361–370 of 471 posts
I really don't enjoy the tone here. The derision with which it speaks about managers, like they are either evil or incompetent, is unfair in my experience. (my) Managers are just people. They have a task, they do their best to get that task done. Sometimes they decisions that seem bad to me. Often that is because I misunderstand their goals. Sometimes, it is because I know something they don't, and something they cou…
Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…
Come on, this is counterfactual hyperbole. In actual feudalism, if you disagreed with the king he could arbitrarily kill you or jail you. Sure, corporations are lame and if you work for one you're a cog in a machine, I agree it can suck. But it's crazy to suggest that this somehow invalidates democracy. The first job of a functioning government is to establish a monopoly on violence and prevent it from being used aga…
I wouldn't say it's crazy. Your employer can just schedule you to work on election day, forcing you to choose between participating in democracy and not starving. Heck, I would go so far as to say that Covid elected Joseph Biden. If mail voting wasn't made so widespread, it's entirely possible that not enough people would have gone to the polls and we would be stuck with the fucking angry orange for another 4 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The overwhelming majority of people don't live in the US. In Europe, you have access to free healthcare, unemployment and education. It's not a silver bullet, but it significantly reduced your vulnerability to eating shit from your current employer. Why the US doesn't value safety nets and collective action is beyond me.
Continuing that line of reasoning, the overwhelming majority of people don't live in Europe either. They live in India, China, Africa, South America where free healthcare, unemployment, and education are not always available.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/more-people-live-insi...
I really don't enjoy the tone here. The derision with which it speaks about managers, like they are either evil or incompetent, is unfair in my experience. (my) Managers are just people. They have a task, they do their best to get that task done. Sometimes they decisions that seem bad to me. Often that is because I misunderstand their goals. Sometimes, it is because I know something they don't, and something they cou…
> sometimes their goals are somewhat self serving That's what it means to be evil :) > But often it just has to do with [...] Making excuses for bad behaviour improves nothing, least of all your life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am always terrified of losing my job. It's a fear I've had even though I've been a top performer the entire five years I've been professionally working. Maybe it's because I grew up poor or because I think things are too good in tech and about to crash any day. My antidote? $100k in liquidity. Preferably not invested in the NASDAQ. If tech crashes, you can take your liquid $100k and move to Thailand, Spain, Portuga…
If you're terrified of losing your job, the first thing to do is look for another job, maybe a different field or higher level and higher salary. Give yourself a promotion. Even if it's similar job at same salary, the point is to go through the process to get an offer in reasonable time. When you get the offer, you can decline the offer, if you're happy with current company. I recommend everyone go through the job se…
Your process can work for singles in an area where jobs opportunities are wide.
I really don't enjoy the tone here. The derision with which it speaks about managers, like they are either evil or incompetent, is unfair in my experience. (my) Managers are just people. They have a task, they do their best to get that task done. Sometimes they decisions that seem bad to me. Often that is because I misunderstand their goals. Sometimes, it is because I know something they don't, and something they cou…
Glad to see this at the top. This is a very cynical take that applies wildly general negative sentiment and statements to a huge group of people. It's not just about workplace dynamics. I couldn't keep reading after the ~5th paragraph where the (not so subtle) point is: how can _these people_ live with themselves? I'll copy the relevant paragraph below: > Expert gaslighters, they are. What really makes me wonder is h…
* Executive ethics focus on maximizing shareholder value, while individual incentives, on personal returns. If I can pollute a lake for an extra buck to my stock price, I'm expected to do this.
* HR ethics focus on protecting the company. If they can lie to you as an employee to minimize legal risk, that's what's gonna happen.
* Legal ethics focusing on protecting your client (no matter how evil), while practice focuses on maximizing billable hours.
... and so on. It's not good or bad. It just is. As a programmer, you'll be off-putting to people from those groups for reasons just as valid or invalid.
And generalizations are often accurate. If you don't show a certain modesty and humility in gift-receiving in China, you'll be an outcast. If you don't show a certain opulence and over-the-top gratitude in some parts of the Middle East and show the same, you'll be an outcast just as much.
Guess what happens when the two cultures come together?
People are viewed as jerks.
A little cross-cultural training goes a long ways to avoid that. I'm sorry you don't like the tone, but I viewed this as a fair guide for programmers managing corporate settings running into those barriers. This article appears to do a fine job explaining HR's role to people coming from e.g. CS undergrad degrees which will prevent them from getting hurt. It's no better or worse than a guide for e.g. American women as to what to expect if they marry someone from Saudi culture.
As a footnote, quotation marks suggest you're quoting someone. Your claimed quote doesn't exist in the source article. Your point would be stronger if you commented on what the author wrote than your (somewhat inaccurate) read-between-the-lines. That's another place cultures differ a lot: how things are implied and subtexts. People misread subtexts, which I think you did here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least in Italy, your work contract always falls within the general rules established with the unions. At the end of the day, you are somehow unionized. If there is a dispute you can always call an union representative for arbitration. I saw it happen several times, and more or less they were siding with the employees. I know the issue has 1000 shades of color, but if somehow, someway, in a sunny day, with all the…
> At least in Italy, your work contract always falls within the general rules established with the unions. At the end of the day, you are somehow unionized. That is true in many countries - though there are some (US being one) where non-union employees are ostracized or pushed away from being employed, especially as the law allows exclusive union representation in about half of the states [0]. The unions have been kn…
HR is neither your friend nor it is some evil secret police that’s here to root out the saboteurs in your company... HR is an agent between you and the company. It’s there to run the negotiations between what the company wants and what you want. If you don’t understand that, you won’t be able to use HR to your benefit. HR is there for you to ask stuff. You want a shower on your floor? Ask them. You want a course in R…
> HR is an agent between you and the company. It’s there to run the negotiations between what the company wants and what you want. If you don’t understand that, you won’t be able to use HR to your benefit. -I like to think of HR as an abstraction layer between management and employees, whose basic function is to shield management from having to interact with the employees. Also, HR receives its pay from the company,…
This sounds cynical, but it's not nefarious at all:
1) As a manager (at various points in my career), I have better things to focus my time on than sick policies, vacations, sick leave, or similar. I'd rather focus on mentorship, growth, strategy, and technology. Outsourcing the menial stuff to someone else means I can manage people better. Plus, they're more likely to do it right. If I have a 16 year old intern who is a resident of Ohio working remotely whose parents are on an H1B visa who wants to do an unpaid work-sponsored training program beyond their 40 hour work week...
2) As a manager, I have no background in how to resolve legal issues. If an employee engaged in improper behavior (harassment, theft, etc.), the last thing you want are amateurs handling this. It's a relief to offload that onto professionals, both for the manager (who doesn't want the stress or liability) and the company (who doesn't want the liability).
... and so on.
HR is the company's agent. It's not your friend. It's job isn't fairness, anonymity, or justice, but to protect the company. It's still a necessary function and having it there is not evil, so long as employees don't go in with the expectation HR is some impartial judge. It's not. A lot of kids come in and treat it that way, and get into a lot of trouble.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of those things are hard to achieve - we would all, I think, like to hear more about how.
I have been running an experiment for the last year, and will also be interviewing professional developers, outside of my circles, as part of my research. Management and engineering cultures have been described as orthogonal, and the standard approach may be characterized as getting engineering to conform to management values. Leadership has to be realist enough to understand that a) tech talent has other options b)…