[HN Gopher] A day in the life of a Walmart manager
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A day in the life of a Walmart manager
Author : impish9208
Score : 66 points
Date : 2024-04-14 14:35 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| rderewianko wrote:
| https://archive.is/lk15F
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >Hart has seen that change firsthand. About 20 years ago, then 19
| years old and a mother of two, she started part-time at the same
| Walmart she now runs. Her first job was cooking live lobsters
| pulled from a tank in the deli.
|
| Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who
| graduated college and walked into management. I have respect for
| anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail.
|
| She deserves every dime.
| dewey wrote:
| This reminds me of a very interesting interview I've listened
| to a while ago (It was posted on HN:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924101):
| https://inpractise.com/articles/aldi-culture-and-operations-...
|
| There they talk about the Aldi culture and how "walking into
| management" isn't possible there, as everyone goes through the
| ranks of a store. That means of course that hiring someone from
| outside is almost not possible, but people there usually stay a
| very long time or even retire at the company.
| Tostino wrote:
| I honestly respect companies with that attitude way more than
| your standard American company culture.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| When I worked at best buy we called them "lifers." Last time I
| was in there I noticed one of the managers was a guy I worked
| with when we were teenagers. I'm still kinda mad he got picked
| to be the idea box over me, but in retrospect it looks like
| they picked the team player.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| Walmart's current CEO, Doug McMillon, also began working there
| as a high schooler unloading trucks (before completing college
| and returning to a corporate role).
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-ceo-doug-mcmillon-pr...
| paulpauper wrote:
| It's inspiring because it's in large part an outlier and not
| applicable to the vast majority of people who lack college
| degrees. It would not be remarkable it it were common or
| realistic.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who
| graduated college and walked into management. I have respect
| for anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail.
|
| Some huge percentage of Americans's first job is at McDonald's
| (another business that has historically found management talent
| in-house). They learn the importance of cleanliness, customer
| service, accuracy.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| > Near the cereal aisle, a customer walks up to Hart while
| recording on his cellphone.
|
| >"Hi! Can we get some Snoop Cereal here on the shelf?" asks the
| man. Earlier that month the rapper Snoop Dogg sued Walmart,
| claiming the retailer, along with Post Consumer Brands, had
| worked to suppress sales of Snoop Cereal. Some fans were
| recording videos related to the dispute for social media.
|
| It's like you think you know America because you see it on TV and
| film so much, and then you read something that makes it sound so
| weirdly foreign.
| svnt wrote:
| There are few things more American than the passage you just
| quoted. It is about a fan of an aging stoner/rapper talking to
| a Wal-Mart employee about the fact that he wants cereal.
| pavlov wrote:
| Indeed, but it's an example of the kind of real America that
| doesn't feature in Hollywood scripts very much.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It would seem too banal to most Americans
| quantumfissure wrote:
| This is not a normal human, less then probably .5% of 340
| million Americans are like this.
|
| It's called being an attention-whore and hoping to strike it
| big by filming a non-controversy and making it into one on Tik-
| Tok. You can thank social media (and regular media) for the
| profiting off clicks/algorithms/non-controversies and driving
| this nonsense. This isn't filming a cop making an arrest to
| keep them accountable, it's filming a store manager hoping to
| create controversy and rid her of her job because she 'said or
| did the wrong thing' on film. It's no different then filming a
| fat/alt-lifestyle/whomever person on the bus without them
| knowing and then making fun of them to drive clicks to your
| video.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| The guy filming is not the weird part. You don't think the
| fact Snoop Dogg has a cereal and is suing Walmart for not
| carrying it is strange?
|
| Perhaps I missed the evolution of Gansta Rap and that's the
| main lyrical content these days...
| avalys wrote:
| $120k base and $120k bonus, but okay.
|
| I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart but you have to respect a
| company that's operating a real business at massive scale and
| about a 2% -3% profit margin. And Nichole seems to be good at her
| job.
|
| It's interesting how the bulk of the decisions about displays,
| ordering, stocking, are apparently made in each store and not
| centrally.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Having worked around a particular system of Walmart I have to
| say they are brutally efficient and _typically_ hire good
| people to run their internal systems. This would be at the
| corporate level and not store level, can 't say much about that
| myself.
