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Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

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11–20 of 104 posts

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#11
The difference between plebs' and bosses' seating arrangements.

If plebs get second hand, barely functional chairs/desks, hand-me-downs as computing equipment and insufficient lighting while bosses get a corner office and a $10K desk, it's pretty clear who they value and who they don't, which normally also extend to how seriously the plebs' opinions/suggestions are taken.

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#12
post #7

In a small growing company, when someone starts leaving the toilets in a mess, there is a bad hire. Knowing you work with at least one uncivilized person changes the feel of the company.

Same for piling dirty dishes in the sink.

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#14
post #2

How jokes are reacted to. Jokes can be unfunny or tasteless, but when someone argues big concepts that a joke must not be made, its a big red flag.

Exactly.

The difference between a joke and bullying is that if it's a joke, the mark gets a laugh out of it as well.

Also that the honor of being the mark rotates around the group somewhat fairly. If you're either never the butt of the joke, or always the butt of the joke, you know that the people around you either don't respect or trust you.

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#15

My happiness in a job is inversely proportional to the diligence with which they track time and estimations.

It is a massive drain on morale. Billable hours sure, but tracking non-billable hours is just making management's job my job. I the impact it has is regularly underestimated.

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#16
In a similar vein I visited Cyprus some years ago. In the middle of nowhere was a shaded spot with a few tables, a fridge and a plastic tub. You took a beer out of the fridge and put the money in the tub. That was how it worked.

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#18
post #7

In a small growing company, when someone starts leaving the toilets in a mess, there is a bad hire. Knowing you work with at least one uncivilized person changes the feel of the company.

What about when you sit on the toilet and look at the stall door, then see a bunch of buggers stuck on the door?

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#19
post #15

My happiness in a job is inversely proportional to the diligence with which they track time and estimations.

It is a massive drain on morale. Billable hours sure, but tracking non-billable hours is just making management's job my job. I the impact it has is regularly underestimated.

Very hard to know if you've missed logging some billable time if your work day isn't in the time tracking system. We hemorrhaged billable hours when I said ppl didn't have to log non-billable time.

You'd end up with a 2.5h block and it was unclear if that was 2.5h of internal meetings and email and whatnot, or 1h of forgot-to-time billable and 1.5h of genuinely unbillable.

It's a pain in the ass but people are fallible and this catches those falls.

Re: Ask HN: Work Culture Canary?

#20

Every time I take a can of soda from the fridge, I replace it with two. I exhort my colleagues to do the same. However we have yet to reach my goal of 2^64 cans which makes me suspect there are some bad apples.

I think you need to replace it with more than two if you want to achieve 2^64, probably, at least, replace it with "as many as are left + 1" each time, then start with 3 and you'll have a chance :D but you'll run outta cash first I'm afraid xD
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