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A culture of beer and overtime

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Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#181

Post by 3pt14159 »

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #161
jholman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the employment law is a lot employee-friendlier in Canada than in the US. In particular, BC employment law (relevant to this post) is a lot friendlier than California employment law. And when you go to take them to court, the government will, under some circumstances, provide free legal services to the employee (you can look up the BC gov's Employment Standards Branch). That said, IIRC, even BC is pretty employer…

It always blows my mind when countries get things right, and by that I mean providing adequate health, housing, and legal services to all residents. Paying legal fees for employed persons sounds like a great way to provide them access to fair(er) representation. Otherwise if they have to pay out of pocket they can't afford it, and if it's loser pays the risk requires a large reward before it's rational to pursue. Wel…

When you have a smaller population the ratio of constituents to elected member goes down, making lobbying more expensive. We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the population.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#182

Post by georgemcbay »

“I’m not saying you should be working 80 hours a week, but 70 is not ridiculous to ask, and if you were committed you would do more”.

My response would be: So I'll of course be getting a 1.75x raise over my current salary, right?

To be clear, I'm not against really giving it your all for your work, but I lament how across much of the tech industry putting in insane hours is considered just the baseline. If I've got real equity in a company and I'm really a "stakeholder" (a term that gets thrown around to a ridiculous degree), sure, I'll work my ass off. If you're paying me approximately market rates and a piddling amount of common shares that are bound to be diluted away to nothing, sorry but you're going to have to do much better than that if you expect me to negatively impact my overall quality of life to any degree.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#185

Post by dsugarman »

bigiain wrote: post #32
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.

Serious question, or at least food for thought: How are you instilling that attitude in your company? How big would your company need to grow before misguided middle management might be appointed who _does_ think this is an appropriate management technique, resulting in this happening on your watch with you later described as a "detached executive"? Having stuff like this "never even occur to you" leaves you in the p…

I think at a certain size, a strong HR dept presents a feedback loop to address the potential issues involved with middle management. I would imagine these issues arise from unconfident managers who are working proactively to hit BS metrics like hours worked, lines of code or attendance at beer events.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#186

Post by Maven911 »

Thank you for sharing your story. I am going through a pretty tough hiring process where the decision makers in corporate made the decision to hire me, but the local people in the current office seem to hate me and doubt I am up for the job, along with local HR joining the bandwagon and complaining about my hiring. So you sharing your problems gives me a feeling of belonging that I am not alone in being stuck in bad situations.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#187

Post by tootie »

laughfactory wrote: post #82
tootie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it represents the illusion of a casual and collegial work environment. Rather it's the lube they apply before sodomizing you. My new employer is not a startup, but tries to emulate that culture. Workers are encouraged to leave at 2:00 for company booze fiestas, but I just got a warning for taking unplanned days off to be with my sick child.

If someone gave me a warning for passing on the company booze fest to be with my sick child (or for any reason really), I'd turn in my resignation on the spot. That's complete b.s.. Sorry that happened to you!

They didn't happen at the same time and it wasn't an official warning. I just get a sense of them wanting me to work more hours and maybe let my wife take care of the kids (she works in the same industry and gets the same pressure). I think they know better than to just say it bluntly, but they are applying social pressure to which I am completely immune. My wife once got a blunt "your kids are preventing you from working the requisite 70 hours" speech from a "friend" who hired her with the promise of being family-friendly. She quit the next day.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#188

Post by Zarathust »

3pt14159 wrote: post #181
reginaldjcooper wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always blows my mind when countries get things right, and by that I mean providing adequate health, housing, and legal services to all residents. Paying legal fees for employed persons sounds like a great way to provide them access to fair(er) representation. Otherwise if they have to pay out of pocket they can't afford it, and if it's loser pays the risk requires a large reward before it's rational to pursue. Wel…

When you have a smaller population the ratio of constituents to elected member goes down, making lobbying more expensive. We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the population.

Maximum monetary contributions to a political party in Canada is only a fraction of what it is in the US (1200$ max). Also it is impossible for a corporation to donate directly. This reduce lobbying to diner parties and yacht rides.

My guess is that lobbying is less intensive in Canada than in the US because it is very difficult to do legally. I watch a commission in Quebec about the alleged local corruption and I am stunned to see that most of what is at stake there would be absolutely legal in the US.

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#189

Post by tingletech »

3pt14159 wrote: post #181
reginaldjcooper wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always blows my mind when countries get things right, and by that I mean providing adequate health, housing, and legal services to all residents. Paying legal fees for employed persons sounds like a great way to provide them access to fair(er) representation. Otherwise if they have to pay out of pocket they can't afford it, and if it's loser pays the risk requires a large reward before it's rational to pursue. Wel…

When you have a smaller population the ratio of constituents to elected member goes down, making lobbying more expensive. We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the population.

"We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the population."

wikipedia says Canada has 308 MPs and 108 senators; and the US has 2 senators per state and 50 states so 100 senators. US House has 435 reps.

Still a good point re: population per representative

Re: A culture of beer and overtime

#190

Post by slaunchwise »

Two things jumped out at me. The first is that the PM had no substantive complaint and was basically being a bully. Some people do that. Since you had been really interested in this job, you might have done the second thing, which is to take your complaint upstairs. I would have told the story to someone above the bully before resigning. They might have backed up the bully, to their discredit. But they might decided they can't afford the kind of turnover this a-hole creates. If this feels like going outside of channels, it is, but tech isn't big on channels in my experience. You might have saved an interesting job. At the least, it would have been an entertaining thing to do.
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