|
| When working with them in measuring the efficiency of the
| software they were using they were getting significantly higher
| throughput at significantly lower hardware cost than the
| average large customer that uses this software. All of it
| because just a few well learned employees understand how the
| all systems work together in this workflow and optimize the
| process.
| 4star3star wrote:
| Walmart is a well oiled machine. Not saying there's nothing
| to improve, but in the context of the overall system in which
| it operates, it's crushing it.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Unpopular opinion, more people are capable of doing well at
| higher level jobs than they are at low level grunt working jobs.
| doytch wrote:
| Time-management is probably the single most important skill in
| these higher-paying jobs and...well...given the amount of self-
| help books there are on this topic, I'm not so sure I'd agree.
|
| People who do well in higher-level jobs know /exactly/ what
| they're best at or uniquely positioned to do, and do that.
| Meanwhile, you need to delegate the rest to whoever's in the
| best position to do so (growing people if there aren't enough)
| which is itself a tricky calculus.
| switch007 wrote:
| I'd say it's people skills and marketing/PR.
|
| Everyone I've seen rise through the ranks has absolutely
| nailed communication, self-promotion, parroting the party-
| line, moderating their words, adapting to their audience,
| improving their speech techniques, giving excellent
| presentations etc.
| CPLX wrote:
| Disagree. The most important skill as you go up higher in the
| ranks is emotional regulation.
|
| Many, many people simply aren't able to do that. You can't
| manage complex organizations that include people without that
| ability.
| doytch wrote:
| That's a really good point. After reading your profile, I'm
| tempted to ask if you've bookmarked any articles/books
| about that topic?
| bigyikes wrote:
| Wouldn't you expect higher level jobs to pay less then "grunt"
| jobs then?
| Rury wrote:
| Only if you assume that pay is a matter solely determined by
| how difficult a job is (which it isn't).
| paulddraper wrote:
| Depends on the standards for "well"
|
| The stakes are different
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Even in software engineering it's "easier" to be higher level
| (staff, principal) because your output is more fluid, you
| delegate more, and command more respect. Yet the vast majority
| of engineers are incapable of reaching those levels because
| they don't seem to have the mindset for it. So I'm not sure I
| agree with this, it seems to just be selection bias.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| They are incapable of reaching those levels because they are
| never given the chance to develop those skills, or to even
| exhibit them. There just arent that many opportunities
| doytch wrote:
| She runs a shop that employs 300 people; needs to worry about
| short-term and long-term logistics and planning; works cross-
| functionally with the trades; probably frequently needs to manage
| upwards; interacts directly with customers; etc etc...
|
| Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software
| developers. This is a hard job.
| varispeed wrote:
| > Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software
| developers. This is a hard job.
|
| Wow, this is such a nonsense view. Software development may
| seem easy to you, because you know how to do it and probably
| have been doing it for a long time. But I can assure you,
| software development is a hard job. If it was easy, everyone
| and their dog could do it. Have some respect to your
| profession!
| heisenbit wrote:
| Yes SW development is a hard job but she is doing a lot more
| than one job and the skill set required (not just knowledge
| but also behavior) to cover so many roles is a lot broader
| than most developers and also many managers in the software
| industry require to do their job.
| pavlov wrote:
| On the other hand, there are a lot of Walmarts and similar
| stores, and a lot of people who have managed these in the
| past. There are many people who she can turn to for
| reliable advice. I'm assuming one Walmart is not
| fundamentally different from another. It's hard work, but
| it's essentially predictable.
|
| Software developers are often called to do work that's not
| predictable. At the top of the pay grade we're generally
| asked to design something novel, because it's obviously not
| worth paying $240k / year for a developer whose work could
| be replaced by off-the-shelf software. (Sure, there are
| many exceptions and cushy jobs where people are raking in
| the cash with few risks. I'm thinking there are probably
| less of these around than a few years ago, though.)
