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At this company, we are family

pboyd.io

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Re: At this company, we are family

#211

Post by downut »

cryptonector wrote: post #167
jraby3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring.

> When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you count just the taxes we definitely pay less, especially in places like Texas and Florida. Well, I suppose there's the budget deficit and national debt to consider, though yours aren't exactly great either. Well, except that there's a middle income trap with social security ta…

"As for medical, the only coverage I want is catastrophic, and if I could just just get that then health care would be way cheaper. Health care providers generally have much lower prices when you have no insurance and pay out of pocket."

I've had several chronic issues, including cancer surgery and the followon therapies, that I in no way wanted, that stretched out years, ensuring that we (the family) spent our ~$10K deductible for several years running. I've seen this with quite a few other people, as well. It is certain that we would have been bankrupted w/o middling quality corp health insurance. We have also had many $1000s in dental bills, in a year, quite a few times.

The idea that you could self finance these yearly cash flow (up to, what, $100K?) is absurd, unless you are really rich, but you seem to be somewhat price sensitive, so I dunno.

OTOH my sister-in-law makes > $500K/y as an anesthesiologist, and her spouse is a pathologist sadly making somewhat less, so on average the family must be doing great!

Yeah no, my Euro-fruends are aghast at the medical situation here in the US, and we all do view it as a massive effective tax on the unlucky that Europeans more or less don't have to worry about.

Re: At this company, we are family

#212

Post by RestlessMind »

TylerE wrote: post #184
RestlessMind wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> college education College education can be had for super cheap in the US via community colleges. Going to an expensive college is a lifestyle choice and I know many people who spend first 2 years in local community colleges and then move to the state college system.

Not as cheap as it used to be. Here in NC, just those last 2 years at a state school, instate costs (NOT including lodging or other living expenses) are almost $40,000. Not nothing.

Do you have any sources? I looked at the closest community college for me (De Anza) and it's tuition is 19,950 including 11,796 for room and board. Without that, since most college kids can live with parents, it's less than 8000[1]. And this is in SV, one of the most expensive places in the US.

[1] https://www.deanza.edu/financialaid/apply/cost.html

Re: At this company, we are family

#213

Post by [deleted] »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #187
Arisaka1 wrote: post #51

My first job was with a "we are a family" company, they used stupid names for the employees internally but also in the job post, together with an emoji spam that couldn't say "how you do fellow kids?" any harder, ask to "see yourself like an entrepreneur" and "be the leader of your own ideas" obviously taking far less than the actual company owners. After a while I had to resign due to mental health problem manifesti…

Here is my takeaway from this. This was your first and only job. (Therapy is still on going and a month ago you asked what is happening and got some feedback about someone else quitting.) Which is why you don't understand the 2 weeks notice isn't just for you to be productive but to help hand things over. Realistically, your former colleagues probably had to figure out what you had done and not done. This will leave…

[deleted]

Re: At this company, we are family

#215

Post by Ylpertnodi »

xyzelement wrote: post #108
sillysaurusx wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So creepy. It’s an employment contract, nothing more.

Sorry but you are really missing the point in my experience. I'll give you a non-tech example. We had a great nanny for our son. She went above and beyond, treating him like a grandson. We went above and beyond for her (max flexibility, paying her days when she couldn't work, lots of bonuses and gifts, etc.) Both of us exceeded the "employment contract" - gave more than we had to and we both came out ahead. That only…

>We had a great nanny for our son.

That's as close to actual 'family' as i feel im not, in the multinational i work for.

Re: At this company, we are family

#216

Post by aae42 »

Brusco_RF wrote: post #175
notaustinpowers wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically not, but they absolutely feed into the higher-ups perception of you. I worked at a company an hour away from my home. So anytime we had our monthly post-work happy hour, I'd politely decline and go home. Especially as I know they'll be out until 10pm. During one of my reviews it was mentioned that it's disappointing I don't attend the happy hours as that's when the team is able to connect and strengthen our…

Look I'm not saying you need to stay out drinking until 10pm but team-building is important to any job, especially if you're a leader, and much of that team cohesiveness happens outside of work hours. It's not too surprising if skipping all team-building events results in... not being a part of the team

> much of that team cohesiveness happens outside of work hours

whaaaa?

is this a common view? doing team building on personal time seems... off. To me.

remember taking my small IT team out for lunches on the company dime, and even to the movies... we even went to an escape room once... but this was all during the work day...

