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'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

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Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#771

Post by fathrowaway12 »

deeptote wrote: post #532
tomuli38 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, Netflix doesn't cull the herd — they get rid of good (but not excellent) performers too. The article is talking about actually cullung the herd and getting rid of the mediocre performers who previously could skate by.

Yeah true, but this coming from the likes of Facebook and Google, two companies well known for warehousing talent... it mostly just comes across as tone deaf and naive. For years they've literally hired very smart and capable people, and then shoehorned them into working on some ad-tech engine that an intern could do, just so they didn't work for a competitor. And now they're angry that their employees "don't work ha…

In addition to a surplus of great people, they have lots of mediocre people too, just like everywhere else. There may have been a time where this wasn't true, but now anyone who passes a day of tricky tech interviews is in, and that doesn't always correlate with good performance. At least that's my take having worked at Google.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#772

Post by andyferris »

i_have_an_idea wrote: post #352
afro88 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems crazy to me, but I don't work in FAANG. A basketball game (I'm assuming recurring) during work hours? Quality of life from inside work? Are you all at campus for most of your day (ie, longer than 8h?) To me, quality of life is working hard and smart during the 8h, and keeping the rest of the day for you and your family. Quality of life comes from outside work, and the company respects and encourages that b…

> To me, quality of life is working hard and smart during the 8h, and keeping the rest of the day for you and your family Mate, I browsed your profile and you live in Australia. Why would you want to spend the better, sunnier part of the day inside of an office? How is that "quality of life" better than spending an hour or so to play some basketball with some friends? > Of course we still do team building activities,…

You’ve honestly never made friends with any of your teammates at work? (A friend being someone you’d choose to spend some of your time off with).

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#773

Post by hackerlight »

codegeek wrote: post #287
fefe23 wrote: post #245

As a consultant, I come around a bit. I have seen many companies with very poor productivity, and in zero of those cases was it laziness of the employees. In fact they usually would have loved to be more productive. Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight. But as companies grow they install more and more rules and regulations that end up making sure nothing ever gets done. It is not unusual to meet "develo…

"Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight." I disagree. There are plenty of people who would love to be dead weight just to float around in a company. The larger the team/company, the more chances of those people being around. They pretend to be always busy and doing something but don't actually get anything done. Seen it all for 18+ years. Having said that, there are plenty of people as well who would LOVE…

I have worked in one of those companies. Most were lazy and did barely any work. They were there for a paycheck and it showed. Not everyone works in a mission driven startup where the employees are intrinsically motivated to contribute. Many are just free riders and hide under a middle manager hoping they don't get noticed. Such B teamers need to be weeded out quick.

Then I switched companies and everyone was motivated and hard working. The leader there hired better (less stragglers to begin with) and fired better (fired stragglers within 3 months).

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#774

Post by darth_avocado »

datalopers wrote: post #659
darth_avocado wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. And by bare minimum, I mean, I will always finish my work in the time it is expected to be finished. And if the expectations are higher, I’ll move on to another job. I do this as a way to get back at corporate America. Too many companies get away with sucking out their employees dry and firing them once they can’t meet t…

You get back at corporate america by being a mindless corporate drone?

I get back at it by getting paid as much as I can for as little work I can do. Like I said, I’m not doing nothing, but I’ll never sell my soul for marginal increases in wages and that occasional promotion.

I get back by having a life after 5 pm, Never going in to work on a weekend, taking time off to spend it with family and never letting stress and bs from corporate world affect my private life.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#775

Post by throwaway8829 »

ummonk wrote: post #564
onion2k wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If somebody wants to pay me $300k to work 4 hours a week, I'll happily take the deal. Would you take that over $300k to work 40 hours doing something you actually care about? I don't think I would.

Are you incapable of doing something you actually care about with the freed up 36 hours?

For me it's less about "find a hobby/enjoy life" or more that we're likely in this field because we want to feel necessary and useful.

