Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Accountability sinks

aworkinglibrary.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 316 posts

Re: Accountability sinks

#291

Post by rurban »

pessimizer wrote: post #244
rurban wrote: post #100

I rather think accountability improved a lot. Esp. with the decline of buerocratic walls. Accountibility always was down. Back in aristocracy you were never allowed to ask for support. Only in modern civilisation this improved. Middle management, the clueless in the Gervais principle, need their walls. Don't be fooled by the decline of customer support in big orgs, like Google, Apple, or Amazon. They believe that sup…

> They believe that support cannot scale, or if it's really needed, it needs to be outsourced to India or East Asia. I disagree. They believe that support shouldn't scale with the size of the business, and should provide economies.

Agree.

It can scale - I worked in two huge companies dominating the world markets, and we did fine with global support - but they say this is not theirs business model. Well without competition they can do what they want, but customers prefer support and accountability. That's why most countries eventually came up with anti-trust legislation.

Re: Accountability sinks

#292

Post by chamomeal »

bentinata wrote: post #51
chamomeal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a lot of shit for saying this, but I agree completely! I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with eating animals. But I have a particularly carnivorous friend who thinks hunting is for sociopaths, because he “loves animals”. If I wouldn’t harvest it, I won’t eat it. And I definitely would be too timid to slaughter a freaking cow lol

I think it's a matter of hygiene and speed. Sure I could butcher a chicken, maybe have a shot at a bigger animal like a goat or cow. I've seen it multiple times since I live in a country that regularly do animal sacrifice. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do it as clean or as fast as the usual butcher. It does feel different from market-bought meat though, at least for me.

Yeah of course it makes sense for people to specialize. My point is more regarding people like my friend, for whom “killing animals” and “eating meat” are completely different things.

If I wouldn’t kill a chicken because you would feel bad, then I shouldn’t be able to eat chicken without feeling bad. If I’m able to do that, it’s because a big food production system has falsely separated those concepts in my head. Kind of similar to the accountability sinks in the linked post

Re: Accountability sinks

#293

Post by johnisgood »

nh2 wrote: post #132
rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

Germany is somewhat rubbish. I arrived at the train station in the night after 6 hours train journey. German Railways app shows there will be my final leg train in 45 minutes. I wait in the cold at night, sitting in the station building because it's warmer there. 5 minutes before departure I go on the platform. The local display shows no train, even though the all still shows it. I waited for nothing. Syncing the app…

> It's pitch black outside, the windows are opaque due to moisture, so I can't tell where we are even though I was born the area and lived here for 18 years. The bus driver makes no announcements about the stops, there is no display. Knowing when to request a stop to get off? Somebody else's problem.

I have experienced this many times. Thankfully the bus drivers here in Hungary are pretty helpful (well, in my county at least), and worst case: you ask other passengers who also happen to be friendly. When it is pitch black outside and the windows are opaque due to moisture, it is not only your problem, but everyone else's, and people often find a way to cooperate and work together.

Re: Accountability sinks

#294

Post by L-four »

seec wrote: post #288
Moru wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are only worse because they are bigger. If the private replacement organization gets as big, they get the same problems.

There is still a meaningful difference. Businesses usually need to have some profit even if minimum so they will run leaner for the same output because of efficiency. I agree that there are many big businesses bureaucracies but they tend to be in areas closely linked to the state/government because of heavy regulation: banks and insurance for example. They tend to survive despite their terrible efficiency because it…

A business only needs to make a profit efficiency is not required or desirable.

Re: Accountability sinks

#295

Post by Ma8ee »

ksec wrote: post #238
Ma8ee wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you haven’t worked in many large companies. I’m currently working for a large American company, and the waste and inefficiencies there beat most Swedish government agencies I’ve ever have had to deal with.

I wouldn't be surprised with Waste and inefficiencies, but this is about Accountability. And I did work in both Fortune 500 companies and within Government.

