[HN Gopher] Is my advice too mercenary?
___________________________________________________________________
Is my advice too mercenary?
Author : Tangiest
Score : 153 points
Date : 2022-04-11 17:56 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jacobian.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (jacobian.org)
| [deleted]
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| This is going to depend on the health of the organization you're
| in. If you're in a healthy environment, giving mercenary advice
| is probably not the best move - literally, less likely to advance
| your career.
|
| If you're in a hypercompetitive and/or toxic environment, you'd
| better be very careful about what advice you give (and
| _everything_ else you say).
| evilotto wrote:
| If you're in a toxic environment, then the only way to survive
| is to be toxic yourself?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No. But if you're in a toxic environment, you need to be very
| careful not to give other people ammunition to use against
| you.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| The problem may be that his advice is a defeatist "never do
| this". In the referenced article about exit interviews, the
| advice centers entirely around not providing feedback. Be as
| bland as possible. The workplace is presented in a combative
| manner where you cannot ever win.
|
| While that article mentions game theory, and describes one
| situation where it seemed safe to provide feedback, it then
| focuses on that feedback being unproductive. The author could
| have offered advice on /how/ to provide feedback. If enough
| people leave for the same reasons it may start to turn the ship -
| so let's consider why the feedback was not well received.
|
| Providing negative feedback to the company follows similar
| patterns to the company providing negative feedback to employees.
| We're still talking about humans communicating with each other -
| emotional, flawed, egotistical (aka fairly normal) humans. Decide
| which one or two points are most important to communicate. Offer
| genuine positive feedback to make it easier to accept the
| negative feedback, and try not to present other topics in a
| negative manner. Let the 1-2 negative points stand out among
| other positive language.
|
| Some companies care. Some bosses care. Some don't. Some are
| combative, dysfunctional, or selfish. Some care but are
| misguided. Rather than blanket "never do this" advice, let's
| focus on learning when to offer vs withhold feedback, and how to
| offer negative feedback when it is warranted.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Zero-sum bridge burning makes sense sometimes. But a career is
| rarely fully zero-sum. You likely need a reference, may have
| stock options dependent upon improvement, want a job offer X
| years later from a colleague making the new hotness, etc. I've
| given references for mercenary folks, but always with that
| asterisk, which is a Career Limiting Move.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Any company that says "we are a family" or talk about loyalty is
| immediately not to be trusted. Was on linkedIn today and say some
| director stating that the one thing she looks for on a resume is
| loyalty, if someone has jumped ship every couple of years she is
| not interested. Looked at her CV and she had been with the
| current company 5 years. Prior to that, not a single job longer
| than 17 months. She essentially reached leadership and then
| decided that its insulting for the plebs to quit on her. She also
| made a statement along the lines of 'you spend 12 hours a day at
| work...'. Any leader that thinks you should be spending 12 hours
| a day at work is not a leader you want. It was the clearest red
| flag I have ever seen a people leader post.
|
| I will work for a company and try my best as long as they provide
| me with good yearly raises and benefits and don't require insane
| hours. Fail on any of those points and I am gone. There are
| plenty of opportunities for a 20% raise somewhere else. I know
| that as soon as times get tough they will cut whatever heads are
| required while being sure to give the execs or in-crowd a golden
| parachute and the rest nothing.
| muh_gradle wrote:
| I read through the exit interviews are a trap blog post and now
| this latest one. If you're leaving a company because of one
| particular person (manager, co-worker), then I agree that there's
| not much to gain from divulging honest feedback. That's a clear
| case where things can get ugly and personal and you're better off
| just not being 100% honest. But very often, there are inefficient
| processes that can't be attributed to one individual. Even when I
| left my recent team of 5 years, I wanted my co-workers and
| manager to be able to get support from upper management. To me
| that's worth providing feedback in an exit interview even if it
| does nothing and the cost is pretty minimal.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| It truly is shocking that health insurance is tied to employment
| status.
|
| I really think this is a large part of the trend towards overt
| ruthlessness in the USA, no one has their back so they have no
| ones back, as people age and experience medical bankruptcy (or
| narrowly avoid it at great cost) they are realizing this
| ruthlessness in our system.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Health insurance is not tied to employment status. Anyone can
| go to healthcare.gov and buy an equivalent BCBS or Kaiser or
| whatever gold/silver/bronze insurance. Unless you are in a
| particularly shitty state.
|
| What employers do have is the ability to sell you health
| insurance with pre tax dollars, which is also available to self
| employed individuals. But the people who are screwed are those
| who are employed by employers that do not offer health
| insurance. They have to buy insurance with post tax dollars.
|
| There is similar bullshit with retirement funding, where
| employer sponsored retirement account limits are drastically
| more than individual ones (401k vs IRA), and especially if you
| are a married couple with 1 spouse with 401k access and one
| spouse without.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >Health insurance is not tied to employment status. Anyone
| can go to healthcare.gov and buy an equivalent BCBS or Kaiser
| or whatever gold/silver/bronze insurance. Unless you are in a
| particularly shitty state.
|
| Out of curiosity, I went and looked up the plans in NJ for a
| 32 year old person(56k salary). This is someone in a lower
| risk pool. The bronze plans are in the upper ~280$/month and
| include a $6000 deductible. There are three plans out of 36
| that are ~380 a month that have a $2500 deductible.
| Everything else is more. This is NJ, one of the better states
| and definitely not a shitty state. These plans are garbage.
| Every time someone on HN extols the virtues of
| Healthcare.gov, I recheck my options and they always come
| back much worse than what I get working for a private
| employer (typical S&P 500 corp). I wish people would look up
| their possible plans on Healthcare.gov before tossing it out
| as something other than a scam.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| What does box 12 code DD on your W-2 say? Your employer is
| probably just paying a lot for your coverage.
|
| When I got quotes for insuring my employees in NJ, they all
| matched up with the premiums on healthcare.gov, also seen
| here:
|
| https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcr
| a...
|
| ACA compliant health insurance pricing is pretty
| commodified since all the rating factors are codified in
| law (age, location, smoking status, and that is it I
| think).
|
| Edit:
|
| >These plans are garbage
|
| The plans simply reflect the cost of healthcare. The
| companies that sell the healthcare have profit margins in
| the sub 5% range. Mechanisms to bring the cost down would
| be to have taxpayer funded medicine in the public domain so
| the medicine is sold without patent, increasing number of
| doctors by greatly expanding residency positions and
| reducing training requirements so that you can start
| practicing before age 28, reducing the need for
| "certificates of need" so more hospitals can open and
| compete, etc.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| This just feels like a 'well ackshually' retort to health
| insurance being tied to employment. This is an extra added
| expense and often times the barebones insurance is garbage
| with high deductibles and out of pocket maximums.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| How is it an "extra added expense"? Just because you do not
| pay for 50% of the premium out of your own pocket directly
| does not mean you are not paying implicitly. Your employer
| is obviously counting it in the total cost of employing
| you, and the figure is given to you in box 12 code DD on
| your W-2.
|
| You can also buy a platinum level BCBS health plan
| yourself, without an employer, and get the same low
| deductible and low oop max.
|
| https://www.healthcare.gov/choose-a-plan/plans-categories/
|
| It is evident then that health insurance is NOT tied to
| employment. Buying it with pre tax dollars is tied to the
| type of employer you have.
|
| NJ has a very nice pdf where you can basically see how much
| your insurance will cost based on your age and level do
| coverage you want:
|
| https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcr
| a...
| CameronNemo wrote:
| It is still a headache to have to register for a plan after
| losing your job and possibly transfer/link your information
| to a new account. COBRA is better than nothing, but it is
| often more expensive than makes sense.
|
| Furthermore you cannot use the exchanges if your employer
| offers plans IIRC. So your employer can control which plans
| you have access to.
|
| The subsidies should just be given directly to the person who
| needs healthcare. There is no need to involve a third party.
| It just complicates the situation for no gain.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Furthermore you cannot use the exchanges if your employer
| offers plans IIRC. So your employer can control which plans
| you have access to.
|
| I do not think this is true. Everyone can sign up on
| healthcare.gov. Employers will want you to opt into the
| subsidized plans they offer, especially if you are a lower
| compensated employee, in order to pass their non
| discrimination testing requirements, but they have to make
| the portion they are paying for high enough to make it
| enticing enough, they cannot force you.
|
| > The subsidies should just be given directly to the person
| who needs healthcare. There is no need to involve a third
| party. It just complicates the situation for no gain.
|
| Absolutely. The whole employer tax benefit situation should
| be abolished, and all individuals dumped on healthcare.gov.
| Same with retirement benefits. Employers should not receive
| any beneficial tax treatment for providing benefits, and it
| would make compensation much more transparent and easier
| for employees to compare from one employer to another.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Hmm you're right on that first part. I don't know where I
| got that from. I seemed to remember playing around on
| CoveredCA and it said I couldn't get a plan because my
| employer offered plans, but I can't reproduce that now.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| THIS is for real. If I don't have a job with good benefits, I
| can't pay our medical bills anymore, and we could lose
| everything. So even though I've had the "team player"
| personality from birth, I cannot allow myself to put my faith
| in any employer. The moment they start turning the screw on
| benefits, I'm out.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It truly is shocking that health insurance is tied to
| employment status.
|
| I think "annoying" is a better description. It's not shocking
| at all, it was a fairly predictable outcome given the
| situation. It is really annoying that we haven't managed to
| walk it back to something more reasonable since then.
| mdldldl wrote:
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I am old enough to remember families (my own included)
| being destroyed by this same reality pre-ACA. Insurance
| being tied to your job was a pre-aca reality.
|
| I was born with heart defects, pre-aca it was literally
| impossible for me to get private, non-corporate coverage, I
| tried for years.
|
| At least denying coverage for pre-existing conditions means
| that getting diagnosed between jobs isn't a complete family
| destroying death sentence like it was for mine.
| brimble wrote:
| The ACA ossified the existing system a bit, but employer-
| provided care was the norm before the ACA. That or just not
| having any insurance, especially for young people working
| for small companies.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| ACA did not ossify it. If anything, ACA allowed non
| employers to purchase insurance. Previously, the options
| were to work for a deep pocketed employer or just not
| have insurance.
| ghaff wrote:
| Plans that would cover pre-existing conditions was one
| very important change for a _lot_ of people. What ACA
| didn 't really solve was the "affordable" part for people
| who aren't fairly high income. Between the marketplaces
| in most states and COBRA for those in between jobs or
| near 65, insurance is available but it's expensive with
| no one else chipping in a big chunk of the premium.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Nothing will solve the affordable part other than massive
| wealth transfers (which ACA did, but obviously not
| massive enough), and increased supply of healthcare (more
| docs, hospitals, medication manufacturers - or medicines
| in public domain), and tort reform.
|
| But ACA did what it could with the political compromises
| that had to be made at the time. It provided out of
| pocket maximums, maximum age rating factor (age 64 only
| pays 3x age 21), and required coverage for all applicants
| (removing risk of disqualification from pre existing
| condition).
|
| It is unfortunate the mandate was repealed and state
| level participation in functioning marketplaces was
| politically hampered.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Candidly, do you mind flushing out what you mean here by a
| fairly predictable outcome given the situation?
| uoaei wrote:
| Not GP, but:
|
| historically Protestant work ethic + unrestrained pursuit
| of profit + weak labor protections and domination of
| corporate interests in the halls of legislation =
| predictable outcome.
| kansface wrote:
| This is not historically accurate. Insurance through
| employers came out of the federally mandated price
| controls during WW2, and was later solidified by massive
| tax breaks for corporations for providing said insurance
| (under the eager endorsement by unions among others).
| Changing the system would require changing the tax
| incentive. Changing the deduction to apply to individuals
| could be a path forward.
| uoaei wrote:
| Federal mandates and tax incentives are created in the
| halls of legislation. This was mentioned above, albeit
| concisely. You even mention "massive tax breaks for
| corporations" which really only happens with intense
| pressure (backchannel or otherwise) on Congress. We call
| that "corporate lobbying" today, just as we called it
| back then.
|
| Recall the intense pressures on FDR from both sides.
| Eventually the unions won some important concessions, but
| the corporations still had sufficient representation to
| ensure the system calcified into one that continues to
| funnel capital upward.
| seabird wrote:
| Wages were frozen during WWII (Stabilization Act of 1942),
| and insurance was exempt from this freeze. At the time, it
| was a way to compete for employees. Eventually, you just
| weren't in the running if you weren't providing insurance.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Maybe annoying to you. American shit hole healthcare is a
| matter of life and death for some.
| faller wrote:
| > I think "annoying" is a better description.
|
| Tying your personal health and that of your loved ones to
| your employer gives your boss unduly leverage over yourself,
| particularly when there are life and death decisions to be
| made.
| epgui wrote:
| "Annoying" for me would be stepping on a small LEGO. As a
| Canadian, I think that the US healthcare system exists in a
| first world country is absolutely "shocking".
| AYBABTME wrote:
| I'm assuming this is by design to keep the US population "on
| their toes" and at work doing productive things. Otherwise why
| would it be tied to employment?
