8 ms·

I'd love to see everyone in Facebook's chain of command above the moderators being required to do a week worth of the actual moderating. Then let them say in p

I'd love to see everyone in Facebook's chain of command above the moderators being required to do a week worth of the actual moderating. Then let them say in public that they're doing their best for their employees.

grecy 6y ago
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but capitalism has allowed this kind of thing for generations. Mining magnates should be forced to work at the coalface. The Waltons should be forced to stock shelves, Bezos should be in the distribution centres. The list is endless, and unfortunately this is nothing new. The best we can do is minimum wage laws and unions to try and "negotiate" with billionaires to give us a crumb.
- spurgu 6y ago
  Interesting that you're getting downvoted with a comment that touches on the core of capitalism, or at least points out one of its main pitfalls.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    It doesn't really add anything to this conversation. "Blame Capitalism" is all the rave, but it doesn't really fit with this argument. There is a lot going on here. One, this is a letter to Facebook when it really seems to be the contracting agency that's at issue. FB may just order their contractors to be like "stop this shit" and they comply, or they buy out the contract and move people in-house. People only have so much time and capacities. A software engineer isn't going to spend a lot of time on the sales room floor, but they might have started off in help-desk support. A CEO might not know what goes on in the warehouse, but he or she may have worked at a McDonalds growing up. If someone hasn't worked entry level jobs elsewhere, would working on the factory really develop empathy? Would that change policy? Probably not. It's so easy to make two boxes, one for the oppressor and the other for the oppressed, and place everyone into those two boxes. If each oppressor works a day in the shoes of the other box, does that make a difference? If the workers throw their wrenches into the gears and seize the means of production, what if they're completely unprepared to keep that machine moving and end up with famine? The issues are complex, much more complex than "Before you get your license, you should have to ride a bike on the streets for two weeks."
    - dao- 6y ago
      > It's so easy to make two boxes, one for the oppressor and the other for the oppressed, and place everyone into those two boxes. If each oppressor works a day in the shoes of the other box, does that make a difference? You've got a point there. The capitalist will most likely continue to act as a capitalist. The incentives are fundamentally wrong, so moralizing on an individual level won't do much, which brings us back to: blame capitalism.
    - hypervisorxxx 6y ago
      Zuckerberg has been to trial in washington and had to speak about AI approaches. This is not the first second or third time international news has been made making objective statements about the technical failures of the product facebook is wants it's moderators to use. To say he has not been made aware and had the opportunity to address these issues over years is giving him too much credit. Blame capitalism is all the rave. So are companies hiding from responsibility. Shell companies shell companies to evade responsibility and incing their companies on remote islands they clearly don't primarily operate on to evade taxes and giving abuses NDAs which effectively offer full silence regardless of any federal felonies committed or else they take severence or healthcare taken away. Companies can do whatever they want under an NDA and sue anyone to the point even if they did something very illegal, they still wouldn't be liable because the fact that someone spoke about it is illegal in the same way a VC investor was caught beating a woman 300 times in a row as she tried to escape the guys san Francisco mansion but the evidence was thrown out because it was obtained illegally and he got a $500 fine instead. Blame capitalism exists because publicly shaming companies away from egregious abuses even to the point of being often illegal is the only way to have some type of check and balance and it always takes a few people beginning by speaking out and losing their jobs and getting nothing for it before the masses come to agreement and hold companies responsible for better practices. Unfortunately this is not just a fun trend. It's a reaction that attempts to check and balance abuses and it often only happens after many yrs and many people have gone silent and a few have chosen to take the risk and speak out. We should definitely have something better than blame capitalism but to say it just appeared out of the blue is a bit misleading.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Capitalism does not force you to create an immoral business, or to treat your employees (direct and contracted) immorally. It doesn't even really encourage it. Wanting more and more money regardless of the (human) cost does.
    - dao- 6y ago
      > Capitalism does not force you to create an immoral business, or to treat your employees (direct and contracted) immorally. It doesn't even really encourage it. It tends to encourage it by putting those at the top who manage to exploit the most. Capital also begets political power which makes it hard to counter that trend. > Wanting more and more money regardless of the (human) cost Congratulations, you've accidentally defined capitalism.
      - Karunamon 6y ago
        I'd argue that most alternative political systems are responsible for a lot more wasted resource and cost...
