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Nobody cares

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Re: Nobody cares

#261

Post by agumonkey »

azeirah wrote: post #210

> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care. I was working in this space! And I got fired for refusing to work on more upsell features for clients like Coca Cola and such. I don't want to work on adding fucking ADS into c…

and decoupling order taking with service makes for "funny" times. since mcdonalds installed the tablets i regularly wait 10 minutes while looking at confused / avoidant employees not knowing what to do, even if there's nobody else waiting.

i can almost feel the meeting where someone managed to sell this idea to shareholders... "decouple everything, more efficient !"

Re: Nobody cares

#262

Post by wakawaka28 »

LunicLynx wrote: post #219
frotty wrote: post #200

100% of the people around me at work care. I wish they didn't, because they're bad at their job and "them caring" puts them as a peer for experts and people who both care AND are competent/experienced via design by committee and inclusion. Their incompetency is explained away as "unique point of view." So perhaps the entire piece is an exercise in overgeneralization, where you assume that everyone has a baseline amou…

I would argue that incompetence is a form of not caring. It means that one just does, maybe even more then necessary because one doesn’t actually understand what their responsibilities are. And to be not detected it’s better to seem very busy and very caring.

One man's incompetence is another man's profound skill. OK maybe not actually, but let's just say that some people are quick to apply a label of "incompetent" to people who think a little differently, or who are perhaps only 10% less knowledgeable, or to people they imagine are less knowledgeable.

Re: Nobody cares

#263

Post by DavidPiper »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #262
LunicLynx wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that incompetence is a form of not caring. It means that one just does, maybe even more then necessary because one doesn’t actually understand what their responsibilities are. And to be not detected it’s better to seem very busy and very caring.

One man's incompetence is another man's profound skill. OK maybe not actually, but let's just say that some people are quick to apply a label of "incompetent" to people who think a little differently, or who are perhaps only 10% less knowledgeable, or to people they imagine are less knowledgeable.

> One man's incompetence is another man's profound skill

Only when there's no way to measure the results.

Re: Nobody cares

#264

Post by listenallyall »

azeirah wrote: post #210

> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care. I was working in this space! And I got fired for refusing to work on more upsell features for clients like Coca Cola and such. I don't want to work on adding fucking ADS into c…

This seemed like a poor example for the author to choose, of "not caring." Annoying, sure. But these extra upsells originate from someone who definitely cares about increasing revenue and is aggressively exploring multiple avenues to achieve it.

Re: Nobody cares

#265

Post by johnnyanmac »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #235
johnnyanmac wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are a lot of very wrong assumptions. Salaries aren't US level but more than liveable because even most non-tokyo housing is perfectly reasonable. The economny is stagnant (and now recessionary) but they have a decent amount of safety nets. They don't need to worry about walking to work one day to be locked out or being in debt if they collapse (yes, there are some very dark work patterns to "lay off", but you w…

I don't think they are wrong assumptions. Japan has higher suicide rates, lower rate of having kids, and on and on. And like I said, obviously a rich tourist is treated better. The average Japanese person doesn't benefit from these things because the average Japanese person lives in a cramped, barely livable closet-sized apartment in a huge city where costs are probably not close to wages

They are wrong assumptions. They aren't so signifigantly high that they fundamentally affect the perceptions of the culture. Japan is 14.29 per 100k suicide rate. the US has 14.21. Japan has something low like 1.2 kids per family, the US has 1.66, also pretty dang low. You gotta do a lot of heavy lifting to say those differences make for a much worse culture.

>obviously a rich tourist is treated better. The average Japanese person doesn't benefit from these things because the average Japanese person lives in a cramped, barely livable closet-sized apartment in a huge city where costs are probably not close to wages

Tourism goes both ways. You can switch Japanese with American and this metaphor is just as apt. You're missing a lot of subtleties and cultural difference just saying "well Americans make more money on average" while comparing the quality of life of the lower compensated parts of each society.

Re: Nobody cares

#266

Post by dasil003 »

000ooo000 wrote: post #84
Over2Chars wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well known CEO noted that in a failing organization he was trying to devise a turn around plan for that everyone in the organization invariably blamed... the other teams! Not a one said "our team is responsible for our failure". The engineers blamed product, the product people blamed sales, etc. He said he provided this suggestion, "You are of course right (it's the other groups fault, and it might have been so), b…

Classic CEO. "How can you, the powerless IC, fix an organisational problem? No, I mean without me having to do anything meaningful or risky"

This is such a low effort learned-helplessness response. Look, there are good CEOs and bad CEOs, I'm not here to defend them, but one thing you have to understand is that CEO action is an extremely blunt instrument. Of all the problems in an org, the vast majority can not be directly solved by the CEO, they can just sort of broadly steer the culture in the right direction, but folks down the chain need to solve problems at their own level. Of course there are tradeoffs in an organization and so not every problem can be solved, but if folks who understand the details can't propose any kind of solution that doesn't A) require CEO action or B) every other person to act exactly the way they propose, then they're not really helping.

I understand there's a lot of toxic environments where it's not worth trying to improve things, but a blanket statement pointing at CEOs en masse as the root of all problems is just as stupid and reductive as CEOs who don't do anything to empower ICs and learn from the front-line expertise.

Re: Nobody cares

#268

Post by johnnyanmac »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #240
johnnyanmac wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan is infamous for a certain kind of work culture that demands being in the office even when it's lot necessarily productive to do so; so onerous that it harms domestic life, among others. I think that's the opposite. They care too much. That collective school cleanup example above has a similar extreme. If you literally live to work, you'll forget about caring for yourself and collapse. Tokyo Government just in…

They care about the wrong things. Ultimately everyone cares about something and then there is tons of things no one or that anybody doesn't care from simply because you have limited amount of possible care to give.

It's another country's culture. It's really hard to holistically judge what is right or wrong. If people want to be a workaholic, then I can't really judge their lifestyle.

That said, yes. If this is pressure from their society, they probably should revisit those mindsets. Especially when the birth rate right now really can't afford a higher mortality raet. Fortunately they are starting to in some sectors.

Re: Nobody cares

#269

Post by caseyy »

dgfitz wrote: post #231
MichaelZuo wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some fraction of incompetent interns are playing a kind of double game, where they merely pretend to be really caring. But I doubt that’s the norm. There really are a lot of not so smart people of all ages out there in positions way beyond their actual capability. Edit: And in a lot of situations the dumb and hard working are way more dangerous than the smart and lazy. With the dumb and lazy being somewhat bett…

In my 15 years, I’ve had a lot of interns, and a lot of indirect interaction with other interns. I can usually spot a genuine one in about a day at this point.

Show horses and workhorses – Hillary Clinton was all about that and say what you like about her, this distinction is quite wise.

There is also the latin saying "res, non verba" – that one is proven by action rather than words.

Re: Nobody cares

#270

Post by jchw »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #179

The author should really move to Japan if they’re so impressed. Then they’ll get to find out what things in Japan no-one gives a shit about, and the shine will wear off.

People often seem to caution against romanticizing Japan, and I think that is a good instinct no matter what, but at least among my cohort, I don't know anyone who has moved to Japan and shown any signs of having regret for having done it. I've never considered moving to Japan, but based on what I know and people I've talked to, I suspect I'd probably enjoy it too, though having only one year of Japanese class under my belt, it'd be quite a long road for me.

But actually, I like a lot of aspects of the United States, too, and I also wish more people gave a shit here. They're clearly speaking in hyperbole but I think the overarching point rings true; less people give a shit than you'd hope. Hell, I struggle to give a shit some days.

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