Congratulations You’ve Been Fired • Hacker News Board

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#191

Post by brandmeyer » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 2:55 AM UTC

jdale27 wrote: post #154

pythonistic wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're up to 1.1 years now? Wow! They were at six months for developers for most of the time I was working there (2006-2010). At three years, I was in the top 25% of seniority ("old farts"). By comparison, Overstock.com averaged five years for developers between 2010-2013.

I find that incredibly hard to believe, given Google's reputation. Also, if the average was six months, that suggests that a significant number of exits were happening even sooner than six months. Did you personally observe that to be occurring frequently?

Some of this is related to the way the internal tool reports your seniority. It tells you that that X% of all current employees were hired more recently than you. So during this particular time frame, when Google was really booming in total head count, that number doesn't really reflect the average time-to-find-other-opportunity very well. Its reporting on the wrong side of the tenure timeline to give you that information. Even worse, depending on how you use the tool, it can include contractors as well.

There is a separate tool that tells you the seniority of the people that are leaving. And while there is definitely a statistical bump right after the 1 year vesting cliff, even a cursory glance shows that the average and median final tenure is quite a bit longer than 1 year.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#192

Post by haberman » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 2:56 AM UTC

T2_t2 wrote: post #168

chrisyeh wrote: post #125

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration…

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element…

> I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations.

Then why did Lyons cite grandparent's book as though it supports his worldview? Why did he sandwich quotes from the book with paraphrasing that doesn't represent the book at all?

> That is the heart of "The Alliance" - an acceptance the world has changed, and making it work for you.

Are you preaching to grandparent about what his book is about? That strikes me as strange.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#193

Post by bigiain » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 2:57 AM UTC

quanticle wrote: post #184

bigiain wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to do it a lot. I often have conversations that go something like "Thisis me taking my $companyName hat off and speaking with my 'friend of $employeeName' hat on, but as much as this will cause me problems I realy suggest you consider $significantCareerEnhancement even though it will cause me $problemsIfYouMoveOrLeave as a result." (I'm also surprised/disappointed at how rarely that advice is taken - there's a…

So many devs tell me "I'm not ready for a mid level role yet" or equivalent, even when thay _clearly_ are... There's a difference between being ready for a midlevel role, in the sense of being able to take on the responsibilities and requirements, and wanting to take on the midlevel role. For example, if a developer sees that the "seniors" on his team 1) don't get to program as much, because they're in meetings all t…

Sure - there's definitely some of that.

There may also be some distrusting "Why is my manager encouraging me to leave? I'd better dig myself in and make sure I don't fuck anything up" thoughts (although I'd like to think I'm not thought of as "that guy").

But I also see cases that are closer to a reverse Dunning Kruger effect, people who just don't realise (or admit to themselves) how good they are compared to their peers. (Sometimes at an astonishing penalty to their earnings...)

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#194

Post by chrisyeh » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 2:58 AM UTC

T2_t2 wrote: post #168

chrisyeh wrote: post #125

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration…

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element…

I appreciate the thoughtful comment. And I wouldn't dispute that we believe that lifetime employment by a single company is unlikely to be offered or accepted in today's world.

But Dan Lyons is misrepresenting us when he implies that we believe that employees should be loyal to companies even though companies show no loyalty to employees. We're not pro-corporation or pro-employee; our point is that work is a voluntary relationship where both parties should benefit.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#195

Post by lallysingh » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 2:58 AM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #175

andyidsinga wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had several managers and mentors at Intel that we're sincerely interested in helping me develop my career. I'm not saying its universal, but I've seen some.

It occurs to me looking at this and the other responses so far in this subthread - that it's quite likely more common in larger organizations (Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Intel) where career advancement is not quite so directly correlated to "leaving for a better position in a different company". If you can get your best employees promoted into roles where they are likely to become your reports again when you yourself ge…

Some of these places have technical tracks where you can get promoted, have more money and a better title, but not change your place hierarchically within the team.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#196

Post by chrisyeh » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 2:59 AM UTC

vonklaus wrote: post #178

esbranson wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas. That's nonsense. A right to opinions that don't "misrepresent others' ideas" is essentially no right at all.

i don't want to misrepresent the parent, but my take was: Don't cite my work in a narrow, out of contex way, that entirely misrepresents the body of thought I put together which ia almost entirely at odds with your message. sure, the people should be allowed to say whatever they want, but if you incorrectly attribute qoutes or ideology to someone, in my mind, you lose credibility. so sure you have a right to mistepre…

vonklaus, this is precisely how I feel. It's fine if Dan Lyons disagrees with me, but he shouldn't tell people that I'm saying something that I'm not.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#197

Post by rwjwjuwjudf » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 3:00 AM UTC

capote wrote: post #182

Though I do understand most of the criticism this piece is getting in this thread, can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Culture aside, crying at your desk aside, spare me the extra layer of fake, pointless language to disguise what is happening. I expect professionalism and respect from an employer, and that involves being s…

Over my lifetime I feel like computers have gone from nerdy thing that nerds do to trendy thing that popular kids hire nerds to do badly and treat like garbage. I guess it's not really surprising that people known for poor social skills get taken advantage of like that, but still it bugs me because I identify with them.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#198

Post by mgkimsal » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 3:00 AM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #86

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #5

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in th…

I worked in tech for a while and nothing he says sounds implausible or strange. Most jobs in tech are bad, all the perks are there just to confuse young suckers about who's taking advantage of who, and the libertarian streak of tech worker is carefully cultivated to make us weaker as a category. The only glimmer of hope is that personally I'm noticing my peers and friends working all over the Bay Area are starting to…

> Maybe in a few years we'll do something about it.

Nope, there will just be another round of new faces, new tech, and new fundings.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#199

Post by Jimmy » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 3:01 AM UTC

distances wrote: post #78

overgard wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love some zizek, what piece did that come from?

I seem to run to Žižek more and more often -- frankly he is the only currently alive philosopher I can name. I really should read something more from him.

Zizek has written a lot of really fun and interesting books. I'd definitely encourage you to check him out, but just a word of warning: if he's the only living philosopher you can name, then you probably don't know enough philosophy to really understand everything he's saying. He assumes a pretty thorough knowledge of a number of past thinkers, like Marx, Hegel, Lacan, etc.

Do check him out anyway though, and also check out some general introductions to philosophy if you find yourself intrigued and wanting to learn more.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#200

Post by chrisyeh » Sun, Apr 10, 2016, 3:02 AM UTC

jbapple wrote: post #151

chrisyeh wrote: post #125

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration…

> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company This might be a function of broken promotion processes. Perhaps, in a world in which employees believed that they could advance their careers by either staying at one company or moving around, we would see a significant fraction of workers who would want to have long tenures.

Alas, I think you are correct.

One of the people I talked with when writing the book was a young woman who worked for a financial services firm. She loved her job, loved the culture, but told me that she was going to have to leave because the only way to get a promotion was to go to another firm, then return later.