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Goodbye Auth0

joshcanhelp.com

111–120 of 281 posts

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my second job, the company terminated an employee for poor performance and intended to let them stay on a short term to wrap things up and then start their severance. The first evening (or maybe the first Friday evening), that dev stayed late in the office and deleted the source trees from as many machines as he could get access to (this was 1996, so most machines didn't have logins) and wiped the hard drive on th…

Also see the case of Shannon You[1] where the person in question leaked the trade secrets for BPA-free liner production used in soft drink cans for being fired. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edtn/pr/phd-chemist-sentenced-1...

You’s case was deliberate corporate espionage, not a disgruntled former employee.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't understand/trust/respect institutions. Because they don't trust institutions, if someone that is working for a company and does something bad, or is shown to be corrupt, it will affect the public perception of the company , not of the individual. Also, because Americans don't trust institutions, a lot of the internal processes and cultural values are upheld by the individuals, and how strongly this is…

Well I am an American that doesn't trust institutions by default, so to that end I fit your description here. I'm not sure how universal it is though, we have plenty of institutions here that people do trust and depend on every day. In this context, I think it's less about an individual's trust of institutions and more the institutions mistrust of the individual. Companies don't have to send fired employees home imme…

> Companies don't have to send fired employees home immediately, they only do this because they don't trust the individual to act appropriately.

Companies don't have agency or feelings. If company leaders expect people to do their jobs properly only because they are getting paid, it's already an institutional failure, because it's not taking into account that individuals are fallible.

If the company does not have an established process to protect itself from human error, whether accidental or intentional (like an disgruntled employee going rogue), when shit hits the fan all its leaders can do is to find blame in the individual. But instead of blaming people and hoping that we can force everyone to avoid mistakes, a better alternative would be to design a system that can withstand human nature and fix the institutional process so that that error doesn't happen again. The problem is that to do this takes time and most company CEOs can not see much beyond the next fiscal year.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#113

It’s not talked about as much but one of the main reasons for American and European software developers being let go is outsourcing to places like India. Companies save 90% of the cost of hiring someone in America. Very soon we are going to see what happened to manufacturing jobs happen to software jobs in the US unless the government steps in. Unfortunately I don’t see anyone talk about it

What do you mean it’s not talked about? It was an incredibly common theme during the celebrations of remote work increases.

A: "Finally, I can work from anywhere and don't have to live in an expensive place and commute to that office every day."

B-Z: "Um, don't you think that being able to work from anywhere increases the possibility of the company to hire from anywhere as well? And that it's not guaranteed to be you or your neighbor who is hired?"

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#114
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

Americans don't understand/trust/respect institutions. Because they don't trust institutions, if someone that is working for a company and does something bad, or is shown to be corrupt, it will affect the public perception of the company , not of the individual. Also, because Americans don't trust institutions, a lot of the internal processes and cultural values are upheld by the individuals, and how strongly this is…

Americans don't trust _public_ institutions. They do trust and love the private ones, especially when they are humongous corporations.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#115
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer is pretty simply due to the difference in laws. In the US no notice is legally required. As you noted, employees that already know their employment is shortly coming to an end generally don't perform to the same level. Therefore it is in the company's interest to give no advance notice whatsoever until employment is officially, actually terminated. In every European country, there's a legal require…

Well, yes, but actually no: you can easily give notice then lock them out, you just have to pay them over the entire notice period as the law says. It's not commonly done but in special cases of really bad blood, it will. The law is there to protect the employee income, not to force the employer to give them work.

This has been my experience in most cases. When an employee is terminated, they are sent home and paid the rest of their time, to avoid risk of vengeful acts or whatever.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I am an American that doesn't trust institutions by default, so to that end I fit your description here. I'm not sure how universal it is though, we have plenty of institutions here that people do trust and depend on every day. In this context, I think it's less about an individual's trust of institutions and more the institutions mistrust of the individual. Companies don't have to send fired employees home imme…

> Companies don't have to send fired employees home immediately, they only do this because they don't trust the individual to act appropriately. Companies don't have agency or feelings. If company leaders expect people to do their jobs properly only because they are getting paid, it's already an institutional failure, because it's not taking into account that individuals are fallible. If the company does not have an…

> when shit hits the fan all its leaders can do is to find blame in the individual.

Or they could, like, take responsibility for their actions that led them to that point?

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#117
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

In Europe, for some jobs, you'll be granted garden leave, i.e. you can stay home during your notice and still be paid. It's essentially a mechanism where they avoid having someone with a negative mentality that's not going to work hard anyway around the office.

Gardening leave is usually for positions where the employee holds competitive information on active deals etc. During the gardening leave they're under NDA which allows for their competitive information to go stale before starting at a new company.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#118
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

At my second job, the company terminated an employee for poor performance and intended to let them stay on a short term to wrap things up and then start their severance. The first evening (or maybe the first Friday evening), that dev stayed late in the office and deleted the source trees from as many machines as he could get access to (this was 1996, so most machines didn't have logins) and wiped the hard drive on th…

So because the company hired a criminal sociopath, every other person laid off until the end of times must be treated the same way? Certainly there are better ways to handle even this crazy scenario you mentioned.

That feels so inhumane to me. If you don't see your employees as humans, instead as mere resources and, as soon as they are laid off, threats, then we can say it makes sense.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#119

> I was still caught a bit off guard. What about that high-priority project I was helping to lead? What about the training I was scheduled to deliver? What about the offsite next month? This is the part that always confuses me. I understand why they treat employees as disposable, but it's like they don't care about continuation of business either. I feel like everytime I've quit a job, I cared more about my successio…

Social systems like “a company” are surprisingly adaptive. Did your company fall over? Will Auth0 fall over? Very likely no.

There’s almost no single person, project, process, or piece of knowledge that is truly existential to a moderate sized organization.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very incisive and insightful take and really distills some large cultural differences between Americans and Europeans down to its essence. Can I ask if you are American or European? How did you come about this insight?

Born and raised in South America. Lived in the US for ~5 years (2008-2013). Living in Germany since 2013. :)

I would also posit that this inclination towards individuals over institutions in the US extends to Central and South America.
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