6 ms·

Big no thanks to this. If you hate where you work this much, improve yourself and work somewhere else. Replacing at-will with "just cause", progressive disc

Big no thanks to this. If you hate where you work this much, improve yourself and work somewhere else. Replacing at-will with "just cause", progressive disciplining, with criteria for performance improvement plans. If you're three years into a career in tech (technical or not) and you haven't figured out that being PIP'd or indirectly told you're fucking up - making this language "nicer" isn't going to help anyone. Adults don't give feedback in a transparent way and this is because they don't want to look discriminatory. Modern employment and HR policies have done great things, but they've made the waters for this kind of communication even more opaque and pushed incentives that way as well. Being unable to effectively communicate in a competitive professional environment as an adult and unionizing to solve this problem is at best juvenile, even worse when you think about long-tail consequences in terms of babying future hires. As someone who previously worked at Amazon and found it shitty, Amazon is a stupid point of comparison for unionizing in tech because it's a shit-show run like a hedge fund. However, as a heuristic, people who've spent more than two years at any kind of Amazon should be avoided IMO.

arrrg 4y ago
Why does organizing mean you hate your workplace? Organizing means you want more power, more control. Also, there are many dimensions to liking or disliking your workplace. You may love the product your working on. You may really like your colleagues. You may also love the office environment. However, you may dislike the amount of vacation days, the lack of ability to work part time or the lack of paternal leave. Workplaces have literally hundreds of properties, each of which you may like or dislike. So organizing to tweak those you dislike (while, on balance, you actually still like most properties) is very normal.
- 71a54xd 4y ago
  Part of being an Adult TM is separating emotions from work. Admittedly, I was able to work on some very cool shit at Amazon - however the job made me hate my life. Ergo - adult logical cycles were spent, decided to get a new job after leetcoding for a bit. The people who aren't skilled enough to get new jobs or improve themselves (also holds true in any industry) will always be some degree of fucked. I admit, some unions are good, but engaging in a system that grants most benefit to people not willing to improve or make the bar of performance set by the industry isn't good for anyone involved. That said, never work for a place that makes you hate your life. And yes... having the ability to make that choice is a privilege.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "or make the bar of performance set by the industry" Can you define that bar? That's the problem - there aren't any solid definitions without a contract, and it varies by company. The company can screw over people who are actually meeting the bar by simply saying the bar is higher than it actually is.
    - 71a54xd 4y ago
      A level of performance / ability where you can interview, get a job and the salary you deem indicative of your skill. This varies from person to person obviously. For instance, for a while I had a CS degree and was solidly above average, but I didn't quite meet the bar because I sucked at leetcode and didn't have enough experience. So I accepted this, improved, and now have a higher paying job.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        I'm not talking about interviews. I'm talking about performance evaluation at the company. The issues are with moving goal posts, discrinatory practices, and office politics.
        71a54xd 4y ago
        The only place without moving goal-posts and / or younger incoming / better skilled talent is a government job. If you don't want to have to care about improving / competing work as a paralegal, in retail or for the government. Yes, it sucks but it's a reality of working in an industry as well paid as software engineering. I'm convinced that sitting on your laurels even if you're well above average for say 4-5 years and not actively improving / being cognizant of others around you and their skillsets will always result in poor career outcomes.
  - bestcoder69 4y ago
    > not willing to improve or make the bar of performance set by the industry isn't good for anyone involved You're complaining about the establishment, in black-and-white, of such a bar. A bar that will be enforceable via the contract terms. We don't know the terms, so we don't know whether the bar will be lower or higher than the unwritten one that management decides through opaque processes / on a whim.
giantg2 4y ago
There are also those who simply want their company to honor it's word. The only reason I support unions in tech is that I'm tired of my company violating their own policies to screw over specific individuals (including me). I would switch if I thought other places wouldn't lie. But it seems to me that all companies do. You wouldn't buy a house or a new car without a contract. It seems stupid to me to enter a job without a real contract (as opposed the the ones we see now that are basically "we the company make the rules and can change them with or without notice anytime").
bestcoder69 4y ago
Why is "nicer" in quotes? Who are you quoting, or even paraphrasing? Objective criteria for PIPs has nothing to do with niceness. Are you aware that this is a standard part of union contracts in general... like one of the first things usually negotiated? > Adults don't give feedback in a transparent way and this is because they don't want to look discriminatory. Modern employment and HR policies have done great things, but they've made the waters for this kind of communication even more opaque and pushed incentives that way as well. If I'm understanding your comment correctly, you're against opaque communications? Then, establishing these criteria in a contract is as transparent as you can get.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
Data shows that people in unionized workplaces generally get higher pay than non-union. Perhaps it might be different in tech, where software engineers are usually already very well paid. Hard to say.
- busterarm 4y ago
  What data in what countries? In the US the overwhelming majority of union membership is in Federal employment and mandatory. That makes up 80% or more of US union employment. That leaves the usual trade unions and the film industry and in the former most places of employment are mandatory union (UPS are 100% Teamsters, for example). The whole film industry is set up where you work your way into the unions over years rather than opt in/out.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    In the US: https://www.epi.org/press/union-workers-are-paid-11-2-more-and-have-greater-access-to-health-insurance-and-paid-sick-days-than-their-nonunion-counterparts-policymakers-must-strengthen-workers-ability-to-form-unions/ https://www.epi.org/press/union-workers-are-paid-11-2-more-a...
    - busterarm 4y ago
      How about data that doesn't come directly from union activists. It's funny the groups that claim to be non-partisan while simultanously advocating a list of positions...
pessimizer 4y ago
> making this language "nicer" isn't going to help anyone. What is this a reference to? Do you think at-will employment has something to do with woke language or am I reading this wrong?

