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They're meaningless. I don't understand how these things can continue to exist and evolve in ever more ridiculous incarnations of the same stuff. If, next year,

They're meaningless. I don't understand how these things can continue to exist and evolve in ever more ridiculous incarnations of the same stuff. If, next year, they all disappeared and managers just "cut the pie" for their own sub-org-- nothing bad would happen and the vast majority of folks would see it as a relief. The weird thing is that almost everyone, even high up in the organization, thinks these performance eval mechanisms are a baloney waste of time. But somewhere, at some level, somebody is really pushing hard for these and values them. Is it a suit thing? At what point in one's career does someone all of sudden decide "yeah, having everyone write paragraphs of BS justifying their work performance is a good use of time and THAT will REALLY solve problems"?

marcosdumay 4y ago
> At what point in one's career does someone all of sudden decide "yeah, having everyone write paragraphs of BS justifying their work performance is a good use of time and THAT will REALLY solve problems"? When somebody starts making a lot of noise that people should do it, the people under you seem to unanimously support it, and the people above you seem to unanimously support it. That is, except for the very few that you can get a honest answer from, those are the only few that think it's bullshit, but put-up with it because everybody else is pushing it. A better question is how the hell somebody getting money to teach your people and organize the process get enough credibility that they can mess with all the communication channels. Maybe an even better question is if there is any way to make people feel safer at work than in a crazy absolutist king's court, so that they have less need to lie.
lovich 4y ago
Our corporate environments and capitalist structure in the US consolidate power in people. Once you start being an exec who can fire individuals on a whim or hand out raises/promotions they end up getting surrounded by yes men and then you start seeing the crazy ideas start flowing down. The worse corporate jobs I’ve had have been the privately held large firms as the places are big enough you never know the executive but you still end up spending days/weeks doing ice breakers and personality assessments because the CEO’s life guru convinced him it would align the astrological feng shui. It doesn’t do anything for the company but waste time and money, but until it wastes enough to cause the leaders to lose all power it’ll continue flowing down to us peons
- the_af 4y ago
  > ice breakers I don't understand this aspect of corporate/startup culture. Who the hell likes ice breakers in meetings? Everyone I know -- and I mean everyone -- has started joining late in an attempt to avoid ice breakers. (I actually know who likes them: all those "life coaches" that regularly get hired by startups with too much money.) They are infantilizing, kindergarten-like activities for adults who will never again speak to each other until the next ice breaker activity.

marcosdumay 4y ago

> At what point in one's career does someone all of sudden decide "yeah, having everyone write paragraphs of BS justifying their work performance is a good use of time and THAT will REALLY solve problems"? When somebody starts making a lot of noise that people should do it, the people under you seem to unanimously support it, and the people above you seem to unanimously support it. That is, except for the very few that you can get a honest answer from, those are the only few that think it's bullshit, but put-up with it because everybody else is pushing it. A better question is how the hell somebody getting money to teach your people and organize the process get enough credibility that they can mess with all the communication channels. Maybe an even better question is if there is any way to make people feel safer at work than in a crazy absolutist king's court, so that they have less need to lie.

lovich 4y ago

Our corporate environments and capitalist structure in the US consolidate power in people. Once you start being an exec who can fire individuals on a whim or hand out raises/promotions they end up getting surrounded by yes men and then you start seeing the crazy ideas start flowing down. The worse corporate jobs I’ve had have been the privately held large firms as the places are big enough you never know the executive but you still end up spending days/weeks doing ice breakers and personality assessments because the CEO’s life guru convinced him it would align the astrological feng shui. It doesn’t do anything for the company but waste time and money, but until it wastes enough to cause the leaders to lose all power it’ll continue flowing down to us peons

the_af 4y ago
> ice breakers I don't understand this aspect of corporate/startup culture. Who the hell likes ice breakers in meetings? Everyone I know -- and I mean everyone -- has started joining late in an attempt to avoid ice breakers. (I actually know who likes them: all those "life coaches" that regularly get hired by startups with too much money.) They are infantilizing, kindergarten-like activities for adults who will never again speak to each other until the next ice breaker activity.