So they finally figured out most managers are not just useless, but literally a drag to the company and progress?
In my experience, the worst of them are lodged in there tighter than trichinella larvae.
what was the purpose of that analogy?
Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
221–230 of 285 posts
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#222I'm going to make the observation that politics in a company is caused by management. The more "politics" you have at a company, the more you pay in a "political tax". Effort which should benefit the company is delayed or made harder as employees have to bob and weave to get through the politics. I do believe if you want real culture change in a company, the best way to do it is to show managers the door, because tha…
IMHO, workplace politics can happen and be caused at any level of a company. I think it's a natural thing for some people to do. Especially at big companies, which kinda resemble small countries. You get "who likes whom", supervisors' pets, weird alliances, power struggles, backstabbing and other toxic stuff. What management (at any level) is at fault of is failing to actively weed out these behaviours or indeed stra…
>. Also, companies often fail to reward silent, but effective and solid people, and instead opt into creating a loud, noisy rockstar culture even if the overall quality suffers. This in turn motivates people to seek other means of being recognized, including workplace politics.
But that's also a management failure. A lot of managers ask "What can you do for my team or me so we can be more important?" But instead they should be asking, "What can my team do for you?"
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there's a clique or patronage, simply asking may not get you the real picture.
It's amazing how many smart people here think this is just a trivial problem that they can solve for big tech if big tech would only listen. This is a fundamental human organization problem that many countless organizations of people have failed to perform optimally since people have started organizing into groups.
Listen to yourself. That's what management is supposed to do: manage people -- including other managers. You can't both accept and deny responsibility in the same breath.
If you truly believe that, then this is cognitive dissonance in it's highest form.
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience has generally been that a group of intelligent adults are capable of both planning and steering the course of their development efforts as well as carrying out those development efforts. It's not unprecedented, or a particularly radical thesis: in university research labs, as a PhD student, post-doc, or professor, you manage yourself (PhD students meeting with their advisor once every few weeks). Sure,…
I worked in a University lab during grad school, then worked in the private sector for 16 years, and have been back working on research software for the last four years. All I'll say is that the software world should not look at the research world for best practices on delivering software products, except maybe to do the exact opposite of what they do.
I have done both and agree
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#225I don't understand the shit 'managers' get on here. I've been in this industry for 15+ years and with one or two rare exceptions every manager has been great. They respect my time, when I need something they're incredibly helpful, and they care about my career development. IMO the culling over managers over the past few years is really a way to make sure you don't have someone you can discuss career development, prom…
My experience has generally been that a group of intelligent adults are capable of both planning and steering the course of their development efforts as well as carrying out those development efforts. It's not unprecedented, or a particularly radical thesis: in university research labs, as a PhD student, post-doc, or professor, you manage yourself (PhD students meeting with their advisor once every few weeks). Sure,…
These don’t even remotely compare. In academia, timelines are long, failure is extremely high, total team involvement on a project is small, motivation is different, as is team selection criteria.
Just look at a large project for academia that requires lots of people and is a deliverable. It reverts to standard practice
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
imagine comparing management at a small research lab to a multi-national corporation. Such unfounded hubris.
If you view the university as one large company pushing research forward on many fronts then it is about the same
Have you ever worked at a university?
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuinely unique experience for you probably. I think career wise in 20 years I'd break down my experience as - 25% benign, 25% malign, 50% good. This is across 6+ companies, 15-20 managers.
The way people on HN sometimes talk about "management," you'd think the universal experience is 1% good, 9% benign, 90% actively seeking the downfall of civilization Managers seem like a good example of the "toupee problem" -- the ones you notice, and really remember, are the bad ones; the best, you might never see at all.
>>you'd think the universal experience is 1% good, 9% benign, 90% actively seeking the downfall of civilization
It might not be a grand conspiracy or might not come from meticulous planning, but what happens is they just work for self preservation. Its no secret that people who work on a thing are bound to know things about them better than some body who just approves leaves, or makes abstract decisions. You will get replaced if you don't assert authority often and proactively kill the biggest threat to your position. This also means maintaining pets, and rewarding them more than people who are performing better.
All of this resembles a pattern of behaviour over the years with managers sabotaging everything good around to save themselves.
Over years I have seen managers are the biggest reason why companies go down. There are few other reasons.
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, the people that manage the managers?
Try the people that manage the people that manage the people that manage the managers. Maybe. Definitely not the people being laid off.
So the layoffs make sense?
If you are not responsible for whatever decisions you make, and you don't even make any decisions that amount to anything at all, plus you don't do anything(code, SRE etc) why should you have a job?
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you talking about the same admin and coordination required to keep 10 layers of management updated? Easy enough to solve, just remove a few layers.
Sure, and while if you want it to stick, you'll have to get rid of the CEO and the shareholders, too. Those 10 layers of management work for them , not you . That's why they exist.
Yes, and that's why they are removing the 10 layers. It's not working for them any longer either.
Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and while if you want it to stick, you'll have to get rid of the CEO and the shareholders, too. Those 10 layers of management work for them , not you . That's why they exist.
Yes, and that's why they are removing the 10 layers. It's not working for them any longer either.
They are trimming one of them. But the work will likely get pushed down.