4 ms·

> It's a cynical, immature post. Genuinely surprised that it has obviously resonated so well. It's also highly unprofessional and demonstrates a high level of

by fivea 5y ago

> It's a cynical, immature post. Genuinely surprised that it has obviously resonated so well. It's also highly unprofessional and demonstrates a high level of disdain for everyone around the author, which is particularly worrying given the author started expressing that at a moment in time when had barely got through the door. To me it's particularly cringeworthy how the author decided to skip onboarding to afterwards force team members to waste their time onboarding her, and that's depicted as a win. No, it isn't. Onboarding processes are there to avoid wasting everyone's time getting yourself up to speed, and the author forced everyone around to waste their time with an unnecessary do-over. and even that was slammed.

chris_wot 5y ago
That's your opinion, but everything about this process screams useless busy work. You also could have read the update to know that she didn't waste anyone's time. You make a lot of assumptions.
- fivea 5y ago
  > That's your opinion, but everything about this process screams useless busy work. It really isn't. It's a statement of fact. The whole point of getting everyone in the same room and showing them how to go through a SSO userflow and install basic software is precisely to not force everyone on your team to endure that each and every single time there's a new hire. The majority of questions are always the same predictable set of questions, the struggles are the same, the process is the same, the goals are the same. Thus instead of bringing down each and every team's productivity to go through exactly the same thing over and over again, you just get everyone on the same room, get a pair of dedicated employees to do the handholding, and you're done.
  - mirchibajji 5y ago
    A lot of this synchronous process can be avoided - especially for techies - if there is good documentation. If your new tech hire cannot figure out the documentation: a) fix the docs, preferably by the new hires themselves after they figure it out, b) Chances are they're not a great hire. Most of jobs involve reading docs, after all.
southerntofu 5y ago
> Onboarding processes are there to avoid wasting everyone's time And yet the company had a painful/useless onboarding process. I agree with you onboarding is important, but if you feel powerless as an individual, complying with stupid orders is certainly not the best you can do. Even from a cold productivist viewpoint, i bet the author was more productive sitting in the collective space and reaching out to a few friends when they needed help explicitly, than sitting through corporate bullshit making you setup half a dozen applications so you can find out dog names.
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  > Even from a cold productivist viewpoint, i bet the author was more productive sitting in the collective space and reaching out to a few friends when they needed help explicitly The point is that it now costs the time of those friends too, instead of the time of the onboarding trainers that were spending that time anyway. Note that I'm not arguing against 1-on-1 onboarding in general, but there is zero doubt that it costs more time (which is the argument you quoted).
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Seems like you just discovered doing micromanagement of people's time, and that you love practicing it.
    - fivea 5y ago
      > Seems like you just discovered doing micromanagement of people's time, and that you love practicing it. This has zero to do micromanagement. Either your new hire onboards with dedicated staff in dedicated sessions, or that task falls upon the new arrival's team members. The need is always there, and forcing each team to allocate one or two members to do the job that a onboarding meeting does is hard or impossible to justify. Keep in mind that the blog author talked about SSO and installing software.
      - pdimitar 5y ago
enraged_camel 5y ago
>>It's also highly unprofessional and demonstrates a high level of disdain for everyone around the author You should read the reply the author wrote the first time this post appeared on HN. https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/nope/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/nope/ >>>Point: (anything calling me entitled) >>>I find that this, like "unprofessional", is a word people whip out when they can't grapple with the actual topic at hand. It's a nice shortcut to know that they are not going to address the matter properly. >>>Go read pg's "How to Disagree". Then realize you're failing at it.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  Pointing this out was really helpful. Thanks! The reason is that the author of the original blog post failed PG's point themselves. The main criticism is the form of the blog post. Even if everything in it was true, the laptop was actually, objectively terrible, the onboarding was objectively useless, etc. The way all of this was presented is just an immature rant. That's not how one should treat people. Whenever somebody is this arrogant, it puts me on red alert. In PG's post, he ends with: > If you study conversations, you find there is a lot more meanness down in DH1 than up in DH6. You don't have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don't want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way. There was a lot of meanness in that original blog post. A lot of it is in the lowest of the DH levels. If they had something real to say, that's pretty sad, because the meanness got in the way. Literally, because it spawned this whole thread. People take you less seriously if you express yourself like this, and that's what this thread here is about.

