"The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors" • Hacker News Board

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#41

Post by zcvosdfdgj » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

rosstafarian wrote: post #40

zcvosdfdgj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's clear from the article that he thought the company was worse off.. but really had no details to back it up. All we know from the article is that IT was worse off. But we have no idea how the company as a whole is doing. Maybe you aren't aware, but most companies consist of more than the IT dept.

The OP does have details to back it up, just not hard numbers. He states how new employees had problems getting setup, old employees dealing with misc problems, things not running smoothly in general. Yes most companies consist of more than IT but these days the problem is many organizations seem to look at IT as an extra expense they can skimp on or even completely do without("The bosses son is really good with comp…

The OP does have details to back it up ... employees had problems getting setup

Ok.. tell me about those employees. How much do they get paid? Minimum wage? What do they do? Do they even require a desk?

A week to setup a desk that the employee doesn't even need because they are required to travel constantly is not a problem.

You're taking this awfully personally

I'm not taking any of this personally. You're just sensitive because someone is suggesting that an IT dept might have required cuts.

Geez.. for people who are so scientifically-minded, you sure do seem eager to take everything in the article on faith.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#42

Post by jusben1369 » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #26

In this case, the downside to saving money by laying off expensive experience is clear. Unfortunately, the downsides are rarely clear before the upsides, and by the time the mistake is obvious, returning to the previous state is difficult, and an incentive has been created for short term savings at the expense of long term ones. By way of example, several years ago I sold tools at Sears. Sears had spent decades build…

"but the fact that it takes years for the effect of reduced quality to become obvious: in the short term, consumer confidence in the brand is still high," The only thing I'd point out is that the two are related. Sears had this policy for a very long time and so it slowly becomes an established fact. That's why you can make the cost savings change and show new profits for a quarter, 2 quarters, maybe even a year or two. Most likely the "smart person" who made that decision gets promoted onto another group that needs better margins. Then the wheels come off but the exec is long gone onto something else.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#43

Post by michaelochurch » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 9:54 PM UTC

zobzu wrote: post #35

michaelochurch wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that. Good executives are worth far more than the compensation that they get; but as a class, their net impact is neutral at best and probably negative. As with stock traders (where a lot of them just lose money) most of them aren't very competent. That doesn't invalidate every single one of them or what they're trying to do. It's the CEO-pay debate all over again. No one who actually understands large compa…

I see 2 flaws in an otherwise fine argument. 1/ I don't think anyone is worth 10 million/year no matter how "good" they are. I sure believe a good CEO should be paid adequately but those are just ridiculous amounts, and the CEO is only one part of the puzzle, even if important. As a CEO its hard to screw up (even thus many do), its hard to be very good, but its easy to be in the middle. Like most jobs in fact. 2/Work…

I don't think anyone is worth 10 million/year no matter how "good" they are.

Viscerally, I agree. On the other hand, if we go back to 1995 or any time before it, no 25-year-old programmer was "worth" $100,000 per year. Now that's a typical salary for a strong engineer. I'm cautious about saying people "make too much" money because, ultimately, no one really knows what work is worth. That's why we have markets, and they aren't perfect but they do better for a lot of things (not all, and I'm actually pretty far left by US standards) than any kind of central command and analysis humans have ever devised for that sort of thing. Societies need infrastructure (environmental controls, welfare state) to correct imbalance but markets work. Usually. Executive pay in large companies is set by a parasitic social elite rather than a real market, so that's somewhat of a different story, but I'm not sure where I draw the line.

The difference between how a company operates when there's a good CEO vs. a bad one is easily $10 million, because CEOs have multiplier (or divider, when r It's ok to work 5h-7h a day, or even less some days if you're efficient. But 2H, is just not realistic, you can't even speak that fast.

Why not? Perhaps I'm being starry-eyed and idealistic, but I think there's easily a factor of 10 in variation in a person's productivity in an hour of work, and that properly motivated people can get a lot done in a short time period. Looking back over my career, I'd guess that 90% of the value that I've added occurred in 20% of the time. I think a lot can be accomplished with little time, and why not? If I were offered a $2-million job, the first thing I'd ask is if I could work 20 hours per week for half of that salary. It'd be a win-win bargain, because I'd be getting the time off, and they'd be getting 70-80% of my full-time productivity.

The purpose of the 8-hour day is to enhance the likelihood of capturing the 2 to 4 hours in which the person is actually highly productive. Companies fear (and justifiably so) that if the work expectation were a 3-hour day, people would give their best 3 hours to their personal side projects or interests and let the company have the leftovers. So they mandate a day that stretched from after breakfast to before dinner to maximize the chances of getting peoples' productive hours.

I don't think the solution of keeping people corralled in an office for what is, in winter, a full day is going to hold up much longer. I think the post-managerial vision of Valve is the future, and that once this is established, companies will be more comfortable trusting people to work 4 hours in an average day but get shit done. (Of course, there are times when it's appropriate to work 14 hours per day, but those conditions don't, or at least shouldn't, last for long.)

