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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#411

Post by samirm »

incepted wrote: post #231
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…

> 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…

"because economies outside of the US are in a terrible shape overall with unemployment rate routinely above 10%."

Nice stats you just pulled out of your ass

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#412

Post by disposeofnick9 »

incepted wrote: post #231
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…

> 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…

This is why many people, even today, take government jobs... not for massive pay, perks or fun offices but to build a stable life.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#413

Post by disposeofnick9 »

morgante wrote: post #352
maus42 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's a generational thing. However, I'm not sure if that's a matte of preference or realism. Our generation knows that "lifetime employment" at a single company does not exist any more. The only way to remain sane is to accept the reality. I'm a student know, and repeating the same summer job search process every spring is stressful. I don't look forward to future with joy, but what alternatives there are?

While true lifetime employment might be extinct, there are still gradations in job security. Your tenure at a large corporation or government job will generally be much longer that a startup. But you don't see people lining up to work in the government.

It's not exitinct per se, there are millions of jobs in government with great retirement packages. Some university jobs are basically for life too.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#414

Post by chrisyeh »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #366
chrisyeh wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The issue of what individuals who lack currently marketable skills should do is a tough one. Note that I didn't say unskilled...skills that once were valuable can become less valuable quite rapidly in our fast-changing world.

Since we can't predict the future, we shouldn't blame those individuals who were unlucky enough to have invested in now-worthless skills. As a society, we need to understand that investing in re-training so that someone can find a new job is far better and less expensive than either putting someone on the dole for the rest of their life, or letting people "die in the streets," which is as nonsensical as it is callous.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#415

Post by samirm »

openfuture wrote: post #291
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…

Have you ever left the US? There is no way not wanting lifetime employment is something unique to the US, it seems far more likely that it would be connected to status than nationality (and that has been my experience for what it's worth)

I'm not American... so that's a yes. I'm not arguing about the desire for lifetime employment, I'm criticizing the previously quoted nonsense generalization.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#416

Post by TheCoelacanth »

ryanSrich wrote: post #390
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). Un…

I hear this argument a lot, but I don't buy it. Professional athletes and Hollywood actors have some of the highest wage differences of any profession and yet both are fully unionized. Those fields have so much negotiation that people typically hire an agent just to handle negotiations for them. A union doesn't stop the best athletes and actors from getting paid millions, why would it stop the best engineers from getting a measly few hundred thousand?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#417

Post by wwweston »

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…

The author is poking at several questions that are deeper than the simple question of whether or not someone is good at their job. Take this paragraph, for example:

"The Netflix code has been emulated by countless other companies, including HubSpot, which employed a metric called VORP, or value over replacement player. This brutal idea comes from the world of baseball, where it is used to set prices on players. At HubSpot we got a VORP score in our annual reviews. It was supposed to feel scientific, part of being a `data-driven organization,` as management called it."

There's at least two issues that I see raised immediately by this. We are no longer talking about whether someone is adequate or even good at their job. We are talking about a culture where there is the ongoing of question of whether or not someone can be replaced more affordably by someone who provides greater or equal value. This is not a surprise exactly, given that every business in a competitive market is going to have some degree of incentive to minimize costs. But it is a very distinct thing from the issue of whether an employee can do the work, and it lays bare a philosophy that looks a lot like people are entirely reduced to fungible inputs.

That has its own moral problems; trying to cover it with positive spin like “graduation” exacerbates them.

But on top of that, we have the question of whether HubSpot really has any idea how to make accurate VORP assessments... or whether they're lifting a model that probably is effective in a game context like Baseball where key performance metrics are in fact what you are trying to optimize and trying to import it into a setting where most metrics are often only indicators at best. You could reduce this to the problem of whether a given manager is "just an idiot" -- but it's not that simple, because we're talking about a management philosophy that is likely to be wielded by any number of managers.

Now, you might think the market will weed out such philosophies if they're not actually effective. But then we're up against the principal-agent problem. The philosophy doesn't have to be optimal, it just has to not be bad and have a good story to sell. If it wreaks havoc with employees who may be more adequate than the management philosophy along the way, that's not going to matter much.

There's plenty of argument and conversation left in this.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#418

Post by okaramian »

greenyoda wrote: post #409
wcummings wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one, because that doesn't happen.

From the first paragraph of the article: "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. On her last day, that manager organized a farewell party for her."

Guessing there are various holes in the narrative the writer is trying to flesh out. Not particularly surprising.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#419

Post by chris_wot »

tjmc wrote: post #357
chris_wot wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. If I may also respond: 1. That doesn't necessarily follow. In any economy there will always be talent, but the issue here is that you refer to the "best" talent - surely such a scenario you give also implies that once you are no longer the best talent, although you were so at one point, you can be perceived as no longer so and this you can be replaced? There will also alwa…

Unfortunately most Australian employers can easily work around #3 by just employing staff on short fixed term contracts. Then they're under no obligation to renew them. In theory they have to offer permanent employment after a certain time, but there are lots of ways around that. I worked as a casual staff member at a university here for 8 years and they just shuffled me to a different department when I got close to…

This is true - the casualisation of the workforce is a real problem. If Labor ever gets into power I hope they recognise this as a problem and make it harder to use this loophole.

The best way of handling this, I feel, is to only allow a percentage of any business to be casualised, unless special dispensation is granted. Also, there it should be financially more expensive to follow this tactic - this way those of fixed contracts get compensated for the risk of their employment ending, and employers have an incentive to employee more full time employees.

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