Heh, I clearly forgot the context between commenting. My comment still stands if you replace “waste and ineffiences” with “lack of accountability”.

Re: Accountability sinks

#296

Post by maccard »

switch007 wrote: post #285
maccard wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being realistic, if you have these sorts of issues more than twice a year there's probably something wrong and you should fix that. Everyone has a few of those stories, but the only people who consistently have them are likely looking for trouble and picking fights.

And that's exactly the line and slander they would use when they bring in new legislation to stop "abuse" of the system. You've proven my point

And ditto - you came to my comment to pick a fight with something a decent number of people will agree with me on. You didn’t have to, but you decided this was a hill to fight on. My experience in dealing with the public has been that there are a very small number of people who will frequently push the boundaries of what the system is designed for, will scream bloody murder when things don’t go as they want, and will employ a scorched earth policy on handling the fallout. As a private business, you have the option to tell those people to pound sand (which I got much pleasure in doing ), but as a public body or organisation you can’t, but you need to ensure that one malicious user doesn’t topple the system for the rest of the users.

Re: Accountability sinks

#297

Post by ilumanty »

rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

The experience is quite similar with DHL when you have a non-standard question. The chatbot is utterly useless and there is no way to contact a human being if you're not a business customer.

Re: Accountability sinks

#298

Post by BobaFloutist »

presentation wrote: post #164
atoav wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the root of all that? Privatization.

Given how good the rail systems are in several Asian cities despite/thanks to being private, you might want to reconsider that opinion.

They still don't make money off of being rail systems, they make money off of real-estate developments.

So, sure, you can have a rail system self-fund as long as you let it build whatever the fuck it wants at stations and funnel all the profits back into the train line.

Re: Accountability sinks

#299

Post by larodi »

olex wrote: post #120
larodi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a sad experience and I would definitely try to chase them robots. Sadly even though German public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality, though when it comes to human service you can find yourself in peculiar position. And particularly if you are not German and happen to be in one of those international cities there where Germans are fed up with visitor. You waive goodbye to your 50€ and keep a…

>German public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality Ease of use maybe, although my parents and grandparents would like to argue differently. They are not as quick to work their smartphone, and the ticket machines are being removed everywhere to be replaced by apps that are much cheaper to run. This works fine for the younger generations, but older and less tech-savvy people are getting left behind. Q…

> Ease of use maybe, although my parents and grandparents would like to argue differently.

at a second read (and thought) you are absolutely right, and there is a major moral to take from this story: it may be viewed as being against humanity's nature to remove legacy UIs for as long as there are old users willing to stick with them. like banning bicycles that do not run on batteries, can you imagine, as they'd be slower than other bikes!

we can definitely argue that a person in his right mind, and no matter the age, should be able to choose to stay with certain interface, if this does not incur massive costs. where I live you can still buy paper tickets from the driver, even though pay-as-you-go is the de facto choice for many, and of all ages. today I saw a minority ethnic girl buy a paper ticket rather than be penalized. everyone knew what happened, and I believe they were 100% human and much appreciated them getting paper ticket last minute from the driver.

Re: Accountability sinks

#300

Post by larodi »

someoneiam wrote: post #155
bojan wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they don't want to have people, it's that there are no people. Germany, as most of other countries in Europe, has an aging population and the workforce is hard to find. So all these "easy" things that can get automated, do get automated, oftentimes indeed at the price of quality of service in exceptional situations.

Well, they say that, but in my experience at least, that is just conjured up as a more palatable explanation after the fact. While I do think that a certain, even significant, amount of automation is good, there is also a large mass of unemployed that can undoubtedly be trained to fill these "human interaction" kind of roles (support). This workforce is still not hard to find at all. We just don't want to do that - t…

This is the challenge of 21st century, innit? To motivate those who are OK with universal minimal income, which is apparently already there scattered in all forms of scam, surplus and wasted goods.
Post reply on HN