        ckocagil 6y ago
        False dichotomy. Economic systems contain hundreds of sliders a country can adjust, from various tax rates to workers' rights. Adjusting one of these has nothing to do with Stalin's USSR or Mao's China, so I don't understand why you're bringing those up.
        Karunamon 6y ago
        Because when you slag off "capitalism", the next question is "what else?", and history shows the alternatives are worse.
        ako 6y ago
        I disagree, e.g, europe, not pure capitalism, not pure communism, not pure socialism, but somewhere in between (depending no country). Overall these countries are not less successful than US (which is also not pure capitalism), and most of it citizen prefer living in europe and would not consider moving to the US. More socialised forms of healthcare, education and unemployement support are main reasons.
- gazillionaire 6y ago
  If you are unhappy with a job, quit. Under capitalism, you have that freedom. Not so much in other systems.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    Yes, normally you are. We are in a CVOID19 world, which makes that a little more problematic. Still,e the fact that unemployment is dropping and people have found new ways to make money, despite old jobs potentially disappearing forever, is actually a strength of capitalism. Socialism say, "Don't worry we'll take care of you. Here's some welfare," and people become dependent on the State, and the State might give you some new job options to pick from. FDR's new deal gave people jobs that weren't even necessary (Got into a building in TVA and look at the rows and floors of empty cubes; they had a secretary for each floor) and even though people knew that, there was still a sense of pride that at least they were working and trying to contribute. That aided more creatively, and more recovery. COVID is the ultimate test of Capitalism for people to rise up within the new rules of this horrible system, a one where leaders are saying "You literally cannot run your small store, but we're going to let this massive chain keep working" .. where they are literally removing your Capitalists freedoms, and the ones who will survive are the ones who say "Fuck this .. I'm going to find a way to keep afloat .. time to get creative.." and suddenly your store is selling masks and creating more fabric waste to fill our oceans more than ever!
    - gazillionaire 6y ago
      Socialism doesn't give you jobs to choose from, it assigns you a job. That you are supposed to do for the common good, no personal gains allowed.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - slavak 6y ago
        You're either a troll, or _really_ confused about what Socialism is. I know this isn't the spirit of comments HN encourages, but I really can't afford to waste the time on writing a thoughtful reply to someone who is, most likely, purposefully ignorant. So I'll just link you to Wikipedia instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
- erulabs 6y ago
  > should be forced to work Falling back to social engineering and forced labor (hopefully) won't win you many points in the "let's re-architect the system" debate. If the Waltons never stopped stocking shelves and started scaling, we'd never have Walmart. It's possible you think that's a good decision for the world, but it's clearly not the worlds decision for itself.
  - wonnage 6y ago
    Nobody is saying that it has to be their full time job.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  Bezos clearly doesn't fall into this category. He literally built Amazon himself, on his knees, packing books with his bare hands. If there's one billionaire with intimate knowledge of the "lower" levels of his business, it's Bezos.
  - quesera 6y ago
    The business of Amazon has changed greatly since Bezos last packed a book. I'm not here to tell him how to run his business, but let's not pretend he would be happy to work in his warehouse.
    - efitz 6y ago
      Amazon employee here, speaking for myself, not the company. When I was hired, every senior employee (IC and manager, regardless of role) had to go work in a fulfillment center for a week sometime during your first year, learning and then performing all the jobs. I’m a computer guy, but there I was loading trucks, packing boxes, etc. It was a fantastic experience and connected you viscerally to the business. I believe it is still required. This is the culture that Jeff shaped for the company.
      - quesera 6y ago
        I've long thought this was an interesting model, and I've known that Amazon follows it, or at least did at one time. I wouldn't overstate it though -- the ability to tolerate a week of something does not necessarily extrapolate to a month or a year. A week in the rainforest is an adventure. A life in the rainforest is difficult and short. But I don't intend any criticism of Bezos. He has done the math on warehouse employee satisfaction as a contributor to corporate goals, and made his decision. The scrappy days of packing his own shipments are long past, and that experience gives him not-much insight into the working conditions for the people in his warehouses. That's fine, but it's not a basis for deification.
      - meowster 6y ago
        I think it depends on the attitude of the employee. For the people who have good attitudes where working there fulltime is character-building, they are over-qualified. For the people who aren't qualified to have a better job, their attitudes about things suck. For you, I imagine it was a week-long challenge where you knew that you would have a better job afterwards and make a lot more money.
computronus 6y ago