| 121789 wrote:
| I think you are framing it as a top down objective, but I
| think it's the opposite. Employers themselves offer
| healthcare because it's a way to attract employees. You can
| get other health plans (e.g. Obamacare) but they are not as
| competitive as employer-sponsored plans. To not have
| employer-sponsored plans, you would have to either 1) ban
| employer-sponsored plans 2) offer other plans that are
| competitive. #1 seems unrealistic, #2 is possible but would
| have to probably be done by the state, which the US doesn't
| really love.
| rosndo wrote:
| The real problem is how expensive healthcare is in the US.
|
| Compare Cignas global plan with and without US coverage.
| Somehow they can easily cover essentially all of the rest
| of the world for far less than the US.
|
| https://www.cignaglobal.com/
| brimble wrote:
| Last I checked, pretty much the entire rest of the OECD
| was between 40% and 70% of US per-capita spending on
| healthcare. Some spend less _total_ , per capita, than we
| do _just from public spending that we already do_
| (medicare, medicaid, CHIP, public employee healthcare
| plans, military care like VA and Tricare, et c.) without
| even having universal care like ~everyone else does
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Last I checked, pretty much the entire rest of the OECD
| was between 40% and 70% of US per-capita spending on
| healthcare.
|
| Per capita numbers _can be_ misleading on healthcare as
| health is labor intensive, so countries with higher wages
| will have higher per capita costs with otherwise similar
| systems.
|
| OTOH, the US spends the second highest _share of GDP_ on
| healthcare, globally, behind Tuvalu, and about a time and
| half the GDP share of the second highest large, developed
| state (Germany). [0]
|
| [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.Z
| S?most_...
| brimble wrote:
| Yeah, like part of the reason Taiwan, say, is so much
| cheaper, is that wages are lower across the board.
|
| Canada? Switzerland? Germany? Yes they pay a lot worse
| for some jobs (software developer, and, more relevantly,
| doctor) but ordinary fully-loaded employee costs aren't
| _that_ different from the US. Admittedly, the countries
| more comparable to the US tend to be more in the
| 60-70%-of-US-spending range, than on the lower end.
|
| That does mean that even allowing a _generous_ premium
| over the most-comparable peers, we _should_ be able to
| cut total healthcare spending 20% while covering everyone
| and removing a major drag from our economy, and a major
| factor reducing overall US QoL. As it is, we 're
| struggling (and largely failing) to even keep cost
| _increases_ to _merely_ the inflation rate.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I was recognizing the potential problem with per capita
| numbers only for the purpose of specifically pointing out
| that they aren't misleading in this case because the same
| thing is there in the per-GDP numbers.
| brimble wrote:
| Ah, I see now. Reading is fun-damental, as they say. :-)
| uoaei wrote:
| I want to point out that the above analysis is completely
| ahistorical and does not track the path dependence and
| latent contexts of the development of the modern US
| healthcare system. The above is not an explanation, it is a
| post-hoc rationalization.
| 121789 wrote:
| I find this comment to be too ambiguous to be helpful.
| Could you elaborate on your points?
| uoaei wrote:
| Any argument that claims anything is "the way it is"
| because of the ways people act today is only talking
| about current incentive structures and has nothing
| whatsoever to do with the systems and tendencies that
| have created what we see today. Current incentive
| structures are a product of the system they are expressed
| from, not the other way around.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are competitive plans on the individual market. (Your
| local insurance market may vary.)
|
| I could get approximately equivalent insurance for about
| 40% cheaper if I went on the individual market. But, my
| employer pays 75% of my employer sponsored plan.
| replygirl wrote:
| Because previously all social services, including police and
| fire safety, were privatized, and were only taken over by the
| state when it became clear there wasn't enough economic
| incentive to keep such services running without the operators
| doing stuff like roughing people up, burning down buildings,
| etc. But everyone decomposes as they age, and people fear
| illness and death enough that you can charge them however
| much you like, so it stays private and eventually employers
| start pitching in to attract talent without having to offer
| better wages, more holiday leave, or a shorter work week.
|
| Now, there's a whole administrative system that drives up
| prices and puts a ceiling on availability and quality of
| care; with most Americans being (relatively) ill-traveled,
| ill-read, and fed a news product that beneath the packaging
| is some combination of entertainment and fear-mongering, it's
| easy for one to believe there's just something in the air
| that makes an NHS-style or even a German-style system
| impossible here.
|
| Then, if you were around for the 2008, 2012, and 2016
| elections, you'd have seen presidential candidates arguing
| about whether someone should have to pay for someone else's
| well-being. And it's not a debate along the lines of class--
| it's tied up with identity politics and a broader debate
| around the welfare state. Advantaged and disadvantaged
| communities alike are full of people who see how things are,
| and, knowing that it takes a lottery win to move up the
| economic ladder and a bad week to fall down, are skeptical
| that next time it'll be different.
|
| Doesn't help that most Americans will never have the
| opportunity to get even an hour of education in
| macroeconomics, unless it's buried in disconnected lessons
| about individual economic downturns, nor that education on
| probability doesn't happen until second-year calculus (which
| is similarly rare in high schools), nor that most Americans
| don't learn about the mechanics of Medicare until their
| fifties or sixties
| replygirl wrote:
| uh i cant edit this anymore but i wanted to clarify to all
| the ppl spazzing out over the police thing that i was
| speaking in a broader historical sense and only got
| specific to america in the transition to the second
| paragraph
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _all social services, including police and fire safety,
| were privatized_
|
| I think enforcing the law has been a government function
| from the times the first laws were laid down. Fire services
| were a private function, and this actually works fine in
| sparsely populated areas where fires are not likely to
| spread in temperate climates. The only reason fire services
| are public is because of the inherent risk to everyone that
| a fire poses in a dense, substantially flammable, city.
|
| If a fire affects you and only you, then why not cover it
| under normal, optional, property insurance like every other
| disaster?
|
| This is generally the model of government intervention I
| support - intervene when the actions of one group of people
| directly affect others. This covers regulation around
| rights of way, fire services, environmental protection,
| waste management, water supply, pandemic/disease control,
| police, and the military. It however does not cover
| supplying the personal necessities of life like food,
| shelter, clothing, medical care, entertainment,
| companionship, sex, fulfillment, etc.
|
| These are fundamentally individual needs, and I therefore
| hold that meeting them should be an individual
| responsibility. Any cooperation to meet these needs should
| be strictly voluntary and consensual, not compulsory. I
| think this is where, to greatly simplify, "the left" and
| "the right" fundamentally disagree. For instance, in spite
| of the now well-studied and crushing effects of loneliness,
| it would be absolutely tyrannical for the government to
| mandate friendship. Similarly it is tyrannical for the
| government to mandate participation in public health
| care/insurance. Let people figure out how to meet their
| needs for themselves, and let them figure out how to
| cooperate voluntarily. Charity is exactly the virtue of
| helping those in need, but mandatory charity is
| indistinguishable from slavery.
| replygirl wrote:
| covid vaccines?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _pandemic /disease control_
|
| Edit: also a much more significant factor only in densely
| populated areas
| replygirl wrote:
| sure, just pointing out that the _funding and
| availability_ of a social service wasn't a point of
| contention there. unintuitive as it is, the discourse
| around public health and health care aren't really
| related. anyway i was just giving people some background,
| not opining. if i was feeling saucy i might say something
| incoherent about people feeling entitled to a service
| they previously resented as soon as it's useful to them
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Well, you made the case that police were previously
| privatized. I'm not sure that's true exactly. You also
| compare healthcare to police and fire services. I was
| just elaborating as to why that comparison may not be
| apt. Public health, insofar as controlling the spread of
| communicable disease, has always been a function
| requiring government authority.
|
| The idea that people who set bones and cure cancer should
| be included in this category is a more modern take, one
| that requires much more careful discussion of what should
| and should not be a "public service".
|
| > _people feeling entitled to a service they previously
| resented as soon as it 's useful to them_
|
| I think we should expect people to prefer suffering and
| death with dignity, rather than greedily and desperately
| peering into the pockets of strangers, but that's just my
| take.
| drewcoo wrote:
| We're talking US, right?
|
| There were only private police until 1838 in Boston:
|
| https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
|
| And only private firefighters until 1853 in Cincinnati:
|
| http://www.fireserviceinfo.com/history.html
|
| Ben Franklin offered America's first fire insurance.
| Privatized insurance and firefighters in Phili in those
| days:
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-
| theory/08/am...
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean "private police" - the Boston
| night watch, which predated the 1838 professional police
| force, were given powers by the town government[1]. I
| can't find any references to how the night watch was
| funded, but surely the town government was involved.
|
| Edit:
|
| > _The duties of the Watch, as appears by the order, were
| to be performed in turn by the inhabitants; they were not
| "citizen soldiers," but citizen Watchmen, and having an
| interest in their work, no doubt did it well._
|
| - A chronological history of the Boston watch and police
| by Savage, Edward H.[2]
|
| Savage seems to indicate that the night watch was
| performed in turn by the inhabitants of the community, by
| order of the government, and there is no mention they
| were paid. This doesn't seem like a private service to
| me.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Watch
|
| 2. https://archive.org/details/achronologicalh01savagoog/
| page/n...
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| That's right. Bosses love it so it's not going to change
| until workers force it to.
| ghaff wrote:
| Bosses absolutely do not love healthcare costs if that's
| what you're suggesting. But even legal mandates for larger
| firms aside, if you're trying to hire white collar workers
| while not having a decent healthcare plan, you're going to
| find it's a challenge.
| nmhancoc wrote:
| The origin of the tie between US employment and healthcare
| was during the Second World War when wage controls were put
| into place. Employers competed for workers by adding benefits
| packages, which later became ossified and further entrenched
| with exemptions in the tax code.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| And it wasn't until the 90s that individually purchased
| health insurance become unviable for the average family.
| https://listwithclever.com/research/healthcare-costs-over-
| ti...
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I knew an individual named Ron Hillhouse, he sold life
| insurance and built a large insurance company in Texas
| twice.
|
| He sold it each time to a group in NY (MetLife each time if
| memory serves). He told me that his insight was that
| construction companies would have variable revenue and
| compensation requirements across TX building contracts
| (private vs government mostly) and to avoid discontent they
| would dump the difference into life insurance and other
| alternative compensation because as long as the take home
| paycheck was the same no one really complained about being
| put on lower compensation jobs.
|
| Not sure if that was a similar origin for health insurance
| but I've always assumed it was.
| kube-system wrote:
| Health insurance is "tied to employment" because of wage
| controls that were implemented in WWII. Employers still had
| trouble hiring people, and because they were prohibited from
| raising wages, they had to find other ways to attract people:
| benefits. Health insurance then became a popular benefit.
|
| Also, note that you can buy your own health insurance in the
| US. You are not required to use health insurance provided by
| an employer.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Health insurance is "tied to employment" because of wage
| controls that were implemented in WWII.
|
| If that was the only or even dominant reason, then the
| removal of those controls in 1945 would have seen that tie
| rapidly unravel, instead, health care has become more, not
| less, tied to employment since the end of that policy,
| reinforced by deliberate policy choices like tax policy and
| explicit mandates.
|
| The historical reason a thing first became common and the
| reason the thing is still common are often not all the
| same.
| kube-system wrote:
| > the removal of those controls in 1945 would have seen
| that tie rapidly unravel
|
| One might rationally assume that, but human brains are
| weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
| [deleted]
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Have you seen the prices of marketplace health insurance?
| Completely untenable for our household.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| You are free to buy your own (expensive, much worse) health
| insurance rather than through an employer, sure.
| kube-system wrote:
| Having had both, this is not my experience. My experience
| is that employer plans have fewer choices and similar or
| higher rates. They're cheap because my employer is paying
| most of the bill.
| brimble wrote:
| Varies a lot state-by-state. Ours has _no_ individual
| plans offered outside the "marketplace", which most
| years only has a couple companies offering plans on it,
| all with bad networks, bad coverage, and terrible rates.
| A fairly bad employer plan is a much better value than
| the marketplace plans while a middling employer-provided
| group plan will be _way_ better than the best plans on
| the marketplace, and there are, I repeat, _no_ other
| providers that will sell you an individual plan in this
| state (I 've checked, both with brokers and with major
| providers around, all said the same thing: "no-one sells
| individual plans in this state anymore, your only options
| are whatever's on the marketplace")
|
| And yes, it's a red state.
| replygirl wrote:
| I haven't had insurance for five years because the
| (major, national) providers who cover what I need aren't
| available on my state's marketplace (NY).
| kube-system wrote:
| Is it available off-market? That's how I bought my
| insurance (in another state). My state has a marketplace
| too, but I found better plans directly through the
| insurer's website.
| replygirl wrote:
| The insurer I was after was offering neither marketplace
| nor off-market individual plans until this year
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I haven't had insurance for five years because the
| (major, national) providers who cover what I need aren't
| available on my state's marketplace (NY).
|
| As someone who purchases insurance from the NY
| marketplace, that hasn't been my experience.
|
| Initially, I had a plan from one of those (Anthem/BCBS),
| which provided pretty good coverage because they
| increased my premiums by more than 50%.
|
| Now I have a local (New York State) provider (Fidelis
| Care) which costs less and has a (fairly) low deductible
| through the state's marketplace.
