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

rachelbythebay.com

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

#241

Post by gonehome »

aaron-santos wrote: post #214
gonehome wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Where do you think that comes from? The modern CCP leverages market economies to build that wealth. That success is because Xi recognizes the power for capitalism and growth to create wealth. They then try to control that though and the recent disappearance of Jack Ma and the government block of that IPO is more what I'm talking about.

The cultural revolution, hundred flowers campaign, and current Uyghur genocide are some of the classic negative aspects of CCP control. Those aspects are more the standard fare communist policy.

The good that's there comes from their embrace of capitalism and market incentives. The bad comes from the standard communist one party control, it's also what eventually leads to problems.

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

#242

Post by digitaltrees »

projectileboy wrote: post #75
MattGaiser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the serf, I can go find another Lord. I can pit the lords against each other for a better deal. I can try and become my own lord. HR has a lot fewer tools than the inquisition. Fear of lawsuits reduces their toolkit even further.

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.

You were not 100% trapped, by collapsing the propositions of an argument you destroy a meaningful distinction. It is very different to be a serf in fact and a serf in practice. Serf's were legally defined as property and could be bought and sold with land and killed if they failed to work according to the Lords liking. No company can compel you to work on threat of death. Does employer linked insurance suck and have negative, unintended consequences, yes, but you can quit with two weeks notice and find another job with health insurance. The distinction does matter.

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

#243

Post by digitaltrees »

thayne wrote: post #168
MattGaiser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the serf, I can go find another Lord. I can pit the lords against each other for a better deal. I can try and become my own lord. HR has a lot fewer tools than the inquisition. Fear of lawsuits reduces their toolkit even further.

> Unlike the serf, I can go find another Lord. I can pit the lords against each other for a better deal. For many people that isn't really true. And even if you are in a high-demand profession, and have the necessary negotiations skills, moving between jobs has a pretty high transaction cost.

Then keep working until you are in that position. When you are 1 years old you can't walk, you keep working, when you are 12 you can't drive, you keep working, when you are 22 you probably can't retire of self earned assets, you keep working. Set a goal and work until you get there.

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

#244

Post by gonehome »

ageofwant wrote: post #215
gonehome wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

I'm being heavily downvoted in my other comments, but I don't agree.

Today we have more people starting more billion dollar companies more easily than any other time in human history. We have more freedom of movement, more wealth, etc.

There's a staggering amount of growth, a staggering amount of capital investment.

No system is its perfect ideal (and there are obvious issues today), but things are a lot better than they were in the age of a handful of national companies.

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

#245

Post by projectileboy »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #163
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.

> Until the ACA, you were 100% trapped It is unclear how premiums that exceed income along with deductibles that exceed rent are a freeing experience.

Haha... indeed. I meant specifically from the perspective that you were in a situation where leaving your job meant you were now uninsurable (in many states, at least). I have an entirely separate rant on how the ACA stuck people with higher deductible health plans outside of employers (like me and my family) with virtually all of the risk of the formerly uninsurable. It was more politically expedient for the Democratic Congress of ‘09 to not really try to fix the problem.

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

#246

Post by Svip »

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…

The feudal analogy still works. The difference is that the Black Death has swept the place, and you are now the only pawn left on the field, and suddenly you are in a negotiating position with your local lord. Which is actually something that happened during the Black Death.

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

#247

Post by scoutt »

hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139
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…

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it. Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong. HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issu…

A 3rd party HR department is still being paid by the company...

If you want something 3rd party that can be impartial ("sometimes", in quotes) and sit on a table with both company and employee, that's unions.

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

#248

Post by klodolph »

digitaltrees wrote: post #239
klodolph wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression that everyone here is in the same kind of position of power that you are? 1. Not everyone here is a coder. 2. Not everyone who codes is in the US, or a small number of other countries, where salaries for coders are high. 3. Not everyone lives in a part of the US with multiple employers that they could work for (relocation may be infeasible for various reasons). 4. The company may be spons…

Anyone can have a voice in the outcome of their life and society around them. When you give up on this belief, you relinquish power and control to others. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Stop focusing on the power of others, and obtain your own power and influence, and then govern with empathy for others.

Are you saying that people without power do not exist? Or are you saying that when someone does not have power, it is their fault? I am not sure you are saying either of these things, but I am finding it difficult to make any kind of charitable reading of this comment.

Positive thinking only gets you so far. When taken TOO FAR, positive thinking becomes a delusion. We with loving families can thoughtlessly & brutishly suggest to a friend that they “should definitely reconcile with their father”, because the idea of abusive parents is outside our experience.

Same applies to things like companies. I can easily tell people to “obtain power and fix problems” at work, but it is not necessarily possible. If we pretend that conflict does not exist, or can always be solved by the right actions, we’re just hurting people.

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

#249

Post by digitaltrees »

mizzao wrote: post #183
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 recent observations my co-founders and I also made are that companies are basically authoritarian regimes. This is probably necessary during the startup phase, but perhaps less so as the company matures. Is there a precedent for moving from dictatorship/authoritarianism to democracy for company governance as it grows? One movement that shows up on the radar are zebras (vs. unicorns). An analogy for this comes from…

This is not an inevitable outcome. As company's get bigger they often find that checks and balances and democratic norms will be necessary and effective. Command and control is really effective as some scales and breaks down at others. As Aristotle said, all forms of government have a good and corrupt form. Select the right form under the circumstances and strive to make it operate well.
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