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Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

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Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#181

Post by jongjong »

csense wrote: post #167
jongjong wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I should add that the job-hopping is likely a feature of our inflationary monetary system; as inflation is ongoing, people find that if they change jobs after 1 or 2 years, they can get some non-trivial salary increase... In reality, changing jobs every 2 years doesn't actually give you a real salary increase; it merely allows you to maintain your buying power in the face of inflation... The elite class is basi…

If only someone invented a monetary system where the supply of money was determined by an algorithm that didn't constantly pump new money into existence all the time. Oh wait, they did. But for some reason, most people on HN say Bitcoin is for scammers and grifters, and has no fundamental value proposition...

Bitcoin is a good store of value but unfortunately, Bitcoin doesn't scale beyond around 4 transactions per second and uses a massive amount of electricity. Also, a lot of cryptocurrencies basically turned into scams; sometimes with the backing and approval of governments.

That said, I think centralized providers acting as a layer above Bitcoin or any limited-supply crypto would still be orders of magnitude better than what we have now. Unfortunately, the boomers who benefited from the current fiat system think Bitcoin is just a fad to satisfy the fickle whims of spoiled millennials.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#182

Post by prawn »

brudgers wrote: post #112
zeroCalories wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't too different from most low-skill jobs. Most people don't aspire to be assistant manager at McDonalds, they do it for a while, build a resume, then move.

build a resume And establish work relationships with other people who can help with future job hunting. The Uber app doesn’t have an HR department.

Not to mention casual employees at least get some sort of social aspect from their work life. (A slight variation on the networking you mentioned.) Most of my friends, I have through past work environments like shared offices, etc. That would be near-impossible as a gig worker.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#183

Post by Paul-Craft »

Stefan-H wrote: post #24
tmpz22 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I learned is to not to be afraid. Regardless of what is happening around you. Were you perhaps financially secure enough not to have to fear anything? Or tenured (Bell Labs!) that unemployment wasn't actually a threat to you? YMMV.

While YMMV, a fear response is a choice. You can have all the rational reasons to be afraid (like the bottom of your hierarchy of needs being unmet) and choose to act out of cold rationality rather than fear. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - if you can act without fear even when there is justified reason to be afraid, you will be able to easily do so when it isn't justified.

Where I come from, "hav[ing] all the rational reasons to be afraid" and pretending otherwise is called a delusion. I prefer to see the world as it is.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#184

Post by dublinben »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #114

I’d be interested in a breakdown of Angi’s costs. They paid $85 for assembly and estimate the assembler was paid $25? Where could the money possibly be going, server hosting is incredibly cheap.

Check out their financial statements. Half their revenue is eaten up by sales and marketing.

https://ir.angi.com/

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#185

Post by nixpulvis »

Customer service across the board is in free-fall. Just the other day I was met with a Chipotle worker who was visibly frustrated that I ordered a burrito instead of a bowl. A little thing, but holy shit.

I guess when wages don't add up to a viable life, resentment and carelessness spread like wildfire.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#186

Post by chinchilla2020 »

stouset wrote: post #57
p1necone wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the last years you often have some manager where you basically have to justify every thing you do and always a huge pile of work that never gets smaller. So you just hurry through your tasks. This has been my exact experience. Absolutely everything is tracked as a work item with estimates. Anything you think should be done needs to be justified and tracked the same way. If anything ever takes longer than the est…

Also this push to measure everything means that anything that can’t be measured isn’t valued. One of your teammates consistently helps unblock everyone on the team when they get stuck? They aren’t closing as many tickets as others so they get overlooked on promotions or canned. One of your teammates takes a bit longer to complete work, but it’s always rock solid and produces fewer outages? Totally invisible. Plus the…

> Also this push to measure everything means that anything that can’t be measured isn’t valued.

Never thought I'd see an intelligent point made on hackernews, but there it is. You are absolutely correct. This really hit home for me.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#187

Post by nixpulvis »

brudgers wrote: post #13

The gig economy is way worse than the author describes. Gig workers can't advance with the companies they work for. Gig workers can't build a network with their coworkers because they don't have coworkers...and there's a good chance that they are competing for work with other people working for the same company. There are dead end day jobs, and then there is gig work.

The whole concept of "hustling" is frustrating to me.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#188

Post by kmoser »

Contributing factors that I didn't see discussed yet are the increasing stratification of job descriptions, along with reduction in autonomy to break out of your stratum (combined with incentive not to). This creates workers with an extremely limited view of the whole picture, and lack of interest or ability to do anything outside their job description to fix your problem.

I've heard that Ritz-Carlton does the opposite: they empower employees at all levels to address any customer's concern. This, I believe, is how it should be. https://ritzcarltonleadershipcenter.com/2019/03/19/the-power...

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#189

Post by pylua »

nixpulvis wrote: post #185

Customer service across the board is in free-fall. Just the other day I was met with a Chipotle worker who was visibly frustrated that I ordered a burrito instead of a bowl. A little thing, but holy shit. I guess when wages don't add up to a viable life, resentment and carelessness spread like wildfire.

Yeah, this is prevalent everywhere. It’s pretty crazy. I’m glad I’m not the only one that has noticed this.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#190

Post by pcen »

azemetre wrote: post #160
alephnerd wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is necessary to exist besides foraging, yet you are still using an industrially manufactured product (laptop or mobile phone) to reply to someone on a VC-subsidized forum. So I'm not sure your contention has much merit, unless you wish to return to the woods and stop using HN, otherwise you're just enabling the supposed waste you appear to detest. Or alternatively, you could hop off the high horse and underst…

I mean there is an alternative out there for making software that doesn't require profit and can still provide societal value. The alternative isn't to forage in the wilderness, please tell me you are just having a laugh and weren't being serious.

This is the perfect manifestation of the quote: It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism
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