Organization probably doesn't want to improve things • Hacker News Board

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#261

Post by harimau777 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #248

Draiken wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they retiring with the same standard of living they had before? Can they sustain a medical emergency? Can they pay for their kids college? I'm sure some can do all this. But I'm pretty sure most can't.

> Are they retiring with the same standard of living they had before? This is a strong indicator that choice is a factor, despite your protests to the contrary. But what exactly do you mean by "standard of living"? For example, when you're employed, you have to live where the jobs are, no matter how expensive, unless you can get remote work. Whereas when you're retired you can live anywhere, perhaps a place that is b…

> For example, when you're employed, you have to live where the jobs are.... Whereas when you're retired you can live... [in] a place that is both less expensive and warmer.

I think that it may be just the opposite. From what I've observed, access to good public transportation is a major contributor to quality of life in old age. In the US, that requires someone to live in a much higher cost of living location.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#262

Post by DonsDiscountGas » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #16

> My current organization has 8000 staff members, and I used to glance over the usage metrics of the dashboards my old team produced. I believe three dashboards were used, out of somewhere around 50 - 100. Of those being visited, it usually turned out they were being visited by members of our team checking to see if the data had refreshed for the day. I'd estimate the cost of maintaining our team was approximately $1…

Or increase sales from $1B to $1.001B, or increase efficiency of 1,000 of those employees by $1,000. If literally nobody is viewing a dashboard then it's probably useless, but even a small number of views could have very high value.

Other possibility: I had a non-programmer friend who worked at BigCo and worked hard for 2 months out of the year, doing nothing the other 10 months. He asked his boss for stuff to do and the boss said "just try to look busy". Seems like a good case for outsourcing, but that 2 months of work was pretty important and in-house employees will generally be more reliable and knowledgeable (about the company specifically). So really they were being paid (not much btw) for the 2 months of work and spend the rest of the time being prepared. This was an extreme and obvious case but I suspect this type of thing is pretty common, just usually people get busy-work (eg "make this BI dashboard") rather than being told "try to look busy".

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#263

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #208

lordnacho wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I'm thinking we need a new system. Not capitalism, not communism, not anything that's already been talked about for 200 years. It seems to me that our real problem is that we are wired to demand everybody contributes. Both righties and lefties actually agree on this, they just have different views on how to get it done theoretically, and in practice have also come up with various schemes to make this happ…

You're describing https://www.thevenusproject.com/ Are you aware of that or you just came up with the same basic idea (a resource-based economy)?

Never heard of it, I'll check it out

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#264

Post by neogodless » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

Draiken wrote: post #257

neogodless wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it's not really a choice. Hard disagree. Have never worked for "terrible big company" (though some mediocre medium companies!) But outside of the super high cost of living areas like NYC and San Francisco, it's trivially simple (if not easy) to live on $50-60K USD each year (adjust this number for inflation as needed) while still enjoying yourself, having high performance technology, doing some travel, etc. You…

You can always lower your standard of living, sure. But that's a different conversation IMO. I guess technically that's a choice, but it's so bad in the long term I personally can't consider it valid.

Can you elaborate?

As I've never raised my standard of living to spending over $100K / year, I don't exactly know what I'm missing.

I think more to your point, yes there is a choice - to make $500K at a "big bad tech company" and then spend like there's no tomorrow on things that you feel are worth spending all that money on, hoping that it makes up for the 40 hours you spend working (and maybe hating?) Or you enjoy your 40 hour job, make less, spend less. But spending money doesn't have a direct and equal correlation with life satisfaction. I spend about $65K / year (for two people, no kids), and I feel like I have an amazing life, and spending a bunch more money would, at best, have small incremental returns on life satisfaction.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#265

Post by anvil-on-my-toe » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

Why do modern organizations suck?

1) Power corrupts - individuals who acquire power don't concern themselves with the well-being of others. They are blinded by greed.

2)The bureaucratic trap - the idea you can just think really hard and anticipate what all the problems will be and then write rules. It always fails.

