7 ms·

Solving turnover (unusual dailywtf)

276 points by presidentender 17y ago

bajsejohannes 17y ago
I can easily motivate myself to write documentation without thinking about getting run over by the bus or quitting: I know that my successor will most probably be myself in half a year, and by that time, I have forgotten why I did what I did.
presidentender 17y ago
Ordinarily The Daily WTF is good for a chuckle, but this was actually insightful. I find that it applies to the HN user base, since we're (or we think we are) the employees most likely to "evaporate" and leave the job security types behind.
- hackoder 17y ago
  I lost a job in the manner he described - told them I was looking elsewhere, but I'd be more than happy to train my replacement. I did it without first finding work and I thought I was doing them a favor by letting them know as soon as I was sure of leaving so their projects wouldn't be affected. I was laid off due to 'lack of budget' within the week. That taught me. This is the first time I've read something which makes complete sense to me and helps get rid of the "ifs and buts" from my head (I still am looking for work). My ideas would never have been implemented, the organization was too resistant to change. The curve makes sense- it was fun for a while, but after "getting it all", the daily monotony would have killed me. At the same time other employees came in, did their work, and went home. They felt the whole system was very rigid, but they were ok with tolerating it. After quitting I've often found myself wondering if its something in my head that prevented me from "sticking it out". This post makes some good sense and I hope more employers read it.
  - eru 17y ago
    We are looking to expand our team at the moment. I'll send you an email with more details. I hope you like it.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
    I presume, since your employer didn't try to fire you for insubordination or something silly, that you were able to collect unemployment? They weren't as bad as they could have been! The signal given to other employees will hurt them in the long-term. Nobody will ever let on that they might be thinking about leaving. "Why did Bob, who had just begun to lead the new project, decide to take some other job? Wow, what a jerk!"
- illumin8 17y ago
  I thought it was a great article, but how do you actually apply the "up or out" principle in the real world? The thing I have found is that in most work environments the good engineers accomplish great things, get burned out, then leave, while the bad engineers become exceptionally good at playing political games. You know, the same engineers that have appalling work performance are the ones that are ass-kissing all day long, forming alliances, playing the office politics game like they are desperate to keep from getting voted off a reality TV show. The sad thing is, it actually works in most companies. The really unqualified employees will never be let go, or even disciplined, because they are "friends" with the management. I think this creates a low morale for everyone. In some companies, the really talented engineers just quit because they get too frustrated with the general lack of motivation and laziness of the "political" engineers, and either drop out or burn out, knowing full well that the "political" engineer will probably be promoted to become their superior, even though they are grossly incompetent at their present job. How do you solve this problem?
  - anonjon 17y ago
    I think that's the point about the culture of quitting. If you have a culture where employees are expected to move on after a few years, the people who are playing politics and trying to get entrenched for job security are really easy to pick out. (They've been there 10 years while the average stay is maybe 3 or 4). No amount of ass kissing will save you from being the weird guy who can't move on.
  - count 17y ago
    Our company gives every employee a 'projected promotion date', from Day 1. If you don't meet your promotion date (and that is adjusted based on how the economy and the company as a whole are doing, etc. - it's not set in stone), then you are asked to leave. Plain and simple. Up, or Out. There is no settling into a role as a mediocre mid level manager - the only role you can settle into is that of partner (which requires $millions of dollars in sales and revenue per year, so you can't exactly slouch at that either). It works AMAZINGLY well at keeping/attracting awesome talent. I've yet to meet anybody 'below average' or really even 'average' from a motivation/kick ass perspective. The culture is refreshingly honest and progressive.
pw0ncakes 17y ago
I agree that companies should be more aware of the fact that people leave jobs, and that it's an essential part of the economy. However, using biglaw (Cravath system) as a model for workplace culture is a really bad idea. Go here-- http://www.xoxohth.com/ http://www.xoxohth.com/ -- if you want to see the personality traits that this work culture attracts and encourages.
- pingswept 17y ago
  That link appears to be a list of discussions of law school admissions, not personality traits.
  - pw0ncakes 17y ago
    Read it. These people are representative of the way professionals in Wall Street's "up-or-out" jungle think. Some of the things you'll read on that site will appall you. This is what the biglaw partners produced by creating a professional environment in which only a few percent have a chance at making partner, and the rest have essentially wasted years of their life for nothing.
    - pingswept 17y ago
      I'm willing to take you at your word that the site is filled with appalling things. It certainly looks appalling, and the few discussions I read appeared to be irritating people being irritated with the world. But what evidence is there that the structure of the hiring practices is what attracted these people? My unsubstantiated hunch is that Wall Street professionals might be there because they're after money or prestige, not because they're inevitably attracted by the hiring methods.
    - tokenadult 17y ago
      the rest have essentially wasted years of their life for nothing. That decidedly is NOT the outcome of the Cravath approach, although it may be the outcome of the Latham and Watkins approach.
    - 17y ago
Tangurena 17y ago
This was one of the most insightful posts on Daily WTF. Unable to find much online about the Cravath system - although having seen it pop up in other references to why the starting salaries of lawyers was so messed up - I started the wikipedia article on it. For a privately published 3-volume history of one law firm, I was surprised that so many libraries had a copy of the history of the Cravath law firm. Not a lot of them are available on interlibrary loan.
redorb 17y ago
I see too many of the 'entrenched' at my work.. We have a secretary that refuses to be called anything but 'office administrator' and has been here 10 years (Down to 3-4 hour days now) ~ of course the owner thinks 'she runs this company' .... it's really sad.
- barnaby 17y ago
  Quit, you don't want to be part of the salt that gets left behind in the dead sea effect.
mattmcknight 17y ago
Maybe the good people are leaving because you are letting too many bad ones in, aren't getting rid of the bad ones fast enough, or at least getting them out of programming jobs, and generally aren't giving the good ones any differentiated treatment?
- sophacles 17y ago
