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What are your company's anti-values?

willsewell.com

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Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#251

This mirrors Netflix's old culture slide deck[0] > adequate performance gets a generous severance package > We’re a team, not a family; We’re like a pro sports team, not a kid’s recreational team [0] https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/

I really like the culture deck, but surprisingly I find myself disagreeing most strongly with the expenses part, "travel as you would if it were your own money." When I travel with my own money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn Express. But I would be pretty outraged if a billion-dollar tech company wanted me to do either of those things while traveling on its behalf. My current employer's app…

When I travel with my own money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn Express

I don't know about you, but if my salary was $500k+ [1] I'd probably fly business class and stayed at the best hotels when I go on vacation.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#252
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the culture deck, but surprisingly I find myself disagreeing most strongly with the expenses part, "travel as you would if it were your own money." When I travel with my own money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn Express. But I would be pretty outraged if a billion-dollar tech company wanted me to do either of those things while traveling on its behalf. My current employer's app…

When I travel with my own money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn Express I don't know about you, but if my salary was $500k+ [1] I'd probably fly business class and stayed at the best hotels when I go on vacation. [1] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

You'd be surprised. Right off the top you're paying 45% of that in taxes, and if you're saving less than 25% you're failing the marshmallow test in a world-historically spectacular way. FIRE is very popular with this crowd and most save a lot more. You would own a home; that would cost you 10-15% at least. A Netflix engineer who is pretty bad with money but not a totally self-destructing addict might do as much as $75-100k/year in discretionary spending.

That's an insane amount of money! And against that figure business-class tickets ($10k) and fine hotels ($5k/night) are accessible. But significant. You are probably traveling several times a year, and not solo. Blink and you'll piss it all away.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#253
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I travel with my own money, I'm going to fly basic economy and stay in a Holiday Inn Express I don't know about you, but if my salary was $500k+ [1] I'd probably fly business class and stayed at the best hotels when I go on vacation. [1] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

You'd be surprised. Right off the top you're paying 45% of that in taxes, and if you're saving less than 25% you're failing the marshmallow test in a world-historically spectacular way. FIRE is very popular with this crowd and most save a lot more. You would own a home; that would cost you 10-15% at least. A Netflix engineer who is pretty bad with money but not a totally self-destructing addict might do as much as $7…

I just googled a week-long vacation in Paris in the first half of June: a non-stop business class round trip from LAX is $2,100 per person, and the most expensive hotel I found in the center of Paris is $1,500/night. So for me and my partner this vacation would cost ~$5k for plane tickets + ~$11k hotel + say a grand per day on shopping and dining. The total is $23k. That would be less than one month salary after taxes. Definitely not something I'd fret over.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#254
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised. Right off the top you're paying 45% of that in taxes, and if you're saving less than 25% you're failing the marshmallow test in a world-historically spectacular way. FIRE is very popular with this crowd and most save a lot more. You would own a home; that would cost you 10-15% at least. A Netflix engineer who is pretty bad with money but not a totally self-destructing addict might do as much as $7…

I just googled a week-long vacation in Paris in the first half of June: a non-stop business class round trip from LAX is $2,100 per person, and the most expensive hotel I found in the center of Paris is $1,500/night. So for me and my partner this vacation would cost ~$5k for plane tickets + ~$11k hotel + say a grand per day on shopping and dining. The total is $23k. That would be less than one month salary after taxe…

That is really cheap, definitely pandemic pricing. You usually can’t get biz class seats for just $2k round trip.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#255
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just googled a week-long vacation in Paris in the first half of June: a non-stop business class round trip from LAX is $2,100 per person, and the most expensive hotel I found in the center of Paris is $1,500/night. So for me and my partner this vacation would cost ~$5k for plane tickets + ~$11k hotel + say a grand per day on shopping and dining. The total is $23k. That would be less than one month salary after taxe…

That is really cheap, definitely pandemic pricing. You usually can’t get biz class seats for just $2k round trip.

I agree. But the point is - even if it was 30k or 35k, I would still do it without thinking twice about it. I’m perfectly content with spending one month salary on a vacation.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#256
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really cheap, definitely pandemic pricing. You usually can’t get biz class seats for just $2k round trip.

I agree. But the point is - even if it was 30k or 35k, I would still do it without thinking twice about it. I’m perfectly content with spending one month salary on a vacation.

That’s more than my yearly salary was in 2017 (23k), just to put that in perspective.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#257
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised. Right off the top you're paying 45% of that in taxes, and if you're saving less than 25% you're failing the marshmallow test in a world-historically spectacular way. FIRE is very popular with this crowd and most save a lot more. You would own a home; that would cost you 10-15% at least. A Netflix engineer who is pretty bad with money but not a totally self-destructing addict might do as much as $7…

I just googled a week-long vacation in Paris in the first half of June: a non-stop business class round trip from LAX is $2,100 per person, and the most expensive hotel I found in the center of Paris is $1,500/night. So for me and my partner this vacation would cost ~$5k for plane tickets + ~$11k hotel + say a grand per day on shopping and dining. The total is $23k. That would be less than one month salary after taxe…

I mean I have spent a month's take-home from a not-too-dissimilar tech industry position on a year's travel, but that was 7 trips and compensating for the 2020 lockdown. On one vacation it's a lot!

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#258

Punctuality-maniac policy. Take your seat at 09:01 (or 08:59!) rather than at 09:00 precisely and you're fucked. A delegate from a partner company or an employment candidate who would arrive to an appointed meeting 10 minutes later or earlier is considered a dick and treated with lowest priority.

Why is it considered a dick move to be early as an employment candidate? As long as the candidate is unobtrusive and keeps themselves busy, all it shows me is that they value the opportunity enough to budget extra time for things like traffic, etc. (Of course, now we do everything remote, so I wouldn’t even know if they are early)

As a child I have been taught everybody should do their best to arrive as precisely on time as possible yet +/- 15 minutes is always absolutely fine. Nobody is a precision machine, traffic is always a disaster so that's natural and being crazy pursuing extreme punctuality is just unreasonable stress for everyone. Apparently obsessive-compulsive punctuality, being sure everyone must arrive on time with sub-minute precision is a psychological disorder caused by some sort of childhood trauma. It was a shock for me to encounter this but given the fact the job, the company and the boss himself are pretty awesome in all the other aspects I take this with understanding and acceptance.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#259
post #16

Hmm, for my company it would be something like: Don’t upset the customer, so move slow and be careful. But that’s only what is desired by the company . Individuals inside the company still push people to do things quickly at the expense of quality. We also have leadership principles: ‘Play a team sport: so keep discussing everything with everyone until nobody disagrees (either through actual agreement or exhaustion)’…

That sounds exhausting sometimes someone will need to take charge..

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly and toxicity are orthogonal. They're not opposite sides of the same spectrum. Seems to me that they are both honest and toxic.

> [Honesty] and toxicity are orthogonal Q: What's our working definition for "toxicity", specifically in the workplace? I'm not sure they're nearly as orthogonal as one might think. My experiences of toxic workplaces involved a great deal of dishonest behaviour and I'm struggling to recall much if any honesty.

If a slide deck says “management will attempt to throw you under the bus: be prepared and keep a paper trail”, that's both honest, and exhibiting dishonest toxicity. Whether you're toxic and whether you're honest about the toxicity are orthogonal.
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