Either fired or just leaving by themselves. My theory: it has to do with middle managers, who mostly are less capable in technicalities, not smart enough, and aren't born leaders otherwise they would have been doing their own business, so they prey on those good ones since they have nothing to do all day except politics and scheming around compared to the others who spend most of their day building or doing actual work.
Why top firms fire good workers
61–70 of 263 posts
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#62The method used in all the big4s in India is this: You join and do well as usual. Your credit is shared by those above you. You continue to do well, your manager gets promoted or you get a manager who needs a promotion and needs the credit you generate. He gets promoted, aggregates your good work and shows it as his. You then get sidelined, PIPed, or leave in disgust. It's political and I have begun to strongly belie…
But this is how it should be. Very best of the best start their own startups. Second best, start their own consultancies. Next on, work independently. Next on, are principals in small firms - they are the irreplaceable singular employees that the owner of a small firm wholly depends on. And then the mediocre and the bad ones, that work in largest firms. This is how it's always been.
It seems that your claim is that “this is how it should be” and also “this is how it is/has been” - not sure if you are referring to a specific region, considering the parent comment, but assuming you mean the tech industry in general, this seems patently false.
This is not a description of how talented, or smart, or “good at something” someone is. You are describing how risk-averse someone is, as well as how able to survive failure. The latter is slightly different from the former, although related. Someone not able to survive failure at all (due to having no savings, for example, or perhaps someone who has high monthly fixed costs) ought to have a low tolerance for risk, but they might still have a lower threshold for what they consider risky relative to someone else.
I’ve met plenty of talented/smart/etc people in each of these groups, and also plenty of the opposite. To be fair, my experience is anecdotal and biased, although I would reasonably expect such a pattern to continue.
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one’s mentioning caste here except for you. This thread is describing managers taking credit for their employees’ work, which absolutely happens in the US. It’s less frequent at the best companies like in big tech - but I bet it’s very common at random mid sized companies. Especially outside of tech.
It makes sense that caste would amplify this effect, because unequal treatment is already a cultural norm. In the US, even in most corporate cultures, truly egregious credit stealing is harder. Not to say it never happens, just that people are generally slier about it.
Yeah, no.
The white-collar workforce is almost entirely made up of people from the so called upper castes. The idea that caste has anything to do with the toxic behaviour in corporate India simply doesn't hold up.
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#64Up or out.
Yes, re the gamesmanship on pay, but if you don’t have the specific ability to bring in new business, then you’re on your way out, no matter how good a lawyer (or whatever) you are
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#65> The firm starts to underpay those better workers who kept their jobs, akin to making them pay for being “chosen.” Consequently, profits do not decline and may even increase. > “Firms now essentially can threaten the remaining employees: ‘Look, I can let you go, and everybody’s going to think that you’re the worst in the pool. If you want me not to let you go, you need to accept below market wages,’” This is exactly…
For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#66The method used in all the big4s in India is this: You join and do well as usual. Your credit is shared by those above you. You continue to do well, your manager gets promoted or you get a manager who needs a promotion and needs the credit you generate. He gets promoted, aggregates your good work and shows it as his. You then get sidelined, PIPed, or leave in disgust. It's political and I have begun to strongly belie…
This is true. Minus the PIP part.. I have not heard of anyone being PIPed.
Source: current concluding my stint at Deloitte.
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#67> The firm starts to underpay those better workers who kept their jobs, akin to making them pay for being “chosen.” Consequently, profits do not decline and may even increase. > “Firms now essentially can threaten the remaining employees: ‘Look, I can let you go, and everybody’s going to think that you’re the worst in the pool. If you want me not to let you go, you need to accept below market wages,’” This is exactly…
For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.
Tech attracts the radical independent types.
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#68The method used in all the big4s in India is this: You join and do well as usual. Your credit is shared by those above you. You continue to do well, your manager gets promoted or you get a manager who needs a promotion and needs the credit you generate. He gets promoted, aggregates your good work and shows it as his. You then get sidelined, PIPed, or leave in disgust. It's political and I have begun to strongly belie…
Why would a manager who’s able to claim the credit of their reports in order to advance their own career then PIP the best ones? Wouldn’t they keep them around to keep claiming credit from? I’m not doubting your story (I’ve never worked in India) I just don’t understand the incentive to fire a good worker in this scenario.
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Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#69> The firm starts to underpay those better workers who kept their jobs, akin to making them pay for being “chosen.” Consequently, profits do not decline and may even increase. > “Firms now essentially can threaten the remaining employees: ‘Look, I can let you go, and everybody’s going to think that you’re the worst in the pool. If you want me not to let you go, you need to accept below market wages,’” This is exactly…
For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.
Tech salaries are too high for people to do that. At least in Europe. Having an union will fuck with peoples salaries.
Re: Why top firms fire good workers
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.
Tech attracts the radical independent types.
> Tech attracts the radical independent types.
No. I think it's a combination of:
1) HN being associated with a startup incubator, and thus attracting a large contingent of people who see themselves as the boss doing this, not the workers affected;
2) tech attracts a certain kind of gullible person who's easily seduced by tidy little systems like the pop-capitalism of libertarian tracts; and
3) tech workers (until recently) had more economic bargaining power than a typical worker, so could delude themselves into thinking they do better by going it alone.