Related is Joel Spolsky's story about the Sergeant Major who wasn't above cleaning a toilet: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/06/20/introduction-to-best-software-writing-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/06/20/introduction-to-be... "On the first day he took me to the officer’s bathroom and told me I would be responsible for keeping it clean. 'Here’s how you clean a toilet,' he said. "And he got down on his knees in front of the porcelain bowl, in his pressed starched spotless dress uniform, and scrubbed the toilet with his bare hands. "To a 19 year old who has to clean toilets, something which is almost by definition the worst possible job in the world, the sight of this high ranking, 38 year old, immaculate, manicured, pampered discipline officer cleaning a toilet completely reset my attitude. If he can clean a toilet, I can clean a toilet. There’s nothing wrong with cleaning toilets. My loyalty and inspiration from that moment on were unflagging. That’s leadership."
- pdonis 6y ago
  I had a similar experience while I was in the Navy. A new Chief Engineer came aboard, and I happened to be the watch officer the next time we lighted off the boiler in preparation for getting underway. He told me he was going to go with me to do a pre-light off inspection. He literally covered every square inch of the boiler room and engine room, crawling into bilges, peering behind equipment, poking into crevices, making absolutely sure there were no safety hazards. An excellent case of leading by example.
- jeffrallen 6y ago
  I knew one guy, way back when, who even got down on his knees and cleaned other people's feet. That guy rocked. Super-good leader.
  - Agentlien 6y ago
    Wait, how old are you?!
  - krapp 6y ago
    His dad was kind of a jerk, though.
rodgerd 6y ago
Sociopaths aren't going to suffer like actual humans.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  If somebody goes through what the moderators have to see and apparently isn't affected by it, that is it's own even bigger red flag.
ineedasername 6y ago
Some years ago a relative of mine was hired to be a Regional VP for a very large restaurant chain. As part of that training he had to spend literally weeks of time learning the basics in each role in a restaurant, from waiting tables to cook, to (end-user) cleaning & maintenance of equipment, assistant manager, general manager, regional manager, to their position. I've always thought that was a fantastic form of training, and spoke strongly to the fact that the chain has been around since WW II.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  McDonald's franchise owners have to do the same thing. You have to be an owner/operator, not an owner/investor.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    It makes a lot of sense. How can you be in charge of running a business when you don't know how the parts work and what it means for an employee to have to perform their duties?
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I've long thought this could be a competitive advantage for people to do "rotations" on different roles. Building tools for moderators? Do a week moderating. Building tools for salespeople? Do a week as a salesperson. You're a salesperson who needs tools built for you? Do a week on the dev team.
- x87678r 6y ago
  Just wait until SoX compliance people find out about that.
  - bostonvaulter2 6y ago
    Not all roles/companies are covered by SoX so a blanket dismissal of the idea is not helpful to the discussion.
  - wsinks 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can't do the work for a week because they aren't the right skill to do the work? I don't have a ton of experience with SoX compliance specifically.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago
      It's probably more that people who don't have the right training/have not passed various exams and certifications are not allowed to do certain things in finance. You can't sell securites if you haven't passed the Series 7 exams, for example.
    - x87678r 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Application_in_information_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Applicati...
- meekrohprocess 6y ago
  I once worked at a company that did something like that. It was optional, but once a year you could spend 3 days working in first-line customer service. A CS rep oversaw your responses, but you got an ordinary account in the customer service system and dealt with real customers. The first two days you spent replying to customers, and the third day you spent prototyping or writing up some way that you thought common complaints could be addressed by making changes to the product. It was a nearly unmitigated boon to the company. Sure, the company saw it as paying for a few extra vacation days. But the program stuck around because it generated a lot of good ideas, and the direct communication between CS and product development teams was valuable.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rock_hard 6y ago
Leadership at FB actually does that 1-2 a year for a couple days
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  Not enough (and definitely not the outsourced moderation work, which is literally the worst job in the world).
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Definitely not enough if they don't understand just how much they're pushing these moderators to desperation and breakdowns. A couple of days is not enough to get the gravity of the situation. Spend a week or more looking at the filth that needs filtering and you might start to get a sense of what the mods deal with and how badly it can affect them. Maybe.

