Life is pretty absurd and wonder more and more why we put so much stake into a job when the employer effectively doesn't care about you.
Anyone taking some time to do cool stuff?
Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
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Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#2Your employer doesn’t care about you the same way your parents would. Good employers care about enabling you to do your job effectively and efficiently. But it’s all transactional. Doesn’t mean that you can’t find an arrangement that’s good for both you and employer. But don’t ever think it’s like a family. Saves you a lot of frustration. See it for what it is.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#3Love this question! My husband was laid off recently and it feels like his free time instead has been accosted by our young children and house renovation:/
Related note, I came across this newsletter which goes into more detail about our “work” identity and how your employer doesn’t (to your point!) “care about you”
(https://wokescientist.substack.com/p/work-life-balance-is-a-...)
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#4Your employer doesn’t care about you the same way your parents would. Good employers care about enabling you to do your job effectively and efficiently. But it’s all transactional. Doesn’t mean that you can’t find an arrangement that’s good for both you and employer. But don’t ever think it’s like a family. Saves you a lot of frustration. See it for what it is.
This can happen, but Paul "Kinko" Orfalea's book "Copy This!" goes into a lot of detail about how it makes sense to care about employees as people and doing so actually contributes greatly to the bottom line. His company "Kinko's Copies" is not the greatest tech leader ever, but it provided basic services to ordinary people using low paid labor and managed to have employee morale and retention far above other companies in this class, fast food companies being perhaps notable for bad employee morale and turnover so extreme that at times it threatens operations.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#5I am happy with my current employer but I always liked Paul Graham's idea of not having a boss[0]. I had read it quite a while back but here's the gist of it:
Paul mentions that we work best when we work in a group of 8-20 people in a flat structure like our hunter gatherer ancestors use to do. Each member have their own roles and responsibilities and each individual contributes the well being and future security of the group. Such a group is optimal communication wise and it also offers greater incentive for it's members to work harder as you are directly participating in your own growth unlike our current structure where people are helping other people get rich.
This is very extreme take but imagine if companies are capped at 20-50 employees. Will it work? I think it might. What do you guys think?
0: You were not meant to have boss - http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html
Edit: rewording.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#6I am happy with my current employer but I always liked Paul Graham's idea of not having a boss[0]. I had read it quite a while back but here's the gist of it: Paul mentions that we work best when we work in a group of 8-20 people in a flat structure like our hunter gatherer ancestors use to do. Each member have their own roles and responsibilities and each individual contributes the well being and future security of…
>This is very extreme take but imagine if companies are capped at 20-50 employees. Will it work? I think it will. What do you guys think?
I don't think.
I cannot imagine companies doing GPU, CPUs, Windows, etc. with just 20-50ppl.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#7The amount of personal investment I have in an organization is directly tied to my personal upside. If it's my own company (I have run two startups) then I live and breathe it. If it's a Fortune 500 company or the government or whatever, then I give full effort, but I won't grind up my health or personal life. That's possibly justified with an 8 or 9 figure potential exit, but it's definitely not justified for 5 figures worth of stock.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#8I am happy with my current employer but I always liked Paul Graham's idea of not having a boss[0]. I had read it quite a while back but here's the gist of it: Paul mentions that we work best when we work in a group of 8-20 people in a flat structure like our hunter gatherer ancestors use to do. Each member have their own roles and responsibilities and each individual contributes the well being and future security of…
> imagine if companies are capped at 20-50 employees. Will it work? I think it will. What do you guys think?
This theory conflicts with Bullshit Jobs' theory (or more likely the truth) where power in an organization is derived from amount of reports someone has therefore companies must endlessly grow, only being limited by the amount of cash they can give their employees compared to the money coming in.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#9Your employer doesn’t care about you the same way your parents would. Good employers care about enabling you to do your job effectively and efficiently. But it’s all transactional. Doesn’t mean that you can’t find an arrangement that’s good for both you and employer. But don’t ever think it’s like a family. Saves you a lot of frustration. See it for what it is.
This can happen, but Paul "Kinko" Orfalea's book "Copy This!" goes into a lot of detail about how it makes sense to care about employees as people and doing so actually contributes greatly to the bottom line. His company "Kinko's Copies" is not the greatest tech leader ever, but it provided basic services to ordinary people using low paid labor and managed to have employee morale and retention far above other compani…
This example illustrates the first comment's point: it is fundamentally a transactional relationship. "Caring contributes greatly to the bottom line" means the goal of "caring" is increased productivity.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone doing some absurd stuff after getting laid off?
#10I am happy with my current employer but I always liked Paul Graham's idea of not having a boss[0]. I had read it quite a while back but here's the gist of it: Paul mentions that we work best when we work in a group of 8-20 people in a flat structure like our hunter gatherer ancestors use to do. Each member have their own roles and responsibilities and each individual contributes the well being and future security of…
>This is very extreme take but imagine if companies are capped at 20-50 employees. Will it work? I think it will. What do you guys think? I don't think. I cannot imagine companies doing GPU, CPUs, Windows, etc. with just 20-50ppl.
Presumably you would, only what are different departments within a single company now would be separate companies. Probably similar kinds of blessings and curses as microservices.