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Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

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Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#41

Post by Joel_Mckay »

righthand wrote: post #29
rs186 wrote: post #7

> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…

Agreed. For example, if 90% of C-Suite at corporation are only interested in extracting capital from their subordinates and riding trends, then it’s malice, not incompetence.

In general, some incentive structures allow managers to retain stock and 3% of unspent division budget as a year end bonus. Thus, they naturally cut every possible cost rather than risk growth liabilities.

Perhaps someone will come up with a better incentive structure, but those people were fired years ago. As process-people often eventually win over creatives due to their singular focus. lol =3

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#43

Post by xivzgrev »

rs186 wrote: post #7

> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…

He's got a program to sell you, he's focused on the problem he addresses.

He's not helping people solve toxic workplaces, he's helping people shift their thinking as they move higher in org

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#44

Post by rockercoaster »

everdrive wrote: post #15

I was quite surprised how different work was from school. There are a few specific considerations I never really see discussed: - In school you can fail the entire class, (ie, all the students) which is less true at work. At work, you're just hiring your "section" of the bell curve, and insofar as being "successful" means "doing well at your job and not getting fired" then a C or D student can potentially be happily…

Seconding all this.

I'm worry that somewhere out there there are kids hearing adults go "high school has to do [shitty thing] to get you ready for the 'real world', which is even harder!" (LOL no it fucking isn't) or "enjoy it, these are the best days of your life, adult life is so much harder" (what the actual shit are they smoking? Harder stuff than weed, for sure)

I had a relatively good high school experience, and even so, if people saying that stuff had been correct I'd have surely killed myself by now, probably before age 30. There is no possible way I could have tolerated decades more of life as unpleasant as high school, let alone worse. Harsh and short deadlines, general inflexibility of expectations, begging to be allowed to take a piss, the equivalent of multiple hour-long presentation meetings every single day, very-early starts, lots of rooms with shitty lighting and no windows, terrible seating that you're in all day long, complete assholes common and you're just stuck with them, they're not gonna get kicked out (this goes for teachers and students alike), and no realistic ability to leave and find something better.

Luckily, I had a part-time tech job in high school (I did later work a couple very-low-paid non-tech jobs for a while, so I'm not writing this "no really high school is far worse than adult life" perspective from an entirely privileged perspective) and could see that something was wonky about what these people were saying. Then I go to college and it's like a goddamn vacation. On to the "real world" and there are hard times but it's nothing like the 4-year marathon rigid-schedule grind of high school. Those tend to be more like, oh this week is rough, or this month, or perhaps this quarter. And I have so very much more freedom of action to fix things that aren't going well.

Adult life is far easier than high school. High school is insane. Like it's an actually-crazy thing to subject kids to.

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#45

Post by ElevenLathe »

everdrive wrote: post #15

I was quite surprised how different work was from school. There are a few specific considerations I never really see discussed: - In school you can fail the entire class, (ie, all the students) which is less true at work. At work, you're just hiring your "section" of the bell curve, and insofar as being "successful" means "doing well at your job and not getting fired" then a C or D student can potentially be happily…

I have the same experience, but would like to clarify that almost everything on this list is mostly only true of middle class employment. You absolutely can "fail" if you are on the bottom rung of the political-economic ladder -- this looks like a life in and out of prison, homelessness, despair, and an early death. You don't get endless chances from your landlord or your parole officer. If your area of weakness is "money" (earning enough of it, knowing how much to spend and how much to save, etc.), then you are still fucked. To someone with a poor education, filling out a job or EBT or WIC application is indeed a high-stakes test with disastrous consequences for failing. Your boss in the restaurant kitchen does not want you to question their methods of dishwashing -- he will fire you instead for being lippy if you try to negotiate around it.

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#46

Post by lumost »

rs186 wrote: post #7

> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…

That kind of behavior is far less successful than many would expect. Higher ups are pretty aware of who does what, at least at 1 year+ time frames.

That being said, I’ve seen many outrun their own incompetence. Getting incentives right in large organizations is difficult.

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#47

Post by dboreham »

rs186 wrote: post #7

> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…

Some people get through the week by abusing other people.

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#48

Post by geocrasher »

pixl97 wrote: post #30
geocrasher wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is amazing, and I'm becoming interested in it after being out of school for over 30 years. But, my own incompetence with numbers meant gravitating away from them, for me. I am not dyslexic, but I think my ADHD does with numbers what dyslexia does to words and letters.

dyscalculia is it's own thing too.

Wow. I have never heard of this. Thank you. I just Googled it and while not all of the symptoms fit, a good number of them do. It's rather interesting, I know how to use numbers- I've done several types of analyses over the years, professionally. And my own budget/savings is done in my own self-designed spreadsheet, calculated/balanced down to the cent.

But ask me to do subtraction? Forget it.

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#49

Post by em-bee »

everdrive wrote: post #35
rs186 wrote: post #7

> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…

I would imagine that the author is young, very intelligent, and just really starting to pick up real-world career experience. What the author points out is true, but I cannot imagine most HN readers are thinking "I'm expecting my workplace to be totally fair and merit-based, just like school was." This statement is pretty interesting and revealing; school is very much not like that for a lot of people, and I suspect…

"I'm expecting my workplace to be totally fair and merit-based"

i don't know where you worked, but i have been working for a few decades now, and i still expect exactly that. even more so than school was. the point is, even if my expectations do not match reality everywhere, not expecting that would be like giving up. instead, because of this expectation, i do my best to create a work environment where this is actually true, and i do not allow others unfair behavior deter me from my belief and expectation of fair treatment of everyone around me.

Re: Work is not school: Surviving institutional stupidity

#50

Post by [deleted] »

rs186 wrote: post #7

> If you have to, blame stupidity not malice > No one is out to get you; they’re just out to get through the week. The author seems to be too naive. I don't have first-hand experience, but just hearing my friends who work at a certain company talking about what's happening, I know how terrible some people can be. And that's a widespread issue (otherwise I would not hear about similar things happening to people in dif…

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