| varispeed wrote:
| The SW development is not just knowing the programming
| language, you also have to cover many roles, you need to
| understand and have the domain knowledge of the thing you
| are developing, you need to have communication skills to
| coordinate with other developers and stakeholders and many
| more (like developing intuition to know when to stop
| manager from making a mistake - e.g. you know this and that
| idea won't actually work in practice or it will have
| problems down the line adding to technical debt and so on).
| prh8 wrote:
| If both options paid you 240k a year, would you rather be a
| software engineer or do the exact job the Walmart manager
| does? I'm guessing you'd rather do SWE
| evan_ wrote:
| and plenty of people would rather do the job where you walk
| around and talk to people all day, folks are different
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I would imagine most people would rather do the Walmart
| job. It would probably be like 90/10 or something.
| angmarsbane wrote:
| Depends. Walmart manager could be one of the highest
| salaried roles in a LCOL area enabling an early retirement
| or better quality of life than a SWE stuck in a HCOL.
| varispeed wrote:
| I think you misunderstood my point. I actually had a
| conversation about it with my friend who was a manager of a
| private health clinic. She had a moment of massive burnout
| and was looking to switch profession to something else. She
| was particularly tired of abuse she was getting from
| employees she had to manage and patients, unrealistic
| targets, overtime and relatively poor pay. The prospect of
| sitting in a cubicle, with noise cancelling headphones,
| minding own work and having similar pay while being
| surrounded by like-minded professionals was really
| enticing. Her understanding of programming was very much
| that you type in commands so the computer does things you
| want, easy. When she was this motivated, I asked her to
| watch this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOjov-2OZ0E She managed to
| watch about 20 minutes and from there she couldn't focus.
| Then she asked to stop and asked me: "Do you know all of
| this? Do you have to know this?" I said that this is just
| the basics. That was very much the end of it. She changed
| her career later and she is managing construction projects.
| Something I wouldn't like to do. It would be a hard job,
| because that's not something I am interested in.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| No doubt she earns it.
|
| But, we're probably all doing some form of the above in one way
| or another. A few minor edits may make the list a little more
| familiar to more software folks:
|
| > _worry about short-term and long-term [...] planning; works
| cross-functionally...;... manage upwards; interacts directly
| with customers_
| amelius wrote:
| Salaries are awkward. I personally believe someone who
| collects the municipal garbage should make more than someone
| who sits in an office all day and solves logic puzzles.
| Because I wouldn't want to do it.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Yeah, anyone who is paid well enough for something they
| enjoy is certainly fortunate.
|
| OTOH, there are people who would be driven crazy by sitting
| in an office all day and wouldn't do it, even for more pay.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i agree. waste management of all kinds is huge
| switch007 wrote:
| Not to detract from her performance (I've made a top comment
| about how she's giving CEO vibes), but we software _engineers_
| worry about short-term and long-term, do planning, work cross-
| functionally, manage upwards, focus on the customer 's
| requirements. And way more.
| newsclues wrote:
| I think there are lots of hard jobs that go under appreciated
| in our society.
|
| I think about people playing pro sports for millions and then
| minimum wage labourers, drivers clerks, cleaners and cooks who
| make minimum wages. One group are celebrated and the other are
| essential to society continuing to function.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| My parents currently works at Walmart, they're the one
| restocking supplies in the shelves. They are in their 60s and
| 70s, immigrants that became US citizens just last year. Also,
| they work night shifts.
|
| Based on their feedback, Walmart is a very kind and good
| employer.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Right, this was made pretty clear during the first few months
| of the pandemic in 2020.
| stefan_ wrote:
| It's hard work keeping the staff below the full time limit
| where they get benefits, squeeze suppliers and ensure the
| reliable flow of inane corporate directives downwards. Has
| everyone completed their mandatory union training yet?
|
| I don't know man, I'd rather make new stuff, ya know.
| breck wrote:
| > more than a lot of us software developers.
|
| A big question I've tried to answer in my life is whether the
| high pay in the software world has an intelligent economic
| explanation, or maybe a more sinister explanation involving
| false models encoded in the law.
| rhelz wrote:
| Its just supply and demand, like anything else.
| kenjackson wrote:
| And ability differences. For example there is a ton of
| supply for basketball players. But the product is
| magnitudes better with Lebron James than it is with me on
| the court.
