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'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

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Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#841

Post by idontwantthis »

aliasxneo wrote: post #256
dekhn wrote: post #165

By the end of my employment at Google I was not working very hard. Probably a few hours a day, mostly doing whatever I felt like doing. My managers consistently gave me "meets expectations" regardless of how much I achieved or how hard I worked. However, any time there was an emergency related to my function, I had everything required to jump in, fix serious problems, and then get out of the way during the cleanup th…

I have a feeling this extends to several areas in Google. I come from the GDC side of things and have the exact same experience. To keep my job requires very minimal effort on my part. In fact, nowadays I'm punishing myself by trying to do anything "above and beyond." This is mostly due to the rapid growth of committees and the struggle for power that has come out of it (i.e., I'm more likely to be denied by a change…

What if you keep the he cushy job, and use the money and freedom to find more meaning outside of work?

Learn music, art, woodworking, a new language…

It’s a lot harder to find meaning with less money and more work hours.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#842

Post by [deleted] »

austinjp wrote: post #636
twblalock wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been at places where I would love to hear the CEO say that. Being forced to work with poor performers, lazy people, and people who deliver poor quality results is frustrating and demoralizing. Those kinds of people can stick around for years, especially in good times when the company is making so much money that leadership doesn't need to care. Netflix is one of the few large companies that has a culture of cull…

It depresses me no end that someone can see poor performance, laziness etc only as a trait others possess, and not as a reaction to circumstance that they themselves might experience one day. I guarantee that anyone -- anyone -- can find themselves viewed as substandard. It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more.

[deleted]

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#843

Post by [deleted] »

moomoo11 wrote: post #147
senttoschool wrote: post #11

This is inherently a problem with full-remote or hybrid work. People will point to "studies" showing how remote work improves productivity. Maybe it did initially but eventually, people will check out, feeling isolated, feeling less motivated. Some people who worked remotely before covid swears that it helped their productivity. But these people are biased because they were probably one of the few who were discipline…

I’d agree with this. Anecdotally speaking I have never met anyone on my team and I honestly can say that I feel like I’m a mercenary whose job is to just destroy tickets and keep a lookout at our monitoring. It feels so impersonal and is it really my fault or my colleagues that they don’t feel as invested? Messing with k8s, looking at logs, or occasionally hopping into a zoom to discuss architecture for an upcoming p…

[deleted]

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#844

Post by StopHammoTime »

What I always love about these statements from CEOs is that if there is a culture of poor performance or whatever, it is actually the companies and the CEOs themselves who are doing a poor job. Ultimately, the performance of the company is a reflection of what the CEO puts in.

I like how these CEOs never talk about leaving, even thought they're usually a big part of the problem.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#845

Post by StopHammoTime »

alexk307 wrote: post #231

This is such an embarrassment for these two... Aren't YOU the CEO of your company? Didn't YOU approve hiring plans and corporate goals? If there's not enough work, why don't you find something for them to work on, or replace your managers with folks that will. Instead, it's the employee's fault for being so unproductive.

This is the REAL conversation that needs to be happening.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#846

Post by shepherdjerred »

llaolleh wrote: post #208
galdosdi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, if I can ‘crack the coding interview’, then I can certainly crack ‘how to do as little work as possible and stack paper to the ceiling while my stock vests’. What's worse, many of the jaded people going through the motions probably started out gung-ho but then got frustrated to see how little impact they were really able to have and eventually became checked out. These kinds of things are self fulfilling prop…

Motivation is finite. By the time you get the through red tape to get approvals, permissions, and a million of other things, you have nothing left in the tank to code.

God. Every once in a while I think 'I should go back to a FAANG', and then comments like this remind me of how soul-sucking and toxic it is.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#848

Post by alexanderh »

zz20220810 wrote: post #667
aliasxneo wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling this extends to several areas in Google. I come from the GDC side of things and have the exact same experience. To keep my job requires very minimal effort on my part. In fact, nowadays I'm punishing myself by trying to do anything "above and beyond." This is mostly due to the rapid growth of committees and the struggle for power that has come out of it (i.e., I'm more likely to be denied by a change…

I went through a similar struggle to how I read your story. I had a cushy job that paid more than ever, my manager was great, and the work was easy, but I was struggling with depression. I ended up quitting and crashing on a friend's couch for a while, and despite making that change to be able to pursue more meaningful work, my depression didn't abate. I ended up crashing and burning in a pretty significant way, and…

You've hit the nail on the head, and I think many people who have struggled with substance abuse disorders would agree: You can't fix whats inside by changing the outside... sure maybe changing external circumstance can help nudge you in the right direction, but it wont fix anything. Recovering drug addicts don't magically become functioning members of society just because they stopped using drugs... They do a lot of internal work, and find happiness within themselves, not within their surroundings or substances (or they go back to abusing drugs and die an addict).

If you are interested in any of this I highly recommend reading about the psychology of drug addiction more, because it is so very relevant to anyone and everyone at the end of the day (and very related to what you're speaking about). Even non-addicts can learn a lot about themselves and how to be happy, by learning how recovering drug addicts do it. If a formerly homeless heroin addict can find his way to happiness and 6 figure income, why wouldn't your average person not want to learn more about that journey for their own benefit? This is why a lot of recovering addicts wind up being more effective at life than the average person IF they managed to overcome addiction and stay sober. Overcoming addiction is like a master class in effectively living life, being happy, and overcoming anything. Its unfortunate that so few make it, but there's a lot be learned from it.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#849

Post by shepherdjerred »

bashinator wrote: post #222
galdosdi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, if I can ‘crack the coding interview’, then I can certainly crack ‘how to do as little work as possible and stack paper to the ceiling while my stock vests’. What's worse, many of the jaded people going through the motions probably started out gung-ho but then got frustrated to see how little impact they were really able to have and eventually became checked out. These kinds of things are self fulfilling prop…

I can't think of any work to be done for a Meta company that I'd find meaningful in any way. I imagine there are plenty of people who only figured this out for themselves after coming on board.

Meta does a lot of cool stuff. The problem is that it's probably 1% of the teams.
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