>...therefore I believe he is an asshole Is an attack directed against the person rather than their position, and is therefore ad hominem
The mistake you're making is missing that the whole issue is one of character. He has not presented any irrefutable or falsifiable facts (indeed, he speaks in thinly veiled code, so we can't be completely sure who he's talking about, even though it's really a pretty good bet). He's speaking on the character of the people he worked with. His own character is therefore completely on the table for criticism. https://en.…
At my previous employer it was first proportional on tenure, and then switched to just divided to everyone equally.
And how were those perceived by employees? Genuinely just curious.
The switch was accompanied by grumbling by tenured employees, but it wasn't the only switch ( post-acquisition with lots of "harmonisation" of tools, processes, etc.) so many left anyways.
Besides that, there weren't many discussions on the "fairness" of either system, people just went with it
Bio also says 'FBI witness'.. that's just a completely meaningless random fact isn't it? 'Happened to witness some crime, interviewed by FBI', why's that in a Twitter bio? (Unless it means 'expert witness' in court, in which case 'and the FBI were involved' is the weird bit.)
We're talking about a twitter bio, right? Sounds like you're expecting linkedin.
No, just.. if you want to list stuff like that then I'm expecting it to make some sort of sense? Unless you're saying it's a joke? (I don't really get it.)
> This is a very bad idea and the perfect way to run your tech corporation straight into the ground.
I always wondered what it was that caused valve to be “run straight into the ground”.
Great to have this former disgruntled employees inside perspective. I’m sure it’s objective and aligns with reality.
Hahaha yeah you know what start with this exact preamble next time you're a plaintiff telling the judge why you deserve money. "The American civil system is not based on merit or reason." I would say it is in fact based on both of those, but more than anything on judgment .
Whether the US civil system itself is based on merit or reason, the problem is that employers have all the resources and can play parliamentary procedure ad nauseam--even in the rare cases where the good guys win, they'll file appeals and motions while refusing to pay the judgment. Not to mention, they know which judges can be corrupted, and they also have PR resources and will rape the shit out of anyone who even mi…
I think a textbook example of that is what Chevron did to Steven Donziger.
What's the best incentive system for both employee and company?
Surely it has to be profit sharing - split a healthy chunk of profit between employees as an equal percentage of their base salary. Everyone is incentivised to make the company more profitable, no individual/team/department/division can siphon bonuses from anybody else.
Not so easy in practice, let's say a company has to make a big investment (acquisition/enter a new market/new product), employees are generally more risk averse and care about consistent year to year income, maybe they have an average tenure of 3-4 years. In this example, employees may not be incentivised to take bonus hits now for income 5+ years down the road, especially if bonus is a high proportion of total comp.
The ones who do 3 months of actual work get fired because their overperformance scares the boss. But less than 2 weeks of actual work and you're an underperformer. The sweet spot is probably the geometric mean of the two.
> their overperformance scares the boss i just don't understand this at all - why would someone who is working for you be a threat? They cannot take your job - it's not like them being a good programmer would somehow make them a good dev manager or "boss".
It's common for high performers to get promoted as a "reward" regardless of management ability.
As I understand it, this might be true in America, but in Japan, "it's the truth" isn't a defense against libel.
That's wild. How does that work out legally? A company can sue an employee for telling a damaging (but uncontested) truth?
It works if the law says that reputational damage trumps the fact that the statement causing the damage is true--or can't be proven to be false. Although the UK has made some changes in recent years, it's probably the best example in the West of a country where truth isn't necessarily a defense against a libel suit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law (And somewhat ironically given that US law has its roots in English common law, the US swings heavily on the side of free speech.)
Editorial work is close to sales in that it's clear that editorial quality impacts sales and it can be clear who did the editorial work on an item that sold. (Depends on the editorial process though, if you do a lot of group work, maybe it's hard to say who did how much). As opposed to IT work where sure, if the editors computer doesn't work, it's hard for them to do their editing, but there's not much connection to…
Well, that’s rather my point. Most publishers don’t run editorial work like that, but if you are able to organize your teams around products that have clear revenue streams , even indirect work can be attributed to it. Look at the credit roll on a video game and you’ll see credits for ‘IT support’. The lesson I take from the Wrox experience is that there might be ways for other businesses to pull the same trick and g…
If you are able to organize your teams around products that have clear revenue streams, even indirect work can be attributed to it
That's pretty much what every finance department in every company on earth large enough to have one does (with notable exceptions maybe of hyper-growth start-ups).
The smartest piece of advice I ever got on bonuses: they are part of your salary that your employer reserves the right to discretionarily not pay you. I consider bonuses of absolutely no account in a comp package. If they are given, I happily accept. If not, I have no disappointment. I give the company my diligent efforts because I care about my responsibilities and my colleagues regardless. A carrot on a treadmill i…
Sure but because that’s true they’re a way for the company to possibly pay quite a bit more. As someone on the other side of the table who has to make comp decisions, I honestly want to pay the team as much as we can afford while being careful to maintain the financial health of the company. I really do, the more I pay people the more likely they are to feel rewarded and go the extra mile and not quit. But that can b…
I can't say I outright dislike anything you're saying, and I do understand your position. My key issue however is that I need to risk assess and budget my life just as you need to do your business. I simply can't do that on the basis of a bonus. It might give me the chance to take a more luxurious vacation or pay down a debt a little faster than I had anticipated, which is wonderful, really, but it's like an inheritance: I have next to no control over it and can't plan my life that way. Lesser comp. that I can plan for gives me control of my life that I'd rather have instead. Stock options are where I'd rather take the risk, because that's a longer haul that I can plan and adjust for with well worn investor metrics, and more importantly, I don't lose and can exercise when it works for me.