|
| Is the best garbage person in the world that much more
| productive than your average person (not even versus
| another garbage person, but someone you randomly pick and
| train them for a couple of weeks)?
|
| Based on my years interviewing there are huge levels
| between the best SW engineers and even those with CS
| degrees, much less randomly selected people.
| no_wizard wrote:
| So much of being good at software engineering is non
| technical though, in ways I sometimes don't feel things
| like how interviews are conducted don't do a good job of
| screening for.
| breck wrote:
| Are you sure there's no artificial government intervention?
| michaelt wrote:
| A delivery driver who makes 30 deliveries per hour, with
| senders who pay the business $2 per parcel, is bringing in
| $60/hour of revenue. That revenue gets split with other
| workers who collected and sorted the parcels, the fuel bill
| and van insurance, and the investors who own the parcel-
| sorting machines and vans.
|
| A software developer that saves $0.001 per delivery across
| 5,000 delivery drivers who make 30 deliveries per hour saves
| the company $1500 per hour. That gets split with the folks
| who maintain the CI servers, the Kubernetes cluster, the pen
| testers and so on. But it's still 25x as much.
| blinkingled wrote:
| I don't about others but based on past experience if one really
| attempts to do their $240k software / IT job well they ought to
| encounter similar if not in some ways worse challenges - some
| just realities of the tech industry/stack/complexity and some
| injected by bureaucracy, incompetence, mismanagement and not to
| mention the ever hanging sword of change in technology and
| possibility of layoff for no fault of yours. It adds up.
|
| When you are signing up for a job it's not just the money and
| the physical things you do - it's also the intangibles, the
| time spent in unproductive meetings, time spent afterwards
| feeling unproductive and worried, the resulting stress you have
| to manage etc, it all adds up and takes away something more
| than the money. I would argue that well managed jobs with some
| semblance of stability, human connection and
| predictability/routine are quite pleasant and easier to do
| compared to Software/IT.
| doytch wrote:
| Oh for sure, the intangibles kind of /are/ the job once
| you're past a mid-level position. But think about her job in
| the context of your description.
|
| You think she doesn't have useless meetings she's invited to
| that every manager in the region needs to attend even though
| it could've just been an email from the regional director?
| The stress from the lights busted in the parking lot brought
| on by worries that a darkened parking lot and a random crime
| that night might trigger a spurious lawsuit? Doomscrolling
| about physical retail being replaced by online? That she's
| falling behind in understanding where robotics might move?
| That if that particular store was shut down in a strategic
| shift, she's wedded her entire marketability as an employee
| to a single company on a single ladder and that she can't
| really just easily grab a job from a company across the
| country?
|
| We're not so unique!
| listenallyall wrote:
| No. Your job as a software developer may be stressful (as
| every job is) but her everyday challenges are way worse than
| yours. She has hundreds of actual people to manage, mentor
| and motivate, many with little education and lacking
| resources. Which means lots of absences, low-effort work,
| health issues, high turnover, and sometimes even theft.
| Plenty of issues dealing with customers as well. And then the
| managerial issues related to meeting revenue targets,
| implementing health care plans, managing inventory, putting
| on a good face for the bosses, as well as intense competition
| to be elevated to regional manager against a bunch of other
| colleagues in the exact same role. And her salary is only
| $120, there's a whole lot of stress when half your annual
| comp is bonus-driven.
| threatofrain wrote:
| It's easier to find revenue streams that scale horizontally by
| the number of programmers and servers. It's hard to open new
| Walmarts. This won't always be true for either case, so make
| well of your situation regardless of whether you think there's
| some kind of difficulty or effort moat.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Devs are paid so much because the skills they posses are
| precise, not fluid. managing a store is more fluid not precise.
| Coding, like surgery, requires precision, like the syntax. Get
| one character wrong and the whole thing fails. This entails
| having a high IQ. Being a store manager is hard work, no doubt
| ,but the skill set is less IQ dependent, so it can be done by
| more people. A dev is paid so much because when you need a
| product to ship, the syntax has to work, and finding someone
| who can do it is hard.
| beej71 wrote:
| The best devs I know possess the skills to be both fluid and
| precise in the proper circumstances.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Lol, as if no software developer has ever released code with
| one character wrong.
|
| Does your "syntax" ever call in sick? Steal from the loading
| dock? Get punched in the face by an angry customer?