Re: At this company, we are family

#217

Post by monknomo »

xyzelement wrote: post #108
sillysaurusx wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So creepy. It’s an employment contract, nothing more.

Sorry but you are really missing the point in my experience. I'll give you a non-tech example. We had a great nanny for our son. She went above and beyond, treating him like a grandson. We went above and beyond for her (max flexibility, paying her days when she couldn't work, lots of bonuses and gifts, etc.) Both of us exceeded the "employment contract" - gave more than we had to and we both came out ahead. That only…

I think that is treating each other "like friends" rather than "like family". Friendships begin and end, and friends will help each other, even if it means the effective end of a friendship (eg helping load a van for a cross country move).

Were it like family, you'd still invite each other to birthdays and the like.

Re: At this company, we are family

#218

Post by the_af »

kirse wrote: post #206
jedberg wrote: post #156

This is why I always liked Netflix's outlook (both stated and practiced): We are a sports team, not a family. Perform well and you will be paid well, perform poorly and you will get a nice check to go elsewhere. And sometimes you might perform really well but we just don't need someone with your skills anymore, so we'll still give you nice check to go elsewhere, and that isn't a reflection on your abilities.

I like the sports team concept in terms of being a sieve for performance. Similar to HS->College->NFL athletes, elite military SOF groups, etc. You get binned and sometimes that's hard to accept, but that's the point of the filter. It's interesting that despite the high-performance culture though, Netflix is still slowly degrading. This past year I finally realized I could cancel Netflix and not feel like I lost anyt…

> Any thoughts on Netflix's degradation over time?

I still have plenty of use for Netflix, but here are my thoughts:

From a creativity/artistic perspective: creativity is one of the things where simply throwing more money at it and/or "optimizing" it is not the solution. I mean, it can be the solution from a purely business perspective, but I'm assuming this isn't satisfying to you (or me), hence the "degradation" you speak of. Creativity, as in "good quality things you can enjoy but are not necessarily mass-produced for everyone to like" is not a "problem" to be "optimized" by whatever algorithms Netflix is using.

From a business perspective I've no idea how they are doing. Given their crackdown on account sharing, I'd say things are not as rosy as they used to be. Also, quite obviously, the competition became harder; Netflix is no longer the only player in town.

Re: At this company, we are family

#219

Post by stronglikedan »

skrebbel wrote: post #207
that_guy_iain wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is my takeaway from this. This was your first and only job. (Therapy is still on going and a month ago you asked what is happening and got some feedback about someone else quitting.) Which is why you don't understand the 2 weeks notice isn't just for you to be productive but to help hand things over. Realistically, your former colleagues probably had to figure out what you had done and not done. This will leave…

Seriously? GP goes into a burnout at job #1 and your takeaway is “you should’ve worked harder”?

They should have put in the two weeks at least. Not because the company deserves it, but because the world is smaller that you think. A lot of companies won't even take you up on the notice, but it's best to give it, and give the two weeks if they do take you up on it.

Re: At this company, we are family

#220

Post by that_guy_iain »

skrebbel wrote: post #207
that_guy_iain wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is my takeaway from this. This was your first and only job. (Therapy is still on going and a month ago you asked what is happening and got some feedback about someone else quitting.) Which is why you don't understand the 2 weeks notice isn't just for you to be productive but to help hand things over. Realistically, your former colleagues probably had to figure out what you had done and not done. This will leave…

Seriously? GP goes into a burnout at job #1 and your takeaway is “you should’ve worked harder”?

Where did I say they should work harder? In fact, I said I had no issue with them not providing notice.

But I did point out that sometimes in life we need to force ourselves to work. Why? Because we need an income. Some people live a life where they don't need to work but most of us don't. Plenty of us had to go to work in scenarios where we didn't want to. Other half is long-term sick, kid is on school holiday, it's sunny outside, etc.

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