What if - and I know this is a heretical idea - what if instead of expecting 1 person to do the work of 2, the company just hired 2 people? I used to work for an IT manager who refused to allow...
unless you are suffering, unless you are grinding, unless you are working every hour of every day and posting about it on Instagram, you're not working hard enough.
He went on to explain how this type of work ethic is damaging for both the company the person works for and the person's general wellbeing.
What if - and I know this is a heretical idea - what if instead of expecting 1 person to do the work of 2, the company just hired 2 people?
I used to work for an IT manager who refused to allow his team members to work overtime unless it was absolutely necessary. Everyone was expected to go home after their 8-hour work day. And, to make sure noone felt pressured to work too much, he also made sure there were enough employees to cope with the workload.
I’ve got a boss like that. They’ll tell us to go home if we’ve hit our (very reasonable) billable hour requirement for the month. And what do you know? We have the lowest turnover of any practice...
I’ve got a boss like that. They’ll tell us to go home if we’ve hit our (very reasonable) billable hour requirement for the month. And what do you know? We have the lowest turnover of any practice at our firm and highest utilization rate.
There's pretty good literature that shows making someone work excessive hours reduces their output. In all honesty it's pretty analogous to the idea of detraining and overtraining. Of course the...
There's pretty good literature that shows making someone work excessive hours reduces their output. In all honesty it's pretty analogous to the idea of detraining and overtraining.
Of course the caveat to this is that it depends on the work being done. If it is a particularly cognitively taxing work, this holds true. If it's repetitive, factory-line style work, this doesn't hold true.
I guess the real question is when are the policies of tech startups who value their employees going to catch on main stream? The more you empower your employee to make their own decisions about when to start and end their work, how much they work, and in general give them control, the more efficient and higher quality their work becomes.
Cause without regulation the solution for this issue depends on individual action, meaning that good deeds will have a localized impact. Broader regulation could solve it for a lot more people.
Cause without regulation the solution for this issue depends on individual action, meaning that good deeds will have a localized impact. Broader regulation could solve it for a lot more people.
Not necessarily. If Company A decides to hire enough employees to do the work required, while Company B hires fewer employees that it needs, Company A's actions will affect Company B. Employees...
meaning that good deeds will have a localized impact.
Not necessarily. If Company A decides to hire enough employees to do the work required, while Company B hires fewer employees that it needs, Company A's actions will affect Company B. Employees working for Company B will get pissed off and want to leave. Then they learn that, not only are there jobs for them at Company A, but those jobs are better. Suddenly, there's an exodus of employees leaving Company B for Company A. If the managers at Company B have any sense, they'll figure out why their employees are leaving, and try to fix the problem. Now, Company A and Company B both have good hiring practices... and Company C's employees are starting to wonder why they're hanging around in sweatshop conditions...
Broader regulation could solve it for a lot more people.
It's actually very difficult to regulate the concept of hiring enough employees to do the work required. However, here in Australia, we require employers to pay penalty rates when their employees work too many hours (pay the employee 1.5x or 2x their standard hourly pay for excessive hours). This should have a disincentive effect of pushing employers to hiring more employees who they can pay at standard rates. But, it's hard to regulate this.
(And thank you for actually explaining what your point was, so I could engage in some real discussion with you about it! Coy hints don't make for good discussion.)
We have this in Brazil. There are many kinds of abuse, but at least in large cities employers have to walk the line or face the consequences. Our “Justiça do Trabalho” is historycally pro-workers...
We have this in Brazil. There are many kinds of abuse, but at least in large cities employers have to walk the line or face the consequences. Our “Justiça do Trabalho” is historycally pro-workers and is known for actually working (not true for the other justices...)
I love to complain about this! Also, I suppose what I'd have to call "passion-porn" to fit in with this trend, like "when you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." I like what I...
I love to complain about this!
Also, I suppose what I'd have to call "passion-porn" to fit in with this trend, like "when you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life."
