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Rachel's reasoning is blaming a particular person. It's also possibly identifiable if you work at Google. The person takes 6 bottles because they know they nee

Rachel's reasoning is blaming a particular person. It's also possibly identifiable if you work at Google. The person takes 6 bottles because they know they need 6 bottles. It's just so little. I also don't want people who aim to blame other people first, especially when a systematic improvement is so obvious here.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Well, maybe that person should've raised the point about snack scarcity instead of hoarding. > The person takes 6 bottles because they know they need 6 bottles. It's just so little. They don't need 6 bottles. They won't die if they get only 2. They want 6 bottles, and are willing to disregard the fact that other people want a bottle just as much. Blaming is a bad idea in case of mistakes, because mistakes are unintentional and you don't want people to hide mistakes. Blaming and peer pressure is absolutely a good idea when someone behaves antisocially. The systematic improvement you're seeking isn't that obvious when behavior Rachel describes is tolerated. Say the company ups the supply. It may be that this resolves the situation, but it very well may be that the 6-bottle-taker now decides to take 8, or 12 - 6 for work and 6 for home. And then some extra for their kid. Others will notice it, realize that it's apparently accepted behavior and follow suit. Now the company has to either up the supply significantly, in hope of saturating the leak, or start regulating behavior. Either way, at this point a sane manager would just pull the free snacks program instead. You'll notice that this exact pattern of behavior Rachel is exposing here is common enough to be recognized and named as a large social problem, that it's literally the meaning behind "that's why we can't have nice things", and that a good chunk of laws exist to prevent or punish this kind of behavior.
- ergocoder 7y ago
  > It may be that this resolves the situation, but it very well may be that the 6-bottle-taker now decides to take 8, or 12 - 6 for work and 6 for home. And then some extra for their kid. Let's stop extrapolate. Taking stuff (meant for employees at the office) for your families at home sounds more like theft. It's a grey area, but it's clear cut when you do it consistently in large amount over a longer period of time... It's a totally different problem. > Now the company has to either up the supply significantly significantly? Please avoid exaggerating to make your point. > Either way, at this point a sane manager would just pull the free snacks program instead. Nah. A junior engineer at Google is paid ~$1000 a day. These bottles' cost isn't significant. It seems more productive to make things more abundance and avoid scarcity. > Blaming and peer pressure is absolutely a good idea when someone behaves antisocially. Nah. Even Rachel (the blog post owner) would disagree with this...
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > It's a grey area, but it's clear cut when you do it consistently over a longer period of time... It's a totally different problem. It's not a totally different problem, it's an extension of the same. There's a shared resource meant for employees to be used in a reasonable way, and someone decides to take it all for themselves. The difference between this and taking extra for family starts with "I'm taking 6 bottles home, but I don't really need 6, might as well give one to my kid". > significantly? Please avoid exaggerating to make your point. Significantly, i.e. to account for growing demand caused by unrestricted freeloading. I can imagine it easily being 5x+ if more people decide to abuse the system too. > Nah. A junior engineer at Google is paid ~$1000 a day. These bottles' cost isn't significant. On the one hand, fair. Maybe this is how it works at Google. On the other hand, all other companies I had personal experience with agonize over spendings that are fraction of their developer's salaries, and most people wouldn't quit over just cancellation of free sodas. > Nah. Even Rachel (the blog post owner) would disagree with this... Well, she just did put a post that's chastising such behavior and that post can probably identify a person at Google to their peers, so I'd disagree with you here.
