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Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

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Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#71

Post by calibraxis »

dlss wrote: post #55
nxzero wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cults focus on "we/us/them" not you doing what you feel is best for you.

In my experience a tremendous amount of religious teaching focuses on self-improvement (avoiding sin, cleansing of past sins, etc, etc). I do agree that the USA isn't a cult though. Too big/diverse.

US expats sometimes sound a bit like recovering cult members. (Probably generalizes to other countries, don't know.)

"Oh my god, did they make you 'pledge allegiance' to that fucking flag too!? [1] That was so fucked up! And over 4 in 10 of us believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago??? [2] We're gonna kill the Earth, aren't we?"

[1] http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/pledge-of-allegiance-sta...

[2] http://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists...

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#72

Post by ahel »

MIKarlsen wrote: post #37

I find the whole "You are a person who spend every waking hour optimizing yourself to become the best YOU you can be"-frame of mind very intimidating. Maybe it's because I'm not american, but even though I like to work with complex issues, I also like a 9-17 job with a decent income, and the ability to go home and relax when I'm not working. And by relax, I don't mean working on side projects, doing volunteer work or…

Slightly off-topic but: why is 9-17? Here I've always seen people working 9-18 with one hour off for lunch. Is this an Italian peculiarity?

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#73

Post by Scirra_Tom »

trevyn wrote: post #64
maho wrote: post #29

We value “T-shaped” people. That is, people who are both generalists (highly skilled at a broad set of valuable things—the top of the T) and also experts (among the best in their field within a narrow discipline -- the vertical leg of the T). This is a nice metaphor. I try to be T-shaped, but I wonder how useful I am becoming... My expertise in high-precision mass spectrometry is not something companies are looking f…

It is also important to intelligently select where your vertical leg is placed.

I feel that to be "among the best in their field within a narrow discipline" (the vertical leg) means you have a natural disposition and interest in that discipline. Not something you can just choose (that would be more about the horizontal).

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#74

Post by frik »

AimHere wrote: post #23
Karunamon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of me wonders if the Valve management structure isn't almost completely to blame for things like their infamously bad customer service. I could see why - dealing with support tickets from irate people is not a particularly interesting (or judging by Steam's runaway success: particularly value adding) activity. Not that I mean to hijack this to complain about Steam, but you have to admit it's a benefit of a tradi…

I suspect it's much more that Valve is an insanely lightweight company for it's customer base. It has something like 330 employees servicing 100 million customers on the go-to PC gaming platform, and a lot of those employees are working on shiny tech and new games. As a comparison, Rockstar North's facility in Edinburgh has roughly the same employee count (slightly more by Wikipedia's count), and all they do is put o…

> shiny tech and new games

You mean Half Life with it's last full iteration from 10 years ago, and the second episode with a cliffhanger from 2009? Or the Source engine (HL2) which evolved from GoldSource (HL1) which was based on Quake 1 engine (with some parts from Quake 2 engine) - even the Call of Duty engine which aged well too is based on the more modern Quake 3 engine, and I wouldn't consider it shiny in 2016. Rockstar's RAGE engine as well as Crytek engine (StarCitizen, Crysis), and the Frostbite (Battlefield 1) are light years ahead and far superior in every aspect and that's what I would consider shiny tech.

Valve is what Valve is today because of the success of steam. They produce little games like Dota2 more for fun than anything else, they gt rich with steam.

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#76

Post by ComodoHacker »

maho wrote: post #29

We value “T-shaped” people. That is, people who are both generalists (highly skilled at a broad set of valuable things—the top of the T) and also experts (among the best in their field within a narrow discipline -- the vertical leg of the T). This is a nice metaphor. I try to be T-shaped, but I wonder how useful I am becoming... My expertise in high-precision mass spectrometry is not something companies are looking f…

Just wait for upcoming asteroid mining startup bubble.

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#77

Post by f2f »

sebastianbk wrote: post #11

As a Microsoft employee I am so happy that we got rid of stack ranking a few years ago. It encourages a bad behavior and goes against helping your coworkers with whom you are essentially competing for compensation. I am surprised to see that a company like Valve, which seems to be held in high regard by many developers in the industry, still operates with this compensation system. It's system of the 80's if you ask m…

that guide is from 2012. things may have changed by now. i know we gave up stack ranking at $GIANTCORP since then.

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#78

Post by oblio »

matthewowen wrote: post #69
oblio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any group of more than 2 people is always "political" :) There's a reason all Olympic sports where you can interact with your opponents only have 2 teams/opponents facing off at the same time.

On the face of it, this seems like a reasonable comment. But it has basically no relationship to reality: Many track cycling events Road cycling Every track event Marathon Marathon swimming Triathlon Sailing This is a non-exhaustive list off the top of my head. They all involve tactical interaction with a group of opponents.

I'm totally in the dark here. How are you interacting (legally) with other competitors during a marathon?

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#79

Post by ben_jones »

whatever_dude wrote: post #50
MIKarlsen wrote: post #37

I find the whole "You are a person who spend every waking hour optimizing yourself to become the best YOU you can be"-frame of mind very intimidating. Maybe it's because I'm not american, but even though I like to work with complex issues, I also like a 9-17 job with a decent income, and the ability to go home and relax when I'm not working. And by relax, I don't mean working on side projects, doing volunteer work or…

You're right - it's very much an American thing. Maybe not exclusive to the US, and it may vary by state or background, but still very common there from my experience with family and friends. In American culture, unless you're financially constrained, you grow up with someone hammering down the idea that you have to be doing something productive and getting better 100% of the time. If you're a kid, you have to be inv…

Ironically this conditioning has the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of becoming productive, the definition of productive is morphed and people find a way to merely look/feel productive in order to satisfy the system.

For example: if I'm getting my degree in underwater basket weaving I'm being productive because I'm going to college. If I'm at work on reddit all day I'm being productive because I'm at work and getting paid.

Re: Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]

#80

Post by [deleted] »

donatj wrote: post #70
whatever_dude wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - it's very much an American thing. Maybe not exclusive to the US, and it may vary by state or background, but still very common there from my experience with family and friends. In American culture, unless you're financially constrained, you grow up with someone hammering down the idea that you have to be doing something productive and getting better 100% of the time. If you're a kid, you have to be inv…

American here. I don't interpret it that way. I strongly desire to always be growing as a person yet I find quiet reflection some of my most valuable time. I don't think they're mutually exclusive.

[deleted]
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