61–70 of 378 posts
This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…
I do a good job because I'm a professional, and care about what my peers think about me. I'm not competing with them, I'm living up to the high standards that they have to me and vice versa. I don't do a good job because of some carrot on a stick tier "promotion" or "raise". Those are easy enough to get by job hopping or having the option of job hopping.
I worked for the airlines (first career) and for public-facing employees it was a big deal if you got a 'good letter' from a customer. (It was equally suck if you happened to get a bad one...). We also could file 'thank you / attaboy' paperwork for our colleagues, both in our own department or ones we interacted with. Those were just as valuable (if not more) than ones from the customers. Over the years (11) during m…
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I'm stupid in this way, too.
How's your career? Did this have an impact? Mine is ruined and this might have contributed a little. I'll never be more than an intermediate developer and I'm worried about being fired/laid off.
I’ve since moved on to different positions at different companies and am doing plenty fine. I’m even the senior member on a new team I’m joining now.
A few bad years or even many bad years don’t end your career :)
Google has a culture of internal peer bonuses and kudos, which in some ways is great and meant to help with this kind of thing... except that it also leads to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!" centi-threads which often overlook other contributors on a project, or are used strategically by overly political managers to boost their own reports and projects and gain corporate visib…
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I'm stupid in this way, too.
I used to be this stupid too but then I learned that it's better to just play their game, win and then move on, no point in fighting it, just think of it as another part of the job.
I'm bad at communicating when I've worked on something challenging, so now I realize I should never give more effort than can be noticed. You may think that's cynical, but this is a business and I'm paid not on what I actually do but what the business perceives me of doing.
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I'm stupid. I give people the praise they deserve, even when it hurts me.
Same here. I am also stupid in another way - I can't boast of my "incredible" accomplishments by sending out huge and beautiful emails to prove my "impact". With that kind of combination, I am looking forward to stagnation at my current level.
In my medical training, I had precisely one patient reach out to hospital leadership to commend my care of them. It was really appreciated - I like to think that patients appreciate when they're treated kindly and well taken care of, but it seems that's taken for granted. I didn't so much care for the official recognition as just knowing that the patient was actually touched by the trouble and feeling I put into look…
While I really like the sentiment, I think there's a reason why people naturally don't provide much positive feedback about individuals at workplaces. What do you really get by pointing out the good work of a coworker? A warm fuzzy feeling, to be sure. Maybe greater comradeship. But wait, who's the next person to get a promotion? Maybe it'll be the person you keep praising to management. So you'll probably have to wo…
This strategy has worked great for me in the long term so far, because I have so many random connections now from every job who like me because I'm friendly. I have a reputation of pulling everyone up around me and being easy to work with because... I am.
Don't compete for a 5% raise for 25% more hours when you can get a 25% raise for 5% less hours somewhere else.
This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…
Humans have proven time and time again that we are very good at optimizing for specific metrics, and apparently generally very poor at choosing the right metrics to target. School is a prime example, in my opinion - there is so much I "learned" in school that I'll never remember, because I didn't take a proper approach to learning - I just optimized for grades. I had a 4.7 GPA and could hardly tell you a thing about…
The host shares a personal story from time when he was a cashier. The grocery chain measured performance as items scanned per minute and shared internal leaderboard.
Some items are hard to scan so the cashiers ended up skipping scanning them – so the store gave them away for free. But the managers were happy about their KPIs. (Look how many items are we suddenly selling per minute!)
[0] - https://www.npr.org/transcripts/669396192 (both podcast and transcript)
I love this podcast.