  I think the point of the article is this thinking. Really it's not them, its not the crap people being treated with respect (altho that does in fact chafe), its that I get bored. Seriously after a while it stops being a puzzle, its just work. Once I've "solved" it, I lose interest and start getting resentful of being forced to deal with it even more. This is what "its just that time to move again" is about. If a place could provide me with a new challenge, puzzle whatever, I'd stick around, but a lot of places that have good environments are small, and therefore one product shops.
  - notaname 17y ago
    >If a place could provide me with a new challenge, puzzle whatever, I'd stick around It's this kind of thinking that I fear is far more prevalent among new hires, and in my opinion is far more damaging. The company shouldn't need to "provide" you with a new challenge -- you should be seeking them out and creating your own challenges.
    - enjo 17y ago
      Exactly. In my experience there is plenty of challenge in virtually every facet of building a product. I've held a job(at single product shop) for more than 5 years. It wasn't like I went to work one day and went 'welp.. everythings done. Lets pack it in!' There was ALWAYS things to do. I guess I get my rocks off by actually accomplishing things. That means doing a really good job no matter what challenge I'm dealing with. There are a lot of challenges in software development. I think too often folks are looking for glamorous problems to solve. It's more about ego than anything else.
whamo 17y ago
Yeah, maybe the good ones are leaving. Or maybe, you're attracted to flash and arrogance. Maybe you only think they were good because they told you they were and then left. Maybe you're like a pathetic person who fawns over a lover who treats them poorly. Maybe, since you're still in business, the good ones stayed behind. Maybe you need redefine your definition of 'good'.
- prospero 17y ago
  Continued existence is usually not the limit of a business owner's ambition. By that same token, the people who can keep it running are not necessarily the same people who can continually grow it. "Flash and arrogance" are not the same as skill, but they're not inversely correlated either.
  - docgnome 17y ago
    '"Flash and arrogance" are not the same as skill, but they're not inversely correlated either.' No kidding. I don't think anyone could argue that Linus, for just one example, is unskilled... It's a pretty well established fact that he can also be arrogant.
- nzmsv 17y ago
  A job is absolutely unlike a romantic relationship. I think this is exactly the problem most bosses have with employees leaving: they treat it as a breakup, or a divorce. The reality is, company loyalty is nothing like family loyalty. Here's the key difference: the moment an employee stops being a net win for the company, they are let go. Yet somehow management expects employees to stick around because of some imaginary "loyalty". It does not exist.
DenisM 17y ago
A less offensive way to think of it: It's a college - you spend 2-3-4 years, learn all you can and then graduate to better things in life. The only way you can stay here is by becoming a TA or a prof, but that'd be an entirely different job, and most people don't want that.
erydo 17y ago
For some reason this made me think of Google and how they encourage movement between teams and projects. It seems to me that's probably a good way to keep highly skilled employees riding the wave of that 'value apex', rather than just cresting over it and then leaving. Does anyone know what Google's turnover rates are compared to other technology companies? A quick search didn't turn up anything interesting, but I figure there might be some Googlers here with an idea...
- illumin8 17y ago
  I recently had a telephone interview with Google for a systems engineering position. I'm not incredibly impressed by their process of finding talent. Background: I provided the hiring guy with architecture diagrams of some pretty large scale systems that I had designed: database clusters with 1TB of RAM and 72TB of disk, 10GbE network, etc. I not only designed, I also implemented these systems, so I'm a pretty senior architecture engineer with 18 years of solid UNIX/Linux, SAN storage, and networking experience. Long story short, I missed a very basic question "what does setting the sticky bit on a directory do?" I blanked because I wasn't expecting to answer basic sysadmin questions, and hadn't honestly set the sticky bit on a directory for several years. So, they sent me a nicely worded email that after careful consideration, we don't have a position that matches you, etc. The hiring process at Google is really messed up. I gather that the only qualifications they are really looking for are: 1. Fresh college graduates that memorized man pages. 2. Willing to work 80 hour weeks. 3. Don't care about salary because we're not going to pay much. I mean seriously, you don't turn down a senior architecture engineer with 18+ years of experience because he blanked on a stupid memorization question that can be googled in 10 seconds.
  - btilly 17y ago
    Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. How do you know that the basic question is what sank you? Is it possible that the interviewer didn't like the architectures that you came up with? Or perhaps you left the impression that you would not like to find yourself in a hands on position where you have to do things like set the sticky bit? (Based on this post I'd get that impression myself. But everyone here is hands on. "Architecture Astronaut" is not a job type we want to encourage.) But whatever the cause, I absolutely guarantee that all three of the qualifications that you think we have are wrong. Because I am none of the three and managed to get hired.
mo34 17y ago
Not sure who is the target audience for this article - management? If so, this is exactly what they do, turn talent in cash. When a programmer wants too much money they are out - who cares? Hire another young, talented programmer. Is the audience programmers? If so, it is for junior ones; job hopping can look fine for a while on a resume but if you're over 30 and left 5 gigs because you're 'bored' or 'ambitious' then you will have a tough time finding your next gig. This is because these qualities are seen as negative as you get older - stability and reliability are valued much higher.
tokenadult 17y ago
This really was an excellent article. I have a law school classmate who started at the New York City office of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore http://www.cravath.com/Cravath.html http://www.cravath.com/Cravath.html (the original "Cravath firm," of course) right after law school, having previously done his summer job between second and third year of law school there. He figured from the beginning that he would be very unlikely to make partner there. But I really envied the mentoring he received during his summer associate summer--mine was nothing at all like that. Cravath invests immense resources in developing talent, even though the firm knows it can't keep all the talent it develops. It still can keep relationships with many of the best lawyers who end up in other law firms by making that investment. My law school classmate has had a great career in another city since leaving Cravath.
fseek 17y ago
