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Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

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Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#391

Post by Doxin »

JJMcJ wrote: post #313
Bootwizard wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bei…

> So after that we all got laughed at and told to stay later and work weekends. At far too many companies.

At which point you go "Fuck you pay me" presumably? Or am I alone in pushing back at underpaid overtime?

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#392

Post by Anthony-G »

grogenaut wrote: post #364
pyrale wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also _much_ easier when you're called in for that purpose. Someone who didn't get that mandate on hire will be considered troublesome and overstepping, while someone roped in for that reason will be innovative and an enabler.

I actually grew into this position. And like 60% of the time people don't ask me to show up, I just do. Or someone points me at an issue.

You sound like a cross between the The Littlest Hobo and The A-Team. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littlest_Hobo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_A-Team

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#393

Post by danaris »

prepend wrote: post #346
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…

I guess they aren’t alone in their opinions then. Reasonable rules like “be here by 9am” are not emotionally abusive to enforce. Perhaps you feel that way, but I think that’s unreasonable and will result in tons of emotional abuse as you go through the world. Is a stop light emotionally abusive? Is not paying me $100k emotionally abusive? I’m glad that we’re not actually under feudalism, but I think employment is not…

Stop lights (which maintain a safe flow of traffic) and not paying arbitrary people arbitrarily high sums of money, are not meaningfully comparable to enforcing a single, inflexible schedule on all employees regardless of their work or personal circumstances.

If there is no actual business purpose for it—beyond "I'm the boss and I want it that way"—then why shouldn't the boss be compassionate, and allow flexibility? Meetings with coworkers, as we've seen in the past few months, can work just fine being scheduled at times that actually work for everyone, rather than expecting everyone to be constantly available (and thus never able to truly focus on their actual work).

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#394

Post by HelloNurse »

Aeolun wrote: post #174
astura wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't SharePoint trivially solve all this?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sharepoint and ‘trivially solved’ in the same sentence before. The problem with using sharepoint is that now you have sharepoint, and people will start using it, with all attendant horrors.

SharePoint is fairly good at sharing files: it allows upload by drag and drop, it supports versioning and approval of documents with a decent user interface, it offers a reasonable organization of users and permissions. Running SharePoint is anything but trivial, but with some discipline it can actually solve problems for end users.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#395

Post by JoeAltmaier »

throwaways885 wrote: post #350
andrewflnr wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing manual labor, which actually accomplishes things, to wearing formal clothing for the benefit of no one but your boss, accomplishes nothing of value, is not really fair. The latter is usually not abuse, but it is usually stupid. Pay as recompense for suffering is less compelling when you're supposed to be paid for your output, and there's no reason for the suffering at all.

Friendly reminder: You're paid for how easy it is to replace you, not your output.

Which is how abusive employment relationships are born. Which is why, unions and workplace safety rules and all that are born.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#396

Post by throwaway45349 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #395
throwaways885 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendly reminder: You're paid for how easy it is to replace you, not your output.

Which is how abusive employment relationships are born. Which is why, unions and workplace safety rules and all that are born.

Not really, it's just life.

Unions are a horrible solution and should be avoided at all costs because they're a competitive disadvantage and will sink the company long term. The better solution is to pour money into creating more jobs and uplifting people out of a shitty job into one where there is more leverage.

Every industry should be a sellers market.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#397

Post by spiritplumber »

arethuza wrote: post #27
luhem7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Gervais principle man?

Forget INTP, Sociopath|Clueless|Loser is definitely the most effective categorisation of roles in organisation I have encountered: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing it! Is this how American offices actually work?

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#398

Post by swiley »

blackboxlogic wrote: post #115
swiley wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shouldn’t need to be enforced by software. You really don’t have any business accessing a personal git repo from a coorperate machine; you’re spending time twice (stealing) and it’s a good way to lose ownership of IP. Furthermore this probably makes officially allowed open source contributions much more difficult.

We depend on some open source tools. When my project is blocked by a bug in one of them, it absolutely is my job to fix it.

Maybe I could have phrased that better but I think you and I agree.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#399

Post by JJMcJ »

Doxin wrote: post #391
JJMcJ wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So after that we all got laughed at and told to stay later and work weekends. At far too many companies.

At which point you go "Fuck you pay me" presumably? Or am I alone in pushing back at underpaid overtime?

> am I alone

There isn't enough pushback, unfortunately.

Re: Most “mandatory requirements” in corporations are imaginary

#400

Post by lioeters »

mylinkedlist wrote: post #363
lioeters wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ..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.

Its incredibly stressful on some days, especially when I am dealing with a production issue or a deadline. This is one of the main reasons I will be soon looking for a new job. One of the questions I would ask the interviewer would be to find out if I will I be working on a AWS workspace/Citrix VDI/something similar or will I get a dedicated hardware. I tried to bring this issue up a couple of times, but got turned d…

Yes, I picture it like having to wear shoes with little stones in them. Wishing you good luck in finding a better situation!

A way to stay optimistic may be, to see it like Kung Fu training, where they wear heavy weights around the feet for building strength and endurance. When the weights are taken off, they can jump high and run fast - as I imagine you would be when you finally transition to a workplace that provides an actual work machine.

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