4 ms·
Since recruiting excellent people costs nothing and is extremely easy this idea makes sense. Additionally team and corporate culture are valueless, so retainin
by sgt101 10y ago
Since recruiting excellent people costs nothing and is extremely easy this idea makes sense.
Additionally team and corporate culture are valueless, so retaining these things is unimportant.
Finally we can observe that consultants and executives are the fundamental creative loci in our economy.
- chris_wot 10y agoLol!
- VikingCoder 10y agoAn axiom of Poe's Law is that if you want to express sarcasm, you need to be explicit. Otherwise, people may think you honestly believe what you say.
- empath75 10y agoTo play devils advocate, I've quit a few jobs who offered small annual raises because other companies offered me a lot more money to leave. Honestly a few percent raise a year for a competent programmer is insulting, assuming you're increasing your skill set all the time.
- vonmoltke 10y agoAssuming you have the good fortune to live in an area where changing jobs is easy (or are interested in webdev).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- duaneb 10y ago> Honestly a few percent raise a year for a competent programmer is insulting, assuming you're increasing your skill set all the time. This is wishful thinking. Your skill set (learning new technologies + critical thinking) is unlikely to improve over time. Furthermore, you're constantly competing against new graduates in a world where your "skills" are a generic commodity. Good luck.
- wcummings 10y agoEventually programmers will realize they're not special and "union" will stop being a dirty word.
- stale2002 10y agoWould you rather make 50k a year and get a 5 percent yearly raise or would you rather be "perpetually stuck" making 150k? IMO, being a commodity ain't so bad.
- Pdxred 10y agoIf your skill set is not improving over time, you are in serious trouble. When the next lay off bus comes around, they gonna throw you under it.
- duaneb 10y agoThe only skill you need is to read man pages. I don't think you'll become a better reader every year. But if you master this, you could change jobs tomorrow without worry about adapting. If you're calling technological knowledge a skill, you've already lost.
- clifanatic 10y agoI'm almost positive he was being sarcastic. I hope...?
- mgkimsal 10y ago> Honestly a few percent raise a year for a competent programmer is insulting, assuming you're increasing your skill set all the time. Huh? Expecting raises of any sort from an employer is insulting to them, unless you're increasing the value you bring. There are loads of devs I know 'increasing their skills set' yet not bring any actual value to the business they're employed in. The two points can be quite orthogonal, and the business is really only going to care about what value you're bringing to the table.
- gph 10y ago"Additionally team and corporate culture are valueless, so retaining these things is unimportant." Honestly I've never felt all that connected to any of the forced attempts to create a corporate or team culture where I've worked. I'd much rather be motivated by money. Though I recognize that likely means I'm not an ideal employee.
- chadgeidel 10y agoI would argue any "forced attempts to create a corporate or team culture" signal poor culture. I've worked at "good culture" and "bad culture" places and the "good culture" places had events but they were never labeled as such - they were just "events".
- sportanova 10y ago"These are you new values and reasons for being!" Shocking that that doesn't work. And I don't understand how people take seriously the "need to be passionate about x industry". No, you just need to pay money and the employee needs to do acceptable work
- pdpi 10y agoThat's a fundamental misunderstanding of what corporate culture means (and that misunderstanding is, in my experience, a sign that the culture is actually pretty bad). Comparing my previous and current positions, there's clear differences in what sort of behaviour is acceptable, what sort of behaviour is frowned upon, and what sort of behaviour is praised. This both in terms of the work product itself, and in the way we relate to each other as colleagues. I can also tell you in no uncertain terms that a culture I'm happy with is much stronger than money at producing the sort of motivation that keeps me producing "acceptable work".
- sportanova 10y agoIt might originally have been a misunderstanding, but like how "literally", now also means "not literally" it's the meaning of "culture".
- raldi 10y agoDe-sarcasming your comment, I get "Recruiting people is expensive and difficult, and maintaining company culture is important, therefore this proposal is a bad idea." However, I don't see how the conclusion follows from your premise. Are you saying this idea would lead to recruiting difficulties, or that it would increase unintended turnover? Are you saying it would destroy company culture because of employee departures, or in some other way?
- stale2002 10y agoWould you want to work for a company that has this policy? I certainly wouldn't.
- sgt101 10y agoThank you for replying and debating - it's good! I think that this would increase the turnover of employees who are are not strongly motivated by reward vs. the current practice because the current practice is aimed at preventing reward from being a key issue. People join at a level that provides a lifestyle that they find liveable, they remain or try to upgrade. Those that remain are rewarded with the maintenance of their lifestyle and some small increments. If that goes then long term employees will see a decline of their lifestyle and likely will then be moved to churn. In addition the provision of reward by bonus will increase competition between employees and corrode team relationships. That's fine for sales, where team is nowhere, but ruins everything else.