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> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a goo

> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and especially young people, should think about this more. It's called “labour market”, not “labour community”. A company as a whole is a faceless, consciousness-less creature that will eat you alive if that increases the right metrics. And it's definitely not a loving parent-figure that some of the HR people want you to think it is. Also, this needs a (2018).

elfexec 7y ago
> It's called “labour market”, not “labour community” It's also called human resources, not human community or human family. You are a resource just like a monitor or a stapler on the desk. A resource that the company uses for the benefit of the shareholders.
- doublement 7y ago
  Being a useful resource doesn't have to be miserable though, especially if your role is more akin to a chainsaw or rocket engine than a stapler.
  - saalweachter 7y ago
    A farmer will put the animals' comfort and health and safety ahead of their own. They'll work long hours through heat waves and winter storms, get up in the middle of the night to check that everything is all right, spend every waking and sleeping moment worrying about the livestock, individually and collectively. 'course, the pig still gets eaten in the end.
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      You need to watch more PETA undercover videos.
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    there are thousands of chainsaws and rocket engines ready to take your place.
    - izacus 7y ago
      Really? So why does everyone complain about engineering shortage?
      - Afton 7y ago
        There are ~basically~ no employee shortages, only employee shortages at a given pay rate.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - wccrawford 7y ago
        Because what they're really saying is that they don't want to pay more money. By complaining about the "shortage" they encourage new entrants into the field and convince existing talent to accept lower wages. It's purely marketing, IMO.
        noonespecial 7y ago
        >convince existing talent to accept lower wages. That seems like lousy marketing. If I'm told that something is constantly in a shortage my first thought isn't exactly to sell it for less.
        wccrawford 7y ago
        Eh, you're right. I'm obviously not thinking clearly this morning.
      - ALittleLight 7y ago
        To justify the H1B and similar quotas so they can import more foreign born labor so they can pay labor less.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Indeed; "human" is an adjective in that phrase.
forgotmypw 7y ago
Sadly, this trap is designed quite well, while warnings about it are not designed nearly as well, and many fall into it for n years.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  I'm always surprised at how people fall in this trap. Businesses are inherently not there for your interest (income/livelihood), they exist to capture money/resources. They hire people to be the human face to make it appear otherwise (HR) and market (propoganda) to workers in similar ways products/services are marketed to consumers. If there's a position, businesses expect it contributes to their profit. If the position pays $200k/yr, you can rest assured in the long run, they expect your work (or at least an average of your team, branch, etc. over that time) to produce at least what you're being paid in value. That's optimistically speaking but realistically speaking, more value must be produced than your total compensation (you're always worth more than you're being paid or compensated if a business is doing its job well). That's labor in general across the board ("skilled" or "unskilled"). The catch is when businesses overestimate a worker's value... that's when we plebeian workers are actually pulling money/value from the relationship--we're getting back more than we contribute in. For some reason, culturally, this scenario for the laborer to pull more value than a business is taboo and seen as laziness, fraud, theft, etc. but it's somehow not taboo when the direction of the relationship changes: for a business to make money off its workers.
  - noonespecial 7y ago
    Its not always zero sum. In the best case, a group of workers that could make 1x each on their own, combine and are able to make 1.5x each together, and get paid around 1.2x each. The additional .3x is the corporate "profit" and is distributed in any number of ways depending on how the company is set up. Its still a rational decision for all of the employees to work there.
    - Frost1x 7y ago
      Not sure I believe emergentism. While it may be difficult to quantify, I don't find the "whole greater than the sum of its parts," just the perception of the sum being greater than its parts or the reality hiding in the complexity from us mere mortals. Without emergent properties (your work + my work < our work), it really is a zero sum game. To me, you may be able to manipulate perception of value in this fashion but that's where it ends (which to be fair, is often enough).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tuesday20 7y ago
My dad had just one job all his life, for 33 years. While he didn’t become rich, he did enjoy relative peace of mind, pension etc. Of course everything is relative, but there was a time where companies had a little bit of concern to their employees, however small it was. Those days are gone. These days, companies don’t even pretend. A very small percentage of people are going to do well, for the vast majority it is just slavery, plain and simple
- trentnix 7y ago
