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Here's something I noticed when talking to or observing others when it comes down to this kind of thing. When people are in unacceptable work situations, which

by dgb23 4y ago

Here's something I noticed when talking to or observing others when it comes down to this kind of thing. When people are in unacceptable work situations, which almost always comes down to (at least seemingly) bad management, lack of respect and low wages, they tend to avoid the issue either by leaving and finding a better place or by trying to level up if they have the guts to change anything at all. Often they try and suck it up, which leads to all kind of issues down the line. There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. And it is understandable. We tend to get taught how to be good worker bees. Reading and writing, math, discipline, shallow/propagandized politics and skills that prepare for work. But we aren't taught how to negotiate, question authority, organization (the real kind, not the following orders kind), collective bargaining, solving conflicts and compromising as equals etc. These are _essential_ life skills. Good leaders respect you if you have these skills, they love to solve problems and improve situations. And it can have powerful long term effects on a workplace if you become active. Freedom and power come from realizing that you already have it.

dotancohen 4y ago
> Freedom and power come from realizing that you already have it. Reposted to emphasize. Improving a worker's condition is often cheaper than replacing him.
- PaulKeeble 4y ago
  There are a lot of companies right now letting people leave who asked for pay rises only to find that not only is it going to cost them 10k to hire someone new but that person will be 30% more than the old employee even asked for and will be starting from scratch.
  - stavros 4y ago
    The upside is that the old employee now got a 10k raise.
  - noelherrick 4y ago
    I wish there was more data on the "from scratch" bit. I just cannot believe that companies are willing to let experienced devs who know your system and have proven that they can ship just walk out the door with all that value simply because you won't pay them more. It is a ubiquitous problem and my bosses have shared this view. My current firm is the only place that has proactively increased compensation, and guess what, the other ICs I started with six years ago are still with the team.
- pjc50 4y ago
  However, many companies will eat the cost, because once you improve one person's condition all the rest start asking for it as well. Some managers like sending the message that workers are disposable and will be disposed of if they make trouble.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    I'm sure they exist, but I've not encountered any. Most managers are there to manage, not intimidate.
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  I believe it. But for a lot of companies the standard playbook is everyone is replaceable and they probably wouldn't even consider meaningful change unless attrition hits a certain percent. They'd rather cut a new hire a fresh load of RSUs than refresh you to keep you from looking around. Varies by company, but IME, bringing issues of pay and stuff up are often hit with the standard "we consider raises in November" or whatever arbitrary time period they've chosen. Then they're shocked when people leave.
jstx1 4y ago
For speaking up and negotiation to work you need a reasonable person on the other side of the conversation, and not having that kind of person is one of the most common problems to begin with.
- gitfan86 4y ago
  A lot of businesses simply don't make a profit under reasonable conditions. So managers at those businesses need to be unreasonable by definition.
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    Then if those businesses shut down because they can’t find people to hire, that should be lauded, not feared.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Reasonable is subjective. I have seen a developer borderline lose their job because they didn’t like the terms and conditions of a library that management wanted to use on the app. Even after management confirmed they are ok with the terms. Sometimes you do just need to accept decisions and move on. Or find a middle ground.
      - nmfisher 4y ago
        Was this Richard Stallman’s first job?
        Gigachad 4y ago
        Not even that. It was some weird idea that the terms would expose the company to legal risk, despite the legal experts confirming its OK and them having no real financial stake in the company. Some people pick weird hills to die on. They absolutely see management as being evil and unreasonable over this despite anyone else looking at the situation seeing it as normal day to day business.
maxehmookau 4y ago
I love the optimism and in a lot of jobs (especially the jobs filled by folks who read HN), it's mostly true. > Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. This just is not true for so many jobs. Middle management in many industries (hospitality, personal care, child care, etc.) are not empowered to have these sorts of conversations and the only option is to quit, or be fired.
- dgb23 4y ago
  That's quite a defeatist viewpoint and just not true. Plenty of working conditions have improved because workers didn't put up with the issues and fought them head on. Edit: My first sentence is out of place. What you say is obviously true to a large extend. The second part of my comment however as well.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
svnpenn 4y ago
With all due respect, this is a quite naive viewpoint. I've been fired from multiple jobs from trying exactly the items you are suggesting. Sometimes, management just wants you to shut up and do the job, and not try to change anything.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Wisdom is knowing how to find out which you're dealing with without getting fired
- dgb23 4y ago
  I'm not saying it always works. I'm saying it is possible, and definitely worth considering and even trying. You said you failed multiple times, would you do it again?
- Dave3of5 4y ago
