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The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

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Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#141

Post by twojobsoneboss »

dakiol wrote: post #17
luisgvv wrote: post #7

I began as a junior dev and climbed up the ranks til the point where I became the SME in some areas of the product. Got laid off because sales goals were not met while they retained people which I think were incompetent in their work. Even some guys which I think were better and more critical to the projects were dumped. I'm not climbing that ladder by being proactive and "pragmatic" again... Call me a paycheck steal…

> Just give me some JIRA ticket and let me read books while I get my job done in 1-2 hours a day. Aren't we all (normal and decent people) doing this already?

If you’re in a team lead or staff (most places) kind of position you can’t…

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#142

Post by autoexecbat »

icedchai wrote: post #55
autoexecbat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone has to get your work done. That's often the problem, in that it doesn't truly matter if the work got done

There's a ton of "fake work" in corporate america. This is basically busy work that isn't used by any real customer, external or internal. That work doesn't need to be done, but shows up because someone committed to it for political reasons (or because they were clueless.) Someone needs a box checked, but didn't check if the box needed to be there in the first place.

It doesn't even need to be fake/busy work. It might just not be quite what's needed by the business or customer and see little/no use.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#143

Post by epicureanideal »

riskable wrote: post #95
godelski wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part I'm confused at is it doesn't seem that they are doomed, and end up being very successful companies. But I think this is likely due to lack of competition. I recently did an internship at one of these big companies, doing ML. I'm a researcher but had a production role. Coming in everything was really weird to me from how they setup their machines to training and evaluation. I brought up that the way they wer…

> due to lack of competition. So let's compete! What are they selling? What prevents competitors from springing up?

Regulatory capture, regulations in general, patents that shouldn’t have been granted, lawfare, access to capital..

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#144

Post by toomuchtodo »

georgeecollins wrote: post #109
toomuchtodo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you have a clear exit plan outside scaling the so-called ladder Exit plan is FIRE. Everything else is circus and performance art. Others can play status games, I prefer wealth games: wealth is options and options are freedom. Pragmatic, smart, skilled people are extracted from unless lucky and in a position to see outsized returns from their effort. Better to know what enough is, collect enough freedom coins, an…

I think that is a great plan and good advice, but you may find as you continue in your career that you enjoy work more. When I was starting out I was always tired, anxious and frustrated. Now I would never even get hired for those kinds of jobs (or take them). You may get to a point where you have a lot more power and discretion at work and enjoy it. There's a lot to be said for working at jobs you enjoy.

I hope to one day find meaningful work I am compensated for, or have accumulated enough wealth such that compensation is no longer relevant. Thanks for the reply.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#145

Post by twojobsoneboss »

ryandrake wrote: post #112
WalterBright wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't we all (normal and decent people) doing this already? I've known many such in my career. They weren't fooling anybody. Everybody knew who they were. When they'd get laid off or were passed over for a raise they were always baffled and outraged.

I think this highly depends on the manager. Some know (Manager A), and either work to correct it, or get their ducks in a row to fire them. Plenty of managers, though, (Manager B) have no idea what a reasonable amount of work output is, and can be easily convinced that what took 1-2 hours to do constituted an entire 40 hour week. You get some developer who's good at "managing upward" and they'll bullshit/charm and wa…

To be clear, there’s a big difference between taking 4x as long to do something useful, vs actually doing nothing, or something of negative value ;-)

If you’re fast and working remote, you can still achieve seemingly normal output while reclaiming much of your time

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#146

Post by samatman »

deathanatos wrote: post #138
zer00eyz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats the point. Who survives in a down turn? It's not the folks who are "pragmatic" its not the folks who give up... You work with two people, Bob who punches the clock and Bill who puts in the time to get the extra work done. You move on to a new job and your boss says "we need someone new on your team, Bob and Bill are here". You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote. Dont be an asshlole be known as at the hard…

> You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote. In the layoffs I've been through, it's just as often that it is Bob who gets the vote. Not for any reason, it's just random. Bill rolled a 1 somewhere, in that layoff. Better luck next time … if there is a next time. Nobody is picking. Nobody is choosing, or making rational decisions. Just one day, hey, this entire subtree of the org is just simply laid off — individual…

It seems you missed a beat here.

The comment you're replying to isn't talking about the layoff round. It's talking about what happens next, when someone from the team gets hired elsewhere and the boss says "we need more people". Who gets brought in?

This is a very common scenario in our line of work.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#148

Post by csours »

I can't give my boss any work they don't want to do.

If I find a problem in another team's domain, I can try to interest them in it, and failing that, I can try to interest my boss in it, but if no one gets interested enough to fix the thing, what am I going to do? Work around the problem and sulk.

See Also: Glue Work

https://noidea.dog/glue

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#149

Post by swader999 »

luisgvv wrote: post #7

I began as a junior dev and climbed up the ranks til the point where I became the SME in some areas of the product. Got laid off because sales goals were not met while they retained people which I think were incompetent in their work. Even some guys which I think were better and more critical to the projects were dumped. I'm not climbing that ladder by being proactive and "pragmatic" again... Call me a paycheck steal…

You'd do better to go work hard for their competitors or create one.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#150

Post by ghaff »

klabb3 wrote: post #37
hinkley wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll be you ten bucks they got rid of people who bring up bad news and kept the yes-men. A company that doesn’t know what’s broken is doomed to mediocrity. But some people want to play music while the ship sinks. So they arrange for the most pleasant rest of the voyage they can, instead of saving as many people as they can.

> I’ll be you ten bucks they got rid of people who bring up bad news and kept the yes-men I’m pretty cynical and assumed this was how layoffs worked but at least in faang and even smaller (maybe 500 people) SV companies, I actually don’t think this is the case anymore. Most I’ve seen have been extremely random – it seems like they cut teams/orgs very differently but on an individual level it seems random. I got the i…

I wrote a comment on some other thread but there's just a lot of wrong place/wrong time at an individual level. If a company is doing a substantial layoff there just isn't the time, energy, or resources to train and fit people who may be generically "better" at some level into roles that already have people presumably doing adequate jobs filling them.

People are not fungible. Someone can be in a role where they're really valuable. But the company evolves and roles evolve and the needs are different. Sure, they might be able to excel in a new role eventually--but maybe it's not optimal to try to make them fit especially at a senior level.

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