The Machine Fired Me • Hacker News Board

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#231

Post by bobbyi_settv » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #194

bonyt wrote: post #161

This is literally an episode of Better Off Ted.[1] In it, the titular Ted is inadvertenly deleted from the company system when trying to correct a misspelling of his last name. Eventually, he is forced to interview for his own job as the system had already put out an ad for his replacement. I think the most striking part of it, and of the true story from the post, is the human factor - the idea that the humans involv…

That show was incredibly on the mark, if Black Mirror was a comedy it would have been that show. The episode about the black engineer who isn't detected by the motion sensors is basically straight out of HP's webcam fiasco[1](although the show takes it to the logical and hilarious extreme). [1] http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2009/12/hp-webcam-c...

Here's that episode on Hulu for anyone who happens to have a subscription and want to check it out:

https://www.hulu.com/watch/81765

In my opinion, BOT is one of the best comedy shows of the past decade and that episode is widely considered to be the best one.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#232

Post by bsenftner » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

bonyt wrote: post #161

This is literally an episode of Better Off Ted.[1] In it, the titular Ted is inadvertenly deleted from the company system when trying to correct a misspelling of his last name. Eventually, he is forced to interview for his own job as the system had already put out an ad for his replacement. I think the most striking part of it, and of the true story from the post, is the human factor - the idea that the humans involv…

A lot of biometric technologies are treated like authorities by "our authorities" to a ridiculous fault.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#233

Post by tribby » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 6:51 AM UTC

> My manager ... decided not to do much work after that, [including] renewing my contract in the new system.

> A simple automation mistake(feature) caused everything to collapse

this is a great story but I must be misreading this detail somehow. it sounds like a simple _human_ error caused everything to collapse.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#234

Post by daliusd » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 6:54 AM UTC

tribby wrote: post #233

> My manager ... decided not to do much work after that, [including] renewing my contract in the new system. > A simple automation mistake(feature) caused everything to collapse this is a great story but I must be misreading this detail somehow. it sounds like a simple _human_ error caused everything to collapse.

In that case we should send copy of "The Design Of Everyday Things" to designer of the system.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#235

Post by ironjunkie » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #223

rinchik wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not particularly familiar with the system at Google, but at any somewhat decent tech company in order to get a promotion you have to already perform as you would in your "future" role for some time, with higher-level expectations and responsibilities. For example, is someone with level I is up for level II promo, she/he has to match level II criteria long before actual promotion is due.

That's general HR pep talk. In reality promotions mostly happen in organizations due to political lobbying with the powers. Even in these 'decent' tech companies you will see some people getting rapidly promoted and moving up the hierarchy, while genuine performers are stuck in the process and minutiae. Its just what kind of leverage your manager has with the upper management.

This.

I think everyone should at least experience once to what length a company can go in order to keep someone they really need that threatens to leave. It happened once to me: in a 150k people company that had a well defined promotion model very similar to Google. I gave my resignation notice and suddenly all the HR pep talk was out of the roof. I gained two levels and was promoted to director level.I still left but felt stupid I didn't threaten to leave earlier.

It made me realize that there are two types of workers. The ones that will play fair game and believe the HR pep talk, as we just saw in the previous comments, and the ones that realize that the fastest way to go is to bypass this and play politics in order to fastrack it. It is another type of skill.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#236

Post by danenania » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

smadge wrote: post #17

“The Machine” used to be a metaphor for the mindless beaucracy of the State and the mindless profit seeking of Capital. They both operate algorithmically, although their “hardware” were still humans. Now we are cutting out the human entirely from The Machine, hooking control of the economy directly into trading algorithms, and the control of humans directly into automated bureaucracies.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#237

Post by teekert » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:04 AM UTC

bonyt wrote: post #161

This is literally an episode of Better Off Ted.[1] In it, the titular Ted is inadvertenly deleted from the company system when trying to correct a misspelling of his last name. Eventually, he is forced to interview for his own job as the system had already put out an ad for his replacement. I think the most striking part of it, and of the true story from the post, is the human factor - the idea that the humans involv…

So true. Recently I was at the pharmacy, the doctor wrote a wrong prescription and my wife was in the car having a hefty migraine. They wouldn't give me the drug even though they could see she has been using it for years and the wrong prescription could be solved afterwards. I think such people will be the first to be completely replaced by robots, I for sure wouldn't notice the difference, in fact I expect a robot to be inhuman so it would be less frustrating.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#238

Post by zaarn » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

bonyt wrote: post #161

This is literally an episode of Better Off Ted.[1] In it, the titular Ted is inadvertenly deleted from the company system when trying to correct a misspelling of his last name. Eventually, he is forced to interview for his own job as the system had already put out an ad for his replacement. I think the most striking part of it, and of the true story from the post, is the human factor - the idea that the humans involv…

The problem isn't that people refer to a machine as authority but that the process has no abort button.

When you design business processes like these, firing, hiring or managing people always keep in mind something can go wrong. Always include an abort button to either stop or roll back the process.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#239

Post by wbxperts8 » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:06 AM UTC

http://theinstantsolutions.com/tag/need-seo-expert/

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#240

Post by ironjunkie » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 7:07 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #222

RandomInteger4 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to lie; that type of thing -- resigning right after getting promoted -- seems like something from some alternate reality fantasy world.

One manager told me, he never tries to promote job hoppers no matter how well they perform. They don't stay, and you end up wasting a perfectly valid promotion while some one who would stick longer with you could have got it.

except that this doesn't work in a high demand market such as the Bay area right now!

Your old manager may have said that to encourage you to stay, but at the end of the day he will promote whoever needs to be promoted in order for that person not to leave. It is all very simple offer and demand at the end of the day.

I was once in a company where the CEO liked to brag that in this company everyone is fairly paid in regards to their competences. You can guess what happened next, we went to have a couple beers with colleagues one evening and started talking about salaries. We realized that we had salaries that didn't really match what the CEO was pretending. The laws of the market are simply too strong, you will always need to sometime pay someone a lot because of circumstances or because that person had another offer to match.

At the end of the day, companies benefit a lot from information asymmetry (they know everyone's salary, but you know nothing). They can claim a lot of things without you having the ability to verify it.