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Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

annehelen.substack.com

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Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#301

Post by olyjohn »

dyauspitr wrote: post #153
Uzmanali wrote: post #9

I’ve had similar frustrations with gig economy services. A while ago, i hired someone from TaskRabbit to set up a standing desk. i thought it would be an easy process, but the assembler showed up late. then he had a hard time following basic instructions, and he also left halfway through, saying he had another job to go to. I finished the assembly myself at the end. then i realize these platforms don’t support skille…

Disagree. Just the other day I needed someone to replace my chimney cap. The quotes from the big companies ranged from $3k-10k. Utterly ridiculous. I got some guy from an app who bought the stainless steel cap for $300 and installed it for $300 more for a total of $600 and the work is fine.

The guys at the big companies have a service which tells them your salary and all kinds of personal details about you. The point is to see how much you can afford, pray on your ignorance, and milk you for as much as possible.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#302

Post by Our_Benefactors »

dilyevsky wrote: post #269
dyauspitr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Just the other day I needed someone to replace my chimney cap. The quotes from the big companies ranged from $3k-10k. Utterly ridiculous. I got some guy from an app who bought the stainless steel cap for $300 and installed it for $300 more for a total of $600 and the work is fine.

The difference is when guy from an app falls and breaks something it will turn out he doesn’t have insurance so you will lose much more than 3k when he sues

Risk reward ratio is pretty good though. Insurance is just gambling for unlucky people.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#303

Post by dehrmann »

pdhborges wrote: post #290
dehrmann wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard rule for CPU-bound RPC server utilization is 80%. Any less and you could use fewer machines; any more and latency starts to take a hit. This is when you're optimizing for latency. Throughput is different.

Doesn't this depend on the number of servers, crash rates and recovery times? I wouldn't feel confident running 3 servers running at 80% capacity in ultra low latency scenarios. A single crash would overwhelm the other 2 servers in no time.

Right; this is only for large pools of servers.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#304

Post by hellotheretoday »

rqtwteye wrote: post #3

I have been in the workforce for almost 30 years now and I believe that everybody is getting more squeezed so they don’t have the time or energy to do a proper job. The expectation is to get it done as quickly as possible and not do more unless told so. In SW development in the 90s I had much more time for experimentation to figure things out. In the last years you often have some manager where you basically have to…

There are fields of study that agree with you. It is evidence based that treating your workers well, having reasonable quotas and expectations for work life balance, good wages and reinforcement for effort, etc creates conditions where workers perform more efficiently and last longer

But many organizations reject this. Why wouldn’t they? There is a surplus of workers and consumers accept substandard products. Skimp on training, put out crap. Throw workers into the fire, demand everything from them, get furious if they don’t prioritize the company above everything in their life, burn them out, cut them loose, pick another from the stack of resumes

I was talking to someone who works for a startup recently. A colleague died and it was announced on a Friday. They were expected to finish the day. On Monday their replacement started and the team was told to bring this person up to speed asap. No space to grieve, no time to process. Soulless and inhuman. Disgusting and sociopathic behavior

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#305

Post by starky »

jwr wrote: post #206

The problem is with work ethics, not with jobs. In Japan, it's impressive to see how people perform even the most menial jobs with dedication. It's the Yoda approach: do or do not. If you do a job, do it well. So, you will see people whose job is to stand in the rain and watch over a construction site exit making sure people in the sidewalk do not get run over by trucks exiting the site, doing their job with utter de…

What is killing people's work ethic in your opinion then?

How is that person in Japan paid? Are they able to live comfortably and not have to worry about whether they are going to be bankrupted by an unexpected medical problem or bill?

From my perspective, A major problem in the west is that it has become unaffordable for so many people and they are always stressed about money which permeates into the rest of their life. If you are always on the precipice of being homeless it is understandable why they are stressed and able to be exploited by predatory companies working them to the bone.

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#307

Post by dilyevsky »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #302
dilyevsky wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is when guy from an app falls and breaks something it will turn out he doesn’t have insurance so you will lose much more than 3k when he sues

Risk reward ratio is pretty good though. Insurance is just gambling for unlucky people.

You've got some weird math there in your ratio. At a minimum it's a giant hassle and can potentially bankrupt you in the extreme. Anything related with heights, electrical or water i would never risk hiring uninsured/unlicensed rando because the potential downside is essentially uncapped

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#308

Post by dyauspitr »

dilyevsky wrote: post #269
dyauspitr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Just the other day I needed someone to replace my chimney cap. The quotes from the big companies ranged from $3k-10k. Utterly ridiculous. I got some guy from an app who bought the stainless steel cap for $300 and installed it for $300 more for a total of $600 and the work is fine.

The difference is when guy from an app falls and breaks something it will turn out he doesn’t have insurance so you will lose much more than 3k when he sues

I’m pretty sure my home insurance would cover some of that liability and even if it doesn’t, the umbrella insurance I have on my home does

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#309

Post by sumedh »

Sparkyte wrote: post #33
rqtwteye wrote: post #3

I have been in the workforce for almost 30 years now and I believe that everybody is getting more squeezed so they don’t have the time or energy to do a proper job. The expectation is to get it done as quickly as possible and not do more unless told so. In SW development in the 90s I had much more time for experimentation to figure things out. In the last years you often have some manager where you basically have to…

Definitely squeezed. They say AI, but AI isn't eliminating programming. I've wrote a few applications with AI assistance. It probably would've been faster if I wrote it myself. The problem is that it doesn't have context and wildly assumes what your intentions are and cheats outcomes. It will replace juniors for that one liner, it won't replace a senior developer who knows how to write code.

> The problem is that it doesn't have context

You are supposed to give it context, if you dont provide it context how will it know what its supposed to do?

Re: Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?

#310

Post by sumedh »

OutOfHere wrote: post #96
ckdot wrote: post #29

In Germany you have quite high minimum wages. Unions and works committees are quite common. Labor protected laws are quite strict. Sure, not every job is fun, but living with low income is not as bad as in the US. So, are people better at their jobs? Nope. Do people work better just because you pay them better? Nope. Should people get paid better, especially those with shirty jobs? Yes - of course. But there’s no rea…

Germany in my experience is a country of too many scammers. Right from the taxi driver to the entrepreneurs, it is about cheating the customer. The funny thing is that it is native Germans who do it. Of course not everyone is like it, and there are plenty of top-notch open source developers that call Germany home.

Can you give some examples?
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