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The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

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Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#231

Post by diob »

zer00eyz wrote: post #111
diob wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might want to think a bit about survivorship bias and see how it might apply.

Thats the point. Who survives in a down turn? It's not the folks who are "pragmatic" its not the folks who give up... You work with two people, Bob who punches the clock and Bill who puts in the time to get the extra work done. You move on to a new job and your boss says "we need someone new on your team, Bob and Bill are here". You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote. Dont be an asshlole be known as at the hard…

That's uh, not survivorship bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:...

"It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence"

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#232

Post by therealdrag0 »

gunsle wrote: post #230
therealdrag0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of promotion and salary increases comes from demonstrating your growing and operating towards the next level. Doing the minimum isn’t doing yourself any favors if you have any aspirations at all. That’s fine for those who knowingly make that decision, but there are consequences.

This simply isn’t the case in the vast majority of companies, and honestly just seems kind of naive. Corporate America is a game of politics. Yeah working hard always looks good, but the guy who gets the promotion is the guy your boss plays golf with, not the guy who works 60 hours a week out of some idealistic obligation.

I’m skeptical of the “vast amount”.

But first I’m not suggesting 60 hours I have never worked a 60 in my life. But a solid 30-45 goes a long way, which shouldn’t be radical but some people here are advocating for 5-10 hour weeks…

There maybe a certain type of job (“middle management”?) where “golf” gives you an edge, but for companies with engineering tracks to the top, you need to demonstrate performance and be able to deliver and show impact. Some of that takes “politics” but you also can’t play politics in 5-10 hours either.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#233

Post by AndyNemmity »

This might accurately describe me, although I am very challenged in what I do.

I guess I find the intersection between what I do, and other people, to be a waste of time.

Whenever I try to bring other people into the mix, they tend to misunderstand, and I spend so much time correcting them, it's hard to get value out of the process.

I do get value out of the process (did today), but it often feels like I am increasing my effort exponentially for very little.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#234

Post by jbm »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #222
jbm wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got laid off at SFDC, I found out that they wanted to get rid of certain localities. Heroku was always a remote friendly place, which apparently irritated some of the new Microsoft-derived management; the story I heard was they wanted to consolidate Canada's talent in my branch in Toronto and Vancouver. I'm glad I left as I got a large pay raise and didn't have to move to Toronto; but I wouldn't say it was ran…

> but I wouldn't say it was random, just based on metrics unrelated to the individual's contribution. You're right, it could have been based on the number of letters in their name, or the last digit on the clock when their name came up for a decision. It could have been every employee who hit a certain ratio of salary/years of experience. For the purposes of many employees being laid off, it was completely random. We…

I can see how it could be seen as random after reading that. It certainly wasn't a "fair" layoff in that there was literally nothing an employee could do to keep their current job from a performance standpoint.

Incidentally, did they do the "2 months to find a new job" thing for you too? I remember the whole process of looking for internal jobs to have been a bit chaotic and not very well planned at all. In retrospect, it made more sense to not apply anywhere, and just take it as a vacation, since they didn't pay out my vacation days. (I wonder if that wound up as an extra boat for someone)

-edit- I have absolutely no idea why your post is being downvoted, and I have started seeing this random downvoting everywhere.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#235

Post by aitchnyu »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #172
rybosworld wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wisely chooses his employers to not end-up in such environments This is a pretty common attitude. That is, "I'm able to pick better workplaces than you are". It implies you have control over the other people that work at the company. And unless you're the CEO, you don't. You cannot with any certainty tell what a work environment is like in the interview stage. You can job hop a half dozen times until you find a goo…

It seems like the truth though. I have a friend who can only bear to work at places that provide meaningful work and aren't toxic environments. He finds "bullshit jobs" psychological corrosive and he will quicky become depressed if he finds himself at one. He will go six months to a year between jobs, and will leave a job quickly if it turns out it doesn't meet his criteria. On the flip side when he finds something h…

Why does he leave a meaningful company and gamble on the next one?

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#236

Post by agumonkey »

luisgvv wrote: post #7

I began as a junior dev and climbed up the ranks til the point where I became the SME in some areas of the product. Got laid off because sales goals were not met while they retained people which I think were incompetent in their work. Even some guys which I think were better and more critical to the projects were dumped. I'm not climbing that ladder by being proactive and "pragmatic" again... Call me a paycheck steal…

My life exactly. I used to dream of a kind of high drive team, did more than I should, on obvious metrics (velocity, onboarding, performance, ..) .. but the average politics in all human groups makes it too rare and you end up suffering too much absurdities. It's a lesson in statistics and relativism.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#237

Post by rybosworld »

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #167
rybosworld wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask this: Do you agree that a work environment/culture is defined by the people who are a part of it? Do you think that during the interview stage, an employer can characterize the work environment as different than it is in reality? If you say yes to both of these, then I don't understand the disconnect. Maybe I can summarize another way: - It's not possible to really know what a work environment is like unti…

Do you think you can't choose a different place of employment after saying "yes" to one? Do you think you're stuck there forever? Do you not realize you can choose a different employer, even after you already started working there?

At some point patience wears thin.

You're either a troll or have a reading comprehension issue. I think it's the latter.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#238

Post by K0balt »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #208
K0balt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get the work done that the position requires. If you can do that in a couple of hours, I see no incentive whatsoever for most employees to increase productivity beyond the requirement for the position plus maybe some minor stuff that won’t be enough to encourage additional responsibilities. If they want more than that, employers should pay significantly more than their competitors for those services, or significa…

A lot of promotion and salary increases comes from demonstrating your growing and operating towards the next level. Doing the minimum isn’t doing yourself any favors if you have any aspirations at all. That’s fine for those who knowingly make that decision, but there are consequences.

I should have added that my perspective is one of a founder, not an employee. It is just my observation of behaviour, not a moral position.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#239

Post by ghaff »

mulmen wrote: post #229
ghaff wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're cutting a division. You're cutting a project. Yeah, if you were hiring into a new position, you might hire some of the people you're cutting. But you probably aren't. So, yeah, you might try to retain some specific people but you mostly aren't interested in doing a large-scal rewizzle which will probably disrupt things even more than the layoff is already going to do.

Then why hire at all? If it’s all a project or disposable division just hire temps and contractors.

That's the case with many roles in many industries. Films are largely made on a project basis today rather than stars being tied to a studio.

In US tech, companies today generally prefer some degree of continuity/culture of employees and many employees prefer some degree of stability but it's hard to argue that there isn't less of both than in the past.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#240

Post by icedchai »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #207
icedchai wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of "fake work" in corporate america. This is basically busy work that isn't used by any real customer, external or internal. That work doesn't need to be done, but shows up because someone committed to it for political reasons (or because they were clueless.) Someone needs a box checked, but didn't check if the box needed to be there in the first place.

And a lot of people can question these decisions and make and impact if they cared enough. I get tired of people, especially those with “senior” in their title complaining “they’re doing it wrong”, instead of participating in the planning and feedback and escalation process.

Do you ask them to participate? Many companies don't, because they don't want anyone but yes-men that will agree to the plans around.
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