6 ms·

I think it's worth looking into "theory of the firm" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm Why sh

by wisty 6y ago

I think it's worth looking into "theory of the firm" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm Why should employees even exist? Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I often hear advocates of remote work talk about "presenteeism" and how managers need to just focus more on outputs. This is fine, but if they can do that why not sack everyone and just hire contractors and pay for the outputs? The reality is, unless employees are micro-managed to the point of being basically robots, they're given a certain amount of discretion. If they are at work, and can't slack off, then they will use this discretion to create value for the company in ways that the managers don't always have time to exactly specify. The slack and discretion in a "presentism" run office means that employees can make changes without having to always go up the chain. For a concrete example, let's say you think there's a major show-stopper of a bug. Your manager disagrees, and says not to worry about it, and will not budge. You have a few hours free in the week because you finished your work a bit faster than expected. You might look into the suspected bug (and end up proving it's an issue, or proving to yourself that your boss was right) if you're otherwise stuck in an office reading email to look busy, but not if you're at home and you can turn on the TV or walk the dog.

fake-name 6y ago
> Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I mean, a lot of them are trying to do exactly that.
- yoshiama12 6y ago
  A lot of bad companies that don't understand the value of developing long term assets. :D
adamc 6y ago
Based on the contractors we've hired at various points, you get what you give. Most of the contractor code worked, but had poor maintenance characteristics. Which makes sense: they weren't going to be maintaining it. Their job was to generate a lot of code quickly. So, a future where that happens will require either very tight managerial oversight (pipe dream), or will lead to a bunch of stuff that is brittle as hell. Doesn't mean it won't happen. But God helps us if it does. I suspect that would lead to just subcontracting whole business functions to more stable vendors.
- drschwabe 6y ago
  Excellent insight. And agree to your theoretical conclusion to some extent. To share contractor perspective: a problem I've identified is ambiguous overlap of ownership/maintainer role of project code between contractor and contractee staff (or lack thereof). So a slightly alternate conclusion is that it's up to the contractor to exert authority over the code they provide to the contractee even if that means charging more to ensure said code shall be maintained well into beyond original production date; or doing the hard but necessary things like engaging directly with contractee and its staff at ground-zero and not-to-mention the customers said project serves so as to stay dialed into the picture for as long or as intimately as necessary to ensure optimal results. It is not always a rewarding experience, and can be demoralizing at times because internal staff can often view contractors as outside threats to their own jobs (which is understandable; but actually is part of the value in hiring outside contractors from time to time as it keeps staff on their toes) and so you may often be feeling like you are on the outside knocking on the window just to get basic access to assets, servers, or people/gatekeepers responsible for granting you what you need to get said work done, yet... if contractor doesn't exert this extent of dilligence, or lazily assumes the company will maintain said code by means of its own devices - it will become lose lose for both sides as the contractor will be blamed when things start to break or when internal staff eventually & inevitably are requested to introduce new features on top of the now outdated 'foreign codebase' they begrudgingly must now maintain - which can conversely result in long drawn-out 'new platform' projects that set back said company by months or a year or more resulting in yet more need for contractors to fill in gaps again and as such this never-ending cycle continues. At the end of the day if you are contractor you are indeed expendable & temporary and so its best not to get emotionally invested; be results focused & get paid for your time, do your best and at the end of the day that is all you and your client need - at least until the next cycle begins.
pts_ 6y ago
For me thinking about tech IS watching TV or walking the dog, which is hard to do in an open office. Meaning it's my work and hobby.
the_gipsy 6y ago
> if you're otherwise stuck in an office reading email to look busy, but not if you're at home and you can turn on the TV or walk the dog. The opposite
- midasuni 6y ago
  Pre covid is occasionally go to “the offie”, usually for a big meeting and socialisation once a month, sometimes as I was working in the data centre. During the day, interruptions would be so high that I wouldn’t bother trying to work between them - as bad as if I try to homeschool the kids.
ameister14 6y ago
>I often hear advocates of remote work talk about "presenteeism" and how managers need to just focus more on outputs. This is fine, but if they can do that why not sack everyone and just hire contractors and pay for the outputs? Why not do that anyway? The same reasons apply. >If they are at work, and can't slack off, then they will use this discretion to create value for the company in ways that the managers don't always have time to exactly specify. I've never been in a work environment where everyone is working at 100% all the time. Never. Have you? Pure anecdote - while working remotely I've found that my team is bout the same productivity level, maybe slightly more productive; we've had people build internal tools in their spare time, people are focused on the task rather than wasting time and we've hired carefully and built a culture where people know they are trusted and needed to get the job done. Yes, it doesn't work the same way in-person works all the time. You have to allow for more asynchronicity, but you can counter that in part by having the opportunity for scheduled check-ins. In your example, by the way, the staffer has gained no favor from the manager by directly going against what they said to do. They might solve this bug and be a hero but they'll be likely to gain a reputation for not being able to listen to directions.
- cableshaft 6y ago
  > I've never been in a work environment where everyone is working at 100% all the time. Never. Have you? Yes, (except mandated breaks) although they were all unskilled labor. Working in shipping/receiving, a warehouse, fast food (less so, there usually are lulls at certain times), a restaurant. Very little time not spent working. In an office environment, though? Yeah, I've never seen it, except on the rare day when something major breaks and it needs to be resolved asap.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Maybe and maybe not. My underlying direction is “do what’s best for the company”. If I see things wrongly and give you a more specific direction that you believe contradicts that (“don’t fix that bug!”), it will be well-received when you fix that bug. Even if you spend some time chasing it and come up empty, the story that you went above what was assigned because you were convinced I was wrong and hurting the company is still a good one. Now, if you always act like an arrow without any feathers, we may have a problem, but I’d way rather have a bunch of engineers trying to improve the company even if that means proving me wrong than have a bunch of them waiting to faithfully execute my divinely-inspired direction.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
In my experience, most people have just as much possibility of slacking off at the office than at home. We have colleagues to chat with, phones and even tablets with internet connectivity… The main difference between employees and contractors are incentives. The contractor's goal is to get paid the most over the longest period of time. They don't care about your company's bottom line, they care about theirs, and the 2 aren't automatically aligned. The employees are more or less paid a fixed amount a month, their incentive is to stay around and get raises. I've been working with contractors for years, and you absolutely need employees to ensure the contractor's output is aligned with the interest of the company, at all times and in detail.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > In my experience, most people have just as much possibility of slacking off at the office than at home. I can confirm this because I've reached a point in my job where I am performing at most about 3 hours worth of actual work in any given week. This isn't because I'm so good at my job (I once was...) and things are running so smoothly (though they kinda are), it's because my current mental state prevents me from being motivated enough to do much of anything. Remarkably few people seem to have noticed and none have said anything about it. When I was allowed to work from home because I had COVID (the entire IT department got it due to asinine butts-in-seats policy during a fucking pandemic), all that changed is that my stress level went down from not having to pretend to work most of the work day.
nkohari 6y ago
Providing employees with a sense of ownership and belonging is a surprisingly strong motivator. People who feel they have a skin in the game will naturally work harder.
sciprojguy 6y ago
That's fine until that manager wises up and keeps a long backlog of things to assign to you so you don't have time to prove him (or her) wrong.

