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Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

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Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#81

Post by yummyfajitas »

rayiner wrote: post #79
yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apply your logic to another group which is dragging down society to competing at a level "we" don't find socially acceptable. Yay for slut shaming? (For the record I don't advocate slut shaming and enjoy the company of promiscuous women. Just pointing out that Rayiner's logic applies equally well here.)

"Slut shaming" is sexual morality + misogyny and sexism against women. I'd argue that it's the latter elements that make it objectionable. I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with gender-neutral social norms that discourage certain undesirable behaviors in the marketplace for sex and relationships. For example, I'm not one of those people who think prostitution should be legal even when its voluntary and n…

Slut shaming need not be sexist - it can merely be sexual morality, or simply the economic "avoiding undesirable competition". Justification for targeting women specifically is quite simple - like employers, they hold "market power".

In any case, I'm glad you honest and intellectually consistent about your views. Sadly it's quite uncommon to see.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#82

Post by yummyfajitas »

tptacek wrote: post #80
yummyfajitas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's as lawful as employment on an oil rig, a distant lumberjack camp, pipeline work, etc.

That's a good question. Lumberjacks and pipeline workers are not required to live in company dormitories; the North Dakota gas boomtowns have cheap family housing, and, presumably, subsidized housing provided by employers is considered employee compensation. Workers on oil rigs have no choice but to live on-site. What's the argument that says you can rig a software company in such a way as to precluding hiring people…

Lumberjacks and pipeline workers are often required to live in encampments near the work site. Some jobs require living in isolation.

These jobs don't "preclude hiring people with families". If a person with a family worked there he'd probably do the same thing as the oil rig worker - live on site and skype his family at night.

The only difference I can see between this job and oil rig work is that the software guy probably has a few recruiters/week emailing him opportunities he likes more.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#83

Post by tptacek »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. Lumberjacks and pipeline workers are not required to live in company dormitories; the North Dakota gas boomtowns have cheap family housing, and, presumably, subsidized housing provided by employers is considered employee compensation. Workers on oil rigs have no choice but to live on-site. What's the argument that says you can rig a software company in such a way as to precluding hiring people…

Lumberjacks and pipeline workers are often required to live in encampments near the work site. Some jobs require living in isolation. These jobs don't "preclude hiring people with families". If a person with a family worked there he'd probably do the same thing as the oil rig worker - live on site and skype his family at night. The only difference I can see between this job and oil rig work is that the software guy p…

That's not the only difference. Pipeline workers who work at remote encampments work in shifts, like truck drivers; they get prolonged time back at home. That's not how a software job works; that time at home is like PTO.

Also, pipeline workers need to work on remote sites. Software developers do not. That will matter at trial.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#84

Post by activepeanut »

theorique wrote: post #64
activepeanut wrote: post #23

Nice sweatshop. Is this the latest, legal, technique to discriminate against older workers?

How does this discriminate against older workers?

Would your bring your wife and kids into this environment? Or even just a date?

You have to be part of a very very narrow demographic to be compatible with this type of work environment.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#85

Post by KennyCason »

not_paul_graham wrote: post #17
KennyCason wrote: post #12

At Datarank we spent our first two years living together. The first year was four of us in one big house, and the second year we lived in two neighboring two-bedroom apartments. While at times you can definitely feel cramped, 99% of the time it's pretty awesome. I do believe that living/working together increased our productivity a lot. It also made brainstorming ideas much easier as we would often times spend late n…

This seems like a good solution when all your employees are young males without spouses/kids. Also works if most of the folks living together are founders (vs early employees). Personally I'd probably not want to be part of a young company where there was so much peer pressure [1] to stay with the founders and other team members in a cramped up apartment. But then again maybe I'm not the target hire anyway. Also, I'm…

I can completely understand. Our initial motivation was to just conserve cash as we were still very early in the design/conception phase and weren't really ready to attempt to grow. Also being married, I couldn't imagine doing this anymore haha

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#86

Post by rodgerd »

mseebach wrote: post #21

Yup. We're all liberal pluralists. Live and let live. Except, of course, for employment choices. We all agree that traditional working environments with all their industrial era baggage sucks, but if I don't leave on the minute after a 40 hours work week, and I don't get paid overtime (so much for the industrial era baggage) it's incontrovertible evidence of rampant exploitation. Employees to claim to like their work…

I agree completely. Why wouldn't we want to embrace this neo-feudal model where we can enjoy our life with a literal Lord of the Manor controlling our work and living all in one?

