4 ms·

Your story is probably the more common one by far. Most employers and managers (especially for starter/entry-level jobs) are incredibly insecure, and any sign o

Your story is probably the more common one by far. Most employers and managers (especially for starter/entry-level jobs) are incredibly insecure, and any sign of intellect or creativity scares them. I've learned the hard way to never ruffle feathers by trying to think or solve problems at full power on a job. Just do what's expected and move on.

andai 5y ago
> I've learned the hard way to never ruffle feathers by trying to think or solve problems at full power on a job. Just do what's expected and move on. This might be the saddest thing I've read recently.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  Trust in Mr Schumpeter :-)
- jdbernard 5y ago
  It's also why the nimble newcomer can often disrupt and slay the giant incumbent. It's a lot easier to create high-performance environments when you have teams small enough for all members to know each other personally than when you have hordes of people and have to use lowest-common-denominator bureaucracy to manage them in bulk.
alvah 5y ago
I'm doubt much of this behaviour is driven insecurity / fear of intellect and creativity - it's mainly an incentive problem IMO. If I'm incentivised to keep an inefficient manual system going, I'll fight for that inefficient manual system until the bitter end. Sending a smart but non-business-savvy temp back to the temp agency is small potatoes.
zentiggr 5y ago
I don't think it's insecurity all the time, although I have run into people who refuse to trust an automated process because they can't see the work getting done... I think a lot of resistance is due to, like others have said in this thread, unexpected incentives. If someone's career progress, financial incentives, or work politics require the status quo, no changes will be welcome, and might even be perceived as an attack. (Yep, been there.) If you miraculously can get the incentives changed, then you can make progress...

andai 5y ago

> I've learned the hard way to never ruffle feathers by trying to think or solve problems at full power on a job. Just do what's expected and move on. This might be the saddest thing I've read recently.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
Trust in Mr Schumpeter :-)
jdbernard 5y ago
It's also why the nimble newcomer can often disrupt and slay the giant incumbent. It's a lot easier to create high-performance environments when you have teams small enough for all members to know each other personally than when you have hordes of people and have to use lowest-common-denominator bureaucracy to manage them in bulk.

alvah 5y ago

I'm doubt much of this behaviour is driven insecurity / fear of intellect and creativity - it's mainly an incentive problem IMO. If I'm incentivised to keep an inefficient manual system going, I'll fight for that inefficient manual system until the bitter end. Sending a smart but non-business-savvy temp back to the temp agency is small potatoes.

zentiggr 5y ago

I don't think it's insecurity all the time, although I have run into people who refuse to trust an automated process because they can't see the work getting done... I think a lot of resistance is due to, like others have said in this thread, unexpected incentives. If someone's career progress, financial incentives, or work politics require the status quo, no changes will be welcome, and might even be perceived as an attack. (Yep, been there.) If you miraculously can get the incentives changed, then you can make progress...