arrrg 4y ago

Why does organizing mean you hate your workplace? Organizing means you want more power, more control. Also, there are many dimensions to liking or disliking your workplace. You may love the product your working on. You may really like your colleagues. You may also love the office environment. However, you may dislike the amount of vacation days, the lack of ability to work part time or the lack of paternal leave. Workplaces have literally hundreds of properties, each of which you may like or dislike. So organizing to tweak those you dislike (while, on balance, you actually still like most properties) is very normal.

71a54xd 4y ago
Part of being an Adult TM is separating emotions from work. Admittedly, I was able to work on some very cool shit at Amazon - however the job made me hate my life. Ergo - adult logical cycles were spent, decided to get a new job after leetcoding for a bit. The people who aren't skilled enough to get new jobs or improve themselves (also holds true in any industry) will always be some degree of fucked. I admit, some unions are good, but engaging in a system that grants most benefit to people not willing to improve or make the bar of performance set by the industry isn't good for anyone involved. That said, never work for a place that makes you hate your life. And yes... having the ability to make that choice is a privilege.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "or make the bar of performance set by the industry" Can you define that bar? That's the problem - there aren't any solid definitions without a contract, and it varies by company. The company can screw over people who are actually meeting the bar by simply saying the bar is higher than it actually is.
  - 71a54xd 4y ago
    A level of performance / ability where you can interview, get a job and the salary you deem indicative of your skill. This varies from person to person obviously. For instance, for a while I had a CS degree and was solidly above average, but I didn't quite meet the bar because I sucked at leetcode and didn't have enough experience. So I accepted this, improved, and now have a higher paying job.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I'm not talking about interviews. I'm talking about performance evaluation at the company. The issues are with moving goal posts, discrinatory practices, and office politics.
      - 71a54xd 4y ago
        The only place without moving goal-posts and / or younger incoming / better skilled talent is a government job. If you don't want to have to care about improving / competing work as a paralegal, in retail or for the government. Yes, it sucks but it's a reality of working in an industry as well paid as software engineering. I'm convinced that sitting on your laurels even if you're well above average for say 4-5 years and not actively improving / being cognizant of others around you and their skillsets will always result in poor career outcomes.
- bestcoder69 4y ago
  > not willing to improve or make the bar of performance set by the industry isn't good for anyone involved You're complaining about the establishment, in black-and-white, of such a bar. A bar that will be enforceable via the contract terms. We don't know the terms, so we don't know whether the bar will be lower or higher than the unwritten one that management decides through opaque processes / on a whim.

giantg2 4y ago

There are also those who simply want their company to honor it's word. The only reason I support unions in tech is that I'm tired of my company violating their own policies to screw over specific individuals (including me). I would switch if I thought other places wouldn't lie. But it seems to me that all companies do. You wouldn't buy a house or a new car without a contract. It seems stupid to me to enter a job without a real contract (as opposed the the ones we see now that are basically "we the company make the rules and can change them with or without notice anytime").

bestcoder69 4y ago

Why is "nicer" in quotes? Who are you quoting, or even paraphrasing? Objective criteria for PIPs has nothing to do with niceness. Are you aware that this is a standard part of union contracts in general... like one of the first things usually negotiated? > Adults don't give feedback in a transparent way and this is because they don't want to look discriminatory. Modern employment and HR policies have done great things, but they've made the waters for this kind of communication even more opaque and pushed incentives that way as well. If I'm understanding your comment correctly, you're against opaque communications? Then, establishing these criteria in a contract is as transparent as you can get.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

Data shows that people in unionized workplaces generally get higher pay than non-union. Perhaps it might be different in tech, where software engineers are usually already very well paid. Hard to say.

busterarm 4y ago
What data in what countries? In the US the overwhelming majority of union membership is in Federal employment and mandatory. That makes up 80% or more of US union employment. That leaves the usual trade unions and the film industry and in the former most places of employment are mandatory union (UPS are 100% Teamsters, for example). The whole film industry is set up where you work your way into the unions over years rather than opt in/out.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  In the US: https://www.epi.org/press/union-workers-are-paid-11-2-more-and-have-greater-access-to-health-insurance-and-paid-sick-days-than-their-nonunion-counterparts-policymakers-must-strengthen-workers-ability-to-form-unions/ https://www.epi.org/press/union-workers-are-paid-11-2-more-a...
  - busterarm 4y ago
    How about data that doesn't come directly from union activists. It's funny the groups that claim to be non-partisan while simultanously advocating a list of positions...

pessimizer 4y ago

> making this language "nicer" isn't going to help anyone. What is this a reference to? Do you think at-will employment has something to do with woke language or am I reading this wrong?