Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary • Hacker News Board

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#231

Post by rlwinm » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

sfifs wrote: post #25

In BigCorps, if there's a stupid requirement, there's usually a reason for the stupid requirement to be there in the first place but getting to the reason might require un-peeling a few org layers to since the people enforcing the policy will not be the people who wrote the policy. A more productive use of time would be to understand the reason for the policy, document out why it doesn't apply to your case and then a…

> For instance, there's a restriction at my workplace (not a software company, a regular old industry fortune 500) which prevents git installs from pushing to any non corporate GitHub repo from our work machines.

Someone has to say it.

I’ll admit to accidentally pushing some of my employer’s code to GitHub.

The code was a fork of one of my GitHub repositories and I pushed to the wrong remote. I deleted the resulting commits afterwards and no PII was leaked but it’s a valid concern for employers.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#232

Post by thaumasiotes » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

hnick wrote: post #196

the8472 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but getting to the reason might require un-peeling a few org layers to since the people enforcing the policy will not be the people who wrote the policy. The issue is that all the policy documents often only contain the One True Way to achieve their goals, while the goals remain unstated. The documents should always come with a rationale. And appending "exceptions may be granted for equivalent or better processes"…

> The issue is that all the policy documents often only contain the One True Way to achieve their goals, while the goals remain unstated. The documents should always come with a rationale. A reason can be argued against while a policy must just be followed. It's probably by design, because as soon as you put a reason that becomes a target and people start to get ideas about why it doesn't apply to them. Much like whe…

> It's probably by design, because as soon as you put a reason that becomes a target and people start to get ideas about why it doesn't apply to them.

There's more to it than that. There are two separate groups of reasons:

1. The reasons a policy was put in place. ("Why did we do this?")

2. The reasons a policy succeeds. ("Why is this a good idea?")

You can know the reasons in group 1. But nobody cares about those. What matters are the group 2 reasons, and they were probably never known in the first place.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#233

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

Revenge culture permeates every pixel of society. Generally, the bigger or more entrenched the entity (corp, agency), the more hardened is the revenge process.

Even questioning whether revenge should be shaping our decisions is likely to be met with a measure of it.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#234

Post by grzm » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

wonderlg wrote: post #229

Playing devil’s advocate: Is it possible that, yes, of course you can work from home, and you must do that during lockdown, but is it as efficient as working in the office? I think that’s why many don’t like remote: They can’t see you working and they’re not as comfortable video-chatting. I’m a remote-only developer, but if I could, at any time, turn to my coworker and ask about something, I’d be more efficient.

Would your coworker be as efficient if you could, at any time, interrupt them? I agree that there are trade offs with remote work vs colocated worm. The ability to interrupt and distract more easily I don’t consider a strength of colocation.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#235

Post by manquer » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #4

Founders should keep this in mind anytime they are negotiating contract terms with a corporation also. There is no such thing as a "standard" contract and almost all "mandatory" clauses are not actually mandatory. This also applies to real estate transactions and almost any other high stakes negotiating. Standard and mandatory are terms used to trick inexperienced or less powerful people/entities into agreeing to ter…

> If a company wants to work with you badly enough

This is usually the problem for many founders early on, if you already have a great product market fit then everything will bend to your demands and even turn down customers if they are not flexible enough. Most products do not have that very strong PMF early on.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#236

Post by kerng » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

I recommend creating your own policy, for yourself and use it similarly in situations.

It leads to fun situations and enlightening conversations when its policy versus policy.

Who says which policy is more important?

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#237

Post by caymanjim » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

The best way to deal with stupid corporate policies is to ignore them. Working remote when you're not "allowed to" is a big one to ignore, and if you don't have the access credentials you need, it might not even be possible. There are other policies that are much easier to ignore, though.

Don't like the dress code? Dress however you want. Don't think the status meeting requires your attendance? Don't go. Mandatory office hours are 9-5 but you have better things to do with your morning? Show up at 11.

What are they gonna do, fire you? Not likely. It's hard to hire people, and it's risky to fire people who perform well but flout pointless rules.

Maybe some of your coworkers will resent you for thinking you're special and the rules don't apply to you, but don't let their jealousy stop you. If your company isn't going to treat you like an adult, you don't owe them anything.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#238

Post by majewsky » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #61

anticensor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite situation: My personal computer is faster .

Assuming both are laptops and you don't have some insane personal computer - you should seriously examine why your workplace is skimping on a few hundred dollars extra on a machine that might save you, an employee with a salary in the tens of thousands (or higher) a few days of waiting for things to load, render or compile a year. There certainly is a logic around not wasting money where it'd do no good - but compani…

My work computer and personal computer may be roughly on par as far as the spec sheet goes, but my personal computer does not have McAfee, so it's at least 100 times faster.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#239

Post by Bootwizard » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

rvense wrote: post #211

sfifs wrote: post #25

In BigCorps, if there's a stupid requirement, there's usually a reason for the stupid requirement to be there in the first place but getting to the reason might require un-peeling a few org layers to since the people enforcing the policy will not be the people who wrote the policy. A more productive use of time would be to understand the reason for the policy, document out why it doesn't apply to your case and then a…

About five years ago, a place I was working at was selecting a new laptop for all employees. Mine was up for replacement, so I was interested in what they were picking. They'd arrived at some god-awful Lenovo gamer model. It fit the performance and price point they'd decided they needed. I said I'd prefer to have something smaller with less Christmas lights. "Policy is everyone has to have the same laptop, and some p…

I did almost exactly the same thing at my last job. I'm a game dev and they provided us all with woefully underpowered MacBooks that didn't even have a dedicated GPU. The game engine was constantly crashing while working and making it very difficult to get anything done. I recorded the amount of time wasted on these crashes over the course of a week.

I then proved to management that there was about 5 hours a week being completely wasted for me waiting for my machine to open applications after they crash. So after that we all got new MacBooks that were properly spec'd out for game development. I got to pick the specs :)

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#240

Post by corty » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #214

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematically speaking though, infinity is not the correct answer to x/0 anyway. It's just a usefully incorrect result in a lot of situations.

Well, it’s incorrect when dividing by 0, yes. But when you do the limit as the bottom factor approaches 0, it makes sense. So, below, the first one is defined, while the second one isn’t. lim_{x->0+} 1/x == +Infinity 1/0 != (anything)

Yes, but thats only a small part of the story, your limit only works if the numerator is constant, positive and > 0. Actually, the correct answer for lim{x->0} a/x is really "anything" and "strongly depends on a and da/dx"...

So in general, assuming anything like \infty for a division by zero is wrong wrong wrong.