I WFH with amazing TC and WLB. I do my hobbies all day and then work just a few hours. But I feel like an absolute piece of shit just coasting at work. Doesn't matter how well my hobbies are going, I'll always have the quiet stress of not contributing what I'm capable of doing. The times I feel good about myself are when I actually ship something cool with my team.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#776

Post by hot_gril »

pradn wrote: post #610
PaulHoule wrote: post #4

Google would have been a lot more productive if it had hired people to work on one good messaging app instead of 13+ bad messaging apps. Google has long had an attitude of "we hire the best so we can afford to have them stand on one leg and balance on a ball while holding a cane in their mouth and balancing a bunch of dishes on the end of the cane while typing with one hand on a chorded keyboard and looking at a moni…

As a Google employee, the profusion of chat apps is caused by: * a genuine interest in trying new things and trying to see if they'd stick, without the baggage of established UX & customers - Allo/Duo are like this. I don't think people give the company enough credit for this. * leadership downplaying the cost to the Google brand of shutting things down all the time. When brought up internally, execs shrug saying tha…

When I joined Google, I realized it was the same on the inside as the outside. There's a lack of direction. It's not just chat apps, and it permeates the entire company including Sundar. Maybe it's just too easy to lose focus when nearly all your income comes from one product and none of the others matter.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#777

Post by CrimpCity »

jrockway wrote: post #296
afro88 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems crazy to me, but I don't work in FAANG. A basketball game (I'm assuming recurring) during work hours? Quality of life from inside work? Are you all at campus for most of your day (ie, longer than 8h?) To me, quality of life is working hard and smart during the 8h, and keeping the rest of the day for you and your family. Quality of life comes from outside work, and the company respects and encourages that b…

What studies show that 5 days x 8 hours is the optimal point for productivity? We picked those numbers based on tradition (and complaints from unions about the 7x12 schedule) well before software engineering was a career. Companies that do 5x6 or 4x8 seem to be doing fine.

Studies looking at WW1 and WW2 show that 40 hours a week is optimal. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262809555_The_Produ...

You can use scihub to get the paper or here's a secondary pop-sci source: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190912-what-wartime-m...

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#778

Post by darth_avocado »

boredtofears wrote: post #758
darth_avocado wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. And by bare minimum, I mean, I will always finish my work in the time it is expected to be finished. And if the expectations are higher, I’ll move on to another job. I do this as a way to get back at corporate America. Too many companies get away with sucking out their employees dry and firing them once they can’t meet t…

Getting back at corporate america by sacrificing your own ambition seems like a pretty unfulfilling and ineffective strategy.

“Ambition” is tricky. New grads become a “Senior Engineer” or a “manager” in 5 years these days. And most people don’t climb corporate ladder beyond a Senior Staff Engineer or a director. So you have almost 40 years worth of career left to climb two more levels.

Working your ass off continuously in pursuit of that ambition is pointless. If that’s the only thing in your life, then maybe it’s not, but ambition can be found outside of corporate America.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#779

Post by hot_gril »

unicornmama wrote: post #465
PaulHoule wrote: post #4

Google would have been a lot more productive if it had hired people to work on one good messaging app instead of 13+ bad messaging apps. Google has long had an attitude of "we hire the best so we can afford to have them stand on one leg and balance on a ball while holding a cane in their mouth and balancing a bunch of dishes on the end of the cane while typing with one hand on a chorded keyboard and looking at a moni…

Writing a messaging app is a fool's errand. You either build a chat app with someone elses money, invest in all chat apps (1/n) and hope you score a big one - e.g. like textbook publisher, or you wait and M&A the successful ones. The barrier to entry to write a chat app is zero. Even if you are brilliant you will compete against hundreds other chat apps one of which will beat out with pure luck. Never compete against…

Google has Android, which is a lot better than luck. Apple made iMessage popular just by putting it on every phone. Google did that too, but they did it wrong.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#780

Post by mixmix »

Spooky23 wrote: post #693
darth_avocado wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. And by bare minimum, I mean, I will always finish my work in the time it is expected to be finished. And if the expectations are higher, I’ll move on to another job. I do this as a way to get back at corporate America. Too many companies get away with sucking out their employees dry and firing them once they can’t meet t…

Got news for ya, that’s dead weight. Competent management would make getting rid of you a priority, as that behavior drags everyone else down.

Your comment upsets and disappoints me. In large part because it's true: at my previous workplace, I was casually told that CME is a polite fiction and all employees are expected to exceed expectations.
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