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What a strange, helpless way to look at the world. Employment is not a boss->servant relationship, it's a relationship where both parties gain something. You o
by koonsolo 7y ago
What a strange, helpless way to look at the world.
Employment is not a boss->servant relationship, it's a relationship where both parties gain something. You offer a service, and they pay for that. End of story. They act out? Then you find someone else who needs your services.
As a programmer myself, I'm in this great position where there is a shortage of good developers, and plenty of companies searching for good developers.
When I go to my manager, I'm not going in there with "please don't fire me sir, please.", I'm going in there with "Hey, fix your shit or I'll have a new job next week that pays more from day 1, and you will search the next 6 months for my replacement and train that person another 6 months before (s)he's somewhat productive."
- mvkel 7y ago> “I'm going in there with "Hey, fix your shit or I'll have a new job next week that pays more from day 1, and you will search the next 6 months for my replacement and train that person another 6 months before (s)he's somewhat productive."” What a strange, toxic way to look at the world. We’re just people! People who are hopefully working at a company that has a mission they believe in, who are trying to do the best work they can. Sometimes a manager sucks, sometimes the employee sucks, but there’s never a single person to blame, nor is it up to a single person to “figure shit out.” The more people realize that we’re all in this together, the better. And if you’re jaded about thinking in that way, you’re just not at the right company.
- kaens 7y ago> Employment is not a boss->servant relationship It is, for the vast majority of employed people. > it's a relationship where both parties gain something. For the vast majority of employed people, what they gain is the ability to continue to afford food and shelter. Most jobs do not afford the economic reality necessary to allow the employee a position of being able to afford to bargain as anything approaching an equal. It is not a strange way to look at the world for anyone who has lived for any significant amount of time as a worker in any average job. It is helpless, yes.
- mcv 7y ago> "Most jobs do not afford the economic reality necessary to allow the employee a position of being able to afford to bargain as anything approaching an equal." And that is a big problem. This means it's not a free market. Power is unevenly divided, and you only operate on the job market at the mercy of the other party. This is bad. Something is needed to even the playing field and make employers and employees equals in these negotiations, whether that's unionisation, Basic Income, worker protections of some sort, or something else.
- A_No_Name_Mouse 7y ago> It is, for the vast majority of employed people. True. But with that sort of job you probably won't have regular 1-on-1's. You just get told to flip more hamburgers. And it also depends on your own attitude what kind of relationship your establish with your manager.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y agoAnd whether or not you have similar interests outside of work.
- tbabb 7y agoIf your boss is taking the time to give you a 1-on-1, then there is an opportunity for both sides to listen to each other. If you have problems/complaints and you never say anything about them, then don't be surprised if they never change. If there is a 1-on-1 meeting happening, then a communication channel is open. I suppose you can choose to cynically shut it again, but if you make that choice, then don't be surprised to find that you don't have a voice. A person could try hard to avoid being the squeaky wheel. They could take no curiosity about themselves, or their surroundings, or their organization's goals, or how their boss sees them, or how others see them, or how their habits affect their work, and basically stay the same for years on end, doing the same job, at basically the minimum quality and execution to stay employed. And then "at the next round of layoffs" that person will find themselves surprisingly replaceable. Probably by a cheaper, more junior person who can do the exact same work at the exact same minimum quality. No reason to keep the guy who hasn't improved for years, and basically tells you to F-off any time you ask him how you can help him. Guess what: Being invested in your work can make you more valuable. The cynical route often doesn't pay, and frequently fulfills itself.
- pbk1 7y agoHow would your response change if the shortage of "good" developers stops? Or when they decide 2 "bad" but cheap developers cost less than 1 "good" one?
- rdiddly 7y agoYeah or if, as non-technical people, bad and good are indistinguishable to them!
- tlb 7y agoRule #1: Do not work at a company that can’t appreciate how good you are.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y agoRule #2: Do not work at a company that can't appreciate or value how good you can become. Rule #3: While working, make every effort to learn new things and improve yourself.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoOr when your constraints change as you age and develop your private life. Programming jobs are plenty until e.g. you have a spouse and a kid to provide for, making your salary demands higher and relocation more difficult.
