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Jack Welch has died

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Re: Jack Welch has died

#231

Post by magduf »

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #32

Jack Welch is indirectly the reason I got fired at Oracle, because some group of bean counters thought it is smart to fire people regularly based on some subjective measurement. However I am very sad he died because I subsequently got a raise and met my wife at my next company.

It sounds like it was a good thing you got fired from Oracle. You got a raise in your next job (so Oracle was underpaying you), and you got away from a crappy company. Your only mistake, in hindsight, might be that you didn't leave Oracle sooner.

I stuck around at one company for way too long too, earlier in my career. I finally got pushed out because of a bunch of layoffs. I got a huge raise at my next company, plus a more interesting job too, and better coworkers. I should have looked around earlier, but I was comfortable at that job and afraid of leaving. (That next job ended up not lasting too, again due to mismanagement resulting in laying off my whole team, but the job after also came with another big raise...)

I think the moral here is to not ever get too comfortable at any one job, and don't take things personally if you get laid off: the company is probably being stupid and losing a great asset.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#232

Post by magduf »

Ghjklov wrote: post #55
briandear wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something to be said about your comment: this illustrates the value of free markets and the efficient allocation of resources; you were allocated more efficiently and you made more money and got your wife.

Purely luck though he could’ve also alternatively remained jobless with a bout of depression and became homeless after spiraling into ruin.

I wouldn't call it luck; it really depends on a lot of factors. If he's a software dev like most people here, then he's in an industry where there's a high demand for his talents, so it's generally not that hard to find a new job. Unfortunately, this is of course not the case for all workers; laid-off coal miners for instance will have a much harder time.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#233

Post by magduf »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #228
QuesnayJr wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't want to be fired for a stupid reason" is a political ideology? Firing people for stupid reasons is a core conservative value?

It's debatable whether they were stupid reasons, that's your opinion. But yes, it's called Right to work. > A Right To Work law guarantees that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union. This results in less powers to unions, which means employers have more freedom of discretion to fire employers, but also means employees are not forced into mas…

>but also means employees are not forced into massive corrupt labor unions that halt efficiency.

The funny thing is that labor unions in Germany work great, and that country leads the world in exports. Labor unions in the US, however, seem to frequently become corrupt. The problem isn't unions.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#234

Post by QuesnayJr »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #228
QuesnayJr wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't want to be fired for a stupid reason" is a political ideology? Firing people for stupid reasons is a core conservative value?

It's debatable whether they were stupid reasons, that's your opinion. But yes, it's called Right to work. > A Right To Work law guarantees that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union. This results in less powers to unions, which means employers have more freedom of discretion to fire employers, but also means employees are not forced into mas…

What does that have to do with anything we're discussing? I was talking about stack ranking, which has zero to do with unions.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#235

Post by rstuart4133 »

stefco_ wrote: post #84
optimiz3 wrote: post #34

Steve Ballmer revered Jack Welch's rank-and-yank management style. During the 2000s and early 2010s Microsoft's stack-rank reviews were infamous for the internal politics created. Didn't matter if you had a full team of top-tier engineers, the bottom 15% WAS going to get managed out. Savvy managers would hire low-tier performers to protect the productive ones. That's the only lens through which I have to view Mr. Wel…

Contrast with W. Edwards Deming's approach that stresses the systematics of the organization and considers rank-and-yank a symptom of bad management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly...

I identify as software engineer that works with software, processes and a little bit of machines and maths, but have also run a few business in partnership with others.

Years ago in an effort at self improvement I did a postgrad course on software quality. Studying what Deming has to say was a big part of it. Turns out it is not so easy to apply it to engineering (as opposed to manufacturing what the engineers designed), and the ham fisted approaches the postgrad course was promoting at the time (like CMM) didn't look promising, and with the benefit of 20 years hindsight now look farcical.

Nonetheless, his dogma of extracting statistically valid measures of processes, propagating those through the organisation so harvesting everyone's ideas on how to improve them struck a deep cord, and it's something that I've tried to apply ever since. I've been exposed to other MBA related ideas, but that is the only one that ever made sense to me.

It's a pity it's so damned hard to apply to software engineering. It has one one notable effect - I'm now seen by my co-workers as near obsessive about collecting and monitoring failure rates - whether they be bugs or things like people reporting software being difficult to use.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#236

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #234
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's debatable whether they were stupid reasons, that's your opinion. But yes, it's called Right to work. > A Right To Work law guarantees that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union. This results in less powers to unions, which means employers have more freedom of discretion to fire employers, but also means employees are not forced into mas…

What does that have to do with anything we're discussing? I was talking about stack ranking, which has zero to do with unions.

I was answering your questions.

Yes, the freedom to fire workers for what others might consider "stupid reasons" is a core conservative value, stack ranking included.

Tighten your speech if you want specific responses.

What I don't seem to get is how a business tactic is worse than mass-murdering 10,000+ people. Hacker News has a strange moral compass.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#237

Post by bjourne »

magduf wrote: post #227
bjourne wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty and unhealthy eating goes hand in hand. If you work for more than 8 hours a day and/or with long commutes, how on earth will you have time to cook? The US has a huge poverty problem that is well-documented in countless studies. It has nothing to do with republicans vs democrats, it has everything to do with believing the facts!

The US does have a huge poverty problem, but that's not the whole story. There's tons of middle-class people living paycheck-to-paycheck because they just have to drive a BMW or have some giant house they don't need, or eat out all the time and get two glasses of wine with each dinner. Yeah, this doesn't describe the poor people getting by on minimum wage, but there's countless $50-100k people who this describes perf…

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims? Because I think you are just regurgitating right-wing talking points. The myth of the poor person who is poor only because he or she spends way to much money on extravaganza.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#238

Post by magduf »

bjourne wrote: post #237
magduf wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US does have a huge poverty problem, but that's not the whole story. There's tons of middle-class people living paycheck-to-paycheck because they just have to drive a BMW or have some giant house they don't need, or eat out all the time and get two glasses of wine with each dinner. Yeah, this doesn't describe the poor people getting by on minimum wage, but there's countless $50-100k people who this describes perf…

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims? Because I think you are just regurgitating right-wing talking points. The myth of the poor person who is poor only because he or she spends way to much money on extravaganza.

Oh please; I see it all the time, including in my own family. "Right-wing talking points"? From what I can tell, it's frequently the Trump voters who this describes well.

Did you even read my post? I specifically noted this doesn't apply to poor people (the ones the right-wingers will claim are only poor because of bad choices), I'm addressing middle-class and up people.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#239

Post by quaquaqua1 »

magduf wrote: post #232
Ghjklov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely luck though he could’ve also alternatively remained jobless with a bout of depression and became homeless after spiraling into ruin.

I wouldn't call it luck; it really depends on a lot of factors. If he's a software dev like most people here, then he's in an industry where there's a high demand for his talents, so it's generally not that hard to find a new job. Unfortunately, this is of course not the case for all workers; laid-off coal miners for instance will have a much harder time.

Can confirm I am a software developer and it was relatively easy to find "just any" gig, but I am not working for Google or anything like that :)
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