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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

#241

Post by Consultant32452 »

rybosworld wrote: post #137
gopher_space wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a pretty common attitude. That is, "I'm able to pick better workplaces than you are". It's more about not applying to certain jobs, or cancelling the process after the first red flag. > You cannot with any certainty tell what a work environment is like in the interview stage. Sure I can. But I might have been at it for a decade or two longer than you have. Folks on HN talk about the warning signs and red fl…

Guessing with a higher accuracy is still guessing.

There is always an aspect of luck in everything. Also, the kinds of social skills which help you weed out bad potential employers and bad potential employees (when hiring) are likely learnable.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#242

Post by dier »

sevagh wrote: post #188
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #49

Enployees need three things to avoid becoming an uninspired cog: 1) Control 2) Responsibility 3) Recognition Control and responsibility of a project but no recognition will demotivate quickly Responsibility and recognition with no control means they’re a scapegoat for when things bad Recognition and control with no responsibility is like a third party who will take credit but has no reason to ensure success All three…

Do you count financial reward under recognition? Lot of places are generous with non-financial recognition but stingy with the monetary recognition.

short answer: yes

it's recognition from the individual's perspective. think love languages. one person's recognition might be salary because they make $35,000/yr and another's isn't financial. they are doing this because retirement is boring.

in practice it is often a combination with different ratios.

as an employee it is advantageous to think about what makes you feel recognized and work with your manager on it. if it's monetary and they're stingy then your values won't align and you will be frustrated.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#243

Post by Consultant32452 »

KittenInABox wrote: post #120
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a pretty common attitude. That is, "I'm able to pick better workplaces than you are". Not necessarily. It's "I'm less willing to stay at a bad workplace than you are". Maybe it was bad when I picked it. Maybe it became bad after I was there for a decade. Maybe it became bad quickly; maybe slowly. Whatever. When I realize that it's become a bad place to work, I'm not "quiet quitting", I'm putting my resume o…

This is harder and harder the more senior you get. It looks suspicious if you're hopping after 1.5-2 yrs.

Unless you want to get into a pure management position, the most senior (pay) technical resource is almost always a consultant. And you can give yourself the promotion to consultant any time you want. And when you're a consultant, job hopping is the expectation.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#244

Post by ghaff »

giantg2 wrote: post #215
mulmen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok then why do we still have recruiters and HR? If their job is impossible why do we pay them to pretend otherwise? If people aren’t fungible why do we force them into fungible roles? If the reality is that people are fungible and leadership is just out of touch and made bad decisions then they’re the ones that should be canned. Hiring people is expensive. Firing people is expensive. Reorganizing people requires comp…

"Ok then why do we still have recruiters and HR? If their job is impossible why do we pay them to pretend otherwise?" The same reason many devs exist - people convinced them it's better or more convenient to have an expert. The number of systems that could be an excel sheet...

And even if you mostly just have temps and contractors, you still need some HR/recruiters at any sort of scale. And you do still have costs associated with, especially, onboarding new people.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#245

Post by beeboobaa3 »

rybosworld wrote: post #237
beeboobaa3 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same goes to you. Are you dense?

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#246

Post by rybosworld »

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #245
rybosworld wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point patience wears thin. You're either a troll or have a reading comprehension issue. I think it's the latter.

Same goes to you. Are you dense?

You might benefit from: https://www.hookedonphonics.com/

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#247

Post by Lacerda69 »

imzadi wrote: post #65

I don't know if this is related, but growing up there were certain values instilled in me that went something like "don't toot your own horn," "it's better to be seen and not heard," "keep your head down," etc. The main gist being that I should just do my job quietly, competently, and stay out of the way. In practice, this resulted in me being effectively invisible to management, even when I was out-performing everyo…

On the other hand I have worked with team mates that just don't communicate what they are doing. I always got the feeling that they either don't do anything at all or work on things that are completely irrelevant.

Over time I tend to develop a poor opinion of these people.

Communicate what your accomplishments are and why they are important for the business and you will be fine.

Everything else is kindergarten.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#249

Post by fuzzfactor »

mlhpdx wrote: post #154
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor relations are intrinsically adversarial. The employer wants to pay as little as they can get away with for as much work as possible, the employee wants to be paid as much as possible for as little work as they can get away with. This article is written for the employer's side, trying to optimize their game. The employees trying to normalize working approximately nothing are optimizing their side. It's not offen…

As an employer/owner/investor I’m not trying to minimize expenses I’m trying to maximize growth/value. Abusing people is not a path to success by that metric.

One disconnect is that most employers are not personally the owners, and most owners do not actually own as much as the investors.

No surprise they do it the other way around when they don't have the collective talent to maximize value and have it result in growth.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#250

Post by lazyasciiart »

jbm wrote: post #234
lazyasciiart wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 retrospec…

I didn't actually get laid off, I was one of the people still there trying to figure out who was gone. Part of what makes the random nature so memorable is the refusal to tell us who had been laid off, so everyone spent days pinging others and building lists (when someone tried sharing a list of laid-off people in a public slack channel they were told to take it down). I got the bonus bizarre experience of eventually hearing that my direct manager was gone.
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