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A culture of beer and overtime

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Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#51

Post by lsc »

ryan-allen wrote: post #40

To me this is less about 'beer and overtime' and more about conformity to pre-existing culture. It doesn't matter if it's beer or if it's Star Trek or if it's an religious-like attitude to Cucumber Testing or even if it's a tech company or not, the fact is that some potential asshole who's on a slightly higher salary than you can decide to fuck with your livelihood if you don't tow some intangible line that matters t…

Yeah, first? I agree that "cultural fit" is bullshit; It's the result of people placing the comfort of working with people "like them" over actually getting things done.

however...

>I see it as a byproduct of capitalism, bosses will be bosses, and I've seen people trashed with 'fairness' as often as I have seen them trashed with non-conformity to whatever the ones in charge (or even the ones in the middle) care about.

I don't see how you relate it to capitalism. This is about valuing 'culture' over money; you are going to see it even more in a co-op or commune.

Now, you could say in capitalism, this "cultural fit" is more top-down, but I don't think it's any less ugly or destructive because it's coming from your peers.

I mean, that's what some people like; some people only want to deal with people who are like them. But it's not a profit-maximizing move.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#52

Post by zobzu »

coffeemug wrote: post #17

Wow. I'm a founder of a tech company, and the thought of checking someone's LinkedIn profile or old website to verify degree of commitment would never even occur to me. The fact that someone would not only think of it, but actually act on it is absolutely mind-boggling. I've seen new managers do silly things, but this is seriously new.

i would totally check on the linkedin status if i thought the employe is going to leave - if anything's private then i won't be able to see it anyway, but certainly not act on it.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#53

Post by zobzu »

jmspring wrote: post #31

There are startups like this. I left one before a pivotal point that might have resulted in me making some money for some of the very same reasons: 1) Commitment was questioned -- in my case, I disappeared for a rainy weekend for my wife's birthday and wasn't online over the weekend. 2) Attitude was questioned -- regular beat the staff meetings in the morning after pulling an all nighter, I tossed the pen to the next…

I wouldn't stay there more than a day. And I'd also expose the company name.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#54

Post by fragsworth »

lsc wrote: post #51
ryan-allen wrote: post #40

To me this is less about 'beer and overtime' and more about conformity to pre-existing culture. It doesn't matter if it's beer or if it's Star Trek or if it's an religious-like attitude to Cucumber Testing or even if it's a tech company or not, the fact is that some potential asshole who's on a slightly higher salary than you can decide to fuck with your livelihood if you don't tow some intangible line that matters t…

Yeah, first? I agree that "cultural fit" is bullshit; It's the result of people placing the comfort of working with people "like them" over actually getting things done. however... >I see it as a byproduct of capitalism, bosses will be bosses, and I've seen people trashed with 'fairness' as often as I have seen them trashed with non-conformity to whatever the ones in charge (or even the ones in the middle) care about…

"Cultural fit" isn't bullshit, it's just a euphemism for how reasonable someone's personality is. It's easier to say "I don't think they'll fit our culture" instead of saying "their personality sucks"

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#55

Post by ryan-allen »

lsc wrote: post #51
ryan-allen wrote: post #40

To me this is less about 'beer and overtime' and more about conformity to pre-existing culture. It doesn't matter if it's beer or if it's Star Trek or if it's an religious-like attitude to Cucumber Testing or even if it's a tech company or not, the fact is that some potential asshole who's on a slightly higher salary than you can decide to fuck with your livelihood if you don't tow some intangible line that matters t…

Yeah, first? I agree that "cultural fit" is bullshit; It's the result of people placing the comfort of working with people "like them" over actually getting things done. however... >I see it as a byproduct of capitalism, bosses will be bosses, and I've seen people trashed with 'fairness' as often as I have seen them trashed with non-conformity to whatever the ones in charge (or even the ones in the middle) care about…

Ah, I suppose what I mean by capitalism is a more pathological optimisation of employees with authority. If you think of a company as something that is optimising for profitability through not only producing something, but by doing everything in their power to stifle competition, by preventing competitors from succeeding by any legal means, then you can look at an employee and their behaviour in a similar matter.

People often have houses to pay off, kids to feed, cars to buy, and they're interested in maintaining their foothold. They might say they buy in to a companies culture but the reality is, if they had to sacrifice themselves for said culture they'd always put their interests first.

So employees with limited power and authority over their little domain, are going to act in their own interests by as you say hiring people like themselves, by creating a culture that matches their values and keeps outsiders at bay, and by ousting anything that threatens the status quo.