- koonsolo 7y agoI'm 40 and have 4 kids, so no problem here. Maybe in other parts of the world. But at that point you need to convince them you're a "senior architect with loads of experience"
- Zvez 7y agoI hope it would not. I'd rather spend my time becoming better and still have ability to choose good place, then learn how to act 'right' just to keep my job.
- dehrmann 7y ago> You offer a service, and they pay for that. No, the company pays for that. A manager's job is to help ICs be effective and to help the company make the most of ICs' work. My first manager told me something really good: don't look at it as a boss telling people what to do. ICs manage code, the manager manages people.
- samdoidge 7y agoIC = ?
- loco5niner 7y agoIndividual Cog.
- wmblaettler 7y agoIndividual Contributor
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cco 7y agoIndividual Contributor, i.e. someone that produces, not manages.
- jstummbillig 7y agoIt's a realistic depiction of how this thing works (albeit for different reasons than the opposite of what you imply). The issue is that employees, in general, are much, much worse at the employment game than their respective employer. This makes a lot of sense: Your employers job, after reaching some level, is to employ the right people (and even beyond that to hire the right people to hire the right people). That's it. That is all they do, all day. Which leads to them getting good at everything involving the dance, including job negotiations and manipulating the employee/candidate in a way that serves their needs. As a worker, your entire job is to do your job. No matter how many perks your company offers, getting better at your next salary negotiation will not be one of them. Of course, as a worker participates in this game more often, they gets better at it themselves – but there is no magic involved: It's a skill that you have to learn, in a very unfair and rigged setup.
- karatestomp 7y agoIt’s also, generally, much more harmful for an employee to lose or be passed over for a job than for an employer to fire someone or pass over an applicant. Most employers, if a single position goes unfilled for six months it may be annoying and even costly but they’ll be basically fine. Employee out of work for six months? Very different story.
- WhyNotHugo 7y agoThis really depends on where you're living. I'd guess that in very few countries firing an employee has no consequence for the employer. Generally, there's an actual financial cost in firing (compensation), plus the loss generated by the lack of manpower later, and the money lost on-boarding a replacement.
- koonsolo 7y agoI agree with you, and therefore I made that post. Because in my opinion, most of that disadvantage is in the employees head.
- tlb 7y agoIn some sense, it’s unfair that everyone isn’t automatically expert at everything. Getting good at managing your career isn’t very hard as things go. You can get substantial results by focusing on it for 1 hour per week over a year. And it’s not mainly that you’ll make more money — work will get more interesting and fun, and you’ll have more impact in thr world.
- djsumdog 7y agoOnly in high end fields: tech, finance, engineering. Even then, it really just depends. I've worked at a lot of companies (I have terrible job loyalty) and I see what's good and healthy and what's not. I've only lost two jobs and both of them were places where people were expected to work 70+ hours a week. I could get let go and be fine, because I'm an in-demand engineer with lots of experience. But I'm in a very unique position; one most people are not in.
- abvr 7y agoWhoa at the work hours, if you don't mind me asking, just curious to know what kind of work entails such long hours? Also I'm assuming it paid equally well for the time devoted to it, frankly the hours itself is a big turn off regardless of the quality of work.
- svachalek 7y agoA lot of tech startups and game dev companies work at this pace. People really need their jobs, or are sure they will be millionaires. Long ago I worked at a game company where one of the perks was free burritos at midnight.
- hw 7y agoFirst of all, if your manager is any good, (s)he will already have replacements in the pipeline, given the musical chairs nature of the industry. Second, why aren't you already at a different job that pays you more instead of hanging that over your manager's head? Third, don't underestimate how many other good developers that are out there, looking for the next job. It might not require 6 months of training for the next person, who could be as competent, or even more than the person that's being replaced. I'm not sure what kind of company you work for, but 6 months of training is ridiculously long, unless there is a lot of institutional knowledge that's siloed amongst a small subset of employees - which should never happen in the first place, if your manager was any good.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cameronbrown 7y ago> I'm not sure what kind of company you work for, but 6 months of training is ridiculously long, unless there is a lot of institutional knowledge that's siloed amongst a small subset of employees - which should never happen in the first place, if your manager was any good. At Google there's an expectation that you won't be 'productive' for 6 months after joining, though that's not surprising considering how different everything is.