  > management just wants you to shut up and do the job, and not try to change anything. Yeah I'd agree especially for example a company with constant short deadlines. Complaints about the short deadlines and making a big fuss about it is not going to work as those deadlines are imposed by someone with ultimate power in the org. In their mind you're just a piece of dirt under their shoe, someone who cranks the handle and complaints are not welcome. If you're in an org where something like this is happening it's often best to move on to another job. Trying to make any sort of change in these orgs is like pissing in the wind. They don't care and will often fire you as a trouble maker. Just move on.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  The way to do this without being fired, of course, is to have a union.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Or a good way to all get fired at the same time, depending on the situation.
    - 4y ago
natly 4y ago
Listen, that works in engineering but I know people who try this all the time in more replacable occupations and it just gets shut down.
- pixl97 4y ago
  And that's why we should wait till engineers are replaceable before we try to unionize....
  - FredPret 4y ago
    In Sweden, they have no labour laws. But they also have no restrictions on unionization. A proper free market! And it works pretty well.
    - zosima 4y ago
      In Sweden there are plenty of labor laws. E.g you have to lay off workers in the opposite order they were hired. https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagen_om_anst%C3%A4llningsskydd https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagen_om_anst%C3%A4llningssk...
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  In the US, maybe.
tacocataco 4y ago
> Good leaders respect you if you have these skills, they love to solve problems and improve situations. If? So people without these skills deserve no respect? Seems like a toxic workplace to me. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.
- dgb23 4y ago
  No of course not. It is an encouraging statement which comes from experience. People (and past me included) tend to _underestimate_ their managing superiors, business owners, big clients and so on and think they will not respect a push for improvement, but I found that the opposite is true just as often. It's often a win/win whether you fail or succeed.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>But we aren't taught how to negotiate, question authority, organization (the real kind, not the following orders kind), collective bargaining, solving conflicts and compromising as equals etc. These are _essential_ life skills. It's against "the system's" interest to teach these things to any useful degree. At the bare minimum the institutions that are responsible for the bulk of the teaching in our society would be making their own jobs harder if they taught that stuff.
- dgb23 4y ago
  It's not "the system" but particular political interest groups. It comes in the form of disallowing certain books and teaching practices, emphasizing dominant/mainstream culture and subordination and a traditional sounding, distortive narrative. This is fueled by a lot of money and emotional propaganda. The counter reaction has increasingly become bureaucratic and moralizing instead of empowering and democratizing, which doesn't help the issue IMO.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
>But we aren't taught how to negotiate, question authority, organization (the real kind, not the following orders kind) From my experience the far majority of companies want the "following orders kind", or to put it differently: they want you to be flexible enough to be both the independent leader and the great follower when they desire, without any sign of rebellion. For obvious reasons, this doesn't work. Most of these attributes have some semblance of correlation or causation which makes anyone fitting the above a unicorn. You continuously stamp out rebellion and any sign of independence in teens, you get meek adults who will follow orders and are afraid to take independent actions. Society can scratch its head all it wants, these are the kind of people it trained for. >Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation I tried this multiple times. It's difficult enough to change things together, now try it in an environment where you're essentially alone. Your fellow worker bees aren't revolting with you, they are far too comfortable and afraid to lose their comfort. Their risk/reward evaluation is screaming "no, don't do this, let them sink alone". The above works when people learn different things and understand rebellion together does work and it works really damn well, which again, starts all the way at school.
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  > From my experience the far majority of companies want the "following orders kind", or to put it differently: they want you to be flexible enough to be both the independent leader and the great follower when they desire, without any sign of rebellion. Traditional capitalist companies are not democracies, they're dictatorships, or plutocracies at best. It makes sense an authoritarian regime would want problem solvers but not challengers to the status quo. A cooperative would be the closest to a democratic company.
the_only_law 4y ago
> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. I did this once back when working crap jobs. I knew I had leverage because the store was having issues hiring anyone to do the work so I utilize that leverage to try to negotiate a raise and control of my schedule. Which I got… well sort of. The raise the the most pathetic I ever got, and I was told “that’s all the computer will let me give”. Regardless though, I had successfully negotiated something, sadly it didn’t matter, despite slightly bumping my pay and gaining better control of my schedule, corporate came down with an idiotic merge and a plan to get rid of all full time employees that backfired, and they all left. Suddenly, the manager begins to shift more and more responsibilities to us, to the point where I control what days I work but I am now working 12 hours nights because the only other people good at their job left. After one night, I said fuck it and just abandoned the job, didn’t even give any notice, and I never felt particularly bad about it. Surprise, the genius moves pulled by corporate ended up pushing the company into bankruptcy.