grecy 6y ago

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but capitalism has allowed this kind of thing for generations. Mining magnates should be forced to work at the coalface. The Waltons should be forced to stock shelves, Bezos should be in the distribution centres. The list is endless, and unfortunately this is nothing new. The best we can do is minimum wage laws and unions to try and "negotiate" with billionaires to give us a crumb.

spurgu 6y ago
Interesting that you're getting downvoted with a comment that touches on the core of capitalism, or at least points out one of its main pitfalls.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  It doesn't really add anything to this conversation. "Blame Capitalism" is all the rave, but it doesn't really fit with this argument. There is a lot going on here. One, this is a letter to Facebook when it really seems to be the contracting agency that's at issue. FB may just order their contractors to be like "stop this shit" and they comply, or they buy out the contract and move people in-house. People only have so much time and capacities. A software engineer isn't going to spend a lot of time on the sales room floor, but they might have started off in help-desk support. A CEO might not know what goes on in the warehouse, but he or she may have worked at a McDonalds growing up. If someone hasn't worked entry level jobs elsewhere, would working on the factory really develop empathy? Would that change policy? Probably not. It's so easy to make two boxes, one for the oppressor and the other for the oppressed, and place everyone into those two boxes. If each oppressor works a day in the shoes of the other box, does that make a difference? If the workers throw their wrenches into the gears and seize the means of production, what if they're completely unprepared to keep that machine moving and end up with famine? The issues are complex, much more complex than "Before you get your license, you should have to ride a bike on the streets for two weeks."
  - dao- 6y ago
    > It's so easy to make two boxes, one for the oppressor and the other for the oppressed, and place everyone into those two boxes. If each oppressor works a day in the shoes of the other box, does that make a difference? You've got a point there. The capitalist will most likely continue to act as a capitalist. The incentives are fundamentally wrong, so moralizing on an individual level won't do much, which brings us back to: blame capitalism.
  - hypervisorxxx 6y ago
    Zuckerberg has been to trial in washington and had to speak about AI approaches. This is not the first second or third time international news has been made making objective statements about the technical failures of the product facebook is wants it's moderators to use. To say he has not been made aware and had the opportunity to address these issues over years is giving him too much credit. Blame capitalism is all the rave. So are companies hiding from responsibility. Shell companies shell companies to evade responsibility and incing their companies on remote islands they clearly don't primarily operate on to evade taxes and giving abuses NDAs which effectively offer full silence regardless of any federal felonies committed or else they take severence or healthcare taken away. Companies can do whatever they want under an NDA and sue anyone to the point even if they did something very illegal, they still wouldn't be liable because the fact that someone spoke about it is illegal in the same way a VC investor was caught beating a woman 300 times in a row as she tried to escape the guys san Francisco mansion but the evidence was thrown out because it was obtained illegally and he got a $500 fine instead. Blame capitalism exists because publicly shaming companies away from egregious abuses even to the point of being often illegal is the only way to have some type of check and balance and it always takes a few people beginning by speaking out and losing their jobs and getting nothing for it before the masses come to agreement and hold companies responsible for better practices. Unfortunately this is not just a fun trend. It's a reaction that attempts to check and balance abuses and it often only happens after many yrs and many people have gone silent and a few have chosen to take the risk and speak out. We should definitely have something better than blame capitalism but to say it just appeared out of the blue is a bit misleading.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Capitalism does not force you to create an immoral business, or to treat your employees (direct and contracted) immorally. It doesn't even really encourage it. Wanting more and more money regardless of the (human) cost does.
  - dao- 6y ago
    > Capitalism does not force you to create an immoral business, or to treat your employees (direct and contracted) immorally. It doesn't even really encourage it. It tends to encourage it by putting those at the top who manage to exploit the most. Capital also begets political power which makes it hard to counter that trend. > Wanting more and more money regardless of the (human) cost Congratulations, you've accidentally defined capitalism.
    - Karunamon 6y ago
      I'd argue that most alternative political systems are responsible for a lot more wasted resource and cost...
      - ckocagil 6y ago
