121–130 of 482 posts
this resonates.
what i noticed is that managers often hire people that won't outshine them.
so, soon you end up with a team of idiots being managed by an even bigger idiot.
it's just all so tiresome. in the end quiet-quitting or work-to-rule is the only logical result, especially in a bad job market where your options are limited.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>>How? Programmers don't have executive powers. The secret is - and this is wielded a million times a day in a million small ways - of course we do. Lots of people do in lots of jobs, whether intended or not. You just do the thing . You don't ask about doing the thing, you don't put in a project planning proposal, you don't beg your manager to devote 20% of your time to the thing, you just go and do it because you p…
The best case, if you're lucky, no-one notices. More likely you're marked as a troublemaker and pushed out. You're literally better off slacking off for that 20%.
the least bad case is that you realize why nobody wanted to go ahead with your proposal in the first place but you caused no harm other than wasting several months of your own effort.
the worst case obviously is that you caused a huge amount of problems for the firm and people are aware of where those problems came from.
This is the right website to find them
That article was a very nice surprise and apart from how crushingly accurate it is (before somebody jumps in to defend all the corporate chaos, of course) it also had me giggling several times while reading it. The answer of course is financial incentives. It is the answer 99% of the time, I know quite a few high-profile managers at this point and they are all very smart and get stuff done people and yet they allow t…
> I keep remembering this old article -- "Bullshit Jobs" -- and yep, it still rings true to this day, and will likely do so for decades more, likely centuries even because our societal changes are slower than glaciers... That idea is fake, Graeber is a moron, and it's rude to look at other people's work and conclude that it's useless just because you don't personally watch them all day.
After all, an organization is ultimately a reflection of its people.
Sometimes people need direction and for that direction having a visionary leadership team and having strong middle managers become extremely necessary.
I'd like to see a post like this on HN where someone revisits their organization 10 years later and decides if they were right or not. It's not that all organizations don't have disfunction, but as a younger person I was very fixated on everything I saw that was wrong and ignored either the problems I myself was introducing which were (and probably still are) numerous or the systems and programs that made the organiz…
I'd like to see a post like this on HN where someone revisits their organization 10 years later and decides if they were right or not. It's not that all organizations don't have disfunction, but as a younger person I was very fixated on everything I saw that was wrong and ignored either the problems I myself was introducing which were (and probably still are) numerous or the systems and programs that made the organiz…
What happens when you were right? Eg, as an SDE in 2017 you worked on Amazon Device’s econometrics team and were screaming the entire org was in trouble — but the PhD economists and directors ignored you. We’re at 5 years, a gutted department, billions in losses, etc. Now what? Or you warned WarnerMedia executives about their internal corporate misandry just before they fired Johnny Depp for being a male victim — and…
If you truly think this, the only moral course of action for you is to immediately leave the company. Otherwise you're "fraudelently" continuing to take shareholder money. If you think the execs of your company give a shit, or will ever give a shit, about what employee #3141991403 thinks about the direction of your company, you're delusional.
If you want my opinion, just shut up and take the money. It's not your problem if shareholders make bad decisions. And besides, if it wasn't you, it'd be someone else.
The most jarring thing about entering the workforce to me, and it seems to the author as well, is the nigh-pathological lack of pride (or “passion”, which I think is a loathsome term) most people put into their jobs. I don’t accept that all of those people intrinsically are lazy morons - maybe some or even most are, but a lot of people get that attitude metaphorically beaten into them by lazy and disengaged coworkers…
There are certain very high-paying companies where the above doesn't apply. But they have to pay high salaries to retain staff who _do_ give 100% every day.
The “Dereks” of the article are some of the worst members of this corporate incompetence.
Derek was the main reason I left my last job. Systematically failed to manage the entire development department (about 30 teams) and actively hostile to any and all suggestions that weren’t his, even going as far as falsely reporting people to HR if they rightly criticised another dumb decision. Frequently stole the ideas and suggestions people made and claiming them as his own, despite having reported said person to their manager or HR for the very same idea months prior. Absolutely classic “yes man” with a smug and nasty personality.
All of the good devs left, with nothing to show for it. Three years and customers hated the crappy software, that was only pushed for because some CEO type had heard about “digital transformation” and “cloud” - and of course lots of agile bullshit thrown in on top.
I'd like to see a post like this on HN where someone revisits their organization 10 years later and decides if they were right or not. It's not that all organizations don't have disfunction, but as a younger person I was very fixated on everything I saw that was wrong and ignored either the problems I myself was introducing which were (and probably still are) numerous or the systems and programs that made the organiz…
What happens when you were right? Eg, as an SDE in 2017 you worked on Amazon Device’s econometrics team and were screaming the entire org was in trouble — but the PhD economists and directors ignored you. We’re at 5 years, a gutted department, billions in losses, etc. Now what? Or you warned WarnerMedia executives about their internal corporate misandry just before they fired Johnny Depp for being a male victim — and…
Also like your use of tent-pole.