Well, our company has a good solution for this. People leave because they get bored, so they would switch teams from time to time, give new responsibilities and try to keep everyone motivated. Didn't always work, but they managed to keep some top guys for very long...
- ordinaryman 17y ago
  I personally believe that "you will be given more challenging work" should be the reason to be given for documenting stuff, rather than "I know you will quit one day". Not wanting to be interrupted, to know how things work, when you are working on your next interesting stuff, is reason enough to make things better maintainable. I personally held that belief and worked through such challenges for over 8 years, until I got bored switching teams and creating new stuff for my employer. I now do the "creating new stuff" for myself at my startup. If the talent is trying to make itself irreplaceable - like say, only one person knows how something works and they do not like documenting it or training others. It shows insecurity of the person who does not want to lose the job, which is bad for the organization as well as for the person. Bad for the organization because, if the person either wants to quit or cannot turn up for work, a crucial piece of work cannot be completed. Bad for the person because, though the person might think he/she is crucial for something work and cannot be fired, they are making themselves tied up to the work and hence cannot be promoted to better opportunities. A talent should learn and grow. And then to teach others and make them grow. And keep repeating the process. If there is not much you can learn to grow, then quit and join some place where you can. This is from my first link to HN (545 days ago).. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309262 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309262
leelin 17y ago
How about the talented people who are exceptional at their jobs, content with their cushy lives, and stick around even though they aren't learning as much anymore? They enjoy being a trusted go-to person on many matters and stimulate themselves outside of the workplace (or with the challenges of being a middle manager). That doesn't describe my personality, but it certainly fits the personality of some of my favorite ex-coworkers. Aren't these folks exactly the type a company wants to hire?
- mrcharles 17y ago
  At that point, those people should be driving the direction of the company. The self-actualization motivation becomes implicitly linked to the success of the company. I think that's the only time it really breaks out of what this article is talking about. But that is effectively "becoming partner" when you look at it.
  - bleedpurpleguy 17y ago
    Agreed. It's easy to become lazy, but it takes motivation or a swift kick in the pants by a mentor to get somebody to begin "leading" their peers and affect the direction of the company.
  - lsc 17y ago
    really? especially in technical jobs, often the best people don't have the skills /or the desire/ to obtain a management position, but they can still be extremely valuable. I know at some of the larger server farms I've worked in, there was often one guy who built a disproportionate amount of our infrastructure. The rest of us, in many cases, spent most of our time running scripts written by that guy. Personally, I think having those sorts around as a script writer/mentor/troubleshooter is probably vastly more valuable than promoting another really excellent technical person to become a mediocre manager.
- ben_straub 17y ago
  Exactly my thoughts: neither of the two characteristics ("exceptional-ness" and "loyalty") are binary qualities. Both exist on a continuum, and more importantly, they're orthogonal. But the article assumes everyone is either moving up or moving out. What ABOUT the really good engineer with a family, who's content to stay even if the work isn't bleeding-edge exciting? Are they ignorable just because they don't fit into this model? Do we stigmatize them because they're neither churning nor making partner?
xsmasher 17y ago
"most talented software developers tend to not stick around at one place for too long. The least talented folks, on the other hand, entrench themselves deep within the organization" Is this true for all organizations, or just bad ones? It feels like the best devs are not on the market long, and tend to "nest" too once they find a good situation.
- j_baker 17y ago
  I think the best organizations are the ones that can extend the curve as long as possible without "rolling out the red carpet on the way out". So when a talented developer gets to one of those places, they'll stay much longer than they would elsewhere.
pmjordan 17y ago
The problem from the opposite perspective: I found myself outgrowing jobs faster than would look good on my C.V. (I hear job hoppers aren't popular as employees). I ended up going down the contractor/consultant route; for some reason, nobody seems to have a problem with job hopping as long as you call it consulting. I guess there are no false pretenses and it avoids the legal baggage that comes with being an employee (notice periods, arbitrary holiday limits, etc.). It also makes me more money, at least now, ~2 years later.
- pavel_lishin 17y ago
  Hiring someone costs the company a lot of overhead, whether you work out or not. A contractor can be fired without incurring a lot of overhead. So if you job-hop quickly, companies might be a little wary of spending a lot of money to bring you in only to have you scadaddle off after three months.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    Is it really so much more expensive to hire someone than to find a contractor, though? In theory, you don't have the risk - if they don't deliver, you don't pay - but in practice money isn't the only resource you're wasting with a bad hire, it's time too. Missed deadlines can be extremely costly. So you need to vet your contractors almost as much as your employees. OK, depending on where you are, hiring an employee can drag you into a ton of legal obligation (as I mentioned in my original post) but typically that burden is reduced if the employee doesn't stay for too long. So as long as the company knows what they're getting into, I'm not sure why hiring a mediocre performer for all eternity is preferable to an overachiever who gets bored after a couple of months but hits the ground running. Sure, someone has to stay longer term, but that could be a pretty lean team. I guess it's assumed that people job-hop because they're not good enough to hold down a job, and it's assumed that contractors know what they're doing. Why is that? You choose your contractors based on their reputation. You should be doing the same for your employees anyway. FWIW, it may sound like it, but I'm not arguing out of some kind of bitterness here, I quite enjoy contracting because it means I always work on something that is important to the customer - I'm just genuinely curious why such different standards are applied, and if that's rational and sensible.
eru 17y ago
Is this a repost? I have a feeling that a very similar article was on reddit back in the days when it was still bearable--i.e. even before HN existed.
- SomeCallMeTim 17y ago
  I wouldn't call it a repost if it was on Reddit, but I had seen it before. I'd even bookmarked it in delicious, June 19, 2008--so it's a good bet it was on reddit that week. :)
  - eru 17y ago
    The layout of the original post was different, and it was probably not an the daily wtf. (As far as I can remember.) But 2008 does sound about right.
    - Maktab 17y ago