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| If salaries are based on effort and not on what *relative*
| value they produce, people can just move rocks up and down a
| hill all day and become billionaires.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Pay isn't really based on how "hard" a job is (and I don't
| think we would want it to be!)
|
| It does factor in to the demand side but clearly it's not the
| primary factor or else there wouldn't be any high-paying "easy"
| jobs.
| havaloc wrote:
| "Walking every aisle is a new practice for store bosses in her
| area, implemented by their regional manager. It helps managers
| "see what your customers see," says Hart, and pay attention to
| details. It also keeps her employees on their toes."
|
| I can't believe this wasn't policy already. Seems like good
| practice.
| newsclues wrote:
| I had a great manager that did similar things. His education
| was the navy and he ran a store like a ship, and everyone loved
| it.
| damidekronik wrote:
| Would honestly love to know more. What activities which are
| not common for a store did he bring from the navy?
| insensible wrote:
| You'd probably enjoy the book Turn the Ship Around about a
| Navy submarine captain who transformed a low-performing
| crew into a strong, cohesive, autonomous crew.
| newsclues wrote:
| His style of leadership was what a good captain should be.
| Kind, caring, patient with everyone but also personally set
| and expected a higher standard. Mistakes were opportunities
| to learn, and you never felt belittled. He was the kind of
| person that was the first to show up and the last to leave
| and knew every part of the business as if he had done it,
| and was busy but always had time for people and knew there
| names.
|
| He was a leader not a manager or supervisor, a trait I've
| found common among military people.
|
| He took cleanliness and safety seriously from the navy and
| applied that to the store, the store staff vacuumed and
| cleaned the store as it was his and we took pride in it
| from top to bottom and he lead workplace safety efforts
| very early on.
|
| He ran the store like a family, and he shined his boots
| every morning.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Sounds like the depiction of Gus Fring as manager of Los
| Pollos Hermanos.
| icedchai wrote:
| This would be like asking the average corporate "software
| development manager" to actually look at the code/product
| developed by his reports. Except for early stage startups where
| the person is truly in a player/coach role, it rarely happens.
| outime wrote:
| Or making developers run the app/website on average
| laptops/phones that users commonly use, rather than on the
| most expensive MacBooks/iPhones.
| skydhash wrote:
| I have a 2011 mac mini I'm using as home server. It had
| Linux Mint for a time (this year) and it was snappy, except
| for browsing the web. Everything else work fine, even
| LibreOffice and playing videos. But load youtube and you
| can see the stuttering.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Marissa Mayer, while at Google, kept using dialup at home
| so she would experience what someone without broadband
| sees.
| TimPC wrote:
| I'm at a director level and I routinely look at code and even
| more frequently look at product in a late stage start-up.
| uxp100 wrote:
| I have absolutely had managers (and managers managers)
| contribute code. I think the typical team lead manager lite
| position was supposed to be like 20% of time on development
| and my managers manager who oversaw like 30 people
| contributed some when our team was behind. Probably didn't
| read much code outside of what they contributed though.
|
| At one of the largest tech companies.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| That's exactly what they should be doing though.
|
| Toyota calls it a "gemba walk" -- managers and even
| executives need to walk the factory floor and see problems
| with their own eyes, not through hearing reports.
|
| With software, the codebase is the gemba, not the office.
| Managers don't need to be writing code, but they should be
| reading it. Otherwise it's like a production manager who has
| never seen the inside of their own factory.
| aworks wrote:
| Not quite the same thing but I subscribed to one of my
| team's code review email lists. I also cc'ed myself on bug
| reports. Mildly interesting but didn't really impact
| anything although I was always looking for signals in the
| noise.
|
| On the other hand, my boss had a de facto policy of
| visiting each remote office at least once a year and
| conducting one-on-one meetings face-to-face as much as
| possible. I found this useful for myself to understand the
| team/environment/product and good for building connections
| with people, especially when cultures are significantly
| different.
|
| It did result in my visiting Wuhan 16 times between 2012
| and 2019, for better or worse.
| alpinisme wrote:
| I mean, Wuhan isn't some exotic danger zone. It just
| happened unluckily to become an epicenters for an
| outbreak recently, but otherwise it's just a big city.
| loceng wrote:
| Akin to the golden rule of "use your own product."
