Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

annehelen.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 318 posts

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

#191

Post by prawn »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #62

People mentioned they had it easier in the past. It's true, it was easier. The world was not as fast as it is now. The world needs to slow down a bit. Slowing down would benefit both the planet and the people.

I know it's dull to blame another thing on them, but I suspect it's phones/etc as a connection to a live world. There's always a pipeline of content, always something getting updated, always a notification. I remember many many years ago on the cusp of home internet (when I couldn't justify $50/m to have internet at home as well as work!), if there wasn't something interesting on TV, I'd read or have some other calm activity. If I wanted to know who won the day's NBA games, I'd have to wait until the next day's newspaper. Now, almost no matter what activity I do, there's a portal to endless distractions within arm's reach.

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

#192

Post by saturn8601 »

Stefan-H wrote: post #21
zw123456 wrote: post #8

I recently retired after 45 years in tech. I started out in 1978 at Bell Labs. I have had great jobs and terrible jobs. Great bosses and horrific bosses. And all the things in between. I did not just survive, I thrived and beyond and worked at 3 start ups and a bunch of other companies large and small. What I learned is to not to be afraid. Regardless of what is happening around you. Fear is the enemy. Don't be afrai…

As someone who is more in the middle of my career rather than the end of it, I would like to echo your sentiment. I have had plenty of roles where I was tasked with things that were out of my depth, and the answer is to just not let it be. There is always a path to get the answers/skills you need to do what is asked of you, you just might not know the path yet, so the core skill (and where I think fear comes into the…

How do you slog through something you truly hate?

More than a decade ago I was hired as an intern at Colgate-Palmolive as a software developer. Turns out they were(are?) one of the largest SAP deployments in the US. The entire company revolved around SAP. Due to lack of college graduates knowing SAP, they took great pains to treat me extremely well and train me (a CS major) in ABAP using SAP Netweaver.

My project was more ambitious than the rest of the group because I had enough courage and bravado to be assigned a project like that. In fact I made it a point to be 'brave' and make myself look really good in front of the upper level managers. I tried to know everyones name, even in other departments and to be super polite and humble around any sort of manager there. When I finally got some tasks to do, I was so miserable that I finished multiple days without getting anything done. I felt so depressed thinking that I slogged through four years of CS for this?

In the end I managed to finish last in the cohort and Colgate took the rare(at the time)decision to not extend me a full time offer. I felt like a complete failure because I didn't put in 100% and I felt like I let my mentor down.

At the same time I know that I truly hated it. To this day seeing pictures of SAP GUI gives me anxiety and makes my stomach turn. How do you overcome something like that and push on? It does not always seem like a sure thing. I sometimes think what if I had pushed through and gotten the offer? I'd probably still be at Colgate like my mentor was.

With the benefit of hindsight I have learned to be super appreciative and thankful for them treating me so well but im glad circumstances led me to not ending up there. But really who knows if it would have been better in the long run? Whenever I see Colgate it actually evokes positive memories of that time. But the biggest thing I learned was to not bite off more than you can chew and if you don't truly love what you are doing there is another path out there.

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

#193

Post by _ea1k »

That Wayfair scenario is very familiar to me. I had a really similar experience with them delivering a table and chairs. They stayed for a shockingly long time to assemble them. I figured it was just really hard to assemble. That was somewhat true.

However, when I looked at them, I was shocked at how shoddy the work was. Cross braces were installed backwards. Seat bottoms had huge gaps from the underlying support. Some screws were literally just missing, with parts that would just flop. A lot of this stemmed from not paying attention to the instructions, which specified really specific sequences for putting in the screws, leveling, then tightening. Those steps were obviously engineered to minimize misalignment, but this crew thought they knew better... sigh

I didn't ask for a new crew, as I didn't trust them to send a better crew. Instead I just spent a good evening redoing quite a bit of the work.

