It seems self-evident to me that if you treat experienced, talented, highly paid developers like minimum wage workers then you're either losing out on much of that experience and talent or you're paying far too much.
Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somebody has to hire us "B people".
I understand that you are using self-deprecation to poke fun of the elitist parent comment, but the fact is that nobody is required to hire "B people".
There aren't very many "A people" to go around, most people who think they are hiring A people are hiring B or C people.
Most of the useful work on the planet is done by B or below people.
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#13I live in San Diego (where a huge Intuit campus is located) and have known lots of people who work there, but none that work remotely with any regularity. I'm curious what #7 (let employees telecommute when they need to) means at Intuit. I wonder what their definition of "need to" is.
I worked at Intuit in the bay area for about three years. During that time, I knew many people that would work from home regularly 1-2 times a week. I really preferred working on my multi-monitor setup in the office (I lived easily bikeable three miles away from campus), so I never took advantage of the liberal WFH policy while I lived out there (except for when waiting for cable man visits and the like).
After three years working in Mountain View, my girlfriend got into a PHD program at the University Wisconsin and Intuit was A-OK with me working remote. So I packed up all my office gear, got issued a Desktop VPN VOIP phone, and moved to Madison, WI. I did that for about two years before I left to cofound a company with several longtime CS friends here in Madison.
So, yeah, Intuit is pretty liberal with telecommuting when it fits the situation (as long as you don't abuse it). : )
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somebody has to hire us "B people".
I understand that you are using self-deprecation to poke fun of the elitist parent comment, but the fact is that nobody is required to hire "B people".
I'm not clear on the definition of an A person versus B person. But if I apply my assumptions, experiences and observations to this situation, I would argue that you'll have to hire B-people because A-people have too much pride and ego to do B-work; a.k.a. whatever work they deem is below them. If Google was really filled with only Ph.D. holding A-people with engineering degrees and published books under their belts, no work would ever actually get done ;)
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#15Hypocrisy. Telling employees it is "up to them" while in reality giving them no resources, control, nor choices -- or none that matter, i.e. not really listening and responding to them.
Aka "passing the buck".
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#16Fun pop-psychology on hiring people by 1-10 ratings and what it says about the hiring manager.
If you hire an n, where 0If you hire an n, where 6If you hire an n, where 8=m. Because truly competent people want to bring in other truly competent people and aren't threatened by people with higher levels of competency, and even might welcome it.
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#17#5 is one of my favorites. One of my co-workers refers to one of our managers as a "drive-by" manager. He agrees with the concept of carving out chunks of time - even remotely - to focus. In reality, if you are on-site, he is constantly "driving by" with things that could have waited or been communicated via IM/email.
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#18Hypocrisy. Telling employees it is "up to them" while in reality giving them no resources, control, nor choices -- or none that matter, i.e. not really listening and responding to them. Aka "passing the buck".
Exactly.
I have had this boss, unfortunately. To a t. He'd tell me a project was "completely up to me," that I was "the leader" of it, and that I should feel "totally empowered" to make decisions, allocate resources, etc. He proceeded to show up to each of my project meetings, often late and out of context, disagree out loud, offer unsolicited opinions, micromanage, and badger me into implementing his ideas -- thoroughly undermining any ostensible authority I had over the project, or reversing any progress the team had made up to that point. His ideas came in two flavors: a) completely off-the-cuff and unconsidered, and b) foregone conclusions (what the team and I liked to call his "pet" ideas). Both of these types I had to entertain, and often to implement. And of course, when it came time for him to chip in with the execution in any way, or even to explain his rationale, he'd bolt for the door.
Essentially, I was his task rabbit. If a project went to shit, he'd claim it was "mine" and be able to pass the buck accordingly. If it went well, he'd swoop in and scoop up the credit. Attempts to talk to him about it in one-on-ones went nowhere. Attempts to "check in" with him prior to meetings, in the hopes of pre-selling him on a plan, went nowhere. He'd be dead set on a pet idea, and it was my job to "totally lead" the execution of that idea.
Bosses like this are toxic. I'm not sure I've ever found a good way to work successfully with this personality type. If this describes your boss, figure out how to transfer, how to escape, or how to develop Vulcan-like mastery over your anger and your pride. Some tigers can't change their stripes, and I can guarantee you that this kind won't.
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somebody has to hire us "B people".
I understand that you are using self-deprecation to poke fun of the elitist parent comment, but the fact is that nobody is required to hire "B people".
I see this comment all the time on HN. This is the reality of the corporate hiring world versus the Valley:
1) You are hiring for boring but important projects
2) There is a limited pool of local talent
3) The org will have banded salary caps
4) Differentiating A talent from B players is not a solved problem
Re: Ways You’re Making Your Employees Less Productive
#20Allowing unrestricted Internet access.
Seriously, whitelist only the domains necessary for the job. If it's programming, I would only recommend specific StackExchange sites, GitHub, and any documentation sites. Some people have horrible self control and will waste all day on the Internet, despite that they may be great programmers and can actually get stuff done if they put their mind to it. It's not even that the job is boring, it may actually be exciting, and their project may be something they really enjoy, yet the distractions are still more entertaining to them. Like reading and interacting on Hacker News.