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Eat your own dog food.
| wmoser wrote:
| You would think so. I was working on an oil rig and they made a
| big deal about 'management by walking about.' So the heads of
| each of the departments were supposed to go and check ONE job
| their charges were working on that day. They were supposed to
| write a short report about what they observed. This was too
| much for them so they quickly got in trouble from shore-based
| management for not filling out their reports. So they promptly
| delegated to the next-in-line management They promptly
| delegated it to the people doing the work so once a week
| besides all the other paper work I had to fill out a report
| about how I was observing myself working safety while
| management still had no clue what was happening.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's sort of different stakes, right? In your case your
| direct managers decided to prioritize not doing their jobs
| over some pretty important stuff--your personal safety and
| the damage the oil rig could do to the environment if
| something went wrong. In the case of walking the floor in a
| store it is just aesthetics mostly.
| shoo wrote:
| > I had to fill out a report about how I was observing myself
| working safety while management still had no clue what was
| happening.
|
| see also https://eddiots.com/2301 > How do
| you know what's going on if you're not there? > Ask a
| restaurant manager. Or a bartender. Or the manager of a
| retail shop. Or a call center or an office. Or the supervisor
| of a factory or warehouse floor. What do you think they'd
| say? [...] > Ask anyone responsible for something, "How
| do you know what's going on if you're not there?" and you'll
| always get the same answer: "You won't." > Unless they
| were an I.T. manager.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't really understand what this looks like. I mean, when I
| worked in retail, I was at a place smaller than Walmart, so,
| maybe Walmart managers tend to be more hands off and need to
| make a show of actually knowing what's going on in the store.
|
| But I'd typically get some instructions and then be left to
| clean up or stock things. Tidying up isn't that complicated or
| high stakes. Normal people know what messy and clean look like.
|
| My favorite managers were aware of what the store looked like
| and could say "tidy up the pillows" or whatever if something
| needed particular attention. But the manager that came by with
| attention to detail and an intention to keep me on my toes?
| Nah, that's annoying. And even in a pretty small store, there
| are a lot of aisles to tidy up. If a manager is known to be
| annoying they'll also have to waste time looking for me.
| simantel wrote:
| A Walmart Supercenter can have 500 employees and dozens of
| deliveries per day. I can totally see why they'd get wrapped
| up working mostly in the office and talking to department
| heads vs. walking the store.
| throwaway598 wrote:
| Management by wandering around
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_wandering_arou...
| switch007 wrote:
| She's giving CEO/COO vibes. I bet she would crush it in either of
| those roles. It would be amazing if this article catapulted her
| towards running her own business.
|
| Loved this:
|
| > Hart gets to the front of the store, a product-display area in
| between banks of registers known as the horseshoe. "So what are
| you thinking here?" she asks Wright. "Easter or summer toys?"
|
| > Wright suggests summer toys and T-shirts.
|
| > "I think we should go after the eclipse," says Hart, filling
| the section with eclipse-themed gear, as well as outdoor chairs
| and coolers.
|
| Micro teaching opportunity and giving the employee an opportunity
| to have input, rather than just "put eclipse-themed gear here"
| notdang wrote:
| That was a trap, she, as a boss gave 2 options for the answer:
| "easter or summer toys" then she proceeded with the 3rd option:
| eclipse.
|
| That gives bad vibes.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| In some contexts yes but I think the idea is to teach the
| employee that they can answer with a different option. But it
| does depend on their relationship and personality.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If their answer is anything other than "eclipse", then they
| failed. There was no follow-up question to see why theh
| felt that way. There was no real discussion on strategy or
| reasoning. This is a trap.
| bee_rider wrote:
| CEO/COO instincts, just needs to refine the trap to be more
| subtle.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| Impossible, she doesn't have an Ivy League MBA! She janky
| worked at MBB!
| listenallyall wrote:
| Quite a difference from all of those "my day as a <cool tech
| company> employee" TikTok videos, such as
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/717157277625860...