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

#194

Post by saturn8601 »

adultcool wrote: post #36
zw123456 wrote: post #8

I recently retired after 45 years in tech. I started out in 1978 at Bell Labs. I have had great jobs and terrible jobs. Great bosses and horrific bosses. And all the things in between. I did not just survive, I thrived and beyond and worked at 3 start ups and a bunch of other companies large and small. What I learned is to not to be afraid. Regardless of what is happening around you. Fear is the enemy. Don't be afrai…

Fear is the mind killer.

Fear is one thing but how do you deal with regret? Regret for taking the leap as well as regret for not taking the leap? There can be regret in both paths.

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

#195

Post by Larrikin »

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.

I would be interested in knowing what Chick-Fil-A does to prevent this. Pretty much every customer facing job that doesn't hope for charity at the end of the service is pretty bad in the US currently, but somehow they achieve the level of service of what I would get in Japan.

The only thing I've been able to surmise is that they probably pay the managers very well and mostly just hire smart high schoolers that may have been passed over or didn't know about internship opportunities, and pay slightly better rates than McDonald's. They still pull the same scummy things as McDonald's with pressuring employees for goals that only benefit the manager, but maybe its not so bad if you're getting paid more than your very young peers.

Chick-Fil-A would probably try to attribute some religious meaning to the Sunday off for their adult workers, but it seems like any company could just guarantee a day off on the weekend for their workers.

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

#196

Post by refulgentis »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #175
luhsprwhk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving generic feel-good advice is a decent strategy to farm likes from the naive. Some people have no shame.

Don't be afraid is excellent advice, sorry but you're coming off as very cynical.

I was watching a trial the other day and the prosecutor asks "And did you often see your nephews at your mothers house when you video called her?", and the defendant, a dentists, says "Yep, watching TV, brushing their teeth.[5 second silence] Don't forget to brush your teeth. Really important." The prosecutor smiles, laughs, and says "A little dull humor never hurt, eh?"

I'm not sure your average adult would find "don't be afraid" to be "advice", or some deeply meaningful advice that only a cynic would think was anything less than excellent.

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

#197

Post by dyauspitr »

pests wrote: post #177
dyauspitr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Just the other day I needed someone to replace my chimney cap. The quotes from the big companies ranged from $3k-10k. Utterly ridiculous. I got some guy from an app who bought the stainless steel cap for $300 and installed it for $300 more for a total of $600 and the work is fine.

Were the quotes from the big companies also for a metal cap and not a poured cap?

Yep, stainless steel cap

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

#198

Post by rukuu001 »

rqtwteye wrote: post #3

I have been in the workforce for almost 30 years now and I believe that everybody is getting more squeezed so they don’t have the time or energy to do a proper job. The expectation is to get it done as quickly as possible and not do more unless told so. In SW development in the 90s I had much more time for experimentation to figure things out. In the last years you often have some manager where you basically have to…

Have we learnt nothing? 100% utilisation of practically any resource will result in problems with either quality or schedules.

What, as an industry, do we need to do to learn this lesson?

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

#199

Post by almosthere »

zeroCalories wrote: post #40
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.

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.

Except when it isn't, like Peter Cancro of Jersey Mikes, who started making sandwiches and then bought it in 1975, and in 2024 sold it to Blackrock for $8B.

Or more here: https://www.businessinsider.com/ceos-started-entry-level-at-...

Now, not all people at Jack in the Box are destined to be the CEO, but they do have more opportunities than someone working DoorDash

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

#200

Post by suzzer99 »

majormajor wrote: post #169
stouset wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The biggest mistake those employees make on their way to getting overlooked is assuming their boss knows . Everyone needs to advocate for themselves. A good boss will be getting feedback from everyone and staying on top of things. A mediocre boss will merely see "obvious" things like "who closed the most tickets." A bad boss may just play favorites and game the system on their own. If you've got a bad boss who doesn'…

> The biggest mistake those employees make on their way to getting overlooked is assuming their boss knows.

100%. You ask me to do the near impossible, I'll pull it off. But you will be very well-versed in how hard it is first.

Post reply on HN