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Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

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Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#331

Post by moonbug »

hinkley wrote: post #265
thaumasiotes wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. W…

I was working in a throughout computing problem domain. About the time I got there, some asshole in HR had everyone’s (current and former employees) tax information on their work laptop and lost it. Tens of thousands of people, because there was no policy against putting such information on portable equipment. And as far as I’m aware there still isn’t. No, within the year (might have been a lawsuit, I can’t recall) n…

so your job involved none of the company's IP?

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#332

Post by eitland »

Shared404 wrote: post #328
pak9rabid wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX is great at getting the fuck out of the way and letting you get more work done in my experience (development work).

I think it's just what you're used to. Put me in front of a Linux desktop, and I can just start working. Put me in front of a Windows desktop, give me 30 minutes to set up what I need, and I can start working. Put me in front of a Mac, and come back to me still yelling at it five hours later. I'm sure I could learn if it was worth the time to me, but I definitely wouldn't argue that it's superior (for me personally a…

Yes it is really individual: I have an ex-colleague who was a linux super-user and awesome sysadmin but moved to Mac for his development laptop. He loved Mac, and couldn't stand the hassle of Linux anymore as far as I understood him.

This confused me a lot as even though I wasn't even close to his level at that time I had no problems living with my Linux machines while my Mac laptop used to drive me crazy every day with some nonsense.

Turns out it is extremely individual. Maybe it is because I'm a keyboard person. When I work efficiently I feel I rarely touch the touchpad. I use fullscreen a lot, I sometimes use virtual desktops a lot etc.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#333

Post by robbyking »

jimmaswell wrote: post #300
robbyking wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the opposite experience once: at my previous company we were all issued mid-tier ThinkPads. Completely out of the blue we all received an email saying we'd be given a set budget and would be able to choose any machine we wanted. We went from 100% Windows to about 80% OS X within a week. They ended up giving the old ThinkPads away. (I put Ubuntu on one and gave it to my mom.) This was in 2012 or so, and because…

That many people willingly moved to OSX? Why? Was it a graphics company?

It was Hotwire.com.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#334

Post by robbyking »

eitland wrote: post #332
Shared404 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's just what you're used to. Put me in front of a Linux desktop, and I can just start working. Put me in front of a Windows desktop, give me 30 minutes to set up what I need, and I can start working. Put me in front of a Mac, and come back to me still yelling at it five hours later. I'm sure I could learn if it was worth the time to me, but I definitely wouldn't argue that it's superior (for me personally a…

Yes it is really individual: I have an ex-colleague who was a linux super-user and awesome sysadmin but moved to Mac for his development laptop. He loved Mac, and couldn't stand the hassle of Linux anymore as far as I understood him. This confused me a lot as even though I wasn't even close to his level at that time I had no problems living with my Linux machines while my Mac laptop used to drive me crazy every day w…

Enabling "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" makes keyboard navigation much, much easier on macOS.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#335

Post by lioeters »

mylinkedlist wrote: post #215

Exact same story happened to me. I am an Indian contractor working for a US client in US. I asked for work from home in India. Customer manager said security council didn't approve it. He said something like their policy is 'don't take anything to China that you are not ok with loosing, India is one level below it, safeguard everything'. Now Corona happened and the entire team in India has been working from home for…

> ..you can see the window maximize/minimize in slow motion

Oof, that's painful to imagine the daily frustration. There must be a better technical solution - but, as long as the current setup is working (and generating value), probably no one with decision-making power has an incentive to improve anything. They can ignore the cost, the wasted time, effort, stress and loss of morale.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#336

Post by beastcoast »

grogenaut wrote: post #285
rvense wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is literally my job. Amazon calls it Dive Deep/Earn Trust. I get called in constantly to "Remove Blockers". Part of it is just understanding why the policy exists and then getting a policy modification. While it's definitely an art, it's not as hard as a lot of people think, but you can't be afraid to escalate.

It also helps that Amazon isn’t afraid to entertain ideas from lower in the ranks. You just need a strong idea and be willing to write a memo that explains it, then work your way up the chain until you get to a decision maker.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#338

Post by siliconc0w »

A lot of these get baked into boilerplate legal agreements companies end up signing when partnering with other companies or dealing with compliance/certifications/auditors. It can cost a lot in lawyer time to go back and forth renegotiating and redlining contracts to get all these addressed (and it may not even be an option if you're a smaller business). And this is even if people impacted or implementing the requirements are even involved and suitably motivated to pushback.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#339

Post by grugagag »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #213
danaris wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring strict adherence to arbitrary bureaucratic norms, and particularly berating someone for daring to question them, is absolutely abusive. An awful lot of corporate culture is abusive, and designed primarily to give managers a warm fuzzy feeling of absolute control over their subordinates. Much of it derives directly from the assembly-line era, and much of the overall philosophy behind it is just thinly-veiled…

And there we differ I guess. The job is the job. Wear this; show up then; answer the phone with that phrase - its the job. Do it, and get paid. Not abuse.

Because the boss makes the rules and you should blindly follow them. The other team's boss is relaxed with these rules and the team is productive and happy but, you should still not question your boss, always put the head down and say I am sorry, always stay in late without overtime because the boss hasn't left the office yet and so on. And it doesn't matter that the boss doesn't produce anything and that you drive all the work, respect the boss because he might feel offended otherwise.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#340

Post by Agentlien »

I once worked with a very talented senior artist. After a few years, he told me that he had never once submitted a time report. He felt it was needless busywork and that if he ignored managers and HR nagging about it, sooner or later they just stopped. I was horrified at the audacity and later astounded that he got away with it.
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