        False dichotomy. Economic systems contain hundreds of sliders a country can adjust, from various tax rates to workers' rights. Adjusting one of these has nothing to do with Stalin's USSR or Mao's China, so I don't understand why you're bringing those up.
        Karunamon 6y ago
        Because when you slag off "capitalism", the next question is "what else?", and history shows the alternatives are worse.
        ako 6y ago
        I disagree, e.g, europe, not pure capitalism, not pure communism, not pure socialism, but somewhere in between (depending no country). Overall these countries are not less successful than US (which is also not pure capitalism), and most of it citizen prefer living in europe and would not consider moving to the US. More socialised forms of healthcare, education and unemployement support are main reasons.
gazillionaire 6y ago
If you are unhappy with a job, quit. Under capitalism, you have that freedom. Not so much in other systems.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  Yes, normally you are. We are in a CVOID19 world, which makes that a little more problematic. Still,e the fact that unemployment is dropping and people have found new ways to make money, despite old jobs potentially disappearing forever, is actually a strength of capitalism. Socialism say, "Don't worry we'll take care of you. Here's some welfare," and people become dependent on the State, and the State might give you some new job options to pick from. FDR's new deal gave people jobs that weren't even necessary (Got into a building in TVA and look at the rows and floors of empty cubes; they had a secretary for each floor) and even though people knew that, there was still a sense of pride that at least they were working and trying to contribute. That aided more creatively, and more recovery. COVID is the ultimate test of Capitalism for people to rise up within the new rules of this horrible system, a one where leaders are saying "You literally cannot run your small store, but we're going to let this massive chain keep working" .. where they are literally removing your Capitalists freedoms, and the ones who will survive are the ones who say "Fuck this .. I'm going to find a way to keep afloat .. time to get creative.." and suddenly your store is selling masks and creating more fabric waste to fill our oceans more than ever!
  - gazillionaire 6y ago
    Socialism doesn't give you jobs to choose from, it assigns you a job. That you are supposed to do for the common good, no personal gains allowed.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - slavak 6y ago
      You're either a troll, or _really_ confused about what Socialism is. I know this isn't the spirit of comments HN encourages, but I really can't afford to waste the time on writing a thoughtful reply to someone who is, most likely, purposefully ignorant. So I'll just link you to Wikipedia instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
erulabs 6y ago
> should be forced to work Falling back to social engineering and forced labor (hopefully) won't win you many points in the "let's re-architect the system" debate. If the Waltons never stopped stocking shelves and started scaling, we'd never have Walmart. It's possible you think that's a good decision for the world, but it's clearly not the worlds decision for itself.
- wonnage 6y ago
  Nobody is saying that it has to be their full time job.
nmfisher 6y ago
Bezos clearly doesn't fall into this category. He literally built Amazon himself, on his knees, packing books with his bare hands. If there's one billionaire with intimate knowledge of the "lower" levels of his business, it's Bezos.
- quesera 6y ago
  The business of Amazon has changed greatly since Bezos last packed a book. I'm not here to tell him how to run his business, but let's not pretend he would be happy to work in his warehouse.
  - efitz 6y ago
    Amazon employee here, speaking for myself, not the company. When I was hired, every senior employee (IC and manager, regardless of role) had to go work in a fulfillment center for a week sometime during your first year, learning and then performing all the jobs. I’m a computer guy, but there I was loading trucks, packing boxes, etc. It was a fantastic experience and connected you viscerally to the business. I believe it is still required. This is the culture that Jeff shaped for the company.
    - quesera 6y ago
      I've long thought this was an interesting model, and I've known that Amazon follows it, or at least did at one time. I wouldn't overstate it though -- the ability to tolerate a week of something does not necessarily extrapolate to a month or a year. A week in the rainforest is an adventure. A life in the rainforest is difficult and short. But I don't intend any criticism of Bezos. He has done the math on warehouse employee satisfaction as a contributor to corporate goals, and made his decision. The scrappy days of packing his own shipments are long past, and that experience gives him not-much insight into the working conditions for the people in his warehouses. That's fine, but it's not a basis for deification.
    - meowster 6y ago
      I think it depends on the attitude of the employee. For the people who have good attitudes where working there fulltime is character-building, they are over-qualified. For the people who aren't qualified to have a better job, their attitudes about things suck. For you, I imagine it was a week-long challenge where you knew that you would have a better job afterwards and make a lot more money.

