might be 20-50k. The difference in pay between two SEs could literally be $200k (this is a real world example I've seen). Unionizing would help the guy making $65k, but would kill the negotiating power of the guy making $295k.
Post reply on HN