Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? • Hacker News Board

encoderer wrote: post #7

edw519 wrote: post #2

I once worked at a company that managed to pull off all four conditions with one brilliant but devious hack: The warehouse uniform was a t-shirt imprinted with, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Perceived Threat This implied that problems were the workers' fault, not the boss's. Subtle, but effective. Small Kindness Believe it or not, many people were actually glad to be given their own t-shirt by t…

Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space. Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out. Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers. About 9 months ago, if you look throug…

Thanks for the post.

Anybody know if there is a good place on the Web where people can be honest about what it's like to work at specific companies?

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#25

Post by comxo » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:52 PM UTC

Like some here, I recently escaped a company which pulled off these four condition on every employee in every dept. Am not ashamed to name and shame them either. ComXo, a Slough UK, based umbrella company with call2.com, buttontel.com and multivoice.com brands under them. Here's the deal....

"We run a tight ship, everyone has to be in at 9am" ... The employer had one person he believed is the cream for the week and their given top spot...everyone else is treated like dead wood for the next week or two. Percieved threat of getting fired if you were the dead wood, and some did...to our amazement..this kept the rest quiet, head down, trying utmost not to get noticed!

Small Kindness...This was amazingly executed. The employer introduced an great bonus scheme and got you to agree to it and the job/project delivery based on it. The scheme is known as "MBO"

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_objectives).

The objectives were set, one/two meetings take place and then you got a nice tidy sum, around 8% of the total bonus...then the scheme was shutdown, your locked in to the project, otherwise...see perceived threat above!

Isolation from other perspectives - provided you met the project deadline, did the utmost to killoff the competition to be the "cream" mentioned about, you were in with a chance to be IT / Sales / product (you name the dept) manager.....keep waiting.....the perception was..."we dont need an manager, we do a great job without one". The employer is the manager for all depts, have you heard such tosh!

Perceived inability to escape - Majority was told, they could never get paid as well as they do there, the jobs easy and "you" make it difficult, all you have to do is A, B and C, we have to do D, E and F-Z..your lucky! They even went as far saying how would they cope without you...praise that were simply words to keep some staff working till 9PM when they would refuse to pay a penny over the 9-5 allocated!

Myself and other ex-employees all feel extremely grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out when we did too! We were only lauging last week when we found they were using their own employees to advertise their services on youtube (try serching for "comxo"), amazing what they got their employee to do in the name of the company!

Sorry for the long rant.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#26

Post by varjag » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:53 PM UTC

So, to summarise, S.S. type of jobs can be ones that provide:

- occasional bonuses

- competitive salary

- great tech to play with

- high status within the company that you might lose if not keep up

Now, the question is, does that really sound like a terrible job environment to you? Where one is supposed to go from there? Entrepreneurship? Consulting? Cause actual salaried jobs don't get any much better than that.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#27

Post by dedward » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:55 PM UTC

MrFoof wrote: post #9

I've been mindful of this since my teenage years, which is why I swore to myself a few things before I had even turned 16: * If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it. * Fear of failure is a great motivator. When you quit without having another opportunity already lined up, you have a lot of obvious motivation to find a new job since your incom…

"* Fear of failure is a great motivator. When you quit without having another opportunity already lined up, you have a lot of obvious motivation to find a new job since your income is $0. I've found it easier than lulling myself into complacency by continuing to get my income from the source I hate."

This is true - but this has to mean that you also manage your finances properly on the side. People who are one late paycheck away from a cascade of payment failures and personal financial chaos can't operate this way. (So they should fix their financial management first, then follow your advice!)

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#28

Post by tsbaron » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:55 PM UTC

Volscio wrote: post #19

meterplech wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah- the threat is very real for people underwater on their mortages, with huge student loans, or about to put kids through college. It definitely is an awful position to be in, but a lot of people are forced to do this to make ends meet. It's not just psychological disorder.

It's also tough for people who are actually not in much debt, aren't underwater, aren't in financial stress. Because they can only make do with a few months unemployed. That's a small margin for failure/experimentation/following your "passion".

Whatever happened to the American Dream? These scenarios certainly don't sound like it. A lot of Americans (if not a majority) are in a similar situation.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#29

Post by jeffreyrusso » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:56 PM UTC

va_coder wrote: post #24

encoderer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space. Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out. Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers. About 9 months ago, if you look throug…

Thanks for the post. Anybody know if there is a good place on the Web where people can be honest about what it's like to work at specific companies?

Good question. There are a handful of employer review sites out there that have real review content, but on the ones I've seen it is often hard to discern the angry rants from the legitimate grievances.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#30

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:58 PM UTC

va_coder wrote: post #24

encoderer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space. Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out. Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers. About 9 months ago, if you look throug…

Thanks for the post. Anybody know if there is a good place on the Web where people can be honest about what it's like to work at specific companies?

[deleted]