People need agency. A smart, careful, considering person or community thinks about the actual situation and how to deal with it in some way. Top down thinking and the belief that you can predict everything and subject it to a process, is flawed.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#266

Post by neogodless » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

argiopetech wrote: post #253

neogodless wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying if you can't maximize your pay, it's not an option ? I cannot wrap my head around it. Being happy with your life is not a one-to-one correlation with income. You can make less money than "maximum" and still have a great life.

It's not necessarily maximizing money, but maintaining lifestyle. It's extremely common for people to increase their standard of living as their means increase, and reducing that requires significant effort in some cases (e.g., people tend to buy as much house as they can afford, so any significant salary reduction could necessitate selling the house and uprooting your family). It's a minimal sacrifice in the face of…

Right.

> extremely common for people to increase their standard of living

That was a choice. But the opposite is "not a choice"? You choose to spend so much money that you are forced into work you may despise to support the spending choices you make, so there's no option to... not make those spending choices?

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#267

Post by skrebbel » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #222

skrebbel wrote: post #192

Blog posts like these are a staple on HN and I’m always mildly offended by them. It seems to me that there’s a class of programmer that will take an overpaid job at a terrible BigCo, spend their evenings writing ranty blog posts about how terrible it all is, culminating in the inevitable “I quit” article, only subsequently to accept a job at a different terrible BigCo. At no point does this article, or most articles…

How do you go about finding a job at an amazing company with fulfilling jobs?

For starters, HN has a monthly "Who's hiring?" thread with a lot of cool companies posting. Personally I find a lot more of the posts there to make me go "hey that sounds like a cool place to work" than eg a search on job sites or Stack Overflow career ads. In a broad sense I mean, eg there's tiny startups, healthy profitable SMBs, and VC-fueled unicorn rocket ships posting there, but they all seem above-average cool for their category to me.

As an employer, I find that the inverse holds too - applicants that find us via the "Who's hiring?" thread are much more often a potential fit than those who find us via other routes.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#268

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

pierat wrote: post #203

lordnacho wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit this isn't fully fleshed out. I've yet to design the gulags. But the core of it is a change of focus away from "everyone must contribute as much as they can" which the lefties also support. It's more the recognition that actually we could (maybe!) get more done if we didn't insist on everyone doing something.

What you're trying to create needs to deal with this now simple fact: Creation of a thing costs a lot of time and resource. Copying said thing is trivial to the point of free. (This is the biggest difference between our current culture, and previous years. Copying is effectively free.)

This is only true in IP heavy areas, isn't it? You still need effort to pull ore out of a mountain.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#269

Post by throw9away6 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #202

lordnacho wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I'm thinking we need a new system. Not capitalism, not communism, not anything that's already been talked about for 200 years. It seems to me that our real problem is that we are wired to demand everybody contributes. Both righties and lefties actually agree on this, they just have different views on how to get it done theoretically, and in practice have also come up with various schemes to make this happ…

Capitalism in theory doesn't support jobs that produce no value. Shareholders would have demanded that waste be optimized out of the company.

The concept of a voting shareholder is a myth. Most shares are owned/managed by funds so they are the true voters. They just vote to make sure the that the boat isn’t rocked too much.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#270

Post by layer8 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #222

skrebbel wrote: post #192

Blog posts like these are a staple on HN and I’m always mildly offended by them. It seems to me that there’s a class of programmer that will take an overpaid job at a terrible BigCo, spend their evenings writing ranty blog posts about how terrible it all is, culminating in the inevitable “I quit” article, only subsequently to accept a job at a different terrible BigCo. At no point does this article, or most articles…

How do you go about finding a job at an amazing company with fulfilling jobs?

Look for owner-managed companies without middle management, or where middle management consists of engineers and not MBAs. Look for small(ish) companies that work on topics you find interesting. Connect with people who are looking for the same. You might not find the fulfilling job in a sane company on the first try, but if you keep looking and talking to people, you’re likely to find one.