by fivea 5y ago

chris_wot 5y ago

That's your opinion, but everything about this process screams useless busy work. You also could have read the update to know that she didn't waste anyone's time. You make a lot of assumptions.

fivea 5y ago
> That's your opinion, but everything about this process screams useless busy work. It really isn't. It's a statement of fact. The whole point of getting everyone in the same room and showing them how to go through a SSO userflow and install basic software is precisely to not force everyone on your team to endure that each and every single time there's a new hire. The majority of questions are always the same predictable set of questions, the struggles are the same, the process is the same, the goals are the same. Thus instead of bringing down each and every team's productivity to go through exactly the same thing over and over again, you just get everyone on the same room, get a pair of dedicated employees to do the handholding, and you're done.
- mirchibajji 5y ago
  A lot of this synchronous process can be avoided - especially for techies - if there is good documentation. If your new tech hire cannot figure out the documentation: a) fix the docs, preferably by the new hires themselves after they figure it out, b) Chances are they're not a great hire. Most of jobs involve reading docs, after all.

southerntofu 5y ago

> Onboarding processes are there to avoid wasting everyone's time And yet the company had a painful/useless onboarding process. I agree with you onboarding is important, but if you feel powerless as an individual, complying with stupid orders is certainly not the best you can do. Even from a cold productivist viewpoint, i bet the author was more productive sitting in the collective space and reaching out to a few friends when they needed help explicitly, than sitting through corporate bullshit making you setup half a dozen applications so you can find out dog names.

MauranKilom 5y ago
> Even from a cold productivist viewpoint, i bet the author was more productive sitting in the collective space and reaching out to a few friends when they needed help explicitly The point is that it now costs the time of those friends too, instead of the time of the onboarding trainers that were spending that time anyway. Note that I'm not arguing against 1-on-1 onboarding in general, but there is zero doubt that it costs more time (which is the argument you quoted).
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Seems like you just discovered doing micromanagement of people's time, and that you love practicing it.
  - fivea 5y ago
    > Seems like you just discovered doing micromanagement of people's time, and that you love practicing it. This has zero to do micromanagement. Either your new hire onboards with dedicated staff in dedicated sessions, or that task falls upon the new arrival's team members. The need is always there, and forcing each team to allocate one or two members to do the job that a onboarding meeting does is hard or impossible to justify. Keep in mind that the blog author talked about SSO and installing software.
    - pdimitar 5y ago

enraged_camel 5y ago

>>It's also highly unprofessional and demonstrates a high level of disdain for everyone around the author You should read the reply the author wrote the first time this post appeared on HN. https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/nope/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/nope/ >>>Point: (anything calling me entitled) >>>I find that this, like "unprofessional", is a word people whip out when they can't grapple with the actual topic at hand. It's a nice shortcut to know that they are not going to address the matter properly. >>>Go read pg's "How to Disagree". Then realize you're failing at it.

wildmanx 5y ago
Pointing this out was really helpful. Thanks! The reason is that the author of the original blog post failed PG's point themselves. The main criticism is the form of the blog post. Even if everything in it was true, the laptop was actually, objectively terrible, the onboarding was objectively useless, etc. The way all of this was presented is just an immature rant. That's not how one should treat people. Whenever somebody is this arrogant, it puts me on red alert. In PG's post, he ends with: > If you study conversations, you find there is a lot more meanness down in DH1 than up in DH6. You don't have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don't want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way. There was a lot of meanness in that original blog post. A lot of it is in the lowest of the DH levels. If they had something real to say, that's pretty sad, because the meanness got in the way. Literally, because it spawned this whole thread. People take you less seriously if you express yourself like this, and that's what this thread here is about.