37 ms·

Some on HN bemoan the lack of a "true" meritocracy. Maybe these never-ending, always-on performance evaluation and feedback loops are a dream come true for the

by otoburb 10y ago

Some on HN bemoan the lack of a "true" meritocracy. Maybe these never-ending, always-on performance evaluation and feedback loops are a dream come true for the HN majority. But as the author states towards the end of the article, everybody else will be left by the wayside as inequality grows between the be[st|tter] performing and "other" people. The question remains to be seen which side of the line the majority of HN readers fall. Of course, the more cynical amongst us may sneer and think "yet another social system for fakers to game." They probably wouldn't be wrong either, but seems on the surface that continuous performance evaluation will be slightly harder to game.

wonkaWonka 10y ago
No way. Fuck that. I have quit jobs over their idiotic daily meeting rituals. Continuous evaluation does nothing for team performance. Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale. Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale. Forcing people who actually get shit done, to mire themselves in tedium and busy work, and engage garish displays of self-appraisal, not only interrupts actual work, distracting from things that count, but provides for a constant atmosphere of interrogation. Playing the daily meeting, and weekly status game is shit. I won't do it. Never again. Not for any amount of money. Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done. Don't ask me are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You child. Grow some patience. The car ride is over when I park the car.
- wyager 10y ago
  While I probably wouldn't use such strong words, I absolutely agree. The daily standup/frequent performance review has disastrous effects on productivity with no discernible benefit. It appears to be something that management can do to cheaply create an illusion of managerial productivity.
  - wonkaWonka 10y ago
    Sometimes certain realities are often white-washed by the cordial etiquette that "The Crown's High Court" might demand of those dwelling in the workplace. I'm not directing this sort of statement at any actual person, but if someone is asking me for advice and personal opinion, I'd always prefer to tell it like it is.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    If you're not willing to use strong language, then you might be part of the problem.
    - ivraatiems 10y ago
      Good communicators don't need to swear or yell to make points.
      - bitJericho 10y ago
        The best ones do.
        xanthor 10y ago
        You're a fucking idiot.
        bitJericho 10y ago
        Fuck you pal!
        st3v3r 10y ago
        Nope. The best ones recognize their audience, and are perfectly capable of making the same point with or without childish swearing.
- iamleppert 10y ago
  Thank you!! You described perfectly why these systems do not work and are often the symptoms of either a banal corporate culture or some place that's full of median level people anyway. I can't stand the constant inquisition of these systems. It makes it seem like the focus is on the dance of "doing work" and not the actual work product at all.
- delazeur 10y ago
  Is it possible to build a megacorporation without falling into this management pattern? It clearly hurts top performers, but if you have more than a couple hundred employees it seems inevitable that a significant percentage of the staff is going to have to be shepherded and monitored through their work.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    >>Is it possible to build a megacorporation without falling into this management pattern? I don't believe so. Micromanagement is the result of two things: lack of actual management skill and lack of trust in employees. These become more and more common as organizations grow in size, because: a)Bad managers become more likely to play politics or slip through the cracks and get promoted, and b) inefficiencies (correlated with firm size) and the resulting decline in output tend to be attributed to employees not working, or not working hard enough - which breeds mistrust.
    - igf 10y ago
      There's no good solution to running a large organisation. Instead of complaining that large organisations are badly run, we should instead marvel that they run at all.
- lmm 10y ago
  > Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale. Then what's to be done? Unless you've figured out how to hire only good people? > Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale. Really? I feel a lot more resentful if someone's doing a terrible job and no-one seems to notice. > Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done. So you can estimate perfectly? Or when it becomes cleare something is going to take twice as long as originally thought, you have all the knowledge of the business to decide what action to take?
  - wonkaWonka 10y ago
    You can usually tell when people suck by the end of 30 days, through simple conversation, and not formal rituals. Certainly by 90 days. Unless, of course, you're the one that sucks. When you find good people, certainly don't bog them down with the albatross of making them do the things that terrible people waste time on. If you know terrible people are wasting time (and you will) and you know it's not fun to watch, why make a public display of it? Management can suck as much as subordinates. Terrible people cut across all levels of employment. They are a fact of life. Rituals don't improve anything. Know what you want. Your estimates will be destroyed if you don't. If you have to estimate, then you don't know what you're getting into. You are experimenting. Nothing will be precise. Don't burden me with your stupid, pointless rituals, if you're going on adventures into uncharted territory. You're wasting time with rituals. If you care about time, don't estimate. If you have to estimate, then stop caring about time.
ternaryoperator 10y ago
> Some on HN bemoan the lack of a "true" meritocracy. It's useful to remember that the term "meritocracy" was first used in a novel where it was the lynchpin of a dystopian social system [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy
crispyambulance 10y ago
"Gaming" will happen regardless of what system is in place (or even if there is no system). I would love to compare what orgs did back in the day before HR bullshit systems, but I am pretty sure that there were brown-nosers/gamers back them as well. Good bosses/leaders already continuously evaluate their team and the outcomes produced by the team and how it relates to the organizations goals. This is NECESSARILY a SUBJECTIVE activity that won't map to any scales of 1-5, ranking hierarchies, or made-up SMART goals. These HR systems are just busy-work that wastes time, resources, and burns out people's good-will and authenticity. I think the big question is not whether these systems actually work (of course THEY DON'T), but how large orgs allow it go on even in the face of NO compelling evidence.
clifanatic 10y ago
Hehe - I just can't help but worry just how much of what I do (as a computer programmer) "looks like" nothing at all. You spent two days figuring out that Tomcat expects (but doesn't document) client-side certificates names to be in "CN=x, OU=y, O=z" format instead of the "O=z/OU=y/CN=x" format that OpenSSL reports them in? Wait a minute, I thought you were a programmer, you're supposed to know this stuff already!