|
| That said, many providers are _actively hostile_ to
| marketplace plans. Back when I still had an employer-
| based plan, my company changed insurance providers. I
| called up my GP to make sure they accepted insurance from
| the new company, but before I could even describe the
| scenario, the office person at my doctor 's office raised
| her voice and said, "We don't take any Obamacare plans!"
|
| Which was quite interesting, since back then many of the
| major national insurance companies were offering such
| plans, including the companies (both old and new) my
| employer was contracting with.
|
| All in all, I've been fairly satisfied with Fidelis Care,
| although I wish I could do database queries of their
| "Explanation of Benefits" records rather than having to
| wade through PDFs for each visit to a provider.
|
| All that said, I don't know your circumstance (none of my
| business) so you may have needs that I don't. I wonder
| what those might be that a "national" insurer might offer
| than an in-state provider doesn't, especially since the
| ACA specified requirements for _all_ health insurance
| plans, not just those on marketplaces.
|
| Although I'm not sure how _no insurance_ could be better
| than some, unless you 're against medical care in
| general. But my use case isn't yours and I'm sure you
| make decisions that are best for you.
|
| Edit: Added a few thoughts to address parent's issues,
| clarified my point about coverage to be _more_ clear that
| I 'm emphatically not calling _anyone_ a liar.
| replygirl wrote:
| > As someone who purchases insurance from the NY
| marketplace, that just isn't true.
|
| So have I, and I stopped purchasing insurance because I
| cannot find the coverage I want. I need a specific
| variant of a certain operation which is only performed by
| a few surgeons in the country, and the one surgeon in New
| York who offers it only takes Aetna for that operation.
| Aetna reentered marketplaces starting 2022, but I'm
| moving and the operation has a year-plus waitlist, so I'm
| SOL. It has made a ton of sense for me to have no
| insurance because I'm fairly young and in fantastic
| health, making it cheaper to just pay out-of-pocket for
| primary care once or twice a year. Please don't call
| people liars.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >So have I, and I stopped purchasing insurance because I
| cannot find the coverage I want. I need a specific
| variant of a certain operation which is only performed by
| a few surgeons in the country, and the one surgeon in New
| York who offers it only takes Aetna for that operation.
| Aetna reentered marketplaces starting 2022, but I'm
| moving and the operation has a year-plus waitlist, so I'm
| SOL. It has made a ton of sense for me to have no
| insurance because I'm fairly young and in fantastic
| health, making it cheaper to just pay out-of-pocket for
| primary care once or twice a year.
|
| That seems reasonable. As I said, "my use case isn't
| yours and I'm sure you make decisions that are best for
| you."
|
| >Please don't call people liars.
|
| My intent wasn't to call you (or anyone else) a liar. My
| apologies if you felt I was attacking you. Nothing could
| be further from the truth. I've edited my comment to
| explicitly reflect that.
| replygirl wrote:
| no worries, i didn't feel attacked, just pushing back
| because prior to the edit you said emphatically that what
| i stated was not true
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >no worries, i didn't feel attacked, just pushing back
| because prior to the edit you said emphatically that what
| i stated was not true
|
| I'm glad.
|
| My initial statement was categorical and not specific
| only to me. You were right to call me out on that.
| Thanks.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| I'd also add that I had a similar experience with
| physical therapy (PT) after surgery. When I changed
| insurers from BCBS to Fidelis (just a month or so after
| surgery), I found that the PT group I was using didn't
| accept my new insurance.
|
| It's _sad_ that we have to jump through all sorts of
| hoops just to get the medical care we need. Which is
| often the case even when it isn 't an edge case like
| yours (or mine with my PT -- my situation was, of course,
| much less consequential since there are many PT providers
| out there).
| dangerlibrary wrote:
| Just a note for those who may not know, either because
| they've grown up under a different regulatory regime or
| they never shopped for private insurance before the ACA:
|
| Pre-ACA, I was once a much healthier early-twenty
| something applying for private coverage. I have a genetic
| condition that has never manifested in a health
| consequence that has required treatment, and technically
| it was illegal even at the time to reject someone based
| on their genetic information. Despite that, I was denied
| coverage by every private insurer in the market because I
| had a preexisting condition. The only reason the private
| market functions at all for anyone with so much as a
| history of a sprained ankle is because of the ACA.
|
| Insurance companies would routinely (and retroactively!)
| deny coverage and payment based on preexisting
| conditions. They would accept premium payments for years,
| then when you came down with breast cancer would dig up
| an old photo of you with a cigarette in your mouth and
| refuse to pay for your treatment because you claimed to
| be a non-smoker when you applied for coverage. This was
| considered normal.
| drewcoo wrote:
| It happened because under FDR there was a wage freeze. That's
| one of the tools a President has to fight inflation, last
| used by Nixon.
|
| Companies had to include extra benefits beyond wages to
| compete on hiring. One of those extras was health care.
|
| That's the original "design."
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/469739-the-
| employer-h...
| jseban wrote:
| In that case, why should your home be tied to employment
| status? Food? It's at least as important for your survival as
| health insurance.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| it shouldn't be! From an ethical standpoint, housing should
| be guaranteed as a human right. Obviously if you're living in
| a mansion paid by an executive job and you get laid off you
| might have to downsize, but nobody should have to fear
| homelessness in the wealthiest countries on earth.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| As an American who has worked closely with the Federal
| government, I'm significantly more afraid of the idea that the
| government would be responsible for my medical care.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| That's not what anyone in the US is proposing though. Even
| medicare for all would still have the same private companies
| responsible for your care, they would just be paid by the
| federal government.
| dangerlibrary wrote:
| Medicare (single payer healthcare in the US for everyone over
| age 65) has a lower fraud rate than private insurance, serves
| millions of seniors and has for decades, and as an American
| there is a big discontinuity in actuarial data where your
| life expectancy literally goes _up_ at 65 because you get
| access to it.
|
| Maybe don't generalize from a few personal anecdotes to the
| functioning of the entire 4 million employee federal
| government?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Why would I care about the fraud rate of anything? I'm not
| a fraudster.
| dangerlibrary wrote:
| A common right-wing criticism of Medicare that I was
| trying to pre-empt is that it is rife with waste, fraud,
| and abuse.
|
| But to directly answer your question: if you want your
| dollars spent effectively, you should care about fraud
| rates in services you pay for (public or private).
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Alright, well I guess I'll take your comment as an
| attempt at a real conversation. But fraud in the medical
| industry isn't really something that crosses my mind, nor
| is it part of my concern about the government dictating
| my healthcare.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Medicare is very wasteful, but it doesn't matter why.
|
| The US government spends about as much per capita on
| healthcare as say France, but doesn't cover everybody and
| without part B is pretty incomplete.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Medicare not only covers the most at risk of our
| population, but is also by far the cheapest per capita
| beside medicaid. Yes, American health care is expensive,
| but medicare is the cheapest way to deliver it.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Why would I care if you were on fire, if I'm not on fire?
| [deleted]
| downrightmike wrote:
| And the management cost is only 1%, vs 17% for healthcare
| comapnies. A lot of waste that could be helping people.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I guess you should probably tell that to the _entire rest of
| the civilized world_ where state insurance seems to work
| quite well.
| jseban wrote:
| In Germany, health insurance is also tied to your employer.
| If you're a freelancer in Germany you pay out of your own
| pocket every month (around 500 bucks).
|
| It's a very similar system, the real difference is that
| it's illegal to not have insurance, so you are "forced" to
| always be insured, and unemployment support is more
| generous.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| What about minors and stay-at-home parents?
| jseban wrote:
| They are either included in your insurance (if you are
| employed and have public health insurance), or you'd have
| to add them to the insurance at extra cost, if you have
| private health insurance (for example freelancer).
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I have no problem believing that other nations governments
| do a great job. I also do not live there nor am I a citizen
| of those countries.
|
| American government is a uniquely incompetent form of
| government. Despite being one of the largest & most
| expensive governments it gets little to nothing done.
| Anything that is 'done' is often done far over the original
| projected budget.
| dlp211 wrote:
| You're conflating things like physical infrastructure and
| defense contracts with welfare. The welfare that we do
| give, for the most part, is exceptionally well run and
| effective.
| nmhancoc wrote:
| Why do you think this? Do you count social security as a
| welfare program and if so would you consider it
| exceptionally well run and effective?
| eropple wrote:
| _> American government is a uniquely incompetent form of
| government._
|
| Objectively untrue by any serious metric you'd like to go
| for, and in particular government-run health insurance
| programs (Medicare chief among them, but also the VA) are
| notably well-run and have low incidence of fraud while
| maintaining remarkably low overhead.
| retrac wrote:
| It already is extensively involved (FDA, etc.)
|
| Health insurance is one of the least concerning things for
| the government to get involved in with healthcare, really.
| Worst thing that happens is they don't insure you or the
| procedure, and you have to pay for it yourself somehow.
|
| I would question the viability of government for handling
| many things, but collecting taxes and distributing funds is
| one of the things they usually are pretty good at. Some of
| the leanest health insurers in the US in terms of overhead
| are public enterprises, e.g. the VA and various state
| assistance programs.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| doctors would be responsible for your medical care; taxes
| would foot the bill. The primary involvement of the
| government is the logistics involved in getting from A to B.
| Kranar wrote:
| Most of the world does not have government run health care,
| what they have is government run health insurance. Hospitals,
| doctors, health care providers in general are privately
| operated and anyone with the right credentials can go ahead
| and start their own practice/clinic, but the government
| provides single payer and universal health insurance.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| What issues with government-run health insurance are you
| worried about?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Just because health care is untethered from your employment
| status does not mean it is single payer or fully
| nationalized.
|
| See this plan for example:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act
|
| _It would transition away from employer-provided health
| insurance, to employer-subsidized insurance, having instead
| individuals choose their health care plan from state-approved
| private insurers. It sought to make the cost of health
| insurance more transparent to consumers, with the expectation
| being that this would increase market pressures to drive
| health insurance costs down._
| jdavis703 wrote:
| As people age they do get "free" insurance from Medicare. And
| if a white collar worker experiences downward mobility they can
| qualify for free or cheap insurance through the Medicaid and
| Affordable Care Act provisions.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Every single one of those programs comes with a laundry list
| of asterisks that make them far worse than any employer
| provided insurance I have ever had.
| depingus wrote:
| Also, medicare doesn't kick in until 65, which pretty much
| guarantees that most workers won't be able to retire until
| then; even if they're otherwise eligible / able.
| kache_ wrote:
| Actually, fuck you, got mine _is_ my attitude.
|
| It just turns out that getting mine involves helping others
| brodouevencode wrote:
| This is the point most people miss. People operate by
| incentives, mostly internal ones. _You_ go where _you_ derive
| the most value.
|
| He also lost me at `late-stage Capitalist` as if that were a
| real thing.
| kache_ wrote:
| You might have misunderstood me. I really meant that my
| incentives (which are 98% monetary) are well aligned with
| helping my peers. If they do well, we all elevate each other
| (I'm monetarily motivated to elevate my peers, through
| aligned incentives at work through good management and
| tending to my network)
|
| FWIW I'm intentional & clear to my peers about priorities.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I think I got you - a rising tide lifts all boats. And the
| same can be said about non-monetary values.
| bin_bash wrote:
| My reaction reading "Exit Interviews Are a Trap" is that the
| danger was overstated a tad which left too little room for the
| value of potentially benefitting people that are not yourself. To
| me it wasn't so much as "thinking about yourself" as it was
| "overstating the risks to yourself".
|
| But I think it's still the advice people need to hear despite
| that. I agree with your article that people have rose-colored
| glasses on when going into those meetings and speaking their
| mind.
|
| On a personal note: Jacob and I worked at a company that to me
| fits the description of the one in the article. I'm very curious
| if it's the same one.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I think there is a lot of us vs them in the world. We seem to
| have forgotten how to collaborate and cooperate. Unless you are
| in our tribe and you can only join the tribe after a trial by
| hazing. Then if you leave the tribe you are back to you and them
| again. Maybe that's the spirited world of capitalist competition
| but the reason we have companies and endeavor to solve humanity's
| problems.
| Epiphany21 wrote:
| >It seems to me the healthiest behavior falls somewhere in
| between. "Put your own mask on first, before helping others":
| look to help others, but do it from a place of safety. That's the
| general tone I aim for. You absolutely should try to look out for
| your colleagues - but not when it comes at great personal
| expense.
|
| Excellent advice. I also read the linked article about exit
| interviews and I concur they're a trap. I've dealt with
| vindictive former employers like that. Frankly, the easiest way
| to get over it is to pretend you never worked there and forget
| the place exists. When asked to explain the gap in my employment
| I just partially lie and say it was health related. Because of
| HIPAA in the US they can't pry too much, and as long as I can
| prove I'm healthy now and otherwise qualified they legally aren't
| supposed to deny me the job because of it.
| le-mark wrote:
| I've seen too many layoffs where critical people were fired, and
| experienced the resulting train wrecks first hand, to have any
| sympathy for companies or management in this regard. Team mates
| yes, psychotic dystopian organizations? Hell no!
