When employees feel slighted, they work less • Hacker News Board

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#171

Post by mystraline » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

metalman wrote: post #160

mystraline wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1100/format:webp/1*ikF... When nobody wants to work for you , that should be a strong indication that you are the problem. And thinking that employees are "enacting vengence? in the form of vandalism from day 1."... You must be terrible indeed.

I get unsoliseted offers from job seekers, every day. Any destructive actions on the part of employees has been completly unprovoked, the reasons might be conected to a perception of metal working bieng a "macho" tough guy, right wing, field, but I am more of a "nature boy" back to the lander, and aint shy, or small, or tollerant of "dog whistles".......so in that way, oh fuck ya!, I am a n8ghtmare on preconceptions.

I hope you get the mental health care you sorely need.

The world is not out to get you, no matter how much you think it is.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#172

Post by anon7725 » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:50 PM UTC

SkyeCA wrote: post #122

andsoitis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> late birthday recognition. if someone is going to feel slighted and similar things add up to them working less, they probably are not a great colleague to begin with. What matters more are: assignment to rewarding work, get paid top dollar, not be bored, get recognition for success, coaching on career growth, given leeway to make mistakes, not overlooked for promotion, etc. Now, as a people manager, if you're not s…

People are emotional and react in unexpected ways to even the smallest perceived slights, myself included. A late birthday recognition might not feel important, but if one already feels like management doesn't care about them? I can easily seeing that as a confirmation of it that causes resentment. I can also see it doing the same for any number of management related issues. I can tell you personally that the action…

> I can tell you personally that the action which most seriously affected my performance at a workplace was being denied a bereavement day because the official policy was to only allow one.

One of the things I remember most from my career was a manager "rules lawyering" about bereavement leave when my aunt passed away. Ironically, HR was very sympathetic and accommodating, and it was a non-issue with them.

I've been treated "worse" by jackass execs and managers, but always in the context of work. Someone acting in the way this manager did about a personal situation sticks with me much more than those.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#173

Post by catlifeonmars » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

tarkin2 wrote: post #155

catlifeonmars wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior. Likewise, a manager is not going to associate a slight towards an employee with an increase in absenteeism or lower productivity that happens days and weeks later. Note that GP is comparing the _managers_ motivation to a dog’s motivation, not the worker. It’s about a…

The point is that /anyone/ is being compared to a dog, that the whole relationship is being compared as such. It's demeaning and is pretty much a slight, ironically enough (albeit directed towards the manager in this occasion)

You don’t find Pavlov’s manager the least bit humorous?

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#174

Post by vimwizard » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

I received a title bump without pay increase to Senior after doing senior work for 4 years because our senior bracket is capped by lifers waiting to retire (I like them as people but they are checked out, professionally). It just left a bad taste in my mouth that it took so long to be recognized officially.

To put things into context, I'm basically operating as an engineering consultant to the rest of our senior staff and directors across multiple teams. In larger companies, perhaps I would be an intermediate IC, but in this company I am definitely responsible for more than my ICs.

It's my fault for not holding them to it, and should have realized earlier that I'm working under management that only reacts to things immediately happening to them.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#175

Post by zemvpferreira » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #145

Sharlin wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being primarily interested in money and career advancement would also make you not a great colleague in many people’s eyes. It’s rather subjective.

Whether people like to admit it or not, very rarely do people work for anything but money and career advancement. You can claim you work for passion, the love of the game or whatever 100 other reasons people tend to give out. All it takes is 2 years of no raises and a couple of promotions for colleagues for you to start not wanting to work for whatever reason you convinced yourself you were working for.

I find a lot of people work at a certain place for the social life, and the money comes second. Including some surprisingly high performers.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#176

Post by frogperson » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

hypeatei wrote: post #64

Maybe I'm a bit jaded, and corporate environments have taken their toll, but I see the employee-manager relationship as adversarial by default. Whether my boss wishes me happy birthday or not doesn't move the needle much. I'm there to contribute as an individual and he's there to answer to his boss about staffing, budgeting, and performance. Although, I do feel slighted when a manager acknowledges the absurdity of al…

Your boss is playing a role, same as you.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#177

Post by forinti » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

hypeatei wrote: post #64

Maybe I'm a bit jaded, and corporate environments have taken their toll, but I see the employee-manager relationship as adversarial by default. Whether my boss wishes me happy birthday or not doesn't move the needle much. I'm there to contribute as an individual and he's there to answer to his boss about staffing, budgeting, and performance. Although, I do feel slighted when a manager acknowledges the absurdity of al…

Just last week I was tasked with configuring an automated happy birthday email.

It feels worse to know that it's just an automatic message and that the person who supposedly signed it doesn't even know who you are.

Work is just work, don't expect anything more than that.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#178

Post by kingofmen » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

pinnochio wrote: post #21

There's a lot of jeering, I suspect at the headline more than anything, but having documented research can be helpful in changing management behavior. The changes in employee behavior documented here are not ones that managers would easily connect to their past behavior, such as a late birthday recognition. When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't a…

Humans, even pointy-haired ones, do have slightly larger brains than dogs precisely for the purpose of being able to form associations over longer timespans. That's a big part of what intelligence is.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#179

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

malfist wrote: post #139

doubled112 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d take “slightly below average but is generally good to work with and tries hard” over “genius asshole” almost any day. Few projects require the latter. There’s also the problem with how useless so many are at their jobs with no way to be sure until its too late.

I've found those genius assholes are mostly just assholes and not much on the genius side

A lot of people appear to be highly productive by creating more work for the ones around them. That tends to correlate well with being an asshole.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#180

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

greenchair wrote: post #61

doubled112 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d take “slightly below average but is generally good to work with and tries hard” over “genius asshole” almost any day. Few projects require the latter. There’s also the problem with how useless so many are at their jobs with no way to be sure until its too late.

mostly agree but the below average try hard is also the one introducing the most bugs so I'm torn on this.

Are those people in an environment where they need to close tickets at any cost or else?

I've seen less capable people changing from slightly productive to incredibly destructive by changing that one variable.