I like what I do a lot, but after 10 years of doing it every weekday, I'd rather play video games or sit on a beach somewhere instead of waking up and commuting and working all day and commuting home. I hate this idea that everyone has some kind of secret passion they just need to discover, and once they do, they will suddenly want to/need to spend every minute of their day hustling to make it (usually barely) profitable, instead of just enjoying things they enjoy as hobbies, or feeling like you can have multiple interests, none of which fill you with passion. We glorify constant work and busy-ness, and then we also demand that everyone LOVE that work so much that they feel totally fulfilled in their life of doing nothing but work. (and travelling, of course, which at least for people my age, has to be treated as life changing/defining.)
I like the name "hustle porn". This puts a nice sarcastic overtone onto a culture which is very much prevalent in Australian (and international) academia, from my point of view. I know several...
I like the name "hustle porn". This puts a nice sarcastic overtone onto a culture which is very much prevalent in Australian (and international) academia, from my point of view. I know several professors in the middle of their careers who, despite having young families, brag or moan about having to work out of hours until after midnight daily and even pull all-nighters at least once per week to keep up with their administrative paperwork load. Until reading this article I had considered this phenomenon a symptom of a malfunctioning system rather than a display of masochistic chest-beating!
American (particularly in the state of California) IT industry is the most advanced, rich, fast paced in the world. I wonder how much it's due to that toxic work culture.
American (particularly in the state of California) IT industry is the most advanced, rich, fast paced in the world. I wonder how much it's due to that toxic work culture.
It's the data and what can be done with the data that is valuable. Google is a prime example of building off the data. They started with just search results, but it's their use of the data they...
It's the data and what can be done with the data that is valuable.
Google is a prime example of building off the data. They started with just search results, but it's their use of the data they collected that made them extremely profitable.
Snapchat, instagram, whatsapp, facebook, etc. are all extremely valuable because they can do a lot with the data they capture. Whether they actually do anything with that data is a roll of the dice, but that data can be used to understand a lot about a wide variety of topics.
The whole giant ecosystems of media distribution, social media, file storage infrastructure, development tools, car sharing, maps, chat apps, video and streaming services, game stores, and many...
I really don't know what you mean by "advanced" unless you include groups like Tesla in this
The whole giant ecosystems of media distribution, social media, file storage infrastructure, development tools, car sharing, maps, chat apps, video and streaming services, game stores, and many many others. Of course some of us consider some aspects of these things detrimental for well being or environment, and are right, but still these are the things which make our world modern comparing to the 90s. Do we want boxy Nokia Symbian smartphones back, as well as manual copying everything on flash drives, slooow internet where barely anything can be found, absence of the huge diversity of IT jobs, going to paper book library for studying, and so on? I don't. Even when I'm not using some of the "big apps", I still enjoy other ones, and, as a whole, the sheer amount of data available in the world of information. We almost live in the future where almost everything except physical needs is on your devices.
This article that expressed a very similar sentiment got a fair amount of circulation a few weeks back (but used "struggle" instead of "hustle"): No More “Struggle Porn”.
This article that expressed a very similar sentiment got a fair amount of circulation a few weeks back (but used "struggle" instead of "hustle"): No More “Struggle Porn”.
Sometimes I get the impression that people in NA believe workers' rights is a novel concept. It is not. In the rest of the world, limiting overtime is kind of a thing.
Sometimes I get the impression that people in NA believe workers' rights is a novel concept. It is not. In the rest of the world, limiting overtime is kind of a thing.
I once worked in an office that was bent on hustle-porn --- but the funny thing was that there wasn't really that much work to do. I was brought in as a consultant to cover projects that were long...
I once worked in an office that was bent on hustle-porn --- but the funny thing was that there wasn't really that much work to do.
I was brought in as a consultant to cover projects that were long overdue (e.g. mapping financial processes for audits, etc.) When I was embedded with the third-party finance team for a time, they lifted the curtain, so to speak.
In the main office everybody rushes around, but in reality, most people are just middle men to the employees at Accenture. One dude who was idolized as the God of SAP literally emailed every request off to someone at Accenture, that person would run the reports, then the 'God' would email that back to the requestor.
The culture in the main office was to be in meetings all day from Monday to Thursday, and then everybody books off Fridays to do the actual work. Most of our meetings were with the same people, but for some reason we were always shuffling around to different meeting rooms.