by wisty 6y ago

fake-name 6y ago

> Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I mean, a lot of them are trying to do exactly that.

yoshiama12 6y ago
A lot of bad companies that don't understand the value of developing long term assets. :D

adamc 6y ago

Based on the contractors we've hired at various points, you get what you give. Most of the contractor code worked, but had poor maintenance characteristics. Which makes sense: they weren't going to be maintaining it. Their job was to generate a lot of code quickly. So, a future where that happens will require either very tight managerial oversight (pipe dream), or will lead to a bunch of stuff that is brittle as hell. Doesn't mean it won't happen. But God helps us if it does. I suspect that would lead to just subcontracting whole business functions to more stable vendors.

drschwabe 6y ago
Excellent insight. And agree to your theoretical conclusion to some extent. To share contractor perspective: a problem I've identified is ambiguous overlap of ownership/maintainer role of project code between contractor and contractee staff (or lack thereof). So a slightly alternate conclusion is that it's up to the contractor to exert authority over the code they provide to the contractee even if that means charging more to ensure said code shall be maintained well into beyond original production date; or doing the hard but necessary things like engaging directly with contractee and its staff at ground-zero and not-to-mention the customers said project serves so as to stay dialed into the picture for as long or as intimately as necessary to ensure optimal results. It is not always a rewarding experience, and can be demoralizing at times because internal staff can often view contractors as outside threats to their own jobs (which is understandable; but actually is part of the value in hiring outside contractors from time to time as it keeps staff on their toes) and so you may often be feeling like you are on the outside knocking on the window just to get basic access to assets, servers, or people/gatekeepers responsible for granting you what you need to get said work done, yet... if contractor doesn't exert this extent of dilligence, or lazily assumes the company will maintain said code by means of its own devices - it will become lose lose for both sides as the contractor will be blamed when things start to break or when internal staff eventually & inevitably are requested to introduce new features on top of the now outdated 'foreign codebase' they begrudgingly must now maintain - which can conversely result in long drawn-out 'new platform' projects that set back said company by months or a year or more resulting in yet more need for contractors to fill in gaps again and as such this never-ending cycle continues. At the end of the day if you are contractor you are indeed expendable & temporary and so its best not to get emotionally invested; be results focused & get paid for your time, do your best and at the end of the day that is all you and your client need - at least until the next cycle begins.

