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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#331
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a cite for being the 70's paradigm: "the business will employ you no matter what you do or how bad you are" - the classic 1970s Union paradigm No Union protects employees no matter how bad they are.

The very often do and did! Read about the history of the Telsa Fremont factory when it was GM, or teacher's unions for cases like Mark Berndt, etc.

Both examples are pretty disingenuous.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#332

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration…

> the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company This might be a function of broken promotion processes. Perhaps, in a world in which employees believed that they could advance their careers by either staying at one company or moving around, we would see a significant fraction of workers who would want to have long tenures.

In practice, it's highly inefficient to expect one company to handle all your promotions. Even if you're ready to take on a higher level of responsibility, there's absolutely no guarantee that they have a position open at that level.

That's why the alliance model makes sense: you might be going elsewhere to find an open promotion, but that shouldn't imply "disloyalty."

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#333
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element…

Pretty simple.. Improved productivity from this new era of employment at will should lead to wealth which provides guaranteed basic incomes.

For everyone with a stake? I still see clear winners and losers in that scenario.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris you're right Dan misconstrues your ideas and that's disappointing. The real issue with his article is that he was lying to himself before he even joined Hubspot. I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect? Hubspot is not Salesforce. Uber is not Google. DoorDash is not Groupon. The maturity of companies at different stages varies significantly. I rea…

> he was lying to himself > delude themselves about how awesome startups are > people continue to write articles about this nonsense every month You seem to be unrelentingly "blaming the victims." Obviously, it is to people's benefit to have the most realistic expectations possible about companies they join. But does that in any way absolve employers of making realistic representations of what employees can expect? D…

Nothing that I've read from Dan Lyons shows HubSpot actually misrepresenting their work environment. In fact, it seems abundantly clear that they put a lot of effort into explaining their work environment and philosophy (would Lyons have preferred that they not have a training program?).

All in all, it seems like they had grossly mismatched expectations. Lyons clearly thought HubSpot would magically twist itself to match his desires for a traditional workspace, while HubSpot apparently thought Lyons might be slightly adaptable. In a just world, they'd both chalk it up to an experiment gone wrong.

Of course, Lyons is a journalist with an ax to grind so he'll make hay off that failed experiment.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had several managers and mentors at Intel that we're sincerely interested in helping me develop my career. I'm not saying its universal, but I've seen some.

It occurs to me looking at this and the other responses so far in this subthread - that it's quite likely more common in larger organizations (Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Intel) where career advancement is not quite so directly correlated to "leaving for a better position in a different company". If you can get your best employees promoted into roles where they are likely to become your reports again when you yourself ge…

Actually, there is generally even more opportunity for career development in startups than in larger organizations. If the company is growing, new positions are opening up regularly and there isn't a large bench of talent to fill them with.

When I was a manager in a small startup, I tried to regularly discuss their career goals and how they could develop towards those goals. One of the benefits of a startup was that we had a lot of flexibility to create experiences matching those goals.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#336

Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cau…

There's abundant evidence that there are vast differences in the productivity of different programmers in the same company. Denying that doesn't make it untrue.

The best way to punish the Bezos of the world is not to work for them. Which it seems like more and more people are—most of my friends wouldn't even consider a job at Amazon.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the reason that Dan Lyons mentions "The Alliance" is that we cite some of HubSpot's programs in the book. Specifically, we mention HubSpot's "Learning Meals" program, which encourages employees to take smart people outside the company to lunch. HubSpot will pick up the tab as long as you share what you learn with the rest of the company on the intranet.

This is pure speculation. You seem to be upset that Lyons has mischaracterised your work, yet you also seem to be happy to do the same to him. Lyons worked for a company that has an abusive culture. They recently had two top people in management leave because of unethical behaviour - and you observed and promoted aspects of such a culture in your book. I think that you are getting just criticism, and you are taking i…

So if I say Nazi Germany did a good job building highways I'm promoting Nazi ideology?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#338

Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cau…

Greetings comrade. I wholeheartedly concur. Its been a source of great confusion to me why otherwise intelligent and open-minded people are so steadfastly opposed to the one thing that can improve their earnings potential dramatically. I have observed a strong shift to the "left" in the last few years though, so I won't be surprised if this happens soon. I also expect that given the resources and capability inherent…

Unions will not improve everyone's earnings. They will compress the differential, and as someone who likes getting paid more than the average programmer I absolutely would oppose that.

Doctors, dentists, and lawyers don't have unions. They have professional associations (which might be a good idea for programmers) but they still negotiate individually.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#339
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element…

> I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. Then why did Lyons cite grandparent's book as though it supports his worldview? Why did he sandwich quotes from the book with paraphrasing that doesn't represent the book at all? > That is the heart of "The Alliance" - an acceptance the world has changed, and making i…

> Rather than defend against a perceived attack, I think a policy of agree and amplify makes sense.

The reply (not mine) was not a defense. It was adding a new point of view to the conversation; that this disagreement might be mostly involve a mismatch on what abstract words like "job security" mean. It's implied that progress might be had if people broke down and discussed details a bit. Like, "is it a good idea to assume a company will be around for 50 years?"

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#340
post #164

This is an interesting perspective based on real life experience. The author also has decades of experience around the tech scene in general. I don't understand why he is being put on trial for sharing his experiences in a book or seeking to promote it via interviews. That's the way books are normally promoted. Reading this thread one would think its illegal. Hubspot is a campaign management and lead management tool…

Getting fired sucks. I really hate corp doublespeak, but it's a little commendable that this corp is trying to soften the impact by calling it a graduation - which it is in a way because you get some time off to reskill and seek out other prospective jobs rather than doing the same thing everyday in your current job.

> reskill

I am pretty sure that's not a word. Which I only point out as using corporate newspeak to reply to a post about disingenuous corporate newspeak is an interesting conversational tactic.

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