      The date on the article is 2008-04-29, so it's likely you came across it soon after it was first posted.
      - eru 17y ago
        Yes, probably.
snprbob86 17y ago
"A company with a culture of quitting does not have ex-employees; they have alumni." That point really hit home with me. You can beat around the bush and say "hit by a bus". You can put a positive spin on things and say "win the lottery". Or you can actually embrace a common social phenomenon and reap the benefits.
- alex_c 17y ago
  I've had the pleasure of working for one such company. My experience was exactly as described in the article: even though I enjoyed the team and the environment, eventually I was simply not getting what I needed out of the job. My manager was very understanding, and didn't try to feed me any HR "career" BS - he knew that there wasn't enough room for the growth I wanted, and that it made sense for me to move on. He simply said I'm welcome back at any time. The word "alumni" in the article really hit me. Three years later I still occasionally join that team for a beer, and I'm actually introduced to new members as an alumnus. So, yes, such places do actually exist.
- huherto 17y ago
  In our consulting company we have noticed that a lot of the ex-employees become our customers. Somehow, we have built good relationship with them and when they go and work for somebody else they call us. But I never saw it the way they put it in the article. It really is a good idea. Embrace turnover and get the benefits.
  - windsurfer 17y ago
    That's certainly an interesting way of getting customers. Employ people, have them quit, they get hired into a position that has the ability to give their old company money.
    - bleedpurpleguy 17y ago
      Viral. I like it.
    - blantonl 17y ago
carussell 17y ago
"This growth continues exponentially… [a graph follows]" That curve there doesn't look exponential, buck-o.
- dalore 17y ago
  It was on a logarithmic scale.
smakz 17y ago
I might be the minority here but I didn't really find this article worthwhile. On one hand it was a nicely documented theory that 'makes sense' but I have my doubts about how connected to reality it is. On the other it was written by someone who has had a series of bad managers and is pointing out the flaws with them. From the studies I read, the biggest correlation between leaving a company and variables is the relationship with your direct manager. Good managers will take the time to understand an employees ambitions and goals, and work with them to meet those exceptions in their current role or provide a path to a new role which will meet the employees goal. Neglecting to do this due diligence with your employees will leave them feeling isolated and itching to switch jobs. That's where I think this guy's theory falls apart. There is no value apex, software is software everywhere you go, the only variable is how it is managed. Instead of a value apex I would replace it with a fulfillment meter, consider is each of your employees fulfilled at their current position and if not why not? That's the question you should be asking and those are the problems you should be solving.
- JabavuAdams 17y ago
  There's a good aphorism: "People quit their managers, not their jobs." OTOH, I don't agree that "software is software everywhere you go". I've worked in specialties like games / computer graphics, and that kind of work is inherently more interesting to me than for loops and sql statements style dev. This isn't to say that less sexy areas can't have really good tech. They just often don't, and the exceptions are usually the leaders.
- count 17y ago
  I think there's a reason this model doesn't work for 'software developers'. There isn't really an 'up' - most developers don't WANT to manage other developers, they want to write kick ass code. That's fairly unique in the business world - in most other departments, there is a trend of 'hoping for promotion', etc. So there is an 'up'.
JabavuAdams 17y ago
This system is a very bad idea, because it fails to address (or even mention!) the Peter principle: "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." You could have someone who is just great in job description X, but you promote them to Y and they suck at it. I see this all the time. Not everyone's goals are the same as your goals. It's crucial that a manager try to understand his employee's goals and motivations, without imposing his own. There's also an implicit assumption that we should derive most of our satisfaction from our jobs. It's okay to have a job that's "just a job", while doing interesting hobbies or side projects.
adamc 17y ago
The problem with the Cravath system is that the rewards have to be significant for making it. Partners in law firms earn a LOT more than mere associates. Most established businesses aren't going to offer enough to make it worth putting up with this. The result of such a system would be constant job shopping to get a better wage, and low satisfaction for many workers. I think this would have destructive effects on most organizations, although if you managed to survive that initial change, it might be self-sustaining.
- j1o1h1n 17y ago
  Partners in law firms are co-owners. When the year's profits are tallied, they divide them amongst themselves.
- Tangurena 17y ago
  I would rephrase that as the problem with the Cravath system is that companies that claim to follow it, don't. The system, as developed at Cravath, involved extensive training and mentoring. The advantage of the system for other companies was that they got very experienced and well trained employees by hiring "alumni" of Cravath. The Up or Out promotion system used by most companies (and for officers in the US military), the advantages of the cravath system were removed and only the up or out was retained. The most prominent example of how this perverted version of the cravath system came to permeate US industry was Jack Welch's GE. Welch is seen as a hero by business majors and every stupid thing he said or did is worshipped as gospel. The quintessential example of Welch's stupidity came during a discussion with employees, where an employee asked about loyalty and Welch responded: "it's Friday, you got paid, we're even."
dalore 17y ago
Good article but the date it was published: 2008-04-29
HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
OTOH, some very good engineers are more interested in the domain than the technology. I work with some really smart people, one of which has been at the company for about 15 years. When you have the opportunity to work in a field that fascinates you, the actual technology you use to implement products becomes a lot less interesting, the business retains the "corporate knowledge" that only exists in people's heads, and the less committed quit. I wonder if the attitude here is a product of short product lifecycles and rapid gratification. In my industry, a short project is 2-3 years. An average one is 5-7 years from concept to first release.
greenlblue 17y ago
This exactly describes my graduate school experience in a certain mathematics department.
jcl 17y ago
But perhaps the most important benefit to a culture of quitting is that it effectively flushes out the residue of unskilled employees. Of course, that only works if there are other companies who are content to accumulate them. If everyone is constantly swapping jobs and never reaching partner, it's hard to distinguish the good employees from the bad ones.