  Nonsense. Everywhere I’ve been employed cared about my wellbeing and when I was an employer, I cared about the wellbeing of my staff. Calling an employer/employee relationship slavery after a Googler complains he wasn’t promoted fast enough is peak self-importance.
  - vms20591 7y ago
    Yeah, they might pay for your insurance, give you free food, but that's it. The ultimate motive is to make profit, by getting every bit of work from you. You can sugarcoat it however you want, but to an employer, you are just a liability, not an asset, even when the "current" they call you as one. Because, the "next" they might not. The terms "employer", "they" are relative. As in the previous comment, "A company as a whole is a faceless, consciousness-less creature".
    - trentnix 7y ago
      No, a company just a collection of people with a common goal. And when you don’t like one company, you have incredible mobility to find another. In a job market as good as the one in the US at the moment, that mobility is irrespective of skill level. And that keeps companies, even the bad ones, from getting away with dehumanizing its workforce.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        There are vast swaths of the US that are in economic decline, and they most certainly do not allow for mobility irrespective of skill level. They don't even have sufficient economic activity to support a Walmart.
war1025 7y ago
What always gets me about these statements is that, yes you're in a business relationship with the company, but that relationship is obviously highly profitable to you. What's the point of giving up that income just to "stick it to the man"?
- wccrawford 7y ago
  IMO, knowing that it's a business relationship and not a community is important to getting your proper compensation and keeping your mental health. It's not about "sticking it to the man" at all, but getting your appropriate compensation. IMO, too many people see their company as a family, but the company does treat them that way and knows the mistake that the employees are making. I think it leads a lot of people to burnout by giving their all to the company while they just receive an average paycheck in return. Instead of putting that effort into their job, they could be enriching their own lives instead.
- rb808 7y ago
  There is only one thing worse than being exploited by the capitalist corporations and that's being unemployed and not being exploited by anyone.
scotty79 7y ago
I was always aware that there's no relationship. That I'm just selling my life for money. Every moment that I'm not doing the thing that I want to be doing at that moment should better be worth it. Employer can pay with money or with entertainment. Roleplaying as a "part of family" or "valued employee" can be worth something but never forget it's a game played for your entertainment to balance lower pay. When it's no longer worth for the players, game ends and everybody goes home to barely ever meet again. Pick employers that offer best sum of pay and entertainment at the lowest cost to your life.
claudiawerner 7y ago
>Arguably the most pervasive element enabling exploitative office culture is the postmodern trickery of the contemporary working environment. Slavoj Žižek argues that modern employment tactics create the illusion that our employer is our friend. This fabrication empowers the employer while denying the employed the right to vocalize and protest dissatisfaction of their working conditions. “You’re not going to stick around and help out? I thought we were a team? I thought we were friends?” >Žižek suggests that the environment of the workplace has been twisted, using architectural devices, to manipulate employees. Kitchens, ‘break-out spaces’, lounges, free food, free coffee – he postulates that this is a postmodern sleight of hand designed to manipulate and disarm staff. By fabricating the illusion of employer as friend, the employed is denied the opportunity to protest, argue, fight, be adversarial and demand more of their working conditions. These informal spaces are political spaces of control, surveillance and manipulation.[0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/slavoj-zizek-says-your-office-ping-pong-table-is-oppressing-you-2012-5 https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/slavoj-zizek-says-your-off...
- buboard 7y ago
  There is nothing particularly insightful in that quote. Employee/employer relationship is like any other transactional relationship: exchanging some freedom for money. Other forms, e.g. freelancing, consulting are different, but pay less for the same amount of work
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    The quote remarks on the changing of the relationship, a point which is insightful. Several authors (from Zizek to Frederic Lordon) have noticed the dynamics of the relationship changing from pure unashamed totalitarianism in the workplace to the idea that the boss is your friend. The nature of the employee/employer transactional relationship has changed both in theory (management techniques) and practice (direction, micro-management) since the time of the old critiques of domination in the workplace. The employee/employer relation, it is argued, has not become more equitably transactional, but rather the old pre-Fordist techniques have been hidden and obscured - arguably more perniciously. It is, if nothing else, an indication that critics of capital need to reformulate the conception of the employer/employee relationship. Nitzan & Bichler and Vrousalis take two divergent approaches to exaplaining the special nature of the employee/employer relationship as situated in modern life.