| shakezula wrote:
| For real, I've seen companies fire some of their best and
| brightest, I'm talking top-tier academic talent in some cases,
| because they didn't think they were committing code frequently
| enough, only to wonder why their shit is on fire 6 months later
| and why the systems those same engineers maintained aren't able
| to produce new features as fast as before, messing up their
| delivery timelines, etc...
|
| Even funnier is when it's not a money issue, some middle
| manager just thought they could find better or wanted to make
| room for some of their own hires.
|
| In all of these cases, the company held "exit interviews", in
| some of these cases myself being one of the few or many others,
| and I have to say, there's nothing you can tell them that will
| benefit anyone, even your old co-workers who you're not trying
| to actively harm.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Wow. It's incredibly degrading to ask an employee to do an
| exit interview immediately after they were laid off. A
| company which does that deserves naming and shaming.
| anm89 wrote:
| Was really on board with everything he'd written in both articles
| so its sad to see it devolve into a "late stage captialism" rant.
|
| There is so much interesting critique to make of our current
| system, sad to see people going for these lazy, of the moment,
| arguments.
| Kylekramer wrote:
| This piece is mostly a response to how people here thought the
| author was too paranoid about being honest in an exit interview.
| And the answer is unionization?
|
| I 100% agree you should be a mercenary at work. Look out for
| number 1, HR isn't your friend, etc. But being so paranoid you
| can't even speak your mind in a nearly zero stakes situation of
| talking to your company before you leave speaks to a very
| negative outlook on work that seems honestly exhausting.
|
| And more to point, if you are a good mercenary, unionization only
| harms you.
| randrews wrote:
| One of the wisest pieces of career advice I ever heard was "you
| cannot change an organization by leaving it."
|
| It works both ways: if you're leaving in hopes that it'll be a
| wake-up call to management that a valuable person left, then it
| probably won't be. And, if you leave your workplace to improve
| your own life, you've also necessarily chosen not to try and
| improve the workplace. Leaving means giving up on trying to
| improve them.
|
| With that in mind, the exit interview isn't a trap so much as
| pointless: all you can do is hurt yourself here, you can have
| them remember you fondly or not, but you can't get them to change
| things in the exit interview.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. Things you say probably fall into a few categories.
|
| -- "So and so is toxic." Maybe they are. But this is the last
| sort of thing I'm going to get into during an exit interview
| because this is the sort of thing that could actually come back
| to bite you.
|
| -- "The company has gotten so big and bureaucratic/isn't doing
| well/etc." Don't you think they probably know?
|
| -- "I don't agree with the strategy any longer." Well, this
| might be a data point for some higher up you know well over a
| beer or whatever but probably isn't going to help anything in
| an exit interview.
| randrews wrote:
| Just come up with a socially-acceptable, PR-reason for
| leaving. Probably whatever you told the new job in their
| interview: "I'm leaving because of the commute," or "not
| enough potential for advancement," or something. The goal
| should be for you to part on good terms, not to take a last
| shot at them, which will only make them hate you.
| ghaff wrote:
| Or just some variant of "time for a change and this
| opportunity came along." Which whether or not it's the case
| with you, holds true for a lot of people who have been at a
| place for a while.
|
| >The goal should be for you to part on good terms, not to
| take a last shot at them, which will only make them hate
| you.
|
| Absolutely. Any satisfaction from bomb tossing in an exit
| interview or twitter thread is short-lived and the
| consequences may not be.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Take the salary you are getting at the new place and add
| 50k. "I'd love to stay but salary + raise for moving on +
| 50k is a life changing amount of money for me and my
| family." Worst case you get a counter offer and you can
| decline that with "Oh, sorry the new job just offered
| counter + 25k" again. Might give them pause to raise the
| wages of the people you are leaving behind.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Depends on the scenario. I know personally of several examples
| where key people who had little say in a company, but were key
| technical roles, simply resigned. Resigned publicly, and
| drained other talent with them. First it was the better talent
| who had the most options, and then it was everyone else, like
| rats off a sinking ship.
|
| This reminds me of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty by Albert
| Hirshchman [0]. The gist is that you have two options Voice or
| Exit. Voice means staying and fighting for things to change. It
| having any effect is predicated on the ability to Exit, to opt
| out of the situation and leave. Staying and fighting means you
| may push for change. But quitting and bringing others with you
| means that you may force change.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit%2C_Voice%2C_and_Loyalty
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| While that's true on an individual basis, I recently left a
| large company to join a FAANG and, as it turns out, so did
| quite a few other top performers shortly before me. By the time
| I left, there were definitely very senior folks asking
| questions about how to retain talent. I didn't even dislike the
| job - but the offers from FAANG were a good bit higher and came
| with some nice perks, so I'd actually think of going back if
| the message gets through that good technologists are worth
| paying for.
| syedkarim wrote:
| Why would you even want to change an organization?
| brokencode wrote:
| If you have a chance to make things better where you are,
| then it's good for everybody who works there. Also, you might
| not even have the option of getting a job elsewhere depending
| on where you live and what qualifications you have.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| if it was a bad place for other people to work at.
| randrews wrote:
| I've changed the place I work immensely in my three years
| here, and I think for the better. But at no point did I (or
| would I) threaten to leave if they didn't change... It just
| wouldn't work.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| If they didnt listen to you when you were there, why would they
| when you are leaving? That is what it all boils down to for me.
|
| If I didnt make issues clear while I was at a company then it
| was a failing on my part. If they didnt care or make any change
| when I shared about issues than its their fault.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| But you can change it if many many people decide not to work
| there and they can't hire a workforce.
| ihumanable wrote:
| I once left a company and half the staff followed, they closed
| their doors 2 months later.
|
| Apparently all the staff that actually knew how to layout the
| magazine, run the online content, and print the publications
| were important. A sales staff with no ad-space to sell can't do
| much.
| randrews wrote:
| ...Okay, yes, technically sometimes by leaving you can change
| an organization from "alive" to "dead." :) But that's
| probably not the change that would have kept you around,
| right?
| qq66 wrote:
| You cannot meaningfully change any organization without being
| one of the ~10 most powerful people in it.
| randrews wrote:
| Then if you really want them to change, you should try to
| become one of those powerful people... Not leave, and give up
| all power you have over them, is my point.
| qq66 wrote:
| Yes, but the chance of becoming one of the ~10 most
| powerful people at Apple or Goldman Sachs is
| extraordinarily small, and you pretty much know if you even
| have a shot at it after you've been working at the company
| for a year. If you've been there three years and haven't
| been promoted twice you have zero chance of ever being in
| the top 10.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Small aside, reading all these conversations: I just think a lot
| of static gets injected into these discussions about
| wage/employers/comp on HN because a large majority of the
| commenters here are either currently business owners, or
| founders, or trying to be either of those. But there is also a
| huge contingent of people who do regular waged labor here,
| whether FAANG or freelance. Beyond any political differences, I
| think this is the main operating tension here, when there is one.
|
| The very essence of this website is not amenable to _workers_
| coming together to discuss things like the propriety of
| employment-tied healthcare, or what we should expect from our
| managers, but mostly for aspiring and current startup leaders to,
| probably, discuss everything _but_ that stuff. It is a forum
| attached to a startup incubator after all, and I can 't imagine
| much VC money goes to those companies that are worried about
| their own labor related issues/externalities, at least those that
| they don't need to legally be worried about.
|
| I don't think anything is lost here, there is no problem per se,
| discussions are of course not being diminished by this ultimately
| demographic point; but just... if you come to these threads and
| feel a little disappointed that there is not a more universal
| solidarity towards the basic decency of the worker, just remember
| it is because not everyone here is a worker!
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I just think a lot of static gets injected into these
| discussions about wage/employers/comp on HN because a large
| majority of the commenters here are either currently business
| owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those
|
| I've been reading HN for years and I would assume 90% of the
| comment section or more is people who only want to be
| employees.
|
| I hate to say it, but HN isn't a great place for genuine
| startup, management, or operation advice. At all. Even product
| discussions are very customer-centric rather than company-
| centric, and companies will get roasted here for making good
| business decisions that don't directly benefit the users.
|
| For example, years ago the common refrain on HN was "charge
| more" and encouraged businesses to raise prices, fire
| problematic customers that weren't contributing value, and
| otherwise focus on the company's bottom line. Now whenever a
| company pulls a "charge more" and raises prices, reduces the
| free plan, or discontinues services for non-paying customers
| it's nothing but rage and pitchforks in the comment section.
|
| HN comments can still be useful, but it's definitely not a
| friendly place for actual founders and business owners making
| tough decisions.
| legitster wrote:
| > a large majority of the commenters here are either currently
| business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those
|
| A good point. And I think the reason this article is so fraught
| is that the writer is basically arguing even that if you met
| all of their demands and tried to make the world a better
| place, they will fundamentally remain hostile to you.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > a large majority of the commenters here are either currently
| business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those.
|
| I wonder to what extent this is true. I've been on HN several
| years without even knowing that it has anything to do with
| start up. A lot of contributors don't even work in tech.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Static gets injected because tech employees and to a slightly
| lesser extent engineering types in general like to think they
| are experts in everything.
|
| Say what you want about lawyers, they will say "not my area of
| expertise immma shut my mouth" at the drop of a hat.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| > a large majority of the commenters here are either currently
| business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those
|
| I'm pretty sure they are really a minority.
| rmason wrote:
| There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you
| could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a
| number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If
| the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would
| simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis
| that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a
| check. When there were tough economic times the employees would
| rally to help the company knowing in better times it would have
| their back.
|
| Then one of two things happened, the owner died with no capable
| heirs and the company was sold. Or after NAFTA the company wasn't
| competitive with low priced foreign labor and folded. If the
| company was sold a couple of MBA's came in to run the store and
| ruthlessly ran it exporting all the profits. Eventually the jobs
| would go overseas or to another part of America with lower wages
| like the South.
|
| Either way the people eventually lost their jobs and entire towns
| would collapse. I have seen it here in Michigan happen over the
| past forty years again and again.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _...you could give your all to a company._ "
|
| I believe the phrasing should be "had to give your all to a
| company." This is the time period when you would retire from
| the same company you started at, right? And if you had more
| than a few jobs on your resume (or the infamous missing time),
| you would have a hard time being hired because you were
| unreliable.
|
| You have a very rose-tinted view of the historical business
| world.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strikes#Twentieth_cent...
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| > You have a very rose-tinted view of the historical business
| world.
|
| Indeed. We're only a few generations removed from a time when
| we had companies enlisting private armed security forces and
| militias to violently break strikes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
| union_violence_in_the_Uni...
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn 't
| cover the company owner would write a check._
|
| Not that this didn't happen. But I should add that it wasn't
| any benevolent plan on the part of the owners that made things
| that way. It was a combination of the presence of New Deal,
| Unions, the threat of so-called-communism, etc and the lack of
| hyperdeveloped capital and commodity markets, that pushed
| things in that direction from the 1930s to the 1970s. And then
| what you describe pushed things the other way.
|
| The point is that same owner probably supported all the
| innovations, because they were about the owner having more
| flexibility. And by the token, you can't get back to this
| point, probably not ever but certainly not without outside
| intervention.
| nanidin wrote:
| These things still do happen - my SO was diagnosed with
| cancer in 2020. Her boss and the owner of the company
| arranged a $10k bonus, 6 additional weeks of PTO, and a 6
| month paid leave of absence once she was done with treatment.
|
| I do agree it isn't good to rely on the beneficence of
| overlords in general though, since they aren't obligated to
| continue to be beneficent.
| [deleted]
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you
| could give your all to a company.
|
| The problem with these advice columns is that they aren't
| saying "don't give your all to a company".
|
| They end up saying "your company is _the enemy_ ". The original
| article that this blog refers to was titled "Exit interviews
| are a trap", which many pointed out was a gross exaggeration.
| It assumes that every company performing an exit interview is
| doing something malicious, which is a ridiculous claim.
|
| Yes, it's possible that _some_ companies somewhere are using
| exit interviews as some sort of trap to get dirt or leverage
| over employees, and it 's also true that you shouldn't rush in
| and use it as an opportunity to complain about everyone you
| hated at the company. However, it's unreasonable to assume that
| it's a trap and that the company is interested in nothing more
| than revenge.
|
| That's the problem with these advice blogs. They cater to an
| idea that managers and HR are "the other", and once someone
| crosses the line to management or HR, they become evil and
| incapable of doing anything other than abusing you for no good
| reason.
|
| We should warn young people about abusive employers, but it's
| not helpful to teach them that employers are universally
| malicious.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << They end up saying "your company is the enemy".
|
| I read the article and I disagree. It does not say it either
| explicitly or implicitly. The article only urges the reader
| to think of the benefits to themselves first.. like a company
| would.
|
| I don't think it is an unreasonable approach.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I read the article and I disagree. It does not say it
| either explicitly or implicitly. The article only urges the
| reader to think of the benefits to themselves first.. like
| a company would.
|
| This article is a response to criticisms of a previous
| article where the author was definitely very mercenary and
| suggested the only purpose of the exit interview was to
| "trap" the employee into giving information that their
| managers could use against them later... somehow.
|
| It seems this article was meant to walk back some of the
| aggressiveness.