- ken 7y agoYou are fortunate that the problems with modern software shops happen to align with the types of problems you can deal with. For example, there aren't plenty of companies with quiet offices searching for developers. When I tell my manager "The noise in this new open floorplan office is killing my productivity", they say "OK, well, that's not going to change", and then we spend the rest of the hour rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. (Or they remind me of how they're spending money on me, in other ways I don't care about at all.) If I said "Hey fix your shit" they'd say "Every other software company in town has open floorplans too now -- good luck with that".
- michaelbuckbee 7y agoWhat about remote? It's kind of an offshoot of that (quiet place for productivity).
- notyourday 7y agoIf a company does not have a culture of addressing developers quality of worklife issues (developer: the noises are killing my productivity. manager: well, we aren't changing our office setup to accommodate people who want it to be quiet ) then it is extremely unlikely that the company would allow remote.
- loco5niner 7y agoYep, this is exactly my situation. However, I'm seeing signs that part-time remote is going to happen in the next couple of years.
- octodog 7y agoSurely there are other options your manager and you can look at that fall between having an open floorplan and not having one. Get them to buy you noise cancelling headphones or something.
- loco5niner 7y ago
- ssss11 7y agoI think the approach you take comes down to your individual characteristics - personality and circumstances - how meek you are, how much you voice your opinion, whether you can risk speaking out or conversely can’t/won’t risk losing or disrupting the steady income stream. In the past i’ve been both of these enployees at different times mostly due to different levels of self confidence and frustration with the company. But the point about “know where you work before you open your mouth” is wise I think.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- denkmoon 7y ago>As a programmer myself, I'm in this great position where there is a shortage of good developers, and plenty of companies searching for good developers. That's why you/we can afford to view the world that way. For many positions, especially those that don't require specific technical skills or other aspects where demand outstrips supply, servility is the only important trait.
- koonsolo 7y agoI agree. But in that case you still have the option to re-educate and move into a more lucrative job market. As long as you are either smart or handy, there are very good jobs out there. For example plumbers here in Belgium make a lot of money because of the high demand.
- epicgiga 7y agoEmployment is actually, as a matter of law, a boss -> servant relationship.
- mcv 7y agoI'm self-employed, and as such, my work relationship is legally required not to be a boss -> servant relationship. My client is my customer, not my boss.
- koonsolo 7y agoA friend of mine once told his manager: "you are not my boss, you are my employer. My boss is at home" (referring to his wife). I guess he has the same mentality as me :)
- bartread 7y ago> "Hey, fix your shit or I'll have a new job next week that pays more from day 1, and you will search the next 6 months for my replacement and train that person another 6 months before (s)he's somewhat productive." Yes, and with that attitude you are absolutely welcome to. Difficulty of replacing developers depends very much on where you are (I suspect, and amongst a welter of other factors), and where I live it doesn't take 6 months nor anything like it. It also doesn't take 6 months for people to become "somewhat productive". I've been nigh-on shocked to see all of our devs making useful contributions to our systems and services (many of which are not straightforward to work with) within a couple of weeks, and finding their way around pretty handily after 2 - 3 months. I agree that you shouldn't go into every 1:1 begging and scraping for your job - that sounds awful - but, at the other end of the spectrum, neither do I think it's wise to go in with a massively inflated sense of entitlement. Both you and your manager would be best served by acting like reasonable human beings with well-developed social skills.
- koonsolo 7y agoI fully agree with you. My comment was pretty much leaning towards the other end of the spectrum to make my point clear. But I definitely agree that you should approach your manager from a constructive point of view. That makes you even more valuable.
- Drakar1903 7y agoI think the post above yours was an exaggeration for the purpose of illustrating a point.
- gdy 7y ago"I'll have a new job next week that pays more from day 1" And yet you are still here. This does add up
- seppin 7y agoKnow that your situation isn't common and have some empathy towards people that can't treat their employment the way you do.