pts_ 6y ago

For me thinking about tech IS watching TV or walking the dog, which is hard to do in an open office. Meaning it's my work and hobby.

the_gipsy 6y ago

> if you're otherwise stuck in an office reading email to look busy, but not if you're at home and you can turn on the TV or walk the dog. The opposite

midasuni 6y ago
Pre covid is occasionally go to “the offie”, usually for a big meeting and socialisation once a month, sometimes as I was working in the data centre. During the day, interruptions would be so high that I wouldn’t bother trying to work between them - as bad as if I try to homeschool the kids.

ameister14 6y ago

>I often hear advocates of remote work talk about "presenteeism" and how managers need to just focus more on outputs. This is fine, but if they can do that why not sack everyone and just hire contractors and pay for the outputs? Why not do that anyway? The same reasons apply. >If they are at work, and can't slack off, then they will use this discretion to create value for the company in ways that the managers don't always have time to exactly specify. I've never been in a work environment where everyone is working at 100% all the time. Never. Have you? Pure anecdote - while working remotely I've found that my team is bout the same productivity level, maybe slightly more productive; we've had people build internal tools in their spare time, people are focused on the task rather than wasting time and we've hired carefully and built a culture where people know they are trusted and needed to get the job done. Yes, it doesn't work the same way in-person works all the time. You have to allow for more asynchronicity, but you can counter that in part by having the opportunity for scheduled check-ins. In your example, by the way, the staffer has gained no favor from the manager by directly going against what they said to do. They might solve this bug and be a hero but they'll be likely to gain a reputation for not being able to listen to directions.

cableshaft 6y ago
> I've never been in a work environment where everyone is working at 100% all the time. Never. Have you? Yes, (except mandated breaks) although they were all unskilled labor. Working in shipping/receiving, a warehouse, fast food (less so, there usually are lulls at certain times), a restaurant. Very little time not spent working. In an office environment, though? Yeah, I've never seen it, except on the rare day when something major breaks and it needs to be resolved asap.
sokoloff 6y ago
Maybe and maybe not. My underlying direction is “do what’s best for the company”. If I see things wrongly and give you a more specific direction that you believe contradicts that (“don’t fix that bug!”), it will be well-received when you fix that bug. Even if you spend some time chasing it and come up empty, the story that you went above what was assigned because you were convinced I was wrong and hurting the company is still a good one. Now, if you always act like an arrow without any feathers, we may have a problem, but I’d way rather have a bunch of engineers trying to improve the company even if that means proving me wrong than have a bunch of them waiting to faithfully execute my divinely-inspired direction.

benhurmarcel 6y ago

In my experience, most people have just as much possibility of slacking off at the office than at home. We have colleagues to chat with, phones and even tablets with internet connectivity… The main difference between employees and contractors are incentives. The contractor's goal is to get paid the most over the longest period of time. They don't care about your company's bottom line, they care about theirs, and the 2 aren't automatically aligned. The employees are more or less paid a fixed amount a month, their incentive is to stay around and get raises. I've been working with contractors for years, and you absolutely need employees to ensure the contractor's output is aligned with the interest of the company, at all times and in detail.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> In my experience, most people have just as much possibility of slacking off at the office than at home. I can confirm this because I've reached a point in my job where I am performing at most about 3 hours worth of actual work in any given week. This isn't because I'm so good at my job (I once was...) and things are running so smoothly (though they kinda are), it's because my current mental state prevents me from being motivated enough to do much of anything. Remarkably few people seem to have noticed and none have said anything about it. When I was allowed to work from home because I had COVID (the entire IT department got it due to asinine butts-in-seats policy during a fucking pandemic), all that changed is that my stress level went down from not having to pretend to work most of the work day.

nkohari 6y ago

Providing employees with a sense of ownership and belonging is a surprisingly strong motivator. People who feel they have a skin in the game will naturally work harder.

sciprojguy 6y ago

That's fine until that manager wises up and keeps a long backlog of things to assign to you so you don't have time to prove him (or her) wrong.