| taberiand wrote:
| I don't think that was the point of the exit interview
| article. My understanding is it was mostly that nothing
| you say will make any difference to the company, in all
| probability - so there is no need to go into the
| interview looking out for anyone but yourself.
|
| And definately do not go in to air your grievances.
|
| But I generally agree with the mercenary approach, my
| personal ethos when working for a company is - take as
| much money from them as possible and provide my best
| estimate of (money+some reasonable extra) back in value.
|
| The reasonable extra is an investment of time and effort
| with the goal of paying out as more money later.
| Ambolia wrote:
| I think the message is more "you shouldn't form loyalty ties
| with your company, because your company won't form them with
| you".
|
| Loyalty ties are still important, but not something you will
| find in most employer-employee relationships. Better to have
| a more "extractive" vision of companies and build loyalty
| ties somewhere else.
| kbenson wrote:
| How is that any different than some fiefdom ruled over by some
| noble? The whole point of democracy and elective government is
| that you can't rely on a system like that to be consistently
| good, whether it's the Duke's son squandering all the wealth
| and not listening to the people or a shift in management at the
| company. Just because _sometimes_ there were benevolent
| companies that decided to contribute to their communities doesn
| 't mean relying on that is a stable or desired outcome.
|
| Require employees be paid and treated fairly. Require companies
| pay their taxes. Tax employees on those fair wages. Use those
| taxes to pay for community needs. That's the goal. That's our
| responsibility as citizens of a democracy. Relinquishing these
| responsibilities to others because it seems easier is how we
| got where we are. Benevolent companies are just a precursor to
| abusive ones, so take away their ability to be abusive.
|
| If you relinquish your power to another, you should expect to
| be unhappy when their goals conflict with your own. Don't
| relinquish your power.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| The counter argument, is that relying on benevolent
| government to ensure a desired outcome is just as naive. In
| both cases, the holders of power are _people_. You 're just
| trading one person for another.
| danaris wrote:
| You're trading one person who has _no_ accountability to
| you in particular or the populace in general with a group
| of people who have at least _some_ meaningful
| accountability.
|
| That's not an even trade.
| hidudeurcool wrote:
| [deleted]
| foolinaround wrote:
| if it is a local government you directly vote for, that
| supports your argument.
|
| Often, it is layers of government, way over you, who have
| no clue of the local needs, and it gets much worse.
|
| Not only does it not know the local needs, it has no
| expertise in the subject area itself, and so an unelected
| unnamed bureaucracy rules the roost, and over time,
| gathers so much power, that regardless of which
| government comes to power, the true power rests with
| these bureacrats.
| endominus wrote:
| Or, looking at it another way, you're trading a person
| who has the ability to go against group consensus for the
| betterment of the community to a person who is highly
| incentivized to follow group consensus to maintain their
| power (in the ideal circumstances, of course; I'm
| ignoring the obvious failure case of corruption or other
| manipulations). When that group consensus aligns with
| your values, that could be good. When it does not - such
| as living as a political minority, or when the group
| consensus is harmful to you (take, for example,
| NIMBYism), that can be very bad. In both cases you will
| have no meaningful political representation. A Democrat
| voter in a very Republican county has no real voice in
| government affairs unless they expend an inordinate and
| frankly unreasonable amount of effort campaigning - and
| will likely suffer some social repercussions for doing
| so. The reason people keep coming back to the idea of
| autocracy - why companies are often so much more
| efficient than governments - is that a central decision-
| maker can (not always will!) more effectively direct
| group efforts and establish priorities.
|
| Democracy, as has been said, is the worst political
| system, except for all the others, but let's not lie to
| ourselves and ignore that in some contexts it is, in
| fact, strictly worse. The classic example, of course, is
| an army led by direct democracy. When a thing must get
| done, and damn the consequences, then there really is no
| substitute for autocracy. It's just unfortunate that the
| people who eventually end up as autocrats are rarely
| there to benefit the community. Building systems of
| accountability and responsibility through culture and
| non-systemic factors may better this (see, for example,
| the 85 terms of Roman dictators who did not try to seize
| any more power than they had been given by the Senate and
| in fact often returned their powers before their term was
| over), but culture-crafting to accomplish that is
| unfortunately beyond us at the moment.
| roenxi wrote:
| The two main differences:
|
| 1) Nobody pretends that business skills are especially
| hereditary. It is common for people to enter and exit the
| 'class' of business owner.
|
| 2) Success as as a business owner requires steady economic
| activity where people get what they want. Success as a noble
| ruling a fiefdom requires kneecapping anyone who challenges
| your god-given right to rule.
|
| One big observations:
|
| This is what US government spending has done in the last 2
| centuries: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0
| 0/Governme...
|
| That is a pretty solid contender for why people are less
| generous. I too would be investing more money in my community
| if I had more control of it. There is a pretty simple
| correlation between growth in government spending and a
| reduced ability of businesses to have a positive impact in
| their community.
|
| It isn't like people were relying on business then business
| owners got greedy. People took control away from businesses
| and the businesses stopped being in control.
| tr_user wrote:
| > 2) Success as as a business owner requires steady
| economic activity where people get what they want. Success
| as a noble ruling a fiefdom requires kneecapping anyone who
| challenges your god-given right to rule.
|
| take out lobbying and id agree
| andrepd wrote:
| >It is common for people to enter and exit the 'class' of
| business owner.
|
| Not particularly common. Social mobility is low even in
| developed countries, and getting lower.
| phailhaus wrote:
| > Benevolent companies are just a precursor to abusive ones
|
| Which is exactly what happened in their situation! They
| "hoped" that the company would just remain nice out of the
| goodness of their hearts, and did not make sure that those
| benefits were built into the system. Surprise: when ownership
| changed hands, the gravy train was over and the people had no
| actual infrastructure to sustain themselves.
| CPLX wrote:
| The vast majority of what makes society work is variations on
| the honor system. You can like it or hate it but it's better
| for everyone when we all agree on that.
| kbenson wrote:
| The honor system works when there are social checks and
| balances that can be applied to punish socially for going
| against what's acceptable.
|
| The whole point is that larger entities are shielded from
| some of these repercussions because of their size and
| power, and in some cases are almost completely untouchable
| by this system.
|
| The legal system is there to catch extreme cases the social
| system can't feasible handle well enough. We don't just let
| murderers go and ostracize them, we incarcerate them and
| forcibly remove their rights. Some things are too important
| to allow social norms to be the ultimate arbiter of.
| alexashka wrote:
| > Just because sometimes there were benevolent companies that
| decided to contribute to their communities doesn't mean
| relying on that is a stable or desired outcome.
|
| You are always going to rely on a few people, to do the right
| thing, which will become the wrong thing as life goes on,
| which will require a few more people, to do the right thing
| again, ad infinitum.
|
| That's just how this human thing works.
|
| Sometimes it's laws, other times it's breaking laws. Other
| times something else. It varies, there is no right answer
| forevermore, sorry.
|
| You can't solve hard problems of coordinating, pleasing and
| doing right by many people with conflicting interests by
| 'requiring' it.
|
| That's just childish thinking, sorry.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > Require employees be paid and treated fairly.
|
| The problem is this isn't well defined. Somewhere maybe in
| the 1980s greed became good and the responsibilities of
| corporations shifted from being a fictional person that could
| benefit society to a thing that was in it for shareholders
| only. This is a cultural shift borne by MBAs and thinktanks,
| not something that can be pinned down to a specific incident.
|
| As usual sunlight is the best disinfectant. It needs to be
| clear who owns what and who did what, and journalists need to
| go and look at cases where things are not in the interest of
| the community. There need to be records of whose interests
| are represented, who owns what, and who knows who.
| danaris wrote:
| > The problem is this isn't well defined.
|
| This is not entirely untrue, but it's not particularly
| supported by the rest of your post.
|
| Even if it's hard to _completely_ define what "paid and
| treated fairly" mean, it's crystal clear that a very large
| percentage of employers today don't meet even the lowest
| possible bar--that being a living wage and not _actively
| abusing_ the employees.
| guelo wrote:
| It worked and was stable for decades because unions ensured a
| balance of power between capital and labor. NAFTA and other
| pro-capital regulation broke that balance and shifted the
| balance towards capital.
| deltree7 wrote:
| which resulted in unprecedented global growth and reduction
| in poverty all around the globe.
|
| But, liberals don't want poor people in other countries to
| be uplifted. But they want to virtue signal that they do.
| kbenson wrote:
| Is the implication that conservatives supported NAFTA
| because it would reduce poverty around the world?
|
| It's probably better to assess peoples _motivations_ as
| they were at the time, not by what happened. A liberal
| would say they were focusing on the needs of the citizens
| of their own country and the problem in front of them. In
| any case, making this a case of liberals vs conservatives
| is silly, and to my view reductive.
|
| As a citizen of a democracy you have power. Don't
| abdicate your responsibility, and thus your power,
| because it's _easier_ to trust someone else handle it.
| nmhancoc wrote:
| There are libertarians (even then popular ones like
| Milton Friedman), that have explicitly argued for open
| borders and free trade on the basis of the welfare of non
| citizens. They (at least used to) have considerable
| purchase among conservatives.
|
| As a category I think it's also generally correct to say
| they'd argue for not yielding such power to any sort of
| decision makers, corporate or government, at all. Instead
| attempting to coordinate empowered individuals through
| coercive but distinctly non human forces like markets.
|
| Whether the libertarians are correct or not is one thing,
| but I don't think they've been hypocritical or
| inconsistent in their motivations.
| kbenson wrote:
| > There are libertarians (even then popular ones like
| Milton Friedman), that have explicitly argued for open
| borders and free trade on the basis of the welfare of non
| citizens.
|
| And there are liberal policy makers that look to increase
| protections for US citizens because they believe in
| negotiating from a position of moral authority, because
| without being able to practice what you preach you're
| easy to point out as hypocritical and ignore, or at a
| minimum it's easy to convince others to discount your
| position.
|
| The important thing is that neither side, as a whole, is
| choosing a position with the _intention_ of hurting local
| or remote peoples, and to various degrees both succeed
| and fail on various metrics. Neither side is inconsistent
| or hypocritical, they 're entirely consistent within
| their own ideology for the most part, it's just that when
| not within that ideology, it's easy to point at specifics
| and explain them in terms of someone else's ideology in a
| way that makes them seem inconsistent.
|
| The first thing I do when I see something lambasting a
| groups actions as hypocritical or stupid is to try to
| look into that group's own messaging on what they're
| doing and why. Sometimes I think their reasoning is
| flawed, but far more often than not there's a core of
| truth and consistency and truth to what they're
| attempting, even in those cases where I think they're
| working on flawed information.
|
| Before I was willing to call a large group of people
| hypocritical or inconsistent, I would try very hard to
| understand their reasoning and how that action it is
| being presented/sold within that group. The frisk of my
| own biases affecting my judgement is far to high
| otherwise.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| There are a lot of responses here discussing corporations vs.
| the government vs. the workers when it comes to social
| responsibility, but ignoring the fact that _everyone_ has
| become less socially responsible over the last 40 years.
|
| People in general just aren't community or socially minded in
| the way they used to be[1], and the bosses of companies or
| leaders of government are all people too.
|
| [1] To be specific, people are still charitable, but we don't
| have the same culture/institutions where everyone gives and
| takes in the same way we used to. Things like working bees,
| community sport, or even just general behaviours like helping
| out friends/family/neighbours are all getting rarer by the day.
| mcguire wrote:
| True, to an extent, although I suspect in large part due to
| increased mobility---family members used to live in the same
| general area.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Yep. I have no idea what it is, but it's clear there is a
| broader issue here than any reductive analysis will
| acknowledge. Same thing with NAFTA. It wasn't a single trade
| deal. The exact same changes happened with my dad's employer,
| but he was a plumber for Los Angeles County. They weren't and
| can't be offshored and they aren't owned by corporate raiders
| or soulless shareholders, yet exactly what happened to rust
| belt manufacturing companies happened to government-employed
| blue collar laborers in California.
| hobs wrote:
| Extremely true and it happened all over, my dad worked for a
| place for 40 years and the last 10 the MBAs moved in, they were
| profitable, had profit sharing, and a great company.
|
| Today its a footnote in a merger, place is closing down.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| NAFTA really destroyed the middle class and middle america.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I argue that there is a larger effect: Bill Clinton making
| the decision that the Democratic Party turn its back on
| blue collar workers and the middle of the country because
| just having Wall Street support would be sufficient to win
| elections. He was not wrong, but it has had a bad effect
| because the republicans also started to ignore the working
| class in favor of the financial class.
|
| Nationalism, something to be avoided, occurs when the
| underclass is not represented in a political system.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The middle class are the ones who are doing fine or great.
| It's the working class who got screwed over.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Working class _was_ middle class.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If you're middle class, with stocks, a professional job,
| your own house, you probably have been doing absolutely
| fine over the last couple of years. It's everyone else
| who's in trouble.
| willcipriano wrote:
| NAFTA was a symptom of globalism more generally. What we
| ended up with is selective globalism.
|
| Want to import cheaper drugs from Canada, that's illegal!