by otoburb 10y ago

wonkaWonka 10y ago

No way. Fuck that. I have quit jobs over their idiotic daily meeting rituals. Continuous evaluation does nothing for team performance. Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale. Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale. Forcing people who actually get shit done, to mire themselves in tedium and busy work, and engage garish displays of self-appraisal, not only interrupts actual work, distracting from things that count, but provides for a constant atmosphere of interrogation. Playing the daily meeting, and weekly status game is shit. I won't do it. Never again. Not for any amount of money. Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done. Don't ask me are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You child. Grow some patience. The car ride is over when I park the car.

wyager 10y ago
While I probably wouldn't use such strong words, I absolutely agree. The daily standup/frequent performance review has disastrous effects on productivity with no discernible benefit. It appears to be something that management can do to cheaply create an illusion of managerial productivity.
- wonkaWonka 10y ago
  Sometimes certain realities are often white-washed by the cordial etiquette that "The Crown's High Court" might demand of those dwelling in the workplace. I'm not directing this sort of statement at any actual person, but if someone is asking me for advice and personal opinion, I'd always prefer to tell it like it is.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  If you're not willing to use strong language, then you might be part of the problem.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    Good communicators don't need to swear or yell to make points.
    - bitJericho 10y ago
      The best ones do.
      - xanthor 10y ago
        You're a fucking idiot.
        bitJericho 10y ago
        Fuck you pal!
      - st3v3r 10y ago
        Nope. The best ones recognize their audience, and are perfectly capable of making the same point with or without childish swearing.
iamleppert 10y ago
Thank you!! You described perfectly why these systems do not work and are often the symptoms of either a banal corporate culture or some place that's full of median level people anyway. I can't stand the constant inquisition of these systems. It makes it seem like the focus is on the dance of "doing work" and not the actual work product at all.
delazeur 10y ago
Is it possible to build a megacorporation without falling into this management pattern? It clearly hurts top performers, but if you have more than a couple hundred employees it seems inevitable that a significant percentage of the staff is going to have to be shepherded and monitored through their work.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Is it possible to build a megacorporation without falling into this management pattern? I don't believe so. Micromanagement is the result of two things: lack of actual management skill and lack of trust in employees. These become more and more common as organizations grow in size, because: a)Bad managers become more likely to play politics or slip through the cracks and get promoted, and b) inefficiencies (correlated with firm size) and the resulting decline in output tend to be attributed to employees not working, or not working hard enough - which breeds mistrust.
  - igf 10y ago
    There's no good solution to running a large organisation. Instead of complaining that large organisations are badly run, we should instead marvel that they run at all.
lmm 10y ago
> Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale. Then what's to be done? Unless you've figured out how to hire only good people? > Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale. Really? I feel a lot more resentful if someone's doing a terrible job and no-one seems to notice. > Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done. So you can estimate perfectly? Or when it becomes cleare something is going to take twice as long as originally thought, you have all the knowledge of the business to decide what action to take?
- wonkaWonka 10y ago
  You can usually tell when people suck by the end of 30 days, through simple conversation, and not formal rituals. Certainly by 90 days. Unless, of course, you're the one that sucks. When you find good people, certainly don't bog them down with the albatross of making them do the things that terrible people waste time on. If you know terrible people are wasting time (and you will) and you know it's not fun to watch, why make a public display of it? Management can suck as much as subordinates. Terrible people cut across all levels of employment. They are a fact of life. Rituals don't improve anything. Know what you want. Your estimates will be destroyed if you don't. If you have to estimate, then you don't know what you're getting into. You are experimenting. Nothing will be precise. Don't burden me with your stupid, pointless rituals, if you're going on adventures into uncharted territory. You're wasting time with rituals. If you care about time, don't estimate. If you have to estimate, then stop caring about time.

ternaryoperator 10y ago

> Some on HN bemoan the lack of a "true" meritocracy. It's useful to remember that the term "meritocracy" was first used in a novel where it was the lynchpin of a dystopian social system [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

crispyambulance 10y ago

"Gaming" will happen regardless of what system is in place (or even if there is no system). I would love to compare what orgs did back in the day before HR bullshit systems, but I am pretty sure that there were brown-nosers/gamers back them as well. Good bosses/leaders already continuously evaluate their team and the outcomes produced by the team and how it relates to the organizations goals. This is NECESSARILY a SUBJECTIVE activity that won't map to any scales of 1-5, ranking hierarchies, or made-up SMART goals. These HR systems are just busy-work that wastes time, resources, and burns out people's good-will and authenticity. I think the big question is not whether these systems actually work (of course THEY DON'T), but how large orgs allow it go on even in the face of NO compelling evidence.

clifanatic 10y ago

Hehe - I just can't help but worry just how much of what I do (as a computer programmer) "looks like" nothing at all. You spent two days figuring out that Tomcat expects (but doesn't document) client-side certificates names to be in "CN=x, OU=y, O=z" format instead of the "O=z/OU=y/CN=x" format that OpenSSL reports them in? Wait a minute, I thought you were a programmer, you're supposed to know this stuff already!