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@miss_alexabel/video/7068404845325143...
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@suppgorjess/video/708395834045538641...
| devdiary wrote:
| How come a paywalled content gets to the top of the HN front-
| page?
| switch007 wrote:
| 90% of the time someone posts an archive URL. I wish they would
| get pinned to the top (@dang :)
| bee_rider wrote:
| That the archive URL is some generally accepted thing here
| seems bizarre to me. I mean, taking the text and hosting it
| elsewhere--that's just an unauthorized copy, just like if
| somebody had posted a torrent of a new popular movie so we
| could discuss it. Or links to cracked software (how else
| could those of us who don't want to pay for it discuss it,
| right?)
|
| I respond to the headline/other discussion in the thread if
| it is interesting. IMO, the publisher's decision of how they
| want their work distributed and discussed should be
| respected. That includes not making unauthorized copies, and
| also the fact that that constrains conversation about their
| work.
|
| I'm surprised that we seem to understand this for software
| but not written word. And we mostly act accordingly: lots of
| discussion of open source works, not so much on "paywalled"
| proprietary software.
| ergonaught wrote:
| It happens nearly daily, and so do variations of this question.
|
| The "This doesn't align with my expectations so it must be
| wrong" response is fascinating.
| devdiary wrote:
| Do not understand your comment. What are you trying to say?
| nfriedly wrote:
| Presumably because the paywall is very porus.
|
| And, I suppose, there are a few HN people who have
| subscriptions.
|
| And probably a few who just upvote based on the title.
|
| (I think it only takes 4 up votes to hit the front page if they
| happen quickly enough.)
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Probably because a significant portion of HN readership already
| subscribes to the websites that commonly make it to the front
| page, and others know how to bypass the pay wall (i.e.
| https://archive.is/lk15F if you want to read this without a
| subscription).
|
| I can't remember seeing any pay walled article on HN that
| wasn't bypassable using popular free services online. Usually,
| someone will also link one of the bypass websites pretty soon
| after a post starts gaining traction.
| devdiary wrote:
| thank you for sharing the archive link. Didn't know it is
| possible to archive a non-public/paywalled content.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The way everything else does. People upvote it.
| dang wrote:
| If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post
| workarounds in the thread.
|
| This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
| and there's more explanation here:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
| karaterobot wrote:
| > "I love my job," says Hart, but "it doesn't turn off. That is
| one of the hard things about it."
|
| I'm lucky that in my industry I can make a good living as an
| individual contributor, because having to actually think about my
| job when I'm not at my job sounds like a living nightmare.
| applied_heat wrote:
| There are a lot of jobs that are 24/7/365 without proper
| coverage from coworkers so people are always available and
| can't turn off.
|
| Other jobs won't call you off shift but if you just had to deal
| with something traumatic like a car wreck it's hard to leave
| that at work as well.
| BeetleB wrote:
| If you're in SW, you probably will need to think about your job
| off work: They usually don't work in shifts, and will have
| deliverables in a timeline of months. They need to plan the
| work, and always adjust to hit the deadlines.
|
| If you're a doctor, then you probably don't have to think about
| your job off work.
| TimPC wrote:
| True but the number of hours I work in SW + the number of
| hours I think about my job outside of work is still probably
| less than a typical doctor's working hours so I feel like we
| come out ahead anyways.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Here's actual data for doctors:
|
| https://www.amnhealthcare.com/blog/physician/locums/average
| -...
|
| It's more than I work, but I know many SW professionals who
| work longer hours than the typical physician.
| _dark_matter_ wrote:
| That is not true about doctors at _all_, especially
| inpatient. They have so many hours in a day to spend on
| patients. They are checking on them after hours, fielding
| calls, looking at lab results, responding to messages,
| preparing for the next day, filling out notes, reading new
| notes. So not only do they think about the job off work,
| there is lots of job to do off work as well.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > That is not true about doctors at _all_, especially
| inpatient.
