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HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

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Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#211

Post by systemvoltage »

jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

News flash:

There is always a boss.

8-5 job: Your manager is your boss.

Manager: Your senior manager is your boss.

Senior Manager: Your CEO is the boss.

CEO: Board of directors are your bosses. Shareholders too.

Investors: Are they the real boss!? No. ROI is the boss. All the variables that make them successful are their bosses.

Bootstrapped Startup?: Customers are the boss. PR is the boss. Ask founders how tied up and enslaved they are after they've invested time and effort into building a product or service.

Everyone has a boss: At the end, nature is your boss. Can’t escape death.

This is how the society works.

We are under a crazy tyranny of nature as replication machines mindlessly optimizing for resources.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#212

Post by naavis »

koonsolo wrote: post #202
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

Why do you want to view the world like this? This kind of mindset puts you in a very weak position. I look at it like this: I work for a company because it's a win-win. They need some work done, and I need money. In fact, as a coder, the company is the one in the weak position. If I leave for another company, I can get paid the exact same amount instantly. They will have to get a new person, pay them the same, but fi…

> I know that some people will respond "not every employee is in this position to make demands". Well, it's all about how valuable your skills are. Make sure you can do things that other people can't, and you put yourself in a position where you always have the option to go work for another company.

I think GP was talking about workers in general, not just software developers. Software developers are in a super entitled position when it comes to this. Not every grocery store cashier, McDonald's worker, taxi driver, etc. can be expected to "do things other people can't".

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#213

Post by shiftpgdn »

koonsolo wrote: post #202
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

Why do you want to view the world like this? This kind of mindset puts you in a very weak position. I look at it like this: I work for a company because it's a win-win. They need some work done, and I need money. In fact, as a coder, the company is the one in the weak position. If I leave for another company, I can get paid the exact same amount instantly. They will have to get a new person, pay them the same, but fi…

IMO this is why it is so critical to get to a position of having fuck you money as quickly as possible. This includes something having a side hustle that's ramen profitable so you won't starve to death when you get the boot for not working on weekends.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#214

Post by aaron-santos »

gonehome wrote: post #172
aaron-santos wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incentive structure of capitalism is a good one for work. The inventive structure of capitalism is good for capitalists. Why would they make it any other way?

Growth (when controlled for environment destruction and human rights) leads to helping the most people the fastest: https://press.stripe.com/#stubborn-attachments You get that from proper incentives. Capitalism is mostly about creating an environment where people can leverage those incentives as easily as possible. There's a deep irony that the system set up based on incentivizing and rewarding growth (and occasional…

> helped raise millions out of poverty

You do know that 850M of those live in China, right?

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#215

Post by ageofwant »

gonehome wrote: post #172
aaron-santos wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incentive structure of capitalism is a good one for work. The inventive structure of capitalism is good for capitalists. Why would they make it any other way?

Growth (when controlled for environment destruction and human rights) leads to helping the most people the fastest: https://press.stripe.com/#stubborn-attachments You get that from proper incentives. Capitalism is mostly about creating an environment where people can leverage those incentives as easily as possible. There's a deep irony that the system set up based on incentivizing and rewarding growth (and occasional…

That may be for Capitalism, but that's not what we have today. We have Corporate Feudalism. Capitalism makes a bunch of assumptions about the freedom of the market, freedom of information, freedom of capital and labor and so on - most of which Corporate Feudalism has undermined.

Capitalism and Communism has suffered the same fate from the same source, and this will remain true until we move into the age of plenty from the age of want, and probably beyond.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#216

Post by [deleted] »

throwawayboise wrote: post #195
projectileboy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. Unless you have a sick family member. Until the ACA, you were 100% trapped. Now, you’re not officially trapped, only trapped in practice, because when you switch health plans, the providers who have been working with your kid for the last few years are no longer in your network, and... you get the picture.

That's not entirely true. If you had a "gap in coverage" e.g. you were without insurance for too long (about 30 days?) then limits on pre-existing conditions, etc. might be an issue when you get insurance again. But if you were just changing jobs, going from one employer plan to another, it wasn't an issue (at least it wasn't for me, and I changed jobs many times before ACA, including going back and forth between emp…

[deleted]

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#217

Post by mlang23 »

koonsolo wrote: post #202
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

Why do you want to view the world like this? This kind of mindset puts you in a very weak position. I look at it like this: I work for a company because it's a win-win. They need some work done, and I need money. In fact, as a coder, the company is the one in the weak position. If I leave for another company, I can get paid the exact same amount instantly. They will have to get a new person, pay them the same, but fi…

Everybody is replaceable, no matter how confident they might feel.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#218

Post by glandium »

Boritanian wrote: post #79
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

A serf cannot 'quit' his lord. An employee can. Everybody can say 'NO' to the CEO. What you cannot do is agree to exchange your work for his money, and then when he asks you to work, say 'NO'. If you do not wish to work, simply cancel this arrangement. And the inquisition could BURN YOU ALIVE. HR cannot even physically touch you for fear of the lawsuit. This comparison is such an insult to the people who had laid the…

> A serf cannot 'quit' his lord. An employee can.

I'm vastly ignorant on the subject, but that makes me wonder if there were any serfs moving to other regions or countries back then, and if so, how that worked out for them.

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#219

Post by bloqs »

koonsolo wrote: post #202
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…

Why do you want to view the world like this? This kind of mindset puts you in a very weak position. I look at it like this: I work for a company because it's a win-win. They need some work done, and I need money. In fact, as a coder, the company is the one in the weak position. If I leave for another company, I can get paid the exact same amount instantly. They will have to get a new person, pay them the same, but fi…

I think you are taking your job and skillset security and demand for granted to some degree potentially. Wage slavery is real for a majority of people whos responsibilities and inflexibility of skills dont allow for the leverage you describe

In principle I agree though

Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

#220

Post by rmk »

z3ugma wrote: post #2

Oof, this hits home. Out of college I worked for a large company that's well-known for hiring lots of folks straight out of undergrad with high salaries and a demand of high hours. Despite an almost cultlike devotion to meritocracy and micro-feedback, the "merits" only mattered if it was in furtherance of already established norms of success. In a large company like that, deviation wasn't viewed as having a unique sk…

Some of the most heavily mismanaged places I have worked at have been startups. All sorts of insane people, particularly at management level, but also rank-and-file. Large companies have standardized interview and background checking processes on top of fairly standard requirements of candidates (educational qualification etc.) that work to root out pyschopaths and just plain weirdos, most of the time. No such luck at startups.
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