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

machinesplusminds.blogspot.com

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

#71

Post by sopooneo »

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…

I feel like reputation is an asset that pays dividends. You can sell it off in part or whole for a short term cash gain, but then your dividend payments will shrink accordingly.

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

#72

Post by ubernostrum »

temphn wrote: post #23
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…

Unfortunately, they're rarely content to work 2 hours per day at their cushy jobs. These are not the characteristics of executives at successful companies. Have you ever started a successful business? If so, did you work two hours per day? I doubt many YC founders would see themselves in this assessment.

Yes, yes, I see. A person struggling mightily to build a brand-new company from scratch is obviously a perfect analogy for a person who's placed in a high-level position at a strong, established company. I bet that their tasks and workloads are practically identical, even!

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

#73

Post by nazgulnarsil »

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…

>In this case, the downside to saving money by laying off expensive experience is clear. Unfortunately, the downsides are rarely clear before the upsides

The general heuristic of pointing out information asymmetries even when they seem obvious is a good one. In fact I'd say my experience has been that most people could benefit by explicitly saying more obvious things. The reason people don't is for fear of looking bad.

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

#74

Post by Natsu »

zcvosdfdgj wrote: post #53
emeraldd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I am making what I would consider educated guess on the scale of the organization and the impact of the changes. WHAT?! You're making a guess based on what? THERE WERE NO DETAILS. It's impossible for that to be an educated guess.

> You're making a guess based on what?

I didn't write that, but it's clear to me that they're basing it on the results.

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

#75

Post by blackcoat »

I just started a new job two weeks ago, meaning that I've put in approx 80 hours in. I would guess that I was unable to perform my required functions for about 30 of those, due to setup inefficiencies. This has also delayed the onboard learning curve, because I have to stop and figure out who to talk to to get permissions, or wait for a machine, or an image, or whatnot BEFORE I could start figuring out how to do whatever it was I was trying to do.

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

#76

Post by darkarmani »

NinetyNine wrote: post #22
michaelochurch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a micromanager who hit everyone with 3 to 4 status pings per day. Even on work-from-home days, which defeats the point. His status pinging was a compulsion like email checking, but it eventually caused the team to fail. Consequently, I hate status meetings and standups and the various so-called Scr(ot)um tactics used to make people feel watched. I realize they're probably necessary as an occasional annoyance, b…

I'm not really sure how you're implementing scrum. Our scrum standups are always just the programmers, once a day in the mornings, and are used to keep all the programmers on the same page and talk to each other to find out if features might have a codependency, or if other blockers can be solved by something else another dev is working on. There's no "watching" of people or "intimidation". You might want to speak to…

Yeah, but next you'll tell us at your standups you actually stood up. No one gave me an answer when I asked why they called our meeting standup meetings.

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

#77

Post by zcvosdfdgj »

Natsu wrote: post #74
zcvosdfdgj wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am making what I would consider educated guess on the scale of the organization and the impact of the changes. WHAT?! You're making a guess based on what? THERE WERE NO DETAILS. It's impossible for that to be an educated guess.

> You're making a guess based on what? I didn't write that, but it's clear to me that they're basing it on the results.

They got the "scale of the organization" from the results. No kidding.

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

#78

Post by ams6110 »

NinetyNine wrote: post #22
michaelochurch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a micromanager who hit everyone with 3 to 4 status pings per day. Even on work-from-home days, which defeats the point. His status pinging was a compulsion like email checking, but it eventually caused the team to fail. Consequently, I hate status meetings and standups and the various so-called Scr(ot)um tactics used to make people feel watched. I realize they're probably necessary as an occasional annoyance, b…

I'm not really sure how you're implementing scrum. Our scrum standups are always just the programmers, once a day in the mornings, and are used to keep all the programmers on the same page and talk to each other to find out if features might have a codependency, or if other blockers can be solved by something else another dev is working on. There's no "watching" of people or "intimidation". You might want to speak to…

A daily 30 minute standup with 10 programmers (three minutes each) is 5 hours of development time lost. That's 25 hours a week, over half a full-time developer. It's probably more. Let's say stand-up is at 0900. Nobody getting in early is going to really get in the zone because they know standup is coming. Then after standup there's another 15 - 30 minutes getting into the flow. Then it's nearly lunchtime. In other words, standup pretty much kill half the day.

Can you really say they are worth it?

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

#79

Post by darkarmani »

bconway wrote: post #48

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.

So, if developers ship on time are they overstaffed? Projects should never ship on time.

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

#80

Post by noonespecial »

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…

Imagine a choice among 5 or so options to be made. Choose the "wrong" one and you get nothing. Any of the other 4 and you get at least a few million. But, choose the "right" one and you get $1Bn. There's a guy who already knows which is the "right" one. How much are you willing to pay him for the 10 seconds of work it would take him to tell you which it is?

That's the idea behind high executive compensation. I agree, it very rarely works out quite that way IRL, but lots of people are quite attached to this fantasy.

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