41–50 of 146 posts
What's wrong with being a janitor?
Nothing at all. That's something I think I did not portray clearly enough in this post. There is nothing wrong with being a janitor. Someone has to do it, the point was really to display that you have to do anything and everything necessary to make your company successful. Titles are bullshit and egos should be checked at the door.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My reaction to your use of "fucking" wasn't that it appalled me in some moralistic or linguistic sense. Rather, I felt like it (partially) undermined the point of your post. The post is about how being CEO isn't all glamor, and includes doing dirty work as well. And you make clear that you feel the janitor, unlike a figurehead who merely signs documents, contributes something useful and necessary to the enterprise. U…
The fuck. What is up with this opinion? Fuck means sex. Why do we call these words obscene? Do you honestly think those words entered daily use? "Grab the fucking milk" said without any emotional meaning. People would actually reason more. It's a prohibition on words, that makes them mean more artificially while contributing no logic to the discussion. How dare ye try to elate an emotion in me! How dare ye! Edit:I'm…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_th...
EDIT: In other words, it's even more idiotic to leave it here after you've determined it was a mu post.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing, that's the point. Did you read the article?
I did. The comparison seems to imply that being a CEO is not all that it's made out to be. It's like being the fucking janitor. Which is why I ask what is wrong with being a janitor.
In my day job I'm the technical director at Mandalorian. It's a cool job, but I'm generally pretty overloaded and usually underpaid. I don't do it for the cash or free time that's for sure, but I do love making a difference for our customers. In a strange way I took this approach to my other thing, 44Con. Everything I do at 44Con is about making sure the delegates have a good time and learn something. If we need to put leaflets on seats, I'm out there. If a delegate has a problem, I want to know so I can fix it.
A large part of startup success seems to be sales, but we shouldn't undersell the delivery and relationship aspects. If your customer is struggling to deal with you, then you're doing it wrong. If your customer has problems that you just can't fix, you're doing it wrong. If you're sat in an ivory tower and refuse to get out and fix it when these things happen then you're doing it wrong.
I'll be the first to admit I've failed on all parts on occasion, sometimes simultaneously, but it's our ability to learn from these things that sets the smaller guys apart from the bigger ones. Startups can make small mistakes, the established companies make far bigger ones without noticing.
I'm the equivalent of a CEO at Mandalorian, but I'll proudly clean toilets if it makes for a better experience for our customers. Hoops? I live to jump through them, and I expect that from everyone I work with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fuck. What is up with this opinion? Fuck means sex. Why do we call these words obscene? Do you honestly think those words entered daily use? "Grab the fucking milk" said without any emotional meaning. People would actually reason more. It's a prohibition on words, that makes them mean more artificially while contributing no logic to the discussion. How dare ye try to elate an emotion in me! How dare ye! Edit:I'm…
> Edit:I'm an idiot and wrote an argument to something you didn't say, but I'll leave it here cause it took me 5 minutes to write on the phone keyboard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_th... EDIT: In other words, it's even more idiotic to leave it here after you've determined it was a mu post.
However, if you spend a huge chunk of your time as a CEO (or founder/owner/whatever) performing a single task (or multiple rudimentary tasks) that could be performed better and more efficiently by a hired employee instead of using your experience to grow and propel the company, then you're doing something wrong.
Seems appropriate to quote an old HN comment ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3905794 ): "After the first night of the 2008 SciFoo conference at Google, @gnat Torkington's twitter stream contained a gem: 'At SciFoo opening session. 300 people standing around networking. Meanwhile, Larry Page is quietly unpacking chairs at the back of the room.' (from memory, not exact)" The CEO (or any leader)'s job is to make s…
larry is a billionaire, his sense of things is different than ours, money is not an issue anymore for him, or at least not the same type of issue it really piss me off, when we ask an employee who is being paid peanuts to show the same dedication to his work place as the ceo or the owner, and claim this is the ethical thing to do
Not saying what your saying isn't true, but you might have misunderstood the message, nobody mentioned employees or how they should behave.