276 points by presidentender 17y ago

I can easily motivate myself to write documentation without thinking about getting run over by the bus or quitting: I know that my successor will most probably be myself in half a year, and by that time, I have forgotten why I did what I did.

presidentender 17y ago

Ordinarily The Daily WTF is good for a chuckle, but this was actually insightful. I find that it applies to the HN user base, since we're (or we think we are) the employees most likely to "evaporate" and leave the job security types behind.

hackoder 17y ago
I lost a job in the manner he described - told them I was looking elsewhere, but I'd be more than happy to train my replacement. I did it without first finding work and I thought I was doing them a favor by letting them know as soon as I was sure of leaving so their projects wouldn't be affected. I was laid off due to 'lack of budget' within the week. That taught me. This is the first time I've read something which makes complete sense to me and helps get rid of the "ifs and buts" from my head (I still am looking for work). My ideas would never have been implemented, the organization was too resistant to change. The curve makes sense- it was fun for a while, but after "getting it all", the daily monotony would have killed me. At the same time other employees came in, did their work, and went home. They felt the whole system was very rigid, but they were ok with tolerating it. After quitting I've often found myself wondering if its something in my head that prevented me from "sticking it out". This post makes some good sense and I hope more employers read it.
- eru 17y ago
  We are looking to expand our team at the moment. I'll send you an email with more details. I hope you like it.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  I presume, since your employer didn't try to fire you for insubordination or something silly, that you were able to collect unemployment? They weren't as bad as they could have been! The signal given to other employees will hurt them in the long-term. Nobody will ever let on that they might be thinking about leaving. "Why did Bob, who had just begun to lead the new project, decide to take some other job? Wow, what a jerk!"
illumin8 17y ago
I thought it was a great article, but how do you actually apply the "up or out" principle in the real world? The thing I have found is that in most work environments the good engineers accomplish great things, get burned out, then leave, while the bad engineers become exceptionally good at playing political games. You know, the same engineers that have appalling work performance are the ones that are ass-kissing all day long, forming alliances, playing the office politics game like they are desperate to keep from getting voted off a reality TV show. The sad thing is, it actually works in most companies. The really unqualified employees will never be let go, or even disciplined, because they are "friends" with the management. I think this creates a low morale for everyone. In some companies, the really talented engineers just quit because they get too frustrated with the general lack of motivation and laziness of the "political" engineers, and either drop out or burn out, knowing full well that the "political" engineer will probably be promoted to become their superior, even though they are grossly incompetent at their present job. How do you solve this problem?
- anonjon 17y ago
  I think that's the point about the culture of quitting. If you have a culture where employees are expected to move on after a few years, the people who are playing politics and trying to get entrenched for job security are really easy to pick out. (They've been there 10 years while the average stay is maybe 3 or 4). No amount of ass kissing will save you from being the weird guy who can't move on.
- count 17y ago
  Our company gives every employee a 'projected promotion date', from Day 1. If you don't meet your promotion date (and that is adjusted based on how the economy and the company as a whole are doing, etc. - it's not set in stone), then you are asked to leave. Plain and simple. Up, or Out. There is no settling into a role as a mediocre mid level manager - the only role you can settle into is that of partner (which requires $millions of dollars in sales and revenue per year, so you can't exactly slouch at that either). It works AMAZINGLY well at keeping/attracting awesome talent. I've yet to meet anybody 'below average' or really even 'average' from a motivation/kick ass perspective. The culture is refreshingly honest and progressive.

pw0ncakes 17y ago

I agree that companies should be more aware of the fact that people leave jobs, and that it's an essential part of the economy. However, using biglaw (Cravath system) as a model for workplace culture is a really bad idea. Go here-- http://www.xoxohth.com/ http://www.xoxohth.com/ -- if you want to see the personality traits that this work culture attracts and encourages.

pingswept 17y ago
That link appears to be a list of discussions of law school admissions, not personality traits.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  Read it. These people are representative of the way professionals in Wall Street's "up-or-out" jungle think. Some of the things you'll read on that site will appall you. This is what the biglaw partners produced by creating a professional environment in which only a few percent have a chance at making partner, and the rest have essentially wasted years of their life for nothing.
  - pingswept 17y ago
    I'm willing to take you at your word that the site is filled with appalling things. It certainly looks appalling, and the few discussions I read appeared to be irritating people being irritated with the world. But what evidence is there that the structure of the hiring practices is what attracted these people? My unsubstantiated hunch is that Wall Street professionals might be there because they're after money or prestige, not because they're inevitably attracted by the hiring methods.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    the rest have essentially wasted years of their life for nothing. That decidedly is NOT the outcome of the Cravath approach, although it may be the outcome of the Latham and Watkins approach.
  - 17y ago

Tangurena 17y ago

This was one of the most insightful posts on Daily WTF. Unable to find much online about the Cravath system - although having seen it pop up in other references to why the starting salaries of lawyers was so messed up - I started the wikipedia article on it. For a privately published 3-volume history of one law firm, I was surprised that so many libraries had a copy of the history of the Cravath law firm. Not a lot of them are available on interlibrary loan.

redorb 17y ago

I see too many of the 'entrenched' at my work.. We have a secretary that refuses to be called anything but 'office administrator' and has been here 10 years (Down to 3-4 hour days now) ~ of course the owner thinks 'she runs this company' .... it's really sad.

barnaby 17y ago
Quit, you don't want to be part of the salt that gets left behind in the dead sea effect.

mattmcknight 17y ago

Maybe the good people are leaving because you are letting too many bad ones in, aren't getting rid of the bad ones fast enough, or at least getting them out of programming jobs, and generally aren't giving the good ones any differentiated treatment?