To make it clear, I'm not advocating laziness here. Working an effective 4-hour day is a lot harder and less lazy than working the sloppy 10-hour day that is typical in the professions.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#44

Post by jusben1369 » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 9:55 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

Executives are day traders. I've known day traders to argue that they make more money trading in the first and last 30 minutes of the day than they do if they're trading all day, because they end up getting involved in "boredom trading" that is break-even at best (and blows out their variance) and quite possibly losing. As for executives, they're disciplined, they can enjoy their easy jobs and high compensation and a…

There are bad executives like their are bad programmers. You should narrow it down vs being so broad.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#45

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 10:00 PM UTC

Techstop. That's all I'm going to say.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#46

Post by lotharbot » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 10:06 PM UTC

Foy wrote: post #7

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

Executives are day traders. I've known day traders to argue that they make more money trading in the first and last 30 minutes of the day than they do if they're trading all day, because they end up getting involved in "boredom trading" that is break-even at best (and blows out their variance) and quite possibly losing. As for executives, they're disciplined, they can enjoy their easy jobs and high compensation and a…

I hear nightmarish stories of micro-managers all the time. They feel that in order to do their jobs they have to tweak EVERYTHING that crosses their desk. One memorable anecdote I came across was about an animation artist who was in charge of animating the queen for a 3d chess game. Because he knew his manager's weakness he threw in a duck... Yes, a duck. Fully animated with sound effects and everything. Sure enough,…

Obligatory Dilbert (7/12/1997):

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-07-12/?Page=2

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#47

Post by rapala » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 10:12 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #27

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

Executives are day traders. I've known day traders to argue that they make more money trading in the first and last 30 minutes of the day than they do if they're trading all day, because they end up getting involved in "boredom trading" that is break-even at best (and blows out their variance) and quite possibly losing. As for executives, they're disciplined, they can enjoy their easy jobs and high compensation and a…

> As for executives, they're disciplined, they can enjoy their easy jobs and high compensation and accept the boredom associated with rarely being needed, because if things are running well, they aren't operationally necessary I'm sorry but you have zero clue as to what running a business is like. Zero. There really isn't much more I can say other than to quote Twain: "He who holds a cat by the tail learns something…

In a firm the size depicted in the post business is run by the marketing division. In these firms most of the divisions have executives to sign purchases and attend meetings.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#48

Post by bconway » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 10:14 PM UTC

It sounds to me (and I know this won't be a popular opinion here) that the original IT department was overstaffed. A printer never out of paper? No projector ever found with a dead bulb?

Much like there being a "healthy" amount of unemployment (~3%, I recall?), there's a healthy amount of smaller items not met. It sounds like the company was overpaying for IT.

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#49

Post by bgilroy26 » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 10:22 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #27

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

Executives are day traders. I've known day traders to argue that they make more money trading in the first and last 30 minutes of the day than they do if they're trading all day, because they end up getting involved in "boredom trading" that is break-even at best (and blows out their variance) and quite possibly losing. As for executives, they're disciplined, they can enjoy their easy jobs and high compensation and a…

> As for executives, they're disciplined, they can enjoy their easy jobs and high compensation and accept the boredom associated with rarely being needed, because if things are running well, they aren't operationally necessary I'm sorry but you have zero clue as to what running a business is like. Zero. There really isn't much more I can say other than to quote Twain: "He who holds a cat by the tail learns something…

I don't understand the reaction here in the comments. Do the people talking about the uselessness of management think the same of sysadmins whose systems are running smoothly?

Re: "The carpets are so clean, we don't need janitors"

#50

Post by emeraldd » Sat, Aug 04, 2012, 10:29 PM UTC

zcvosdfdgj wrote: post #37

emeraldd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That sounds bad. But we have no idea what the company does, so we don't actually know if this is a problem or not. That's true. The description of the company does lend itself to the belief that it was sufficiently large enough to make these things a problem. If you have people working in cubicles there is, more than likely, a need for them to have a computer, phone, etc. While it might be possible for them to not…

From the sounds of things, they didn't have a problem with inefficiency prior to the cuts. He includes no details about the IT staffing levels in the company, what the budget was, the size of the company, what the company did, what the employees did, the reason for the cuts (other than speculation), or anything else. For all we know, it was a company with 5 non-IT employees, and a staff of 50 IT people who flipped a…

> For all we know, it was a company with 5 non-IT employees, and a staff of 50 IT people who flipped a coin once a day to decide which of 1 of them was going to work that day.

You're right on that, we don't have any idea about the total size of the department or the total size of the company as a whole. So, I'll grant you that there might have been some room for cuts in the department but, that really doesn't matter for his point.

What we see is that prior to the reorganization everything worked and that after the reorganization it didn't. This looks like someone pruned way too much out of an area that they didn't fully understand. The only thing we have to work from the assertion that:

"The total time lost and wasted across the whole company was most certainly greater than the savings of laying off the expensive and skilled IT staff."

I am making what I would consider educated guess on the scale of the organization and the impact of the changes. That impact would indicate that they now have insufficient staffing in IT and inefficiencies elsewhere as a result.