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  There are two conflicting business cultures. One is genuine profit culture, and one is an imitation of profit culture which is really about hierarchy and status. Most businesses are balanced somewhere between the two extremes, although I suspect in the US businesses tend more towards hierarchy. The "labor shortage" is a symptom of a hierarchy culture that has become too rigid. Workers are supposed to know their place - which is at the bottom of the hierarchy - and are not supposed to expect a more equal power distribution. The fact that some businesses would rather die than relax their grip on power differentials shows how dysfunctional and self-harming this culture is.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    Anecdotally the only place I heard doing the opposite "consistently" is Japan, and I highly suspect these reports are still select blue moon cases. Cases where executives themselves took the hit to keep the ICs at their current level, or at the very least share the burden equally. Everywhere else, I've heard both a near universal reluctance for executive types to take any kind of pay cut ("we can only go up"), and a near universal reluctance for anyone higher in the hierarchy to earn less than their subordinates, no matter how rare their skillset. Which also creates the massive bureaucracy problem where everyone wants to go into some form of management or pseudo-management, and no one is able to prove whether this was at all beneficial for the company as a whole. I even had a personal experience where HR was describing a new career advancement strategy, confirmed developers were paid under market rate, but bluntly said "no, this doesn't mean we'll increase your salaries right away". I was more surprised people in the room didn't react with disgust at this obvious "haha we got you by the balls" move.
refurb 4y ago
It’s not impossible but jumping ship usually results in better conditions with less effort. When your asking for more but 99 of your colleagues aren’t the answer is usually “no, because no one else is complaining”
freen 4y ago
Voice, exit, or loyalty. That’s it.
ryanSrich 4y ago
> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. Anecdata, but I’ve seen this backfire tremendously. My wife worked for a skilled nursing facility. They had 18 therapists (pt, ot, and st). 6 decided to stand up to management and demand a lighter case load, a 3% raise (hilariously low I know), and increased transparency from management. They all got put in pips for various “other issues” and eventually all of them were fired. These jobs aren’t that low paying either ($70-$100k / year), so it’s not like finding a new warehouse crew. Eventually the place ended up downsizing and eventually merging with another facility. The rumor on the inside is that they never really recovered and saw more attrition across other parts of the organization. I say this backfired because the employees ended up getting fired. Even though in the end the company ended up not doing well. I guess my point is that never underestimate the stupidity of management. They will let their companies fail in order to not succumb to employee demands, regardless of how benign they might be.
- davidgrenier 4y ago
  I was gonna say, this is absolutely untrue: "Workers tend to underestimate [...] the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward." They do however underestimate the ability of their superior to manipulate them into thinking they have a clear understanding of what going forward means and that said superior will honor that agreement.
- dgb23 4y ago
  > I guess my point is that never underestimate the stupidity of management. They will let their companies fail in order to not succumb to employee demands, regardless of how benign they might be. It seems like they exposed a major weakness. My hope is that your wife and her colleagues are better off now. Do you feel like they still did the right thing?
- barrenko 4y ago
  Never has questioning the status quo in a workplace not ended me in an "Apocalypse Now" type of situation. Best of luck.
einpoklum 4y ago
> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. There is also the collective variant of this, which is _unionization_. It's hard to do, but still much easier than every one person in a workplace "uplifting" themselves, and possibly facing retribution or termination. The overall outcomes are more promising - again, on the whole. Indeed, we aren't taught these self-administration and collective-self-administration (autogestion) skills. Paradoxically, we mostly have to teach ourselves that - at least collectively if not personally. When this happens, from my own personal experience, the rewards are quite significant - emotional and material :-)
sokoloff 4y ago
It's often faster/easier to ((change your) company) than to (change (your company)).
draw_down 4y ago
xxEightyxx 4y ago
I think I understand what you're saying but your example is somewhat nonsensical. Your first phrase indicates a person is in a bad job, your second phrase and description of the solution of the problem in the first phrase indicates a person hasn't accepted said job yet. If you're in a bad job and can afford to leave, without knowing additional information, you probably should. In all my experiences ranging from the trades (construction), investment banking, and software development, the overwhelming consensus as I have understood it, is that companies/managers/presidents/etc want you to be that good worker bee and not step out of line. Good leaders generally respect you if you can show those skills you mentioned, in the context of the narrow band of their work. A previous manager I had said the following (in regards to hiring lower-level management positions): "we love ex military folks because they're good at following orders and not taking an independent approach to a problem" i.e. they're drones in this respect. Include more worker protections, something akin to what many European countries have done and I think we'd find ourselves one step further towards a more harmonious/happy society.
behringer 4y ago
It's always the first thing I try. Last time I asked for a raise they said not even the team leads make that much. I leveled up into the same job at a different company for the same pay I was asking for, plus better benefits. And the job turned out to be much less stressful too because of how management ran the department.
spaetzleesser 4y ago
Most companies are internally run like communist dictatorships. Leadership is only marginally interested in the conditions of their underlings but they compensate for that with spreading a ton of propaganda. They send out mission statements ("We believe in..."), company newsletters, hold motivational meetings. But it's almost always a one-way street. Lots of information comes from top down, but almost nothing trickles up. In the end you just have to accept that below a certain level you are not part of the "in" group and the "in" group has no interest in your opinion. They are only interested in what benefits them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
