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Nobody cares

grantslatton.com

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Re: Nobody cares

#81

Post by tolerance »

spencerflem wrote: post #41
maximinus_thrax wrote: post #25

What a worthless rant. There are big problems and there are small problems and/or inconveniences. People do care, when they have a budget for caring. Unfortunately the modern world depletes that budget with the day-to-day life. I live close to where the author does and trust me, the city has way bigger problems to deal with than the nitpicky bullshit OP is calling out. In the suburb I live in, we have an app where th…

I agree the authors examples were all nitpicky and omg Elon was the worst example you could have picked. But it does touch on a sort of apathy and nihilism that I can feel myself falling towards.

I gather that the worth of this piece lies in relating and resolving not to follow the author’s lead.

Re: Nobody cares

#82

Post by ivraatiems »

kmoser wrote: post #59
ivraatiems wrote: post #29

What the author of this post is actually mad about is that most people don't care about him . The people who designed the DMV don't care about him. The people who made the crappy Oracle HR software he probably has to use don't care about him. The people who designed the bike lanes don't care about him. It's not their job to. They have about a million other priorities, they're not sorry about it, and they shouldn't be…

Then why the huge disparity between cultural attitudes in the USA vs. Japan? Clearly the Japanese tend to take more pride of ownership, which is OP's point.

Japan also has an entire group of people so disillusioned with society they completely lock themselves off from it (0), record high suicide rates (1), record low fertility rates (2), and a far lower rate of self-reported happiness.

I don't know why they prioritize differently, but I don't think it's working out for them.

Which set of tradeoffs would you rather live under?

(0) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori (1) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387.amp (2) https://apnews.com/article/japan-birth-rate-declining-popula... (3) https://countryeconomy.com/demography/world-happiness-index/...

Re: Nobody cares

#83

Post by spencerflem »

DharmaPolice wrote: post #77

As someone who works for a local government bureaucracy - not caring is a coping mechanism because if you let every sub-optimal thing bother you then you'd just burn out. Very few jobs are structured in a way that those directly involved can determine how things are done so there is no real value in caring about how long a process takes. Where people have some agency you might be surprised how much people do care eve…

Love the analogy and your explanation

Re: Nobody cares

#84

Post by 000ooo000 »

Over2Chars wrote: post #49
imgabe wrote: post #38

Man, I've been the engineer in situations like that bike lane and believe me, we care. Usually the engineers care. 99% of the time the contractor had some "value engineering" suggestions that the client was all too happy to take because it saved them a little money up front. As the engineer you can try to explain that it will be shitty, but they ... don't care.

A well known CEO noted that in a failing organization he was trying to devise a turn around plan for that everyone in the organization invariably blamed... the other teams! Not a one said "our team is responsible for our failure". The engineers blamed product, the product people blamed sales, etc. He said he provided this suggestion, "You are of course right (it's the other groups fault, and it might have been so), b…

Classic CEO. "How can you, the powerless IC, fix an organisational problem? No, I mean without me having to do anything meaningful or risky"

Re: Nobody cares

#85

Post by aprilthird2021 »

kmoser wrote: post #59
ivraatiems wrote: post #29

What the author of this post is actually mad about is that most people don't care about him . The people who designed the DMV don't care about him. The people who made the crappy Oracle HR software he probably has to use don't care about him. The people who designed the bike lanes don't care about him. It's not their job to. They have about a million other priorities, they're not sorry about it, and they shouldn't be…

Then why the huge disparity between cultural attitudes in the USA vs. Japan? Clearly the Japanese tend to take more pride of ownership, which is OP's point.

He only thinks it's that way because in Japan, he's the big man with the big bucks the whole society caters to. An average Japanese person probably makes a terrible salary, has few if any economic prospects, sees a stagnant economy, and also is very unlikely to even start a family. I'd much rather have a family than have store clerks obsses about serving me.

If you have tons of money in Seattle area and live in an exurb, and only go to Seattle for the orchestra and a baseball game in a box, you probably think everyone in America cares too

Re: Nobody cares

#86

Post by liontwist »

DharmaPolice wrote: post #77

As someone who works for a local government bureaucracy - not caring is a coping mechanism because if you let every sub-optimal thing bother you then you'd just burn out. Very few jobs are structured in a way that those directly involved can determine how things are done so there is no real value in caring about how long a process takes. Where people have some agency you might be surprised how much people do care eve…

Why doesn’t Japan have this problem?

Re: Nobody cares

#87

Post by batiudrami »

whyenot wrote: post #62

Most of the government employees that work in the bureaucracy do care. They care a lot. The reason their "favorite" part of the job is "stability" or "job security" is because the pay usually sucks compared to industry, and the bullshit you have to put up with to avoid scandals, lawsuits, and corruption also sucks. Most of the civil servants I know stay in their jobs because they really do want to help people; they r…

Also external people don’t generally know or understand all the constrains that led to decisions that are suboptimal (for the person complaining).

Re: Nobody cares

#88

Post by DowsingSpoon »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #42

Care does not come from without, but instead from within. To proclaim "Why does nobody care about anything?" is to neglect an oft quoted axiom: You must be the change you wish to see in the world.[0] 0 - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/mahatma_gandhi_109075

Okay, I now care passionately about each and everything I do. The bike ramp still sucks. What now?

Re: Nobody cares

#89

Post by spencerflem »

tolerance wrote: post #81
spencerflem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the authors examples were all nitpicky and omg Elon was the worst example you could have picked. But it does touch on a sort of apathy and nihilism that I can feel myself falling towards.

I gather that the worth of this piece lies in relating and resolving not to follow the author’s lead.

For sure

Re: Nobody cares

#90

Post by f4stjack »

Preach brother. I am in the same boat but in the caring side of things. I read e-mails, I respond to them as promptly as I can. I read the tickets and contact the users to resolve their issues as quickly as I can. I attend to meetings, do the required things and long story short, I give two shits about what is going on around me.

You know what I get? Additional assumed responsibilities is what I get, because I read the goddamn mails sent to the goddamn regional IT staff distribution list - I am the "knowledge base". If you are naivé you might, just might, assume that additional responsibilities involve a raise or a title change.

Hell. No.

The final straw was a person got promoted without any interviews etc. to a position I am de-facto doing. So you keep the people who care in the same position because "they get the job done" and you raise the people who doesn't care and the end result is this situation.

But hey! KPIs are green, the job gets "done", right? Who cares?

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