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Is my advice too mercenary?

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Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#241

Post by endominus »

danaris wrote: post #160
engineer_22 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument, is that relying on benevolent government to ensure a desired outcome is just as naive. In both cases, the holders of power are people . You're just trading one person for another.

You're trading one person who has no accountability to you in particular or the populace in general with a group of people who have at least some meaningful accountability. That's not an even trade.

Or, looking at it another way, you're trading a person who has the ability to go against group consensus for the betterment of the community to a person who is highly incentivized to follow group consensus to maintain their power (in the ideal circumstances, of course; I'm ignoring the obvious failure case of corruption or other manipulations). When that group consensus aligns with your values, that could be good. When it does not - such as living as a political minority, or when the group consensus is harmful to you (take, for example, NIMBYism), that can be very bad. In both cases you will have no meaningful political representation. A Democrat voter in a very Republican county has no real voice in government affairs unless they expend an inordinate and frankly unreasonable amount of effort campaigning - and will likely suffer some social repercussions for doing so. The reason people keep coming back to the idea of autocracy - why companies are often so much more efficient than governments - is that a central decision-maker can (not always will!) more effectively direct group efforts and establish priorities.

Democracy, as has been said, is the worst political system, except for all the others, but let's not lie to ourselves and ignore that in some contexts it is, in fact, strictly worse. The classic example, of course, is an army led by direct democracy. When a thing must get done, and damn the consequences, then there really is no substitute for autocracy. It's just unfortunate that the people who eventually end up as autocrats are rarely there to benefit the community. Building systems of accountability and responsibility through culture and non-systemic factors may better this (see, for example, the 85 terms of Roman dictators who did not try to seize any more power than they had been given by the Senate and in fact often returned their powers before their term was over), but culture-crafting to accomplish that is unfortunately beyond us at the moment.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#242

Post by throwaway0a5e »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #163

Small aside, reading all these conversations: I just think a lot of static gets injected into these discussions about wage/employers/comp on HN because a large majority of the commenters here are either currently business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those. But there is also a huge contingent of people who do regular waged labor here, whether FAANG or freelance. Beyond any political differences, I t…

Static gets injected because tech employees and to a slightly lesser extent engineering types in general like to think they are experts in everything.

Say what you want about lawyers, they will say "not my area of expertise immma shut my mouth" at the drop of a hat.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#243

Post by spacechild1 »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #163

Small aside, reading all these conversations: I just think a lot of static gets injected into these discussions about wage/employers/comp on HN because a large majority of the commenters here are either currently business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those. But there is also a huge contingent of people who do regular waged labor here, whether FAANG or freelance. Beyond any political differences, I t…

> a large majority of the commenters here are either currently business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those

I'm pretty sure they are really a minority.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#244

Post by waylandsmithers »

I've had some interesting experiences with exit interviews but generally agree with the canned politically friendly response strategy, "I'm just moving on; need to make the best decision for me and my family" etc. If you have some angry criticism about why, personally I think it's one of those situations where you should write a letter expressing those feelings but not send it.

One I did with BigCo I was leaving was all just box checking yes/no questions like, Are you leaving because you felt discriminated against, are you leaving because you were harassed, etc.

During another one the HR person asks me, "At what point did you realize you had no future here?"

And at my most recent one I was asked if the client I was assigned to had anything to do with it, and I said yes. They were actually working on ending the relationship as far as I know.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#245

Post by mcguire »

rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

"...you could give your all to a company."

I believe the phrasing should be "had to give your all to a company." This is the time period when you would retire from the same company you started at, right? And if you had more than a few jobs on your resume (or the infamous missing time), you would have a hard time being hired because you were unreliable.

You have a very rose-tinted view of the historical business world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strikes#Twentieth_cent...

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#246

Post by mcguire »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #237
rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

There are a lot of responses here discussing corporations vs. the government vs. the workers when it comes to social responsibility, but ignoring the fact that _everyone_ has become less socially responsible over the last 40 years. People in general just aren't community or socially minded in the way they used to be[1], and the bosses of companies or leaders of government are all people too. [1] To be specific, peopl…

True, to an extent, although I suspect in large part due to increased mobility---family members used to live in the same general area.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#247

Post by bsuvc »

wnolens wrote: post #143

If you don't like something about your job/org, speak up and let management know. If nothing happens, try to spearhead some change. It's your job! Sometimes the lower levels can see value that upper levels can't. If you can't change it, cope. If you can't cope, then leave. Anything you want to say in an exit interview, you should have spoken up about already in step 1. If there's something you haven't spoken up about…

> try to spearhead some change. It's your job!

To an extent. The key is to have a limit.

Depending on the organization and your position in it, it can take a tremendous amount of mental energy and effort to accomplish anything, having a negative effect on your mental and physical health. Is that cost worth fixing something that doesn't even belong to you?

I've learned this lesson the hard way, both successfully and unsuccessfully. Now I have a much lower threshold of what effort I am willing to exert to help a company change.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#248

Post by seabird »

AYBABTME wrote: post #11
rootusrootus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It truly is shocking that health insurance is tied to employment status. I think "annoying" is a better description. It's not shocking at all, it was a fairly predictable outcome given the situation. It is really annoying that we haven't managed to walk it back to something more reasonable since then.

Candidly, do you mind flushing out what you mean here by a fairly predictable outcome given the situation?

Wages were frozen during WWII (Stabilization Act of 1942), and insurance was exempt from this freeze. At the time, it was a way to compete for employees. Eventually, you just weren't in the running if you weren't providing insurance.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#249

Post by mcguire »

melony wrote: post #130
hobs wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely true and it happened all over, my dad worked for a place for 40 years and the last 10 the MBAs moved in, they were profitable, had profit sharing, and a great company. Today its a footnote in a merger, place is closing down.

What happened to "company towns bad"?

Some companies did offer benefits to their town, for roughly the same reason the FAANGs offer free lunches and dinners. Kind of a double edge gift.

I have no idea where the "companies used to take care of their employees" commenters are coming from. There's plenty of counterexamples.

"The toxicity of concentrated TEL was recognized early on, as lead had been recognized since the 19th century as a dangerous substance that could cause lead poisoning. In 1924, a public controversy arose over the "loony gas", after five[94] workers died, and many others were severely injured, in Standard Oil refineries in New Jersey.[95] There had also been a private controversy for two years prior to this controversy; several public health experts, including Alice Hamilton and Yandell Henderson, engaged Midgley and Kettering with letters warning of the dangers to public health.[17] After the death of the workers, dozens of newspapers reported on the issue.[96] The New York Times editorialized in 1924 that the deaths should not interfere with the production of more powerful fuel.[17]" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Initial_controv...)

See also radium, polyvinyl chloride, assorted mine disasters, etc.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#250

Post by nonameiguess »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #237
rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

There are a lot of responses here discussing corporations vs. the government vs. the workers when it comes to social responsibility, but ignoring the fact that _everyone_ has become less socially responsible over the last 40 years. People in general just aren't community or socially minded in the way they used to be[1], and the bosses of companies or leaders of government are all people too. [1] To be specific, peopl…

Yep. I have no idea what it is, but it's clear there is a broader issue here than any reductive analysis will acknowledge. Same thing with NAFTA. It wasn't a single trade deal. The exact same changes happened with my dad's employer, but he was a plumber for Los Angeles County. They weren't and can't be offshored and they aren't owned by corporate raiders or soulless shareholders, yet exactly what happened to rust belt manufacturing companies happened to government-employed blue collar laborers in California.
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