sophacles 17y ago
I think the point of the article is this thinking. Really it's not them, its not the crap people being treated with respect (altho that does in fact chafe), its that I get bored. Seriously after a while it stops being a puzzle, its just work. Once I've "solved" it, I lose interest and start getting resentful of being forced to deal with it even more. This is what "its just that time to move again" is about. If a place could provide me with a new challenge, puzzle whatever, I'd stick around, but a lot of places that have good environments are small, and therefore one product shops.
- notaname 17y ago
  >If a place could provide me with a new challenge, puzzle whatever, I'd stick around It's this kind of thinking that I fear is far more prevalent among new hires, and in my opinion is far more damaging. The company shouldn't need to "provide" you with a new challenge -- you should be seeking them out and creating your own challenges.
  - enjo 17y ago
    Exactly. In my experience there is plenty of challenge in virtually every facet of building a product. I've held a job(at single product shop) for more than 5 years. It wasn't like I went to work one day and went 'welp.. everythings done. Lets pack it in!' There was ALWAYS things to do. I guess I get my rocks off by actually accomplishing things. That means doing a really good job no matter what challenge I'm dealing with. There are a lot of challenges in software development. I think too often folks are looking for glamorous problems to solve. It's more about ego than anything else.

whamo 17y ago

Yeah, maybe the good ones are leaving. Or maybe, you're attracted to flash and arrogance. Maybe you only think they were good because they told you they were and then left. Maybe you're like a pathetic person who fawns over a lover who treats them poorly. Maybe, since you're still in business, the good ones stayed behind. Maybe you need redefine your definition of 'good'.

prospero 17y ago
Continued existence is usually not the limit of a business owner's ambition. By that same token, the people who can keep it running are not necessarily the same people who can continually grow it. "Flash and arrogance" are not the same as skill, but they're not inversely correlated either.
- docgnome 17y ago
  '"Flash and arrogance" are not the same as skill, but they're not inversely correlated either.' No kidding. I don't think anyone could argue that Linus, for just one example, is unskilled... It's a pretty well established fact that he can also be arrogant.
nzmsv 17y ago
A job is absolutely unlike a romantic relationship. I think this is exactly the problem most bosses have with employees leaving: they treat it as a breakup, or a divorce. The reality is, company loyalty is nothing like family loyalty. Here's the key difference: the moment an employee stops being a net win for the company, they are let go. Yet somehow management expects employees to stick around because of some imaginary "loyalty". It does not exist.

DenisM 17y ago

A less offensive way to think of it: It's a college - you spend 2-3-4 years, learn all you can and then graduate to better things in life. The only way you can stay here is by becoming a TA or a prof, but that'd be an entirely different job, and most people don't want that.

erydo 17y ago

For some reason this made me think of Google and how they encourage movement between teams and projects. It seems to me that's probably a good way to keep highly skilled employees riding the wave of that 'value apex', rather than just cresting over it and then leaving. Does anyone know what Google's turnover rates are compared to other technology companies? A quick search didn't turn up anything interesting, but I figure there might be some Googlers here with an idea...

illumin8 17y ago
I recently had a telephone interview with Google for a systems engineering position. I'm not incredibly impressed by their process of finding talent. Background: I provided the hiring guy with architecture diagrams of some pretty large scale systems that I had designed: database clusters with 1TB of RAM and 72TB of disk, 10GbE network, etc. I not only designed, I also implemented these systems, so I'm a pretty senior architecture engineer with 18 years of solid UNIX/Linux, SAN storage, and networking experience. Long story short, I missed a very basic question "what does setting the sticky bit on a directory do?" I blanked because I wasn't expecting to answer basic sysadmin questions, and hadn't honestly set the sticky bit on a directory for several years. So, they sent me a nicely worded email that after careful consideration, we don't have a position that matches you, etc. The hiring process at Google is really messed up. I gather that the only qualifications they are really looking for are: 1. Fresh college graduates that memorized man pages. 2. Willing to work 80 hour weeks. 3. Don't care about salary because we're not going to pay much. I mean seriously, you don't turn down a senior architecture engineer with 18+ years of experience because he blanked on a stupid memorization question that can be googled in 10 seconds.
- btilly 17y ago
  Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are most often the ones who don't get in. How do you know that the basic question is what sank you? Is it possible that the interviewer didn't like the architectures that you came up with? Or perhaps you left the impression that you would not like to find yourself in a hands on position where you have to do things like set the sticky bit? (Based on this post I'd get that impression myself. But everyone here is hands on. "Architecture Astronaut" is not a job type we want to encourage.) But whatever the cause, I absolutely guarantee that all three of the qualifications that you think we have are wrong. Because I am none of the three and managed to get hired.

mo34 17y ago

Not sure who is the target audience for this article - management? If so, this is exactly what they do, turn talent in cash. When a programmer wants too much money they are out - who cares? Hire another young, talented programmer. Is the audience programmers? If so, it is for junior ones; job hopping can look fine for a while on a resume but if you're over 30 and left 5 gigs because you're 'bored' or 'ambitious' then you will have a tough time finding your next gig. This is because these qualities are seen as negative as you get older - stability and reliability are valued much higher.

tokenadult 17y ago

This really was an excellent article. I have a law school classmate who started at the New York City office of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore http://www.cravath.com/Cravath.html http://www.cravath.com/Cravath.html (the original "Cravath firm," of course) right after law school, having previously done his summer job between second and third year of law school there. He figured from the beginning that he would be very unlikely to make partner there. But I really envied the mentoring he received during his summer associate summer--mine was nothing at all like that. Cravath invests immense resources in developing talent, even though the firm knows it can't keep all the talent it develops. It still can keep relationships with many of the best lawyers who end up in other law firms by making that investment. My law school classmate has had a great career in another city since leaving Cravath.