avgcorrection 4y ago
> Good leaders respect you if you have these skills Most workers will have to deal with an adversarial manager. Most will need a union or some kind of collective bargaining. Yes, you did mention collective bargaining. But collective bargaining is much more important than having leaders^H managers that respect you, or relying on your own individual gumption and confidence. Maybe they respect you but it’s often their job to keep you in your place.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
> And it is understandable. We tend to get taught how to be good worker bees. Reading and writing, math, discipline, shallow/propagandized politics and skills that prepare for work. This reads like we are conditioned since a very young age, but it's not true. Large corporations design their basic training curriculum precisely for this. Standardised levels, responsibilities, and wages, also remove leverage from individual workers, who are left with collective bargaining, which is harder to achieve. Good people really don't have much of a choice other than leaving crappy jobs.
mushbino 4y ago
Without democracy in the workplace and collectivisation the economic forces are purely on the side of the employer. We're taught that individual action is the only way to improve one's situation in life, but it's impossible for this to improve living standards at a societal level. Workers coming together is the only way employees can have real leverage.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  But can we have meaningful democracy in the workplace with the current education system[1] that trains docile workers? Or with our political and judicial system outright owned by corporate interests? [1] https://www.thesouljam.com/post/the-ugly-truth-about-the-education-system-you-were-never-told https://www.thesouljam.com/post/the-ugly-truth-about-the-edu...
  - mushbino 4y ago
    The US education system was designed and built to serve industrialists and disempower future employees.
fsociety 4y ago
I don’t buy this narrative, I’ve tried in orgs which relied heavily on me (as half of my tiny team quit) and it backfired. Then I was laughed at during interview asking for a certain salary. Then I got a much higher salary than what I asked for from… big surprise a startup whom made significantly less money than the other two mentioned. I’ve seen this backfire in “less prestigious” jobs too. The advice I was given was to work your way into a position of leverage within a company and then do this. But I learned that finding a company who will pay you what you want outright is a better strategy. You will be infinitely more respected and trusted.
rossdavidh 4y ago
I have seen this occasionally work, but far more often not work. There can be several reasons for it to fail: 1) the supervisor is responding to their own bad work situation from above, and since they don't know how to do that, the bad supervising strategy is their adaptation to a bad situation. 2) the supervisor is just plain not good at being someone's boss, by temperament or aptitude, and they may know at some level that they're not good at it but don't appreciate their direct report telling them the specific ways in which they are not. However politely and respectfully it is put, if the supervisor knows they're not good at being a supervisor, then being told by the person they're supervising that the situation is not working, just makes them mad. 3) the supervisor believes that their direct reports need to be cowed in order to be productive, and they respond to any feedback of the sort you describe by taking it as a challenge which must be beaten down. In fact, almost the only times I have seen management's attitude really change, is when they have too many people leave (although even then, sometimes they just aren't capable of managing well, and cannot seem to improve). Most often, leaving for a better job is the best way of communicating that the situation needs to improve. In large organizations, obviously case (1) above is the most common, and in small organizations (2) and (3).
joshstrange 4y ago
> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. Path of least resistance. Changing an organization and/or employee organization (union or otherwise) is essentially a full time job and I already have one of those. Why would I stay and fight what will almost certainly be a losing battle when I can just leave AND make more money? I'm very pro-union and employee rights but I've tried to fight this fight before. It was draining, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful. I wasted years "trying to change the company", I should have just moved on. Often the person best suited to lead organizing employees is not an employee. What I mean by that is programming (or insert your profession here) and organizing people are two very different skillsets that not everyone has (I would go as far as to say few do).
drewcoo 4y ago
> Good leaders respect you if you have these skills but > almost always comes down to (at least seemingly) bad management So this solution, while it sounds wonderful, doesn't seem to follow the problem.
dandare 4y ago
> Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. I have several first hand experiences where a core developer (or original inventor) would leave the company after being refused a raise or a promotion only to be replaced by two or three less efficient (but not cheaper) developers. And we are talking supposedly ration and egalitarian IT companies here.
jjav 4y ago
> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Negotiation of every form (whether it is for buying a car or a trinket at the flea market or for pay or promotions at work) only works when the option of walking away from the negotiation is also a viable option and both parties know it. For someone who is independently wealthy and can walk away from the job any moment, there is great power in negotiating their way up. But one must be ready to walk away. For us regular people who need a paycheck, negotiating with current job is very risky. It's much safer to find a potential new job and negotiate with them before accepting it (when you can still safely walk away).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by dgb23 4y ago