One of the most dangerous things in tech is indeed the propaganda platform problem. But one of the reason it is a problem is because people openly have knee-jerk reactions to headline without...
Exemplary
One of the most dangerous things in tech is indeed the propaganda platform problem. But one of the reason it is a problem is because people openly have knee-jerk reactions to headline without wanting to dig into the facts or even read the article.
I don't want to sound dickish but this is what's happening to you here. You stuck to the headline, had an unjustified knee-jerk reaction, and ended up derailing a thread about a very real problem to talk about something with no real point to it, based on perceived facts that aren't so.
Because hate sells. People get really engaged on a platform where they can argue with strangers all day. Its quite obvious reddit and twitter do nothing about this because its better for them if...
why the hell do they continue providing a platform for hate.
Because hate sells. People get really engaged on a platform where they can argue with strangers all day. Its quite obvious reddit and twitter do nothing about this because its better for them if they let it continue.
What if - and I know this is a heretical idea - what if instead of expecting 1 person to do the work of 2, the company just hired 2 people?
I used to work for an IT manager who refused to allow his team members to work overtime unless it was absolutely necessary. Everyone was expected to go home after their 8-hour work day. And, to make sure noone felt pressured to work too much, he also made sure there were enough employees to cope with the workload.
I’ve got a boss like that. They’ll tell us to go home if we’ve hit our (very reasonable) billable hour requirement for the month. And what do you know? We have the lowest turnover of any practice at our firm and highest utilization rate.
Yep. Same with my group. People stick around if you treat them well.
There's pretty good literature that shows making someone work excessive hours reduces their output. In all honesty it's pretty analogous to the idea of detraining and overtraining.
Of course the caveat to this is that it depends on the work being done. If it is a particularly cognitively taxing work, this holds true. If it's repetitive, factory-line style work, this doesn't hold true.
I guess the real question is when are the policies of tech startups who value their employees going to catch on main stream? The more you empower your employee to make their own decisions about when to start and end their work, how much they work, and in general give them control, the more efficient and higher quality their work becomes.
Cause capitalism good, regulation bad.
Who mentioned anything about regulation?
I did.
Why? Regulation wasn't even implied by my remarks. Why did you feel the need to raise that topic?
Cause without regulation the solution for this issue depends on individual action, meaning that good deeds will have a localized impact. Broader regulation could solve it for a lot more people.
Not necessarily. If Company A decides to hire enough employees to do the work required, while Company B hires fewer employees that it needs, Company A's actions will affect Company B. Employees working for Company B will get pissed off and want to leave. Then they learn that, not only are there jobs for them at Company A, but those jobs are better. Suddenly, there's an exodus of employees leaving Company B for Company A. If the managers at Company B have any sense, they'll figure out why their employees are leaving, and try to fix the problem. Now, Company A and Company B both have good hiring practices... and Company C's employees are starting to wonder why they're hanging around in sweatshop conditions...
It's actually very difficult to regulate the concept of hiring enough employees to do the work required. However, here in Australia, we require employers to pay penalty rates when their employees work too many hours (pay the employee 1.5x or 2x their standard hourly pay for excessive hours). This should have a disincentive effect of pushing employers to hiring more employees who they can pay at standard rates. But, it's hard to regulate this.
(And thank you for actually explaining what your point was, so I could engage in some real discussion with you about it! Coy hints don't make for good discussion.)
I was thinking of limiting over time, just like your example. Legislating “having enough employees” would be unpractical.
That wasn't clear from your earlier comments. Sorry.
I agree that legislating to limit overtime would be a useful approach.
We have this in Brazil. There are many kinds of abuse, but at least in large cities employers have to walk the line or face the consequences. Our “Justiça do Trabalho” is historycally pro-workers and is known for actually working (not true for the other justices...)
To save costs. It's cheaper to not pay one person to work an extra 10 hours than to hire someone and pay them to work those 10 hours.
I love to complain about this!
Also, I suppose what I'd have to call "passion-porn" to fit in with this trend, like "when you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life."