| Yeah sure they might have been produced in the US in the
| first place but it might be dangerous!
|
| Want to get a degree in a country where the price of
| education is lower? We won't honor it.
|
| Want to hire the services of a Kenyan clinic doctor who has
| experience in everything from treating runny noses to
| gunshot wounds? Illegal he's unqualified according the the
| national doctors union (AMA).
|
| Yeah you can get cheap crap from places that hire children
| to work in their factories, but the stuff that is really
| expensive we are 1700's Japan all of the sudden.
| melony wrote:
| What happened to "company towns bad"?
| mcguire wrote:
| Some companies did offer benefits to their town, for
| roughly the same reason the FAANGs offer free lunches and
| dinners. Kind of a double edge gift.
|
| I have no idea where the "companies used to take care of
| their employees" commenters are coming from. There's plenty
| of counterexamples.
|
| " _The toxicity of concentrated TEL was recognized early
| on, as lead had been recognized since the 19th century as a
| dangerous substance that could cause lead poisoning. In
| 1924, a public controversy arose over the "loony gas",
| after five[94] workers died, and many others were severely
| injured, in Standard Oil refineries in New Jersey.[95]
| There had also been a private controversy for two years
| prior to this controversy; several public health experts,
| including Alice Hamilton and Yandell Henderson, engaged
| Midgley and Kettering with letters warning of the dangers
| to public health.[17] After the death of the workers,
| dozens of newspapers reported on the issue.[96] The New
| York Times editorialized in 1924 that the deaths should not
| interfere with the production of more powerful fuel.[17]_"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Initial_contr
| ov...)
|
| See also radium, polyvinyl chloride, assorted mine
| disasters, etc.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| This is different from a company town which is created and
| governed by the employer, rather than, let's say, adopted
| by a predominant employer.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's been happening for much longer than NAFTA has been around.
| My hometown was known for building tires earlier in the 20th
| century and all that left in the early 80s and it never
| recovered.
|
| That said, before that happened the place was kind of a
| "company town" and the big manufacturers with all the money
| essentially ran the place. Only good news if you were in their
| favor. Lots of stories about being harassed by police if you
| were on their bad side. They were the kind of people that would
| have still been using child labor if it weren't outlawed.
| treis wrote:
| >It's been happening for much longer than NAFTA has been
| around. My hometown was known for building tires earlier in
| the 20th century and all that left in the early 80s and it
| never recovered.
|
| Also, the products they made were kind of crappy and
| expensive. It's very easy for a company like the one the GP
| described to stagnate and rot. Especially when unions get
| thrown into the mix.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >They were the kind of people that would have still been
| using child labor if it weren't outlawed.
|
| Allow me to remind you the manner in which child labor was
| outlawed:
|
| Industrialization progressed to a point where it was no
| longer economically viable except in a few tiny niches. It
| was then outlawed, to much back patting.
|
| Sure, some people would probably use it if it was viable, but
| don't pretend like it was some great accomplishment to outlaw
| it. It was basically a case of writing law after the market
| had made a decision.
| mcguire wrote:
| The neat thing about company towns was company stores, which
| were the only kind of stores in town. They were happy to sell
| you anything you wanted, on credit. The problem being that at
| the end of the month you owed more to the company store than
| what you got in your paycheck.
|
| You load 16 tons, what do you get?
|
| Another day older and deeper in debt
|
| St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
|
| I owe my soul to the company store
| spicyusername wrote:
| > I think many people, especially those newer to the working
| world, underestimate just how ruthless and sociopathic our late-
| stage Capitalist working conditions really are.
|
| That is really the issue in a nutshell.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I recently joined a big tech company. It was a long term project
| and something quite new to me as I switched career and was
| working in a different context. There are pros and cons, but it's
| a bit of a disappointment.
|
| I've got the impression very quickly that absolutely nobody cares
| about me in this company and that employees mostly don't love
| what they do. Specifically - There's a high turn-over - Everybody
| is focused on their performance, compensation and on improving
| evaluation metrics - Right after joining, I found the form
| explaining how to resign. Extremely easy. - People do get fired:
| including a skilled, friendly, colleague of mine (didn't meet
| expectations for two semesters). - Management knows how to keep
| the pressure high (in a friendly manner) - I can't like my
| project: there are too many things to do and broken things to
| fix, also no feeling of ownership, no incentives to refactor or
| redesign.
| ivoras wrote:
| > I think many people, especially those newer to the working
| world, underestimate just how ruthless and sociopathic our late-
| stage Capitalist working conditions really are. (I'm speaking
| mostly about the US here; that's what I know.) Most employees
| have essentially no workplace protections; in most states you can
| be fired for no reason and no notice.
|
| Non-US-dweller here: isn't that system entrenched since always? -
| i.e. that way of treating workers has been present in the US ever
| since there's been an "US"? Somehow Europeans managed to make
| life easier on themselves like mandatory vacation, a lot of sick
| leave, etc., but the US just didn't sign up for that.
| vmception wrote:
| Thank you for this! I have been raised in and appreciate a
| Machiavellian approach to society, especially upwards mobility.
|
| I have no sympathy for workplace advice that attempts to coddle
| someone who cannot psychologically operate in a world told more
| truthfully. "Mercenary" advice works in this environment, being
| more like a mercenary, a "sell sword", is a pragmatic approach
| than being gaslit by the company's "were a team" chant. This is
| why Netflix's older culture document resonated with so many
| people, its appealing! Intruiging! Truthful! Refreshing!
|
| Many of us can psychologically operate in a world so unforgiving
| and its a more effective tool for improving financial and
| healthcare stability, whether that includes an employer or
| [eventually] doesnt.
|
| There are selective pressures towards people that can perceive
| reality accurately and use it to their advantage. another
| population relies on not perceiving reality at all to maintain a
| view that makes them happy enough to tolerate the mundane, and
| another population perceives reality accurately and it
| exacerbates chemical imbalances in their mind such that their
| chronic depression keeps them useless to society, which by
| definition means selective pressures against those traits.
| danuker wrote:
| Those who need coddling are also the ones most affected by
| gaslighting.
| uoaei wrote:
| I see only a complete rejection of the collaborative
| organization that is society, which provided literally
| everything that gave you the opportunities and outcomes you now
| enjoy. And now you brag about enriching yourself beyond your
| share, occupying space where others could make use of those
| opportunities, reducing the opportunities for everyone in the
| future.
|
| Society improves when more people have more chances to
| contribute positively. There is so much underutilized talent
| out there. To block off those opportunities hampers the
| development of society writ large.
|
| Still have an obsessive attachment to acting purely selfishly?
| Then think of it like this: acting to close off others'
| opportunities prevents them from inventing and producing things
| that you could benefit from. Would you act differently knowing
| that giving someone else a chance may lead to the development
| of a medicine that will save your life a few years down the
| road?
|
| Also, that last paragraph makes me think you don't really
| interact with real human beings that often.
| vmception wrote:
| Society is collaborative, the private sector of society is
| not. Its a flawed incentive model that most of society
| periodically navigates through. These are different things
| than society as a whole. It is aspirational to want something
| else and be in an environment to rely on different advice.
| You are either conflating society and the private sector or
| projecting something I have no idea about. (I dont really
| understand who the "you shutting off opportunities" is about.
| What specific thing am I doing exactly?)
| uoaei wrote:
| Innovation rate in a society is roughly proportional to the
| branching factor of the possible futures that that society
| engenders. One way to reduce the branching factor is to
| consume (or store) resources that others may use to
| innovate.
|
| "Taking up space" in society corresponds to collecting and
| storing resources beyond the share which makes you
| productive, such that an opportunity cost is incurred.
| Insofar as there is a teleology to capitalist economic
| organization, it does not include a distribution of
| resources which optimizes opportunities. The profit motive
| ensures this.
|
| Delineating the private sector from society at large is an
| artificial distinction that does not reflect the material
| realities surrounding resource distribution and
| utilization. We are all part of one big network, and the
| boundaries described above are not obeyed by the chaos of
| self-emergent organization at these scales.
| vmception wrote:
| The for-profit corporation can survive with "mercenaries"
| coming and going, compared to the risk averse co-
| dependent people married to their fake corporation
| family, the largest and most profitable ones have very
| high actual and expected attrition, tech workers finally
| normalizing 1-2 year stints and being okay professionally
| for the next stint.
|
| For the people who don't know they can operate this way,
| now they have advice on how to.
|
| Society wont be worse off because more employees are
| looking out for themselves instead of falling for company
| rhetoric. Just as the article said, if you aspire for
| something else, support a unionization effort.
| uoaei wrote:
| You seem to be implying that there is only one
| alternative to the current situation: that if you don't
| want to be a ruthless mercenary the only alternative is
| to become a sycophant, a simp for the corporation which
| pays your bills. How unimaginative.
|
| Unions are necessary but insufficient. Why is there no
| discussion about further alternatives in your replies?
| Cooperative ownership structures are prevalent and
| successful by multiple metrics. Do you wish to limit the
| conversation to only those defensible by your
| preconceptions?
| vmception wrote:
| > Why is there no discussion about further alternatives
| in your replies? Cooperative ownership structures are
| prevalent and successful by multiple metrics. Do you wish
| to limit the conversation to only those defensible by
| your preconceptions?
|
| Sure, no, I don't like false dilemmas and am only
| pointing out that everything you're talking about is
| _aspirational_. It means, it doesn 't currently exist in
| the US in any reliable fashion so a current employee that
| isn't a labor rights activist cannot assume they'll
| encounter those environments.
|
| I'm a fan of things I've seen in developed countries,
| such as the employee union having a board seat by law,
| which also relies on such union existing, this thread
| isn't about those structures.
|
| In the present, in the US, the dichotomy you summarized
| is what I perceive.
| twblalock wrote:
| Seems like you've dug deep into the lexicon of grad-
| school postmodernism without saying anything that makes
| any sense.
| uoaei wrote:
| I invite you to cite one postmodern philosopher who has
| used the phrase "branching factor". I am a systems
| theorist by training.
| twblalock wrote:
| Society benefits when the mercenary and competitive urges of
| high achievers are channeled rather than opposed. That's the
| secret behind the success of modern market economies, and the
| alternatives are clearly worse for everyone in a society,
| including the poor.
|
| Even the Nordic so-called "socialist" countries are actually
| market economies, with private ownership of the means of
| production, and they channel the results of capitalism rather
| than opposing it. They channel it into a somewhat larger
| safety net than the USA has, but fundamentally they are doing
| the same thing, because they know that's the only approach
| that really brings prosperity to a society.
|
| This not a zero-sum game either. Underutilized talent now has
| more opportunities to be recognized and contribute than ever
| before. One person's success does not prevent another
| person's success. We are not just dividing up a pie -- we are
| growing the pie too. Who is closing off other's opportunities
| by pursuing their own success?
| uoaei wrote:
| > Society benefits when the mercenary and competitive urges
| of high achievers are channeled rather than opposed. That's
| the secret behind the success of modern market economies...
|
| Big statement, unsubstantiated.
|
| > the alternatives are clearly worse for everyone in a
| society, including the poor.
|
| Big statement, unsubstantiated.
|
| > they channel the results of capitalism rather than
| opposing it
|
| This perspective is conspicuously self-serving, but it
| doesn't seem to be a very clear or elucidating one. What
| parts of capitalism are being "channeled"? What outcomes
| are you referring to?
|
| Certainly the poor don't see benefits except where the rich
| are forced to pay back into public funds for
| redistribution. It seems to me that the results of
| capitalism are _tempered_ by more regulated economies,
| considering the natural end state of capitalist pursuit is
| feudalism if left unchecked. The profit motive guarantees
| this.
|
| > that's the only approach that really brings prosperity to
| a society
|
| This was the popular narrative for describing the failings
| of Soviet-style communism re: economy. But it stinks of
| essentialism. Actually, your whole argument does. The
| reason the CCCP crashed has been studied in more detail now
| that we have the benefit of hindsight. The rest of the
| global economy was capitalist, and furthermore, was shaped
| and organized by a select few power players to engineer the
| demise of CCCP by creating conditions of brittleness, so
| that relatively small disruptions (eg localized famines)
| would cause knock-on effects. There is a direct throughline
| to today: see all the talk of sanctions vs "the West's"
| enemies, which amounts to nothing more than exactly what is
| described above.
|
| > One person's success does not prevent another person's
| success.
|
| An unqualified notion of "success" seems to be used here.
| It is not clear even what you think is "success". Seems to
| be some abstract Enlightenment-style ideal that has a
| murky-at-best connection to material reality.
|
| One person's _consumption_ prevents another person 's
| _consumption_ because we are limited by the law of
| conservation of mass-energy. One must consume to innovate.
| Hoarding and asymmetric investment limit the distribution
| of these resources to those who may be able to utilize them
| more effectively, because they can contribute their own IP.
| This, in the language of basic economics, is called an
| opportunity cost, and the point of economies (insofar as
| there is a point) is to minimize that cost. Seems pretty
| obvious to me, interacting with people from varying levels
| of class and societal rank, that this cost is harming our
| progress.
|
| To think we have reached any kind of pinnacle of societal
| organization demonstrates a depressing lack of imagination.