dotancohen 4y ago

> Freedom and power come from realizing that you already have it. Reposted to emphasize. Improving a worker's condition is often cheaper than replacing him.

PaulKeeble 4y ago
There are a lot of companies right now letting people leave who asked for pay rises only to find that not only is it going to cost them 10k to hire someone new but that person will be 30% more than the old employee even asked for and will be starting from scratch.
- stavros 4y ago
  The upside is that the old employee now got a 10k raise.
- noelherrick 4y ago
  I wish there was more data on the "from scratch" bit. I just cannot believe that companies are willing to let experienced devs who know your system and have proven that they can ship just walk out the door with all that value simply because you won't pay them more. It is a ubiquitous problem and my bosses have shared this view. My current firm is the only place that has proactively increased compensation, and guess what, the other ICs I started with six years ago are still with the team.
pjc50 4y ago
However, many companies will eat the cost, because once you improve one person's condition all the rest start asking for it as well. Some managers like sending the message that workers are disposable and will be disposed of if they make trouble.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  I'm sure they exist, but I've not encountered any. Most managers are there to manage, not intimidate.
wollsmoth 4y ago
I believe it. But for a lot of companies the standard playbook is everyone is replaceable and they probably wouldn't even consider meaningful change unless attrition hits a certain percent. They'd rather cut a new hire a fresh load of RSUs than refresh you to keep you from looking around. Varies by company, but IME, bringing issues of pay and stuff up are often hit with the standard "we consider raises in November" or whatever arbitrary time period they've chosen. Then they're shocked when people leave.

jstx1 4y ago

For speaking up and negotiation to work you need a reasonable person on the other side of the conversation, and not having that kind of person is one of the most common problems to begin with.

gitfan86 4y ago
A lot of businesses simply don't make a profit under reasonable conditions. So managers at those businesses need to be unreasonable by definition.
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  Then if those businesses shut down because they can’t find people to hire, that should be lauded, not feared.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Reasonable is subjective. I have seen a developer borderline lose their job because they didn’t like the terms and conditions of a library that management wanted to use on the app. Even after management confirmed they are ok with the terms. Sometimes you do just need to accept decisions and move on. Or find a middle ground.
    - nmfisher 4y ago
      Was this Richard Stallman’s first job?
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Not even that. It was some weird idea that the terms would expose the company to legal risk, despite the legal experts confirming its OK and them having no real financial stake in the company. Some people pick weird hills to die on. They absolutely see management as being evil and unreasonable over this despite anyone else looking at the situation seeing it as normal day to day business.

maxehmookau 4y ago

I love the optimism and in a lot of jobs (especially the jobs filled by folks who read HN), it's mostly true. > Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. This just is not true for so many jobs. Middle management in many industries (hospitality, personal care, child care, etc.) are not empowered to have these sorts of conversations and the only option is to quit, or be fired.

dgb23 4y ago
That's quite a defeatist viewpoint and just not true. Plenty of working conditions have improved because workers didn't put up with the issues and fought them head on. Edit: My first sentence is out of place. What you say is obviously true to a large extend. The second part of my comment however as well.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

svnpenn 4y ago

With all due respect, this is a quite naive viewpoint. I've been fired from multiple jobs from trying exactly the items you are suggesting. Sometimes, management just wants you to shut up and do the job, and not try to change anything.

darkerside 4y ago
Wisdom is knowing how to find out which you're dealing with without getting fired
dgb23 4y ago
I'm not saying it always works. I'm saying it is possible, and definitely worth considering and even trying. You said you failed multiple times, would you do it again?
Dave3of5 4y ago
> management just wants you to shut up and do the job, and not try to change anything. Yeah I'd agree especially for example a company with constant short deadlines. Complaints about the short deadlines and making a big fuss about it is not going to work as those deadlines are imposed by someone with ultimate power in the org. In their mind you're just a piece of dirt under their shoe, someone who cranks the handle and complaints are not welcome. If you're in an org where something like this is happening it's often best to move on to another job. Trying to make any sort of change in these orgs is like pissing in the wind. They don't care and will often fire you as a trouble maker. Just move on.
NoGravitas 4y ago
The way to do this without being fired, of course, is to have a union.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Or a good way to all get fired at the same time, depending on the situation.
  - 4y ago

natly 4y ago

Listen, that works in engineering but I know people who try this all the time in more replacable occupations and it just gets shut down.