elfexec 7y ago

> It's called “labour market”, not “labour community” It's also called human resources, not human community or human family. You are a resource just like a monitor or a stapler on the desk. A resource that the company uses for the benefit of the shareholders.

doublement 7y ago
Being a useful resource doesn't have to be miserable though, especially if your role is more akin to a chainsaw or rocket engine than a stapler.
- saalweachter 7y ago
  A farmer will put the animals' comfort and health and safety ahead of their own. They'll work long hours through heat waves and winter storms, get up in the middle of the night to check that everything is all right, spend every waking and sleeping moment worrying about the livestock, individually and collectively. 'course, the pig still gets eaten in the end.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    You need to watch more PETA undercover videos.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  there are thousands of chainsaws and rocket engines ready to take your place.
  - izacus 7y ago
    Really? So why does everyone complain about engineering shortage?
    - Afton 7y ago
      There are ~basically~ no employee shortages, only employee shortages at a given pay rate.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - wccrawford 7y ago
      Because what they're really saying is that they don't want to pay more money. By complaining about the "shortage" they encourage new entrants into the field and convince existing talent to accept lower wages. It's purely marketing, IMO.
      - noonespecial 7y ago
        >convince existing talent to accept lower wages. That seems like lousy marketing. If I'm told that something is constantly in a shortage my first thought isn't exactly to sell it for less.
        wccrawford 7y ago
        Eh, you're right. I'm obviously not thinking clearly this morning.
    - ALittleLight 7y ago
      To justify the H1B and similar quotas so they can import more foreign born labor so they can pay labor less.
sokoloff 7y ago
Indeed; "human" is an adjective in that phrase.

forgotmypw 7y ago

Sadly, this trap is designed quite well, while warnings about it are not designed nearly as well, and many fall into it for n years.

Frost1x 7y ago
I'm always surprised at how people fall in this trap. Businesses are inherently not there for your interest (income/livelihood), they exist to capture money/resources. They hire people to be the human face to make it appear otherwise (HR) and market (propoganda) to workers in similar ways products/services are marketed to consumers. If there's a position, businesses expect it contributes to their profit. If the position pays $200k/yr, you can rest assured in the long run, they expect your work (or at least an average of your team, branch, etc. over that time) to produce at least what you're being paid in value. That's optimistically speaking but realistically speaking, more value must be produced than your total compensation (you're always worth more than you're being paid or compensated if a business is doing its job well). That's labor in general across the board ("skilled" or "unskilled"). The catch is when businesses overestimate a worker's value... that's when we plebeian workers are actually pulling money/value from the relationship--we're getting back more than we contribute in. For some reason, culturally, this scenario for the laborer to pull more value than a business is taboo and seen as laziness, fraud, theft, etc. but it's somehow not taboo when the direction of the relationship changes: for a business to make money off its workers.
- noonespecial 7y ago
  Its not always zero sum. In the best case, a group of workers that could make 1x each on their own, combine and are able to make 1.5x each together, and get paid around 1.2x each. The additional .3x is the corporate "profit" and is distributed in any number of ways depending on how the company is set up. Its still a rational decision for all of the employees to work there.
  - Frost1x 7y ago
    Not sure I believe emergentism. While it may be difficult to quantify, I don't find the "whole greater than the sum of its parts," just the perception of the sum being greater than its parts or the reality hiding in the complexity from us mere mortals. Without emergent properties (your work + my work < our work), it really is a zero sum game. To me, you may be able to manipulate perception of value in this fashion but that's where it ends (which to be fair, is often enough).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tuesday20 7y ago