| Conservative philosophy has a long way to go to properly
| argue its side -- and unfortunately for conservatives the
| work done to advance systems science over the last couple
| decades has done a lot to tear down the fundamental tenets
| thereof.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > Would you act differently knowing that giving someone else
| a chance may lead to the development of a medicine that will
| save your life a few years down the road?
|
| A counterargument to this is that I'd personally pick today
| over tomorrow almost every time. So yes, not gambling on the
| future, but doing what's right for yourself today is +ev.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Eh, as much as I would like to be able to say that the advice is
| too 'mercenary', it is not. It is by far the most rational piece
| I have read on the matter.
|
| In my little corner of the world, a good chunk of the team quit
| over the past few weeks leaving a skeleton crew. I know for a
| fact that each and every one of those, who quit indicated very
| clearly why they quit ( money, benefits, limited chance of
| promotion ). To the best of my knowledge, nothing changed ( we
| didn't suddenly get a better working environment )..and,
| realistically, this is the best case scenario: nothing changes.
|
| If anything,as employees we are not being mercenary enough. All
| the niceties employers enjoyed worked only one way..
| at_a_remove wrote:
| If anything, it isn't cut-throat enough.
|
| I worked in academia for quite some time, and you would think,
| "Well, this ought to be less of the kind of horror you can get in
| the private sector," but no. It was everything you could expect
| from any other environment.
|
| I didn't comment in the exit interview thread, but I absolutely
| _chortled_ inside when my direct manager was present for my last
| exit interview -- kind of a big no-no -- but these folks just
| lack any kind of shame. You will hear the same "A five is given
| for outstanding performance ... WORDS ... but we will never give
| fives ... MORE WORDS ... it is expected that everyone try for
| outstanding performance" doublethink. Watching a sixty-three year
| old employee get shuffled off despite decades of loyal work, well
| ...
|
| Working for family? Even worse.
|
| Currently, I expect any employer to sell me to the knackers for a
| Jell-O cup later on and not feel the least bit bad about it.
| Assume that at least the first couple levels of management are
| dead-eyed lizard people wearing human costumes and you'll
| probably be safer.
|
| Honestly, start gathering dirt on day number one. It goes bad
| after a while (but doesn't decay with the rapidity that gratitude
| does), so make sure to update your map of where the bodies are
| buried. Keep your resume fresh. Make sure you can put the hurt on
| someone if you suddenly get the boot, fairly or not. You don't
| have to _use_ any of this, but it is nice to have on hand when
| you find a knife in your back.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| I live and work in countries with good social security nets and
| less overtly dystopian work conditions (not perfect of course). I
| still agree with his advice. Work is a game we play for money. No
| more real than a choreographed dance. Companies do not really
| care for you, that should not need stating. Your coworkers might,
| and if the ones you're friendly with are high up or influential,
| things might seem like a family. It's actually an in-group.
|
| Don't waste your time trying to be collectivist in an inherently
| individualistic system. You need to play the game by its rules if
| you want any results. And less stress.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I hope we can return to the social democracy of before the 1980s
| soon in the West. Austerity politics hurt everybody except the
| ultra-wealthy.
| fleddr wrote:
| The apology is unneeded.
|
| Not telling the entire truth during the very last phase of
| employment, the exit interview, is but a drip in a bucket of lies
| that is called employment.
|
| You lied to get in. By emphasizing your strengths and hiding your
| weaknesses. The employer did the same thing.
|
| You lie constantly about the work or its conditions being fine,
| as complaining about it is kind of a taboo. You lie to your peers
| and superiors all the time when they do or say things you
| disagree with, especially when the cost of conflict is too high.
|
| You lie about the company drink being so much fun, whilst you
| really don't want to go. You lie about how much effort that task
| really costs, as you want to build in some security. You lie
| about how much time you're not really working.
|
| You lie about being a well behaved human being whilst the minute
| you arrive home, you burp, fart and swear all over the place.
|
| ...yet you won't at your mother-in-law.
|
| Conclusion: any human relation that is involuntary (you do not
| directly pick your manager, colleagues or mother-in-law) is
| diplomatic, which is a fancy word for not genuine. You keep up
| appearances and tell people what they want to hear, because the
| downside of the truth is too large.
|
| So silence or lying is fine. Unless some massive humanitarian
| thing is at stake based on your input, which I figure to be rare.
| Alternatively, one can learn how to criticize in a non-damaging
| way.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| From an employee's standpoint it's simple: You should do every
| possible thing to put your interests and those of your family or
| dependents first and foremost above all else, especially your
| job. Once you've done this to the best of your abilities, you
| politely give the company or companies you work for what you can
| based on how reasonably they're compensating you, while never
| being ashamed of taking a mercenary option as soon as it seems
| necessary.
|
| Taking all questions of labor law fairness aside (you won't solve
| them alone in a workplace anyway), reality is what it is and
| while it's still imperfect, hedge yourself against those
| imperfections to your own benefit as well as you can, legally.
|
| Secondly, companies that vomit platitudes about "we're all a
| family here" and "we look out for each other" are by default
| spewing lying, superficial PR bullshit. They should never be
| trusted for a second on such nonsense unless you've secured a
| written contract of provisions for how you'll be treated, have
| your healthcare taken care of or be compensated if dismissed for
| any reason. If you can't secure those things, then tread
| carefully and keep hedging.
|
| edit: couple extra words.
| charbuff wrote:
| I can imagine a lot of new graduates having trouble with this:
|
| > I think many people, especially those newer to the working
| world, underestimate just how ruthless and sociopathic our late-
| stage Capitalist working conditions really are [...] I'd love to
| live in a world where less mercenary advice wasn't dangerous, but
| that's not our world.
| etempleton wrote:
| If you are lucky you will land in a place that has empathy and
| you will work with people whom you can trust, but those places
| are hard to find and even in the best places there will be
| ruthless actors.
|
| If you are going to say something on exit it is best to say it
| to someone who has power who you trust. If you have access to a
| VP or CEO, for example. HR's job is to quickly make problems go
| away and minimize risk to to the company. Them passing along
| helpful information to impact change is the opposite of making
| something go away, it creates a complication. No one hires HR
| people to create complications.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I'm 46 and never in my whole career have working conditions
| been less ruthless nor less sociopathic than they are today.
| I'm constantly barraged with acceptance training, "human
| connection" training and calls where the expectation is to
| "share and connect" by telling the group something personal.
| I'm not with a bunch of kids either, these are all upper
| management very high 6 figure types.
|
| I don't want to be one of those "back in my day" types but it
| use to be up-or-out. You came in at the bottom and either went
| up the corporate ladder at the proper rate or you were fired.
| That was sociopathic and bread ruthlessness in the workforce.
| Today it is touchy feely to the point of being confusing on
| what the actual expectations of the job are.
| arghnoname wrote:
| Do you think this is real though? I always put this in the
| bucket of "HR is my friend" level of lying. When it comes
| down to brass tack, outside of a few virtue signalers, I
| think we'll be fed to the wolves the minute it is expedient
| to do so.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _I 'm constantly barraged with acceptance training, "human
| connection" training and calls where the expectation is to
| "share and connect" by telling the group something personal_
|
| We had a "leadership training" thing a few weeks back where
| one of the segments involved a breakout session with a random
| coworker who you may or may not already know, with the
| expectation that you share something deep and revealing
| you've never told anyone else.
|
| The person I got paired up with and I were both incredulous
| about the exercise, specifically the "something you've never
| told anyone else" part, and shared a couple of surface level
| phobias "I'm afraid of spiders", I told him. He told me he
| was scared of sharks. We spent the remaining 5 minutes of our
| breakout talking about local sports.
|
| Companies need to back the hell off with this stuff. I pay a
| therapist for those kinds of conversations.
|
| I'm fine being friendly and even making friends with my
| coworkers over drinks for a little bit work before we all go
| home, if it happens organically and in a way where people get
| to _choose_ their level of interaction and disclosure about
| their personal lives, but a lot of this "top down
| camaraderie/management facilitated team building" going
| around feels like a toddler smashing a Barbie and Ken doll
| together making smooching noises at best, at worst it feels
| like mommy and daddy making play dates.
| arghnoname wrote:
| I know someone who had a similar event happen in training,
| except the deep and dark secrets were meant to be shared
| among a group of six or seven. People shared actual deep
| and dark secrets; crying was involved. My friend who told
| me about this was deeply uncomfortable with the whole
| affair and found it bizarre and cultish, but of course,
| they went along with it and made up some semi-plausible
| thing to be a "team player." Amusingly enough, IIRC, it was
| also a phobia.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I wonder if phobias are just easier to share because some
| of the more common ones most of us share are ones we know
| are probably not very rational but still powerfully held.
|
| Like my other phobia...clowns.
|
| Look, I know. Okay, I know. But still.
| deckard1 wrote:
| I always dread the "two truths and a lie" game, usually
| performed in front of a large group of people you don't
| know. It's the ultimate trap. Either come up with two
| things that sound impressive to strangers, or risk being
| seen as a bore. Plus you'll never beat Todd who went before
| you and is literally the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in
| the World. Fuck you Todd.
| denial wrote:
| I prefer to give two vacuous truths which contradict each
| other and a lie. That's at least more fun.
| frostburg wrote:
| The things that you mention are performative. You're supposed
| to pretend to believe in them while acting a in deniably
| ruthless way.
| nmhancoc wrote:
| I'd like to agree with the latter part of this sentiment as a
| young person who didn't experience any other times of working
| to which you refer.
|
| I got fed this narrative that the corporate environment was
| ruthless and cutthroat, but I found it highly resistant to
| even profitable, labor-saving new ideas or practices in favor
| of ego management, image management, and non disruption.
|
| Maybe it's a false expectation on my part, but I would have
| at least expected ruthless people to be pragmatic and open
| minded toward things which may be of benefit. That's not to
| say they're without fault or downside, but that's certainly
| not generally characteristic of the corporate environment
| I've experienced.
|
| OTOH, I've found smaller employers with a more direct
| connection to market forces much better in this regard. I
| don't think those two things are unrelated.
| blihp wrote:
| That's OK, they'll refer back to posts like this if[1] they get
| burned once or twice. I think its the sort of thing most have
| to experience themselves before they believe it rather than
| accepting it's true up front.
|
| [1] Who knows, maybe they'll be one of the lucky few who don't
| get burned.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| At the end of his book AMP it up, Frank Slootman provides some
| career tips. The things he focuses on. 1. Join a company that's
| growing and moving up. He talks about getting in the elevator by
| joining the right company. And how everyone during certain years
| at Microsoft did well (just one example). 2. Next he recommends
| ignoring compensation in the early days of your career.
|
| I see this at my company sometimes. Mid level engineer will
| switch from Stream to Google and be surprised that the comp is
| higher. Of course it's higher, what you're sacrificing is career
| growth. Early on in your career thats usually not the right move.
| (of course some people crush it at google. google is probably not
| the best example, while slower than a fast growing startup its
| still doing well. Someone else joined the FT or some public
| companies that literally don't grow.
|
| https://www.saastr.com/why-if-you-quit-every-year-you-wont-m...
|
| If you care about total comp the best options are.A. Grow your
| expertise so that you can join a FAANG company at a director
| level. B. Join a series A/B company and hope you can impact it
| enough to reach a good outcome.
|
| The other thing people dont get it is that you're not negotiating
| salary once. You have to continue to deliver that value to the
| company. So if you sell yourself really well, get a massive
| salary, at some point the company will notice that you're not
| driving that much value. As an example see the people who joined
| Fast. I'd look for companies that share their revenue numbers
| with their team and are transparent.
|
| Sometimes companies that pay the best are also under water in
| their stock options since they raised at a 200x revenue
| valuation. It gives them a lot of resources to pay top dollar,
| but its also more similar to joining a company where you don't
| get upside.
|
| Not to be misunderstood, in general it's good to take the higher
| salary. Some people just don't negotiate well and some companies
| take advantage of that. (Still many engineers in the EU at <40k).
| You just want to make sure you understand the full picture and
| not focus only on salary.
| bin_bash wrote:
| If it's early in your career (<10 years) I think the best
| possible thing you could be doing for your career is SWE at a
| FAANG. You're too young to move into management (IMO) and
| nothing will give you that level of resume credential. The real
| life experience of working on big projects is important too.
|
| After that I think you have a point. I work at a FAANG as a SWE
| (15 YOE) and want to move into management, but it requires a
| SWE promotion first to staff engineer I don't think I'm capable
| of getting at this company. (I've been a staff engineer at a
| previous firm though).
|
| I could switch to a lower tier company and definitely find a
| way to move into management and develop my career on that
| ladder but I would likely have to take a big pay cut. I think
| the trouble is people with 10+ years of experience are like me
| and have families and a mortgage. It's just not an option to
| make less for me even if the future was bright.
|
| EDIT: As someone pointed out, 10 years entirely in FAANG is
| probably not as good as a varied career that _includes_ FAANG.