pixl97 4y ago
And that's why we should wait till engineers are replaceable before we try to unionize....
- FredPret 4y ago
  In Sweden, they have no labour laws. But they also have no restrictions on unionization. A proper free market! And it works pretty well.
  - zosima 4y ago
    In Sweden there are plenty of labor laws. E.g you have to lay off workers in the opposite order they were hired. https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagen_om_anst%C3%A4llningsskydd https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagen_om_anst%C3%A4llningssk...
LadyCailin 4y ago
In the US, maybe.

tacocataco 4y ago

> Good leaders respect you if you have these skills, they love to solve problems and improve situations. If? So people without these skills deserve no respect? Seems like a toxic workplace to me. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

dgb23 4y ago
No of course not. It is an encouraging statement which comes from experience. People (and past me included) tend to _underestimate_ their managing superiors, business owners, big clients and so on and think they will not respect a push for improvement, but I found that the opposite is true just as often. It's often a win/win whether you fail or succeed.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

>But we aren't taught how to negotiate, question authority, organization (the real kind, not the following orders kind), collective bargaining, solving conflicts and compromising as equals etc. These are _essential_ life skills. It's against "the system's" interest to teach these things to any useful degree. At the bare minimum the institutions that are responsible for the bulk of the teaching in our society would be making their own jobs harder if they taught that stuff.

dgb23 4y ago
It's not "the system" but particular political interest groups. It comes in the form of disallowing certain books and teaching practices, emphasizing dominant/mainstream culture and subordination and a traditional sounding, distortive narrative. This is fueled by a lot of money and emotional propaganda. The counter reaction has increasingly become bureaucratic and moralizing instead of empowering and democratizing, which doesn't help the issue IMO.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

>But we aren't taught how to negotiate, question authority, organization (the real kind, not the following orders kind) From my experience the far majority of companies want the "following orders kind", or to put it differently: they want you to be flexible enough to be both the independent leader and the great follower when they desire, without any sign of rebellion. For obvious reasons, this doesn't work. Most of these attributes have some semblance of correlation or causation which makes anyone fitting the above a unicorn. You continuously stamp out rebellion and any sign of independence in teens, you get meek adults who will follow orders and are afraid to take independent actions. Society can scratch its head all it wants, these are the kind of people it trained for. >Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation I tried this multiple times. It's difficult enough to change things together, now try it in an environment where you're essentially alone. Your fellow worker bees aren't revolting with you, they are far too comfortable and afraid to lose their comfort. Their risk/reward evaluation is screaming "no, don't do this, let them sink alone". The above works when people learn different things and understand rebellion together does work and it works really damn well, which again, starts all the way at school.

ASalazarMX 4y ago
> From my experience the far majority of companies want the "following orders kind", or to put it differently: they want you to be flexible enough to be both the independent leader and the great follower when they desire, without any sign of rebellion. Traditional capitalist companies are not democracies, they're dictatorships, or plutocracies at best. It makes sense an authoritarian regime would want problem solvers but not challengers to the status quo. A cooperative would be the closest to a democratic company.

the_only_law 4y ago

> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. I did this once back when working crap jobs. I knew I had leverage because the store was having issues hiring anyone to do the work so I utilize that leverage to try to negotiate a raise and control of my schedule. Which I got… well sort of. The raise the the most pathetic I ever got, and I was told “that’s all the computer will let me give”. Regardless though, I had successfully negotiated something, sadly it didn’t matter, despite slightly bumping my pay and gaining better control of my schedule, corporate came down with an idiotic merge and a plan to get rid of all full time employees that backfired, and they all left. Suddenly, the manager begins to shift more and more responsibilities to us, to the point where I control what days I work but I am now working 12 hours nights because the only other people good at their job left. After one night, I said fuck it and just abandoned the job, didn’t even give any notice, and I never felt particularly bad about it. Surprise, the genius moves pulled by corporate ended up pushing the company into bankruptcy.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
There are two conflicting business cultures. One is genuine profit culture, and one is an imitation of profit culture which is really about hierarchy and status. Most businesses are balanced somewhere between the two extremes, although I suspect in the US businesses tend more towards hierarchy. The "labor shortage" is a symptom of a hierarchy culture that has become too rigid. Workers are supposed to know their place - which is at the bottom of the hierarchy - and are not supposed to expect a more equal power distribution. The fact that some businesses would rather die than relax their grip on power differentials shows how dysfunctional and self-harming this culture is.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Anecdotally the only place I heard doing the opposite "consistently" is Japan, and I highly suspect these reports are still select blue moon cases. Cases where executives themselves took the hit to keep the ICs at their current level, or at the very least share the burden equally. Everywhere else, I've heard both a near universal reluctance for executive types to take any kind of pay cut ("we can only go up"), and a near universal reluctance for anyone higher in the hierarchy to earn less than their subordinates, no matter how rare their skillset. Which also creates the massive bureaucracy problem where everyone wants to go into some form of management or pseudo-management, and no one is able to prove whether this was at all beneficial for the company as a whole. I even had a personal experience where HR was describing a new career advancement strategy, confirmed developers were paid under market rate, but bluntly said "no, this doesn't mean we'll increase your salaries right away". I was more surprised people in the room didn't react with disgust at this obvious "haha we got you by the balls" move.