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#87

Post by theorique »

activepeanut wrote: post #84
theorique wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this discriminate against older workers?

Would your bring your wife and kids into this environment? Or even just a date? You have to be part of a very very narrow demographic to be compatible with this type of work environment.

Fair point. So it is probably incompatible with workers who have their own families. And probably more 23 year old hackers are unattached than 35 year old ones.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#88

Post by nknighthb »

tptacek wrote: post #83
yummyfajitas wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lumberjacks and pipeline workers are often required to live in encampments near the work site. Some jobs require living in isolation. These jobs don't "preclude hiring people with families". If a person with a family worked there he'd probably do the same thing as the oil rig worker - live on site and skype his family at night. The only difference I can see between this job and oil rig work is that the software guy p…

That's not the only difference. Pipeline workers who work at remote encampments work in shifts, like truck drivers; they get prolonged time back at home. That's not how a software job works; that time at home is like PTO. Also, pipeline workers need to work on remote sites. Software developers do not. That will matter at trial.

What if the company is based in northern Alaska? What if work hours are 2000-0400?

It's hard to make out a disparate impact claim to begin with. Doing so on the basis that you don't like the living arrangements would seem impossible. What limiting principle would the courts apply that wouldn't result in legal liability for every company that doesn't allow employees to telecommute?

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#89

Post by tptacek »

nknighthb wrote: post #88
tptacek wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the only difference. Pipeline workers who work at remote encampments work in shifts, like truck drivers; they get prolonged time back at home. That's not how a software job works; that time at home is like PTO. Also, pipeline workers need to work on remote sites. Software developers do not. That will matter at trial.

What if the company is based in northern Alaska? What if work hours are 2000-0400? It's hard to make out a disparate impact claim to begin with. Doing so on the basis that you don't like the living arrangements would seem impossible. What limiting principle would the courts apply that wouldn't result in legal liability for every company that doesn't allow employees to telecommute?

It's funny you bring that up: employers need to be careful about asking where employees live, out of concern of giving the impression that a candidate's selection depends on where they live or are willing to live. You can ask "can you arrive at the job site reliably every day at 8:45AM", but you cannot safely ask "do you live in the Chicago metro area".

In practice, people do casually ask where candidates live (usually to find out if they require relocation), but companies also don't tend to select only employees willing to live in a dormitory.

Requiring employees to work at a particular job site is uncontroversial; in fact, it's overwhelmingly the norm for all employment. The same thing is absolutely not true of requiring employees to live at a particular location.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#90

Post by nknighthb »

tptacek wrote: post #89
nknighthb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the company is based in northern Alaska? What if work hours are 2000-0400? It's hard to make out a disparate impact claim to begin with. Doing so on the basis that you don't like the living arrangements would seem impossible. What limiting principle would the courts apply that wouldn't result in legal liability for every company that doesn't allow employees to telecommute?

It's funny you bring that up: employers need to be careful about asking where employees live, out of concern of giving the impression that a candidate's selection depends on where they live or are willing to live. You can ask "can you arrive at the job site reliably every day at 8:45AM", but you cannot safely ask "do you live in the Chicago metro area". In practice, people do casually ask where candidates live (usual…

I notice you didn't answer my question, or provide any practical reason why my hypotheticals are better than Meta's actual practice. Disparate impact claims must demonstrate actual harm to a protected class as distinct from the rest of the population, they don't consist of pseudolegalistic "well, as long as you didn't say it..." arguments.
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