My dad had just one job all his life, for 33 years. While he didn’t become rich, he did enjoy relative peace of mind, pension etc. Of course everything is relative, but there was a time where companies had a little bit of concern to their employees, however small it was. Those days are gone. These days, companies don’t even pretend. A very small percentage of people are going to do well, for the vast majority it is just slavery, plain and simple

trentnix 7y ago
Nonsense. Everywhere I’ve been employed cared about my wellbeing and when I was an employer, I cared about the wellbeing of my staff. Calling an employer/employee relationship slavery after a Googler complains he wasn’t promoted fast enough is peak self-importance.
- vms20591 7y ago
  Yeah, they might pay for your insurance, give you free food, but that's it. The ultimate motive is to make profit, by getting every bit of work from you. You can sugarcoat it however you want, but to an employer, you are just a liability, not an asset, even when the "current" they call you as one. Because, the "next" they might not. The terms "employer", "they" are relative. As in the previous comment, "A company as a whole is a faceless, consciousness-less creature".
  - trentnix 7y ago
    No, a company just a collection of people with a common goal. And when you don’t like one company, you have incredible mobility to find another. In a job market as good as the one in the US at the moment, that mobility is irrespective of skill level. And that keeps companies, even the bad ones, from getting away with dehumanizing its workforce.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      There are vast swaths of the US that are in economic decline, and they most certainly do not allow for mobility irrespective of skill level. They don't even have sufficient economic activity to support a Walmart.

war1025 7y ago

What always gets me about these statements is that, yes you're in a business relationship with the company, but that relationship is obviously highly profitable to you. What's the point of giving up that income just to "stick it to the man"?

wccrawford 7y ago
IMO, knowing that it's a business relationship and not a community is important to getting your proper compensation and keeping your mental health. It's not about "sticking it to the man" at all, but getting your appropriate compensation. IMO, too many people see their company as a family, but the company does treat them that way and knows the mistake that the employees are making. I think it leads a lot of people to burnout by giving their all to the company while they just receive an average paycheck in return. Instead of putting that effort into their job, they could be enriching their own lives instead.
rb808 7y ago
There is only one thing worse than being exploited by the capitalist corporations and that's being unemployed and not being exploited by anyone.

scotty79 7y ago

I was always aware that there's no relationship. That I'm just selling my life for money. Every moment that I'm not doing the thing that I want to be doing at that moment should better be worth it. Employer can pay with money or with entertainment. Roleplaying as a "part of family" or "valued employee" can be worth something but never forget it's a game played for your entertainment to balance lower pay. When it's no longer worth for the players, game ends and everybody goes home to barely ever meet again. Pick employers that offer best sum of pay and entertainment at the lowest cost to your life.

claudiawerner 7y ago

>Arguably the most pervasive element enabling exploitative office culture is the postmodern trickery of the contemporary working environment. Slavoj Žižek argues that modern employment tactics create the illusion that our employer is our friend. This fabrication empowers the employer while denying the employed the right to vocalize and protest dissatisfaction of their working conditions. “You’re not going to stick around and help out? I thought we were a team? I thought we were friends?” >Žižek suggests that the environment of the workplace has been twisted, using architectural devices, to manipulate employees. Kitchens, ‘break-out spaces’, lounges, free food, free coffee – he postulates that this is a postmodern sleight of hand designed to manipulate and disarm staff. By fabricating the illusion of employer as friend, the employed is denied the opportunity to protest, argue, fight, be adversarial and demand more of their working conditions. These informal spaces are political spaces of control, surveillance and manipulation.[0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/slavoj-zizek-says-your-office-ping-pong-table-is-oppressing-you-2012-5 https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/slavoj-zizek-says-your-off...

buboard 7y ago
There is nothing particularly insightful in that quote. Employee/employer relationship is like any other transactional relationship: exchanging some freedom for money. Other forms, e.g. freelancing, consulting are different, but pay less for the same amount of work
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  The quote remarks on the changing of the relationship, a point which is insightful. Several authors (from Zizek to Frederic Lordon) have noticed the dynamics of the relationship changing from pure unashamed totalitarianism in the workplace to the idea that the boss is your friend. The nature of the employee/employer transactional relationship has changed both in theory (management techniques) and practice (direction, micro-management) since the time of the old critiques of domination in the workplace. The employee/employer relation, it is argued, has not become more equitably transactional, but rather the old pre-Fordist techniques have been hidden and obscured - arguably more perniciously. It is, if nothing else, an indication that critics of capital need to reformulate the conception of the employer/employee relationship. Nitzan & Bichler and Vrousalis take two divergent approaches to exaplaining the special nature of the employee/employer relationship as situated in modern life.