refurb 4y ago

It’s not impossible but jumping ship usually results in better conditions with less effort. When your asking for more but 99 of your colleagues aren’t the answer is usually “no, because no one else is complaining”

freen 4y ago

Voice, exit, or loyalty. That’s it.

ryanSrich 4y ago

> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. Anecdata, but I’ve seen this backfire tremendously. My wife worked for a skilled nursing facility. They had 18 therapists (pt, ot, and st). 6 decided to stand up to management and demand a lighter case load, a 3% raise (hilariously low I know), and increased transparency from management. They all got put in pips for various “other issues” and eventually all of them were fired. These jobs aren’t that low paying either ($70-$100k / year), so it’s not like finding a new warehouse crew. Eventually the place ended up downsizing and eventually merging with another facility. The rumor on the inside is that they never really recovered and saw more attrition across other parts of the organization. I say this backfired because the employees ended up getting fired. Even though in the end the company ended up not doing well. I guess my point is that never underestimate the stupidity of management. They will let their companies fail in order to not succumb to employee demands, regardless of how benign they might be.

davidgrenier 4y ago
I was gonna say, this is absolutely untrue: "Workers tend to underestimate [...] the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward." They do however underestimate the ability of their superior to manipulate them into thinking they have a clear understanding of what going forward means and that said superior will honor that agreement.
dgb23 4y ago
> I guess my point is that never underestimate the stupidity of management. They will let their companies fail in order to not succumb to employee demands, regardless of how benign they might be. It seems like they exposed a major weakness. My hope is that your wife and her colleagues are better off now. Do you feel like they still did the right thing?
barrenko 4y ago
Never has questioning the status quo in a workplace not ended me in an "Apocalypse Now" type of situation. Best of luck.

einpoklum 4y ago

> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. There is also the collective variant of this, which is _unionization_. It's hard to do, but still much easier than every one person in a workplace "uplifting" themselves, and possibly facing retribution or termination. The overall outcomes are more promising - again, on the whole. Indeed, we aren't taught these self-administration and collective-self-administration (autogestion) skills. Paradoxically, we mostly have to teach ourselves that - at least collectively if not personally. When this happens, from my own personal experience, the rewards are quite significant - emotional and material :-)

sokoloff 4y ago

It's often faster/easier to ((change your) company) than to (change (your company)).

draw_down 4y ago

xxEightyxx 4y ago

I think I understand what you're saying but your example is somewhat nonsensical. Your first phrase indicates a person is in a bad job, your second phrase and description of the solution of the problem in the first phrase indicates a person hasn't accepted said job yet. If you're in a bad job and can afford to leave, without knowing additional information, you probably should. In all my experiences ranging from the trades (construction), investment banking, and software development, the overwhelming consensus as I have understood it, is that companies/managers/presidents/etc want you to be that good worker bee and not step out of line. Good leaders generally respect you if you can show those skills you mentioned, in the context of the narrow band of their work. A previous manager I had said the following (in regards to hiring lower-level management positions): "we love ex military folks because they're good at following orders and not taking an independent approach to a problem" i.e. they're drones in this respect. Include more worker protections, something akin to what many European countries have done and I think we'd find ourselves one step further towards a more harmonious/happy society.

behringer 4y ago

It's always the first thing I try. Last time I asked for a raise they said not even the team leads make that much. I leveled up into the same job at a different company for the same pay I was asking for, plus better benefits. And the job turned out to be much less stressful too because of how management ran the department.

spaetzleesser 4y ago

Most companies are internally run like communist dictatorships. Leadership is only marginally interested in the conditions of their underlings but they compensate for that with spreading a ton of propaganda. They send out mission statements ("We believe in..."), company newsletters, hold motivational meetings. But it's almost always a one-way street. Lots of information comes from top down, but almost nothing trickles up. In the end you just have to accept that below a certain level you are not part of the "in" group and the "in" group has no interest in your opinion. They are only interested in what benefits them.