fseek 17y ago

Well, our company has a good solution for this. People leave because they get bored, so they would switch teams from time to time, give new responsibilities and try to keep everyone motivated. Didn't always work, but they managed to keep some top guys for very long...

ordinaryman 17y ago
I personally believe that "you will be given more challenging work" should be the reason to be given for documenting stuff, rather than "I know you will quit one day". Not wanting to be interrupted, to know how things work, when you are working on your next interesting stuff, is reason enough to make things better maintainable. I personally held that belief and worked through such challenges for over 8 years, until I got bored switching teams and creating new stuff for my employer. I now do the "creating new stuff" for myself at my startup. If the talent is trying to make itself irreplaceable - like say, only one person knows how something works and they do not like documenting it or training others. It shows insecurity of the person who does not want to lose the job, which is bad for the organization as well as for the person. Bad for the organization because, if the person either wants to quit or cannot turn up for work, a crucial piece of work cannot be completed. Bad for the person because, though the person might think he/she is crucial for something work and cannot be fired, they are making themselves tied up to the work and hence cannot be promoted to better opportunities. A talent should learn and grow. And then to teach others and make them grow. And keep repeating the process. If there is not much you can learn to grow, then quit and join some place where you can. This is from my first link to HN (545 days ago).. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309262 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309262

leelin 17y ago

How about the talented people who are exceptional at their jobs, content with their cushy lives, and stick around even though they aren't learning as much anymore? They enjoy being a trusted go-to person on many matters and stimulate themselves outside of the workplace (or with the challenges of being a middle manager). That doesn't describe my personality, but it certainly fits the personality of some of my favorite ex-coworkers. Aren't these folks exactly the type a company wants to hire?

mrcharles 17y ago
At that point, those people should be driving the direction of the company. The self-actualization motivation becomes implicitly linked to the success of the company. I think that's the only time it really breaks out of what this article is talking about. But that is effectively "becoming partner" when you look at it.
- bleedpurpleguy 17y ago
  Agreed. It's easy to become lazy, but it takes motivation or a swift kick in the pants by a mentor to get somebody to begin "leading" their peers and affect the direction of the company.
- lsc 17y ago
  really? especially in technical jobs, often the best people don't have the skills /or the desire/ to obtain a management position, but they can still be extremely valuable. I know at some of the larger server farms I've worked in, there was often one guy who built a disproportionate amount of our infrastructure. The rest of us, in many cases, spent most of our time running scripts written by that guy. Personally, I think having those sorts around as a script writer/mentor/troubleshooter is probably vastly more valuable than promoting another really excellent technical person to become a mediocre manager.
ben_straub 17y ago
Exactly my thoughts: neither of the two characteristics ("exceptional-ness" and "loyalty") are binary qualities. Both exist on a continuum, and more importantly, they're orthogonal. But the article assumes everyone is either moving up or moving out. What ABOUT the really good engineer with a family, who's content to stay even if the work isn't bleeding-edge exciting? Are they ignorable just because they don't fit into this model? Do we stigmatize them because they're neither churning nor making partner?

xsmasher 17y ago

"most talented software developers tend to not stick around at one place for too long. The least talented folks, on the other hand, entrench themselves deep within the organization" Is this true for all organizations, or just bad ones? It feels like the best devs are not on the market long, and tend to "nest" too once they find a good situation.

j_baker 17y ago
I think the best organizations are the ones that can extend the curve as long as possible without "rolling out the red carpet on the way out". So when a talented developer gets to one of those places, they'll stay much longer than they would elsewhere.

pmjordan 17y ago

The problem from the opposite perspective: I found myself outgrowing jobs faster than would look good on my C.V. (I hear job hoppers aren't popular as employees). I ended up going down the contractor/consultant route; for some reason, nobody seems to have a problem with job hopping as long as you call it consulting. I guess there are no false pretenses and it avoids the legal baggage that comes with being an employee (notice periods, arbitrary holiday limits, etc.). It also makes me more money, at least now, ~2 years later.

pavel_lishin 17y ago
Hiring someone costs the company a lot of overhead, whether you work out or not. A contractor can be fired without incurring a lot of overhead. So if you job-hop quickly, companies might be a little wary of spending a lot of money to bring you in only to have you scadaddle off after three months.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  Is it really so much more expensive to hire someone than to find a contractor, though? In theory, you don't have the risk - if they don't deliver, you don't pay - but in practice money isn't the only resource you're wasting with a bad hire, it's time too. Missed deadlines can be extremely costly. So you need to vet your contractors almost as much as your employees. OK, depending on where you are, hiring an employee can drag you into a ton of legal obligation (as I mentioned in my original post) but typically that burden is reduced if the employee doesn't stay for too long. So as long as the company knows what they're getting into, I'm not sure why hiring a mediocre performer for all eternity is preferable to an overachiever who gets bored after a couple of months but hits the ground running. Sure, someone has to stay longer term, but that could be a pretty lean team. I guess it's assumed that people job-hop because they're not good enough to hold down a job, and it's assumed that contractors know what they're doing. Why is that? You choose your contractors based on their reputation. You should be doing the same for your employees anyway. FWIW, it may sound like it, but I'm not arguing out of some kind of bitterness here, I quite enjoy contracting because it means I always work on something that is important to the customer - I'm just genuinely curious why such different standards are applied, and if that's rational and sensible.

eru 17y ago

Is this a repost? I have a feeling that a very similar article was on reddit back in the days when it was still bearable--i.e. even before HN existed.

