The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office" • Hacker News Board

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#21

Post by orangecat » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 7:27 PM UTC

RevRal wrote: post #17

MacLeod’s “Loser” layer had me puzzled for a long time, because I was interpreting it in cultural terms: the kind of person you call a “loser.” While some may be losers in that sense too, they are primarily losers in the economic sense: those who have, for various reasons, made (or been forced to make) a bad economic bargain: they’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-te…

Yes, although I'd disagree that it's objectively a "bad bargain". You won't get rich quick, but if you have a basic understanding of finances and a moderate amount of self-discipline you can get rich slowly. If you don't want to go into management, I'd say that's a good bargain.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#22

Post by keeptrying » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 7:34 PM UTC

This is just the most amazingly accurate description of working in a corporation that I have ever read. This is mindblowing. Simply amazing. The one thing that I think he may have missed is that people do go from clueless-loser to checked-out loser. Amazing amazing amazing.

I've been aware of this for a long time as I do work in a BigCorp but I've never seen it written down so well. Amazing.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#23

Post by danspodcast » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 7:45 PM UTC

boredguy8 wrote: post #5

This is the first blog post that's ever been good enough that I donated to the author merely for having written it. Both brilliant textual analysis and insightful social commentary - definitely worth the read. Or maybe I'm just constructing my delusional world to justify having spent $3 on a public blog post!

Nah, me too. I hit that donate button without even a double take. Bravo author.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#24

Post by keeptrying » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 7:49 PM UTC

keeptrying wrote: post #22

This is just the most amazingly accurate description of working in a corporation that I have ever read. This is mindblowing. Simply amazing. The one thing that I think he may have missed is that people do go from clueless-loser to checked-out loser. Amazing amazing amazing. I've been aware of this for a long time as I do work in a BigCorp but I've never seen it written down so well. Amazing.

I bought the guy a coffee too.

Amazing. I wish my command of the english language was half as good as this guys. I'm really gushing here. I just cant get over this post.

Wow.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#25

Post by seigenblues » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 7:58 PM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #21

RevRal wrote: post #17

MacLeod’s “Loser” layer had me puzzled for a long time, because I was interpreting it in cultural terms: the kind of person you call a “loser.” While some may be losers in that sense too, they are primarily losers in the economic sense: those who have, for various reasons, made (or been forced to make) a bad economic bargain: they’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-te…

Yes, although I'd disagree that it's objectively a "bad bargain". You won't get rich quick, but if you have a basic understanding of finances and a moderate amount of self-discipline you can get rich slowly. If you don't want to go into management, I'd say that's a good bargain.

but why should it be this way at all? The fact that their compensated wealth has become totally disconnected from the reality of productivity makes this a pretty shocking way to run a world. But one very compatible with our simian social organizing.

Or to put it another way, why should someone who is (arguably) producing most of the value have to stand for getting rich slowly, when the clueless middle managers fail upwards into nicer cars & long vacations, and sociopaths -- who seem to spend most of their "workday" jockeying for position, power, & prestige rather than doing useful things -- get 6, 7, 8 figure salaries & giant stock options?

The real crime is that the productive, competent people are encouraged & incentivized to coast because of the ludicrousness of the system.

Sounds objectively like a bad bargain to me.

So much so that those productive losers should start a company & try to keep the sociopaths out. in fact, if you buy that web -> lower barriers to entry -> less need for predatory sociopathic apes. They'll always try to get in, but that's another story...

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#26

Post by Harj » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 8:04 PM UTC

i've never felt as happy about not working in a large organization as when i finished reading this

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#27

Post by gaius » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 8:30 PM UTC

joshwa wrote: post #9

lionhearted wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you managed or employed people? I ask because paying people well is a bit counterintuitive , but most owners and managers figure it out pretty quickly. Paying more than minimally typically increases morale, loyalty, and retention. Sometimes you wind up working for an oblivious or sociopathic boss - but then you need to go apply for another job elsewhere. It's like if the closest restaurant to your house is no go…

In large organizations, the managers themselves don't decide on their employees' compensation-- HR or executive committees do. Their mandate is to compensate minimally, and they are disconnected from the actual performance of the employee and thus has only their self-interest and political considerations (whose department got the last raise and for how much?) to take into account.

HR's bonus, tho' is calculated on metrics like staff turnover.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#28

Post by Dilpil » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 8:32 PM UTC

strlen wrote: post #20

incandenza wrote: post #18

This is a pretty amazing analysis. I think a lot of really talented engineers in Silicon Valley fit into a kind of hybrid category I might call 'loser with sociopathic tendencies' (gotta love these terms--hey, I didn't invent them, I'm just following the article). Although they deliberately choose to remain at the 'loser' level in terms of the org chart, they have a 'sociopathic' level of awareness of how the busines…

You could also argue that engineers derive a meaning from their work that isn't in terms of money or power (they do work that they enjoy).

Indeed, the real goal of a sociopath engineer might not be to gain control over the org charts, but instead to gain control over the UML diagrams.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#29

Post by gamble » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 8:33 PM UTC

"The simple reason is that if you over-perform at the loser level, it is clear that you are an idiot. You’ve already made a bad bargain, and now you’re delivering more value than you need to, making your bargain even worse."

I'm surprised this post is so popular on HN. Isn't working for a startup - pouring your time into someone else's company for below-market wages and some piddly fraction of a percent in equity - basically the definition of cluelessness, according to the author?

Re: The Gervais Principle, or The Office According to "The Office"

#30

Post by wsprague » Wed, Oct 14, 2009, 8:47 PM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #2

It gets this half-right/half-wrong: > While some may be losers in that sense too, they are primarily losers in the economic sense: those who have, for various reasons, made (or been forced to make) a bad economic bargain: they’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-term economic stability. Halfway with the author so far. Generally, being salaried is a bad economic bargain…

"the reason people aren't compensated accordingly [sic] to their production is that it's incredibly hard to judge production." ... perhaps ....

... but perhaps Karl Marx was correct when he said that (basically) the essence of capitalism is in the systematic skimming of "surplus production" by the controllers of capital. In other words, EVERY employee is not paid according to their production.

I also think that this commenter has really swallowed the ideology (ie, is clueless): not every boss wants production from their underlings. Perhaps the owners want production, but managers don't necessarily -- changes in production might make them look bad, it might reset the expected quota level for their department, it might upset next years budget, etc. The interests of employees interests of owners, and managers are employees.