    - ergocoder 7y ago
      > Well, she just did put a post that's chastising such behavior and probably can identify a person at Google to its peers, so I'd disagree with you here. Fair. I'm disappointed in her blog post; she didn't even offer a systematic fix. The blog is, at best, unbalanced, and, at worst, screams public shaming. It's just so unlike how google/facebook thinks about management in general. So, I'd still give her some benefit of the doubt; and say that she doesn't believe in shaming/peer pressure.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        My impression was that the blog post wasn't intended to discuss all the possible ways to approach the problem of undersupply in free snacks, but just to highlight an instance of tragedy of the commons out there "in the small". Were I working there, I too would push for increasing the supply of the constantly out soft drink, though I'd still consider the behavior of that person inconsiderate and would expect of them to raise that issue too, instead of just hoarding.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Well, maybe that person should've raised the point about snack scarcity instead of hoarding. > The person takes 6 bottles because they know they need 6 bottles. It's just so little. They don't need 6 bottles. They won't die if they get only 2. They want 6 bottles, and are willing to disregard the fact that other people want a bottle just as much. Blaming is a bad idea in case of mistakes, because mistakes are unintentional and you don't want people to hide mistakes. Blaming and peer pressure is absolutely a good idea when someone behaves antisocially. The systematic improvement you're seeking isn't that obvious when behavior Rachel describes is tolerated. Say the company ups the supply. It may be that this resolves the situation, but it very well may be that the 6-bottle-taker now decides to take 8, or 12 - 6 for work and 6 for home. And then some extra for their kid. Others will notice it, realize that it's apparently accepted behavior and follow suit. Now the company has to either up the supply significantly, in hope of saturating the leak, or start regulating behavior. Either way, at this point a sane manager would just pull the free snacks program instead. You'll notice that this exact pattern of behavior Rachel is exposing here is common enough to be recognized and named as a large social problem, that it's literally the meaning behind "that's why we can't have nice things", and that a good chunk of laws exist to prevent or punish this kind of behavior.

ergocoder 7y ago
> It may be that this resolves the situation, but it very well may be that the 6-bottle-taker now decides to take 8, or 12 - 6 for work and 6 for home. And then some extra for their kid. Let's stop extrapolate. Taking stuff (meant for employees at the office) for your families at home sounds more like theft. It's a grey area, but it's clear cut when you do it consistently in large amount over a longer period of time... It's a totally different problem. > Now the company has to either up the supply significantly significantly? Please avoid exaggerating to make your point. > Either way, at this point a sane manager would just pull the free snacks program instead. Nah. A junior engineer at Google is paid ~$1000 a day. These bottles' cost isn't significant. It seems more productive to make things more abundance and avoid scarcity. > Blaming and peer pressure is absolutely a good idea when someone behaves antisocially. Nah. Even Rachel (the blog post owner) would disagree with this...
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > It's a grey area, but it's clear cut when you do it consistently over a longer period of time... It's a totally different problem. It's not a totally different problem, it's an extension of the same. There's a shared resource meant for employees to be used in a reasonable way, and someone decides to take it all for themselves. The difference between this and taking extra for family starts with "I'm taking 6 bottles home, but I don't really need 6, might as well give one to my kid". > significantly? Please avoid exaggerating to make your point. Significantly, i.e. to account for growing demand caused by unrestricted freeloading. I can imagine it easily being 5x+ if more people decide to abuse the system too. > Nah. A junior engineer at Google is paid ~$1000 a day. These bottles' cost isn't significant. On the one hand, fair. Maybe this is how it works at Google. On the other hand, all other companies I had personal experience with agonize over spendings that are fraction of their developer's salaries, and most people wouldn't quit over just cancellation of free sodas. > Nah. Even Rachel (the blog post owner) would disagree with this... Well, she just did put a post that's chastising such behavior and that post can probably identify a person at Google to their peers, so I'd disagree with you here.
  - ergocoder 7y ago
    > Well, she just did put a post that's chastising such behavior and probably can identify a person at Google to its peers, so I'd disagree with you here. Fair. I'm disappointed in her blog post; she didn't even offer a systematic fix. The blog is, at best, unbalanced, and, at worst, screams public shaming. It's just so unlike how google/facebook thinks about management in general. So, I'd still give her some benefit of the doubt; and say that she doesn't believe in shaming/peer pressure.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      My impression was that the blog post wasn't intended to discuss all the possible ways to approach the problem of undersupply in free snacks, but just to highlight an instance of tragedy of the commons out there "in the small". Were I working there, I too would push for increasing the supply of the constantly out soft drink, though I'd still consider the behavior of that person inconsiderate and would expect of them to raise that issue too, instead of just hoarding.