It would be really interesting to see how things would work if people were able to separate costs of living and productive activity, but because they're tied up they're going to influence each other.

Why would someone over-quote on a job? Because they want more money so they can buy that thing they want or pay down their house quicker. Why would someone fire someone for not being a 'cultural fit', maybe it's because their behaviour threatens their position in some way. No questions are good questions. If Blackberry could have flipped a switch and prevented the iPhone from ever being made, by god they would have done it. It's the same behaviour and it's prevalent as hell.

So, that's what I mean.

EDIT: It ultimately does come down to money and protecting income streams (i.e. employment) while expending the least amount of energy as required. It's hard work for a manager to look after the needs of a team that has a cultural outlier even if they are ultimately improving business outcomes. It's easier to have people to nod their heads in agreement and show up 9 to 5, produce maybe 10 hours of true productive work a week. It's such an easy think to fake and it happens everywhere.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#56

Post by kafkaesque »

Domenic_S wrote: post #24

I'm starting a new policy of not reading posts like this unless they say who the offending company is.

I once created a throwaway account here to post about a company's bad practices. I named the company, as well.

It was immediately removed from this site.

I'm actually from Vancouver, so I would love to know the name of the company.

The OP's old employer:

1. Has one (big) claim to fame 2. Located in Vancouver 3. Has a product "dealing with large amounts of money from customers’ bank accounts"

But (3) might not be part of a product already released.

There are a lot of game developers in Van--with, of course, a thriving beer/overtime culture, but who really knows, to be honest.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#57

Post by marcus_holmes »

fragsworth wrote: post #54
lsc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, first? I agree that "cultural fit" is bullshit; It's the result of people placing the comfort of working with people "like them" over actually getting things done. however... >I see it as a byproduct of capitalism, bosses will be bosses, and I've seen people trashed with 'fairness' as often as I have seen them trashed with non-conformity to whatever the ones in charge (or even the ones in the middle) care about…

"Cultural fit" isn't bullshit, it's just a euphemism for how reasonable someone's personality is. It's easier to say "I don't think they'll fit our culture" instead of saying "their personality sucks"

Agree with this completely. Cultural fit is (imo) the most important hiring criteria (way way more important than experience with the language).

Employees are going to be part of your team for at least two years. If your team can't stand them then that's going to be painful.

However, "Cultural Fit" used as an excuse to prevent team diversity is bullshit. Every study done on it has proven that diversity increases team productivity. If a team is mostly white middle-class guys and not hiring girls because of cultural fit, then yeah, that's bullshit.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#58

Post by mooreds »

rjd wrote: post #49
cbryan wrote: post #11

What are good questions to ask during an interview to avoid situations like these? How are other people weeding out employers like this one? This sounds like a bad situation that I'm sure we'd all like to avoid.

Spending years as a short term on site contractor I've picked up one question I find invaluable. I always ask "what are the pain points you have to deal with" I've asked it so often and been in so many different teams I can more or less tell what the working environment and management will be like now. Generally they aren't expecting this question so you catch them flat footed and get a clear unfiltered emotional res…

Wow. This is a great question. Not just for interviewers, though.

I manage a small team and was wondering what I would say if asked this question--probably that our pain points are our server hardware/software, which are a bit, shall we say, "antique". Some of the other pain points fall out of that one.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#59

Post by jacques_chester »

zobzu wrote: post #53
jmspring wrote: post #31

There are startups like this. I left one before a pivotal point that might have resulted in me making some money for some of the very same reasons: 1) Commitment was questioned -- in my case, I disappeared for a rainy weekend for my wife's birthday and wasn't online over the weekend. 2) Attitude was questioned -- regular beat the staff meetings in the morning after pulling an all nighter, I tossed the pen to the next…

I wouldn't stay there more than a day. And I'd also expose the company name.

> I'd also expose the company name.

Defamation lawsuits are expensive to launch or defend; but a vengeful founder usually has more money that an individual.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#60

Post by prawn »

redthrowaway wrote: post #41
ztnewman wrote: post #25

I don't understand what beer culture has to do with the majority of the post

People who don't drink tend to view quasi-mandatory drinking as exclusionary and indicative of strange priorities. Imagine you were a non-smoker and your team regularly got together to smoke, then questioned your commitment when you didn't join them. It would heavily colour your opinion of the team dynamic and why it seemed broken to you.

Bit of a difference between passive smoking and drinking water around colleagues who are having a few drinks.
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