| dasil003 wrote:
| You are absolutely right in terms of resume credential, but
| in terms of engineering experience I don't think it's so cut
| and dried. The ability to work on large systems, and access
| to mentorship is unparalleled, but you also miss out on end-
| to-end perspective and how to focus on solving the most
| critical problem in the simplest way. FAANG has some of the
| best talent in the world (if you're lucky enough to be able
| to work with them), but it is also has many smart but
| unmotivated clock punchers who would struggle to execute
| without the world-class tooling and resources that they take
| for granted.
|
| Working for a smaller, fast-growing company will give you
| faster feedback loops, and a closer connection to the
| business that will give you a broader perspective on what is
| truly necessary vs FAANG best practices for scale. Ironically
| this makes you more fit for leadership because you can then
| see patterns which repeat themselves in all companies, but
| are obfuscated by specialization and huge org sizes. By
| contrast, if you join a big company you'll get better at the
| corporate jargon and cultural games, but you won't have the
| same visceral understanding of what really matters and why.
| leetcrew wrote:
| 10 years is also (very roughly) the historical average
| doubling time for an investment in the s&p 500. one way to
| look at that is for every $1 you didn't save at age 25 while
| building experience at a "scrappy" startup, you need to save
| $2 at age 35 just to break even on retirement. that's
| probably not infeasible; you don't have to double your salary
| to double your savings. but it's a significant amount of drag
| you need to overcome for the "trade comp for career growth"
| advice to work out.
| [deleted]
| sgustard wrote:
| For much of the past century, the best career advice in the
| world was: go to IBM, General Motors, General Electric. Climb
| the ladder for a few decades, get a pension, retire at the
| top 1% of the income pyramid. That worked great until it
| didn't, and millions of people got left with no savings or
| useful job skills.
|
| Today's world offers so many more paths for talented
| builders, beyond joining the currently hot company as a cog
| in the giant ad-tech machine and hoping for the best. As a
| data point, go read last week's article on how Sidekiq has
| made $13 million for a solo developer.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I've published 2 books, created a significant open source
| project, and was staff engineer at a Fortune 50 company.
| Was reasonably well known as a blogger and speaker in the
| JS community too. (I've given up on OSS since FAANG)
|
| But you know how I'll be introduced? They'll say I was "ex-
| FAANG". None of that other stuff matters in comparison.
|
| I'm not at all saying it's the only path, I'm saying it's
| the best and certainly most reliable one.
| nostrademons wrote:
| "Of course it's higher, what you're sacrificing is career
| growth. Early on in your career thats usually not the right
| move."
|
| I heard that a lot early in my career, having started out in
| startups. To some extent it's true for the first ~4 years: you
| gain a lot more background knowledge, problem solving ability,
| and confidence by wearing lots of hats and owning lots of
| problems end-to-end.
|
| But I think you have to be realistic about how experience
| transfers. FAANG-level companies typically discount basically
| _all_ experience in startups and small businesses they haven 't
| heard of. You might be a senior developer in a small startup,
| but you'll get downleveled to an L3 new grad level at a FAANG.
| And you'll make more money, so they figure you'll take it. Or
| you might be a C-suite founder and (assuming you still have
| your technical chops) end up as a L6 eng manager (again,
| probably with better comp, assuming your founder stock isn't
| going up).
|
| I've never once seen a Director hired from the outside without
| a.) coming from a Director position at a peer company, eg.
| Facebook -> Google or b.) having enough money that they don't
| need to work ever again. By far most Directors at FAANGs are
| promoted from within after delivering a big win for the
| company; the next largest category is founders whose startup is
| acquired; following that are Directors jumping from a peer
| company; and finally there are former founders and executives
| that are retired or hanging out as an EIR at a VC firm waiting
| for their next gig.
| evilotto wrote:
| Being a mercenary is great if what makes you happy is being a
| mercenary. The problem is that mercenaries excel at destroying
| things and getting paid for it, not at creating things.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| _The urge to destroy is also a creative urge._
| wnolens wrote:
| If you don't like something about your job/org, speak up and let
| management know.
|
| If nothing happens, try to spearhead some change. It's your job!
| Sometimes the lower levels can see value that upper levels can't.
|
| If you can't change it, cope.
|
| If you can't cope, then leave.
|
| Anything you want to say in an exit interview, you should have
| spoken up about already in step 1.
|
| If there's something you haven't spoken up about, then it's
| probably for a reason. Just leave it. No need to be a martyr for
| your ex-colleagues, as it's only perceived. You have no idea the
| complexities of running a multi billion dollar tech organization.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Nice succinct todo/checklist.
| bsuvc wrote:
| > try to spearhead some change. It's your job!
|
| To an extent. The key is to have a limit.
|
| Depending on the organization and your position in it, it can
| take a tremendous amount of mental energy and effort to
| accomplish anything, having a negative effect on your mental
| and physical health. Is that cost worth fixing something that
| doesn't even belong to you?
|
| I've learned this lesson the hard way, both successfully and
| unsuccessfully. Now I have a much lower threshold of what
| effort I am willing to exert to help a company change.
| genis wrote:
| a
| lordnacho wrote:
| Tit for tat seems to be the strategy.
|
| If the company treats you well, treat them well. If it treats you
| and others poorly, return the favor.
| phphphphp wrote:
| I have no problem with mercenary advice, in fact I give it myself
| often: most relationships with a company are adversarial and it's
| fine to operate on that basis... but I felt that the exit
| interview article was wrong: I've personally benefited from
| attending exit interviews and never incurred any costs because of
| one, and so from a purely selfish point of view, it makes
| complete sense to attend an exit interview. There's a lot of
| value in relationships.
| farmerstan wrote:
| I gave some very honest feedback during my exit interview at
| Yahoo when I left, and I was blacklisted. So from then on I never
| ever gave exit interview feedback ever. It's not worth it.
| legitster wrote:
| Semi-related, I hate the term "late-stage capitalism". It was
| invented by a Nazi over 120 years ago and in the meantime has
| constantly been applied to whatever the new thing is. And the
| implication is awful - "things suck and it's not my
| responsibility to make things better besides waiting for the
| revolution".
|
| Please stop using this phrase unless you want to further alienate
| me from the position you are trying to make.
| waylandsmithers wrote:
| I've had some interesting experiences with exit interviews but
| generally agree with the canned politically friendly response
| strategy, "I'm just moving on; need to make the best decision for
| me and my family" etc. If you have some angry criticism about
| why, personally I think it's one of those situations where you
| should write a letter expressing those feelings but not send it.
|
| One I did with BigCo I was leaving was all just box checking
| yes/no questions like, Are you leaving because you felt
| discriminated against, are you leaving because you were harassed,
| etc.
|
| During another one the HR person asks me, "At what point did you
| realize you had no future here?"
|
| And at my most recent one I was asked if the client I was
| assigned to had anything to do with it, and I said yes. They were
| actually working on ending the relationship as far as I know.
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not inclined to do an exit interview because I've likely
| already expressed my opinions.
|
| I do think the "the company doesn't care about you" type advice
| does require some nuance.
|
| Different companies make different choices and just because
| someone moves from mega corporation to mega corp doesn't mean you
| shouldn't trust anyone...
|
| There's space in between giving your entire self to a company and
| imagining everyone is out to get you.
|
| I've worked with folks who are absolutely obsessed with
| protecting themselves from being stomped on by a company, and
| nobody wanted to work with people who ooze cynicism like that /
| talk about taking a better job all the time . They of course
| interpret the results (not being put on some team or another)
| that as being punished because they "know" / are willing to
| express what they thin the truth is...
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > I do think the "the company doesn't care about you" type
| advice does require some nuance.
|
| Probably something like: The company doesn't care about you
| regardless of the individuals at the company who might care
| about you. (Unless one of those individuals is the CEO, I
| guess. More nuance!)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| sanderjd wrote:
| One of the reasons I left a BigCo is the pervasive cynicism. I
| really had trouble finding it satisfying to work in an
| environment where cynicism was so deep and widespread but
| nobody wanted to leave because of the advantages (like good pay
| and good tooling). It just felt stifling after awhile.
| duxup wrote:
| > but nobody wanted to leave because of the advantages
|
| The cynical approach does seem to lead people to ... the
| places that make them cynical.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Well put.
| noncoml wrote:
| My experiences while at Cisco about 4-5 years ago:
|
| 1st experience: Told my boss I am leaving. My boss's boss calls
| me in a room , tells me he has some great projects for me and
| that we will work together on them. I agree. Turns out it was
| his last day!
|
| 2nd experience: Similar situation, told my boss I am going to a
| startup. Boss's boss calls me and gives me a lecture about how
| it is a bad idea to go to a startup. I leave. A few weeks later
| I find out he also left for a startup.
|
| Some time later I met the boss from the 1st experience and he
| told me "sorry, but it was not personal. I was just doing my
| job"
|
| If you are in a megacorp your job should be to extract as much
| money as possible while doing as little work as possible.
| Because your boss's job is exactly the opposite.
|
| Your coworkers are not out to get you but your managers are.
| Don't fucking ever trust them.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| It's wild to me that those managers would have been loyal
| enough to the company to behave that way toward you when not
| only were they themselves on the way out the door, but the
| hypocrisy of it would have been instantly obvious, on a
| timespan of days, not even months or years.
|
| My impression is that in the modern world, most workers
| consider their personal network to be of _much_ greater value
| than any ways that their current employer could reward them
| for "loyalty". Having been a manager and had people quit on
| me, my response has always been pretty candid and along the
| lines of, "yeah, obviously this is tough for me as I've
| really valued your contributions over the time we've worked
| together. However, you've been clear about your expectations
| as far as comp/projects/tech/mentorship/career/whatever, and
| although we've tried to do what we can, I can understand that
| the role is no longer a great fit for you, so the decision to
| move on makes perfect sense. Best wishes with your next gig."
| tomerv wrote:
| I can't imagine what would cause a person to act like that,
| and on his last day/week of work! Some kind of psycopathy?
| abraae wrote:
| Someone who doesn't want a bad reference themselves, for
| "encouraging people to follow them out the door".
| croutonwagon wrote:
| Yeah I am manager. I am pretty honest with my employees.
| One of my normal sayings is "you have to look out for #1 "
| (#1 = yourself its not a Star Trek reference)
|
| That said i never say things like that on comms. And
| usually preclude them with things like "this conversation
| never happened" etc.
|
| But i feel like part of my job is to give them career and
| life advancement advice and if that means leaving my
| team...so be it. That said ive made it pretty clear my
| style (on a few fronts, this being one of them) may not be
| all that common. Things like encouraging people to use
| their PTO, even for mental health days to prevent burnout
| etc. I do find that style engenders more trust and
| generally a less combative interaction. I have even had
| some tell me when they are looking for jobs. I usually tell
| them not to make a habit of telling someone at work that
| type of thing.
| noncoml wrote:
| I have worked with maybe a couple of managers like you in
| my career, and I have to say I was truly heartbroken when
| they moved one. It was the most enjoyable and productive
| years in my career.
|
| It's sad that a manager saying to the employee "you have
| to look out for #1" has to be off the record.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| > encouraging people to use their PTO
|
| Hopefully there aren't too many orgs left out there where
| a manager would be having to do this off-the-record;
| certainly it feels like the orthodoxy for some time has
| been that workers do their best work when they're well-
| rested and have had breaks, and at a systems level,
| people being away is important for identifying bus number
| issues.
|
| All that aside, my company's accountants get antsy about
| what overhanging PTO does to the balance sheet, so
| there's a very explicit top-down mandate around fiscal
| year end time to get people using up their vacations.
| danaris wrote:
| Someone who sees a fundamental divide between Workers and
| Managers, and sees the job of the latter as being
| extracting the maximum possible work from the former. (And,
| based on my experience, sees the former as _universally_
| trying to do the least work possible for the most money, up
| to and including trying to defraud the company.)
| Volundr wrote:
| As an ex-manager recently returned to IC work... This is
| awful, I'd never treat someone this way. I tried to always be
| respectful of my employees, to the point of recommending to
| leaving employees that they not take our counter, that they
| are leaving for a reason and now that they've made the choice
| I recommend they explore it, and they can always come by if
| it was a mistake. With the knowledge and backing of my CIO.
|
| Point being not all management is like this and I hope you've
| found somewhere that respects you.
|
| I think collectively too many of us are too willing to ignore
| red flags and it let's people/companies like this succeed.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| Was talking to my manager about how there were opportunities
| for more money at other companies (like, 20% more, not huge
| amounts). She said she would work on getting comp adjusted
| for me, then 3 months later said she couldn't. I asked if my
| company would counter-offer if I got a better offer, she said
| no.
|
| I got an offer for a lot more (+60%). My company immediately
| matched. Don't trust management.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| My advice is never negotiate salary like this with a
| current employer. Always just leave, always on good terms.
| Let's say you leave for 15% raise and the new company
| sucks? Give it a year or two. Your previous employer will
| probably hire you back for a 10%+ premium above your new
| job that you hate.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| My partner and I have found ourselves in similar situations
| 4-5 times already within a combined ~12 years of professional
| experience. I don't have the capacity to trust management
| anymore.
| krupan wrote:
| The exit interview advice is not anything new, I heard it from 10
| other people before Jacob wrote this post.
|
| The general salary advice is also not new at all. The specifics
| of which tools to use is pretty helpful.
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