computronus 6y ago

Related is Joel Spolsky's story about the Sergeant Major who wasn't above cleaning a toilet: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/06/20/introduction-to-best-software-writing-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/06/20/introduction-to-be... "On the first day he took me to the officer’s bathroom and told me I would be responsible for keeping it clean. 'Here’s how you clean a toilet,' he said. "And he got down on his knees in front of the porcelain bowl, in his pressed starched spotless dress uniform, and scrubbed the toilet with his bare hands. "To a 19 year old who has to clean toilets, something which is almost by definition the worst possible job in the world, the sight of this high ranking, 38 year old, immaculate, manicured, pampered discipline officer cleaning a toilet completely reset my attitude. If he can clean a toilet, I can clean a toilet. There’s nothing wrong with cleaning toilets. My loyalty and inspiration from that moment on were unflagging. That’s leadership."

pdonis 6y ago
I had a similar experience while I was in the Navy. A new Chief Engineer came aboard, and I happened to be the watch officer the next time we lighted off the boiler in preparation for getting underway. He told me he was going to go with me to do a pre-light off inspection. He literally covered every square inch of the boiler room and engine room, crawling into bilges, peering behind equipment, poking into crevices, making absolutely sure there were no safety hazards. An excellent case of leading by example.
jeffrallen 6y ago
I knew one guy, way back when, who even got down on his knees and cleaned other people's feet. That guy rocked. Super-good leader.
- Agentlien 6y ago
  Wait, how old are you?!
- krapp 6y ago
  His dad was kind of a jerk, though.

rodgerd 6y ago

Sociopaths aren't going to suffer like actual humans.

zentiggr 6y ago
If somebody goes through what the moderators have to see and apparently isn't affected by it, that is it's own even bigger red flag.

ineedasername 6y ago

Some years ago a relative of mine was hired to be a Regional VP for a very large restaurant chain. As part of that training he had to spend literally weeks of time learning the basics in each role in a restaurant, from waiting tables to cook, to (end-user) cleaning & maintenance of equipment, assistant manager, general manager, regional manager, to their position. I've always thought that was a fantastic form of training, and spoke strongly to the fact that the chain has been around since WW II.

throwaway201103 6y ago
McDonald's franchise owners have to do the same thing. You have to be an owner/operator, not an owner/investor.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It makes a lot of sense. How can you be in charge of running a business when you don't know how the parts work and what it means for an employee to have to perform their duties?

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

I've long thought this could be a competitive advantage for people to do "rotations" on different roles. Building tools for moderators? Do a week moderating. Building tools for salespeople? Do a week as a salesperson. You're a salesperson who needs tools built for you? Do a week on the dev team.

x87678r 6y ago
Just wait until SoX compliance people find out about that.
- bostonvaulter2 6y ago
  Not all roles/companies are covered by SoX so a blanket dismissal of the idea is not helpful to the discussion.
- wsinks 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can't do the work for a week because they aren't the right skill to do the work? I don't have a ton of experience with SoX compliance specifically.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    It's probably more that people who don't have the right training/have not passed various exams and certifications are not allowed to do certain things in finance. You can't sell securites if you haven't passed the Series 7 exams, for example.
  - x87678r 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Application_in_information_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Applicati...
meekrohprocess 6y ago
I once worked at a company that did something like that. It was optional, but once a year you could spend 3 days working in first-line customer service. A CS rep oversaw your responses, but you got an ordinary account in the customer service system and dealt with real customers. The first two days you spent replying to customers, and the third day you spent prototyping or writing up some way that you thought common complaints could be addressed by making changes to the product. It was a nearly unmitigated boon to the company. Sure, the company saw it as paying for a few extra vacation days. But the program stuck around because it generated a lot of good ideas, and the direct communication between CS and product development teams was valuable.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rock_hard 6y ago

Leadership at FB actually does that 1-2 a year for a couple days

disgruntledphd2 6y ago
Not enough (and definitely not the outsourced moderation work, which is literally the worst job in the world).
zentiggr 6y ago
Definitely not enough if they don't understand just how much they're pushing these moderators to desperation and breakdowns. A couple of days is not enough to get the gravity of the situation. Spend a week or more looking at the filth that needs filtering and you might start to get a sense of what the mods deal with and how badly it can affect them. Maybe.