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Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

david.newgas.net

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Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#251

Post by GJim »

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #133
cobbzilla wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The owner was the son of an old school magnate out of PA. If you have a lot of money it’s fun to LARP the startup life. The experience working for such a company is highly varied and completely depends on the personality of the founder. But even if it’s a healthy place, it’s usually a black hole from a career development POV.

I know someone who is an accountant for very wealthy people and quite a few seem to have useless children whose failing businesses they bankroll.

> whose failing businesses they bankroll

Don't confuse a hobby business with a failing business.

Plenty of people with independent means run loss making businesses for fun and/or support wives/children doing just that.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#253

Post by cobbzilla »

GJim wrote: post #251
jamesfinlayson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone who is an accountant for very wealthy people and quite a few seem to have useless children whose failing businesses they bankroll.

> whose failing businesses they bankroll Don't confuse a hobby business with a failing business. Plenty of people with independent means run loss making businesses for fun and/or support wives/children doing just that.

Semantics. If the hobby business never makes a profit and is capturing losses for tax benefits, that’s a failing business. It can be failing indefinitely as long as there’s money to support it, but you can’t call it a successful business.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#254

Post by thomashabets2 »

etothepii wrote: post #25

As a junior software engineer, I worked at a large UK bank. Senior management routinely seem baffled that they could announce redundancies or hiring freezes, yet technology costs would continue to rise. One pattern I saw repeatedly was a contractor being let go, only to return via a large outsourcing provider. The provider must have added a substantial markup despite supplying the same engineer back to the same team,…

> One pattern I saw repeatedly was a contractor being let go, only to return via a large outsourcing provider. The provider must have added a substantial markup despite supplying the same engineer back to the same team, without having incurred any procurement costs.

When I worked (well, was a contractor at) a very large company, they'd kicked out all their small contracting providers only to get the same people back via a single big one. I was told this was part of a vendor consolidation move, because maintaining their existing direct relationship with literally hundreds of thousands of vendors had a huge cost in itself.

I doubt they were dumb enough to think there was no markup, but going direct isn't free either. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Now, was it a net good move? That's both above my pay grade and not my expertise. But from the fact it took me a month of billed time to buy a license of that same company's own product[1], I wouldn't have called it an efficient bureaucracy.

[1] all purchases of own-company product had to be done through the 99% internal billing discount program.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#255

Post by GJim »

cobbzilla wrote: post #253
GJim wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whose failing businesses they bankroll Don't confuse a hobby business with a failing business. Plenty of people with independent means run loss making businesses for fun and/or support wives/children doing just that.

Semantics. If the hobby business never makes a profit and is capturing losses for tax benefits, that’s a failing business. It can be failing indefinitely as long as there’s money to support it, but you can’t call it a successful business.

You appear to be suggesting that fun hobbies which don't make money are a 'failure' rather than a success. Not everything is judged by how much money it makes.

Have you ever wondered why kids climb trees?

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#256

Post by calgoo »

dalvasorsali wrote: post #197
47282847 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t get why anyone would give up their mental health like that and work for such places. In my reality there are plenty of honest and decent places to work at. I’m seen dark places yes but only as visitor - why would I want to be in hell for more than a day or two.

I agree with you, but I feel like leaving is much harder in reality for most people. Life gets in the way, you don't have the energy to apply, you're afraid of rejection, you are afraid you might end up in a worse environment, you justify it to yourself in any number of ways. Inertia, herd mentality and self-deception are much more powerful IRL than most people online seem to think (or at least write).

Add having a family to the mix and it gets worse. Being a sole provider for a family is scary when you go job hunting, especially if you live in an environment that is very expensive (where the jobs that pay decent are located normally).

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#257

Post by calgoo »

reissbaker wrote: post #193
jfengel wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers love the idea that contractors can be fired more easily than employees. Except that this flexibility comes at a cost; people insist on being paid more to have an insecure job. The uncertainty never goes away. You can pay someone else to suffer it, but it will always cost more than dealing with it yourself. And that can be ok. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you're getting a bargain.

I wonder if this explains why I hear about this more from Europeans than from the SF tech scene. California is at-will employment, so you can fire an employee as easily as a contractor. Ironically this makes companies more willing to hire and retain employees, since they're not worried about getting stuck with a bad one — and most employees aren't bad, and are better for the company than contractors.

Its not about employees being bad, we have 6 month trial periods over here in the EU where you can be fired quite easily. Thats the excuse they use to keep at will employment. In reality they want to be able to reduce Opex costs which looks great on their end of year budgets. If you can then offload that cost into a project run under Capex, even at a higher cost, then its budgeted differently and the shareholders get their payout.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#258

Post by falsemyrmidon »

47282847 wrote: post #182
ffsm8 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Past that I don't see a way for C suite to wake up. Didn't you mean to temporarily realign? I mean give it 2 years and another manager to show up, ready to get their bonus for the next attempt at it. That's our reality and how we've structured our markets

I honestly don’t get why anyone would give up their mental health like that and work for such places. In my reality there are plenty of honest and decent places to work at. I’m seen dark places yes but only as visitor - why would I want to be in hell for more than a day or two.

At some point I just work here man, and my job is to do whatever dumb shit management wants me to do this quarter, no matter how dumb it is.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#259

Post by williamdclt »

GJim wrote: post #255
cobbzilla wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semantics. If the hobby business never makes a profit and is capturing losses for tax benefits, that’s a failing business. It can be failing indefinitely as long as there’s money to support it, but you can’t call it a successful business.

You appear to be suggesting that fun hobbies which don't make money are a 'failure' rather than a success. Not everything is judged by how much money it makes. Have you ever wondered why kids climb trees?

It's really not that deep: they're characterising the business, you're characterising the hobby. The owner having a good time doesn't make it a successful business. A failing business can be a successful hobby, sure, that's still a failing business.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#260

Post by IshKebab »

GJim wrote: post #243
IshKebab wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actual genius. You should write this up in detail!

It's hardly complicated! OP is simply describing what is common throughout government in the UK. This is known as the Revolving Door . Private Eye magazine wrote a special report on it some years back as, frankly, it is scandalous https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/revol... [PDF]

I didn't say it is complicated. It is unusual for individuals not at the top of the ladder to set up their own companies and get exactly the same job twice. That's not what the "revolving door" is typically talking about.
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