|
| Varies depending on the type of work you do. People I know
| who are hospitalists, urgent care and ER doctors actually
| do just check out at the end. If something happens to a
| patient, it's the headache of the doctor who's rotation it
| is - not theirs.
|
| And I also know PCPs who check out at the end and are done
| with it. If something happens off hours, they get taken
| care of by an on-call doctor, not the PCP. If it's serious,
| they're referred to urgent care and ER.
|
| But as I said - all a function of who they work for. Same
| with SW.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Negative. Almost twenty years in the software industry, and I
| clock in at 9 and clock out at 5. Let's be honest, earlier on
| Fridays. It wasn't always that way, but now I prioritize time
| over more money, and for me it's worth the trade.
| giantg2 wrote:
| And there's on-call responsibility
| mvkel wrote:
| Credit to Walmart for creating an environment where a person can
| still love their job after years of service.
|
| That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before you
| say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a year."
| Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG ICs making
| $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or palpable purpose.
|
| To create a scaled corp structure where a person can ascend from
| the bottom is also tough to do.
| bicx wrote:
| Yeah, after a certain amount (like enough to cover expenses,
| have a little fun, and build savings) and a certain amount of
| time, your income stops being something that makes you excited.
| This is especially true if you're around other people who make
| the same as you do. If becomes normalized in your mind.
| Everyone needs a challenge and some goals. Something to look
| forward to.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm looking forward to retirement. I'm not interested in
| professional challenges anymore. In my experience they're
| usually BS and you don't get rewarded.
| BLanen wrote:
| > That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before
| you say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a
| year." Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG
| ICs making $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or
| palpable purpose.
|
| Something only someone with a high income would say. Contrary
| to all data and research and evidence.
| xenospn wrote:
| I have a close friend who was making about 1M in TC and hated
| every moment of it.
| bradlys wrote:
| I'm not the friend but I've quit a 7 figure job.
|
| I hated it and put my money where my mouth was. I took
| another job for a massive pay cut.
|
| Money isn't everything. I started comparing my everyday
| life to prison. "How much money would I take to live in
| prison?" Realized it was gonna have to be a lot more than
| what I was getting.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I hate my job. I've never been close to 7 figures. I'd
| love to have a job I'd hate and make 7 figures for a year
| or two.
| traviswingo wrote:
| Not sure if you're discrediting the parent comment or
| pointing out the reality of it.
|
| But yes this is something only someone with a high income
| would say. And yes, it's true.
|
| Beyond a certain income, the wrong job can be soul sucking
| and depressing. And it takes achieving that level of income
| to fully appreciate that reality.
| mvkel wrote:
| It's been described as another way to hit rock bottom,
| because you realize that even after "making it" it doesn't
| make you happy. So NOW what do you do?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also these people can make personal impact that is visible for
| them. They might be wrong, but still they can affect things and
| see them changing... It might not be possible in many other
| jobs specially in big corporations.
| mvkel wrote:
| Yes! Very well said. Autonomy/agency, however small in the
| grand scheme, is so important.
| vunderba wrote:
| Doesn't Walmart have a disproportionately high number of
| employees taking advantage of food stamps due to suppressed
| wages?
|
| https://www.jwj.org/walmarts-food-stamp-scam-explained-in-on...
| SilasX wrote:
| Not the $240k/year store managers, no.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's also possible they're saying it because they're in a
| national article and would almost certainly lose their job if
| they represented the company poorly. I would also guess PR got
| involved to approve or even pick which manager would show their
| image the best.
| mvkel wrote:
| Certainly a possibility, but that's everywhere. You trot out
| the Blue Angels to get people to sign up to the Navy.
| Seanambers wrote:
| There is a trap in there.
|
| If you work a lot like this lady does you do not really have
| much time to reason about how you spend your life and whats
| important. It just happens to you. But it becomes all
| encompassing and consumes the person. For some thats the right
| way to live their life, for most not so much.
|
| FANG has a problem in that they have a lot of highly paid
| individuals doing nothing or very little, so they have a lot of
| time to sit around and get depressed about it.
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