SomeCallMeTim 17y ago
I wouldn't call it a repost if it was on Reddit, but I had seen it before. I'd even bookmarked it in delicious, June 19, 2008--so it's a good bet it was on reddit that week. :)
- eru 17y ago
  The layout of the original post was different, and it was probably not an the daily wtf. (As far as I can remember.) But 2008 does sound about right.
  - Maktab 17y ago
    The date on the article is 2008-04-29, so it's likely you came across it soon after it was first posted.
    - eru 17y ago
      Yes, probably.

snprbob86 17y ago

"A company with a culture of quitting does not have ex-employees; they have alumni." That point really hit home with me. You can beat around the bush and say "hit by a bus". You can put a positive spin on things and say "win the lottery". Or you can actually embrace a common social phenomenon and reap the benefits.

alex_c 17y ago
I've had the pleasure of working for one such company. My experience was exactly as described in the article: even though I enjoyed the team and the environment, eventually I was simply not getting what I needed out of the job. My manager was very understanding, and didn't try to feed me any HR "career" BS - he knew that there wasn't enough room for the growth I wanted, and that it made sense for me to move on. He simply said I'm welcome back at any time. The word "alumni" in the article really hit me. Three years later I still occasionally join that team for a beer, and I'm actually introduced to new members as an alumnus. So, yes, such places do actually exist.
huherto 17y ago
In our consulting company we have noticed that a lot of the ex-employees become our customers. Somehow, we have built good relationship with them and when they go and work for somebody else they call us. But I never saw it the way they put it in the article. It really is a good idea. Embrace turnover and get the benefits.
- windsurfer 17y ago
  That's certainly an interesting way of getting customers. Employ people, have them quit, they get hired into a position that has the ability to give their old company money.
  - bleedpurpleguy 17y ago
    Viral. I like it.
  - blantonl 17y ago

carussell 17y ago

"This growth continues exponentially… [a graph follows]" That curve there doesn't look exponential, buck-o.

dalore 17y ago
It was on a logarithmic scale.

smakz 17y ago

I might be the minority here but I didn't really find this article worthwhile. On one hand it was a nicely documented theory that 'makes sense' but I have my doubts about how connected to reality it is. On the other it was written by someone who has had a series of bad managers and is pointing out the flaws with them. From the studies I read, the biggest correlation between leaving a company and variables is the relationship with your direct manager. Good managers will take the time to understand an employees ambitions and goals, and work with them to meet those exceptions in their current role or provide a path to a new role which will meet the employees goal. Neglecting to do this due diligence with your employees will leave them feeling isolated and itching to switch jobs. That's where I think this guy's theory falls apart. There is no value apex, software is software everywhere you go, the only variable is how it is managed. Instead of a value apex I would replace it with a fulfillment meter, consider is each of your employees fulfilled at their current position and if not why not? That's the question you should be asking and those are the problems you should be solving.

JabavuAdams 17y ago
There's a good aphorism: "People quit their managers, not their jobs." OTOH, I don't agree that "software is software everywhere you go". I've worked in specialties like games / computer graphics, and that kind of work is inherently more interesting to me than for loops and sql statements style dev. This isn't to say that less sexy areas can't have really good tech. They just often don't, and the exceptions are usually the leaders.
count 17y ago
I think there's a reason this model doesn't work for 'software developers'. There isn't really an 'up' - most developers don't WANT to manage other developers, they want to write kick ass code. That's fairly unique in the business world - in most other departments, there is a trend of 'hoping for promotion', etc. So there is an 'up'.

JabavuAdams 17y ago

This system is a very bad idea, because it fails to address (or even mention!) the Peter principle: "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." You could have someone who is just great in job description X, but you promote them to Y and they suck at it. I see this all the time. Not everyone's goals are the same as your goals. It's crucial that a manager try to understand his employee's goals and motivations, without imposing his own. There's also an implicit assumption that we should derive most of our satisfaction from our jobs. It's okay to have a job that's "just a job", while doing interesting hobbies or side projects.

adamc 17y ago

The problem with the Cravath system is that the rewards have to be significant for making it. Partners in law firms earn a LOT more than mere associates. Most established businesses aren't going to offer enough to make it worth putting up with this. The result of such a system would be constant job shopping to get a better wage, and low satisfaction for many workers. I think this would have destructive effects on most organizations, although if you managed to survive that initial change, it might be self-sustaining.

j1o1h1n 17y ago
Partners in law firms are co-owners. When the year's profits are tallied, they divide them amongst themselves.
Tangurena 17y ago
I would rephrase that as the problem with the Cravath system is that companies that claim to follow it, don't. The system, as developed at Cravath, involved extensive training and mentoring. The advantage of the system for other companies was that they got very experienced and well trained employees by hiring "alumni" of Cravath. The Up or Out promotion system used by most companies (and for officers in the US military), the advantages of the cravath system were removed and only the up or out was retained. The most prominent example of how this perverted version of the cravath system came to permeate US industry was Jack Welch's GE. Welch is seen as a hero by business majors and every stupid thing he said or did is worshipped as gospel. The quintessential example of Welch's stupidity came during a discussion with employees, where an employee asked about loyalty and Welch responded: "it's Friday, you got paid, we're even."

dalore 17y ago

Good article but the date it was published: 2008-04-29

HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago

OTOH, some very good engineers are more interested in the domain than the technology. I work with some really smart people, one of which has been at the company for about 15 years. When you have the opportunity to work in a field that fascinates you, the actual technology you use to implement products becomes a lot less interesting, the business retains the "corporate knowledge" that only exists in people's heads, and the less committed quit. I wonder if the attitude here is a product of short product lifecycles and rapid gratification. In my industry, a short project is 2-3 years. An average one is 5-7 years from concept to first release.

greenlblue 17y ago

This exactly describes my graduate school experience in a certain mathematics department.

jcl 17y ago

But perhaps the most important benefit to a culture of quitting is that it effectively flushes out the residue of unskilled employees. Of course, that only works if there are other companies who are content to accumulate them. If everyone is constantly swapping jobs and never reaching partner, it's hard to distinguish the good employees from the bad ones.