I like what I do a lot, but after 10 years of doing it every weekday, I'd rather play video games or sit on a beach somewhere instead of waking up and commuting and working all day and commuting home. I hate this idea that everyone has some kind of secret passion they just need to discover, and once they do, they will suddenly want to/need to spend every minute of their day hustling to make it (usually barely) profitable, instead of just enjoying things they enjoy as hobbies, or feeling like you can have multiple interests, none of which fill you with passion. We glorify constant work and busy-ness, and then we also demand that everyone LOVE that work so much that they feel totally fulfilled in their life of doing nothing but work. (and travelling, of course, which at least for people my age, has to be treated as life changing/defining.)
I like the name "hustle porn". This puts a nice sarcastic overtone onto a culture which is very much prevalent in Australian (and international) academia, from my point of view. I know several professors in the middle of their careers who, despite having young families, brag or moan about having to work out of hours until after midnight daily and even pull all-nighters at least once per week to keep up with their administrative paperwork load. Until reading this article I had considered this phenomenon a symptom of a malfunctioning system rather than a display of masochistic chest-beating!
American (particularly in the state of California) IT industry is the most advanced, rich, fast paced in the world. I wonder how much it's due to that toxic work culture.
It's the data and what can be done with the data that is valuable.
Google is a prime example of building off the data. They started with just search results, but it's their use of the data they collected that made them extremely profitable.
Snapchat, instagram, whatsapp, facebook, etc. are all extremely valuable because they can do a lot with the data they capture. Whether they actually do anything with that data is a roll of the dice, but that data can be used to understand a lot about a wide variety of topics.
The whole giant ecosystems of media distribution, social media, file storage infrastructure, development tools, car sharing, maps, chat apps, video and streaming services, game stores, and many many others. Of course some of us consider some aspects of these things detrimental for well being or environment, and are right, but still these are the things which make our world modern comparing to the 90s. Do we want boxy Nokia Symbian smartphones back, as well as manual copying everything on flash drives, slooow internet where barely anything can be found, absence of the huge diversity of IT jobs, going to paper book library for studying, and so on? I don't. Even when I'm not using some of the "big apps", I still enjoy other ones, and, as a whole, the sheer amount of data available in the world of information. We almost live in the future where almost everything except physical needs is on your devices.
This article that expressed a very similar sentiment got a fair amount of circulation a few weeks back (but used "struggle" instead of "hustle"): No More “Struggle Porn”.
That sounds like a euphemism for rape porn.
Sometimes I get the impression that people in NA believe workers' rights is a novel concept. It is not. In the rest of the world, limiting overtime is kind of a thing.
Whoever started with calling these things '-porn' made a huge mistake
I once worked in an office that was bent on hustle-porn --- but the funny thing was that there wasn't really that much work to do.
I was brought in as a consultant to cover projects that were long overdue (e.g. mapping financial processes for audits, etc.) When I was embedded with the third-party finance team for a time, they lifted the curtain, so to speak.
In the main office everybody rushes around, but in reality, most people are just middle men to the employees at Accenture. One dude who was idolized as the God of SAP literally emailed every request off to someone at Accenture, that person would run the reports, then the 'God' would email that back to the requestor.
The culture in the main office was to be in meetings all day from Monday to Thursday, and then everybody books off Fridays to do the actual work. Most of our meetings were with the same people, but for some reason we were always shuffling around to different meeting rooms.
One of the most dangerous things in tech is indeed the propaganda platform problem. But one of the reason it is a problem is because people openly have knee-jerk reactions to headline without wanting to dig into the facts or even read the article.
I don't want to sound dickish but this is what's happening to you here. You stuck to the headline, had an unjustified knee-jerk reaction, and ended up derailing a thread about a very real problem to talk about something with no real point to it, based on perceived facts that aren't so.
Because hate sells. People get really engaged on a platform where they can argue with strangers all day. Its quite obvious reddit and twitter do nothing about this because its better for them if they let it continue.
Altman, Huffman...is Ohanian still on it?
I'm actually not sure if Huffman even is, he wasn't when he assumed the CEO position.