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avgcorrection 4y ago

> Good leaders respect you if you have these skills Most workers will have to deal with an adversarial manager. Most will need a union or some kind of collective bargaining. Yes, you did mention collective bargaining. But collective bargaining is much more important than having leaders^H managers that respect you, or relying on your own individual gumption and confidence. Maybe they respect you but it’s often their job to keep you in your place.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

> And it is understandable. We tend to get taught how to be good worker bees. Reading and writing, math, discipline, shallow/propagandized politics and skills that prepare for work. This reads like we are conditioned since a very young age, but it's not true. Large corporations design their basic training curriculum precisely for this. Standardised levels, responsibilities, and wages, also remove leverage from individual workers, who are left with collective bargaining, which is harder to achieve. Good people really don't have much of a choice other than leaving crappy jobs.

mushbino 4y ago

Without democracy in the workplace and collectivisation the economic forces are purely on the side of the employer. We're taught that individual action is the only way to improve one's situation in life, but it's impossible for this to improve living standards at a societal level. Workers coming together is the only way employees can have real leverage.

drewcoo 4y ago
But can we have meaningful democracy in the workplace with the current education system[1] that trains docile workers? Or with our political and judicial system outright owned by corporate interests? [1] https://www.thesouljam.com/post/the-ugly-truth-about-the-education-system-you-were-never-told https://www.thesouljam.com/post/the-ugly-truth-about-the-edu...
- mushbino 4y ago
  The US education system was designed and built to serve industrialists and disempower future employees.

fsociety 4y ago

I don’t buy this narrative, I’ve tried in orgs which relied heavily on me (as half of my tiny team quit) and it backfired. Then I was laughed at during interview asking for a certain salary. Then I got a much higher salary than what I asked for from… big surprise a startup whom made significantly less money than the other two mentioned. I’ve seen this backfire in “less prestigious” jobs too. The advice I was given was to work your way into a position of leverage within a company and then do this. But I learned that finding a company who will pay you what you want outright is a better strategy. You will be infinitely more respected and trusted.

rossdavidh 4y ago

I have seen this occasionally work, but far more often not work. There can be several reasons for it to fail: 1) the supervisor is responding to their own bad work situation from above, and since they don't know how to do that, the bad supervising strategy is their adaptation to a bad situation. 2) the supervisor is just plain not good at being someone's boss, by temperament or aptitude, and they may know at some level that they're not good at it but don't appreciate their direct report telling them the specific ways in which they are not. However politely and respectfully it is put, if the supervisor knows they're not good at being a supervisor, then being told by the person they're supervising that the situation is not working, just makes them mad. 3) the supervisor believes that their direct reports need to be cowed in order to be productive, and they respond to any feedback of the sort you describe by taking it as a challenge which must be beaten down. In fact, almost the only times I have seen management's attitude really change, is when they have too many people leave (although even then, sometimes they just aren't capable of managing well, and cannot seem to improve). Most often, leaving for a better job is the best way of communicating that the situation needs to improve. In large organizations, obviously case (1) above is the most common, and in small organizations (2) and (3).

joshstrange 4y ago

> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. Path of least resistance. Changing an organization and/or employee organization (union or otherwise) is essentially a full time job and I already have one of those. Why would I stay and fight what will almost certainly be a losing battle when I can just leave AND make more money? I'm very pro-union and employee rights but I've tried to fight this fight before. It was draining, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful. I wasted years "trying to change the company", I should have just moved on. Often the person best suited to lead organizing employees is not an employee. What I mean by that is programming (or insert your profession here) and organizing people are two very different skillsets that not everyone has (I would go as far as to say few do).

drewcoo 4y ago

> Good leaders respect you if you have these skills but > almost always comes down to (at least seemingly) bad management So this solution, while it sounds wonderful, doesn't seem to follow the problem.

dandare 4y ago

> Workers tend to underestimate a couple of things: Their value, their ability to work out and improve a workplace situation, and often also the ability of their superiors to change perspective and collaborate on moving forward. I have several first hand experiences where a core developer (or original inventor) would leave the company after being refused a raise or a promotion only to be replaced by two or three less efficient (but not cheaper) developers. And we are talking supposedly ration and egalitarian IT companies here.

jjav 4y ago

> There is another way, which is negotiating and clearly stating one's goals. Negotiation of every form (whether it is for buying a car or a trinket at the flea market or for pay or promotions at work) only works when the option of walking away from the negotiation is also a viable option and both parties know it. For someone who is independently wealthy and can walk away from the job any moment, there is great power in negotiating their way up. But one must be ready to walk away. For us regular people who need a paycheck, negotiating with current job is very risky. It's much safer to find a potential new job and negotiate with them before accepting it (when you can still safely walk away).

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