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I work at an HR/Payroll company with a phenomenal app that we put our blood, sweat, and tears into every single day. And every single day I clock in with Oracle
by ekofish 4y ago
I work at an HR/Payroll company with a phenomenal app that we put our blood, sweat, and tears into every single day. And every single day I clock in with Oracle Time and Labor. There's a legal reason for this and we do it for compliance. I'm guessing Stripe is in the same boat with this product despite its flaws.
- reaperducer 4y agoThe company where I work disallows us from using our own product because it would be considered a conflict of interest. Some co-workers say it's a federal regulation, but I've never seen that anywhere in print, so I suspect it's just a workplace rumor/justification. I've had customers complain to my face that we tailor the products to our needs, and are surprised (and sometimes vocally disbelieve) that we don't use it, ourselves. In certain industries, dogfooding is considered bad, and sometimes illegal.
- mattkrause 4y agoConflict of whose interests? You say the product is useful and other people should buy it, while you yourself use it seems pretty aligned. It cannot possibly be the case that Microsoft runs on Open Office and MacBooks.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoFor a long, long time Microsoft was using Unix sendmail for its own internal mail system, while touting Outlook for its customers. They only started eating their own dog food when people started making fun of them in public.
- willio58 4y agoYeah most of the time I hear conflict of interest I don’t believe it at this point. Conflict of whose interest? If you used your own product wouldn’t you learn some issues that exist within it?
- randomdata 4y ago> If you used your own product wouldn’t you learn some issues that exist within it? Isn't that the worry? Say a bug in your timekeeping software underreported hours worked and that lead to workers not being paid their agreed upon rate. When it goes to court you now have to prove that you didn't maliciously introduce the bug to save on employment costs, whereas if it is a third-party providing the software it's their problem. "Conflict of interest" is ultimately just another way to say "I don't want to assume the liability when things go sour". Nobody cares about conflict of interest when things go right.
- duckmysick 4y agoCan I see the files of an example case where something like that happened?
- randomdata 4y agoIf it happened then one would claim that they have a legal onus. Conflict of interest is speculative about an unforeseen future.
- duckmysick 4y agoI'm not familiar with that definition. On the other hand, the Department of Defense explicitly says it happens "if the particular matter will have a direct and predictable effect on that interest". Predictable being "a real, as opposed to speculative possibility, that the matter will affect the financial interest". https://dodsoco.ogc.osd.mil/Conflicts-of-Interest/ https://dodsoco.ogc.osd.mil/Conflicts-of-Interest/
- randomdata 4y agoThe topic is centred around off-hand remarks made by someone as to why they aren't doing something (such as using their own product) and how, as pointed out by willio58, "conflict of interest" is used where there is no actual demonstration of conflict of interest. We're not talking about military rigor, as interesting as that subject may also be. Again, "conflict of interest" is what people often say when they don't know if it will affect them, but don't want to take the risk. "Regulation requires it", as illustrated in the first comment, is what people say when caselaw actually demonstrates that they would be liable. The fun thing about language is that it is fluid and can take many forms.
- slekker 4y agoWhat's the legal reason?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIf the system happened to break in a way that was opportune for the employer but ripped off the employee, it's better to point fingers at Oracle than your own company.
- Pet_Ant 4y agoSo limiting liability.
- marcosdumay 4y agoLimiting the cases of conflict of interests.
- nulbyte 4y agoDoesn't the company face the same risk with its clients?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThe risk is the appearance that the company was deliberately ripping off employees. When the employer has created their own labor tracking software, it's easier for mistakes to look deliberate.
- connicpu 4y agoIt's easier to convince others that it was a genuine mistake when you didn't personally profit from the mistake
- culturestate 4y agoCorporate liability to customers and corporate liability to employees are two very different things.
- tiffanyh 4y agoTwilio is the same. They use Zoom & Slack internally, not their own video and chat offerings. Dogfooding is a good thing. You’d be surprised how few companies actually do it (which is terribly shocking).
- Thaxll 4y agoThis sounds terrible, it shows a lack of confidence in your own product, imagine if Google internally would use Zoom... I can tell you that devs that use their own product deliver better quality.
- dghlsakjg 4y agoThe sound quality and filtering on Zoom is noticeably better than on Meets. Perhaps you also need to use the product that your competitors use to understand what you need to beat.
- Thaxll 4y agoFor testing and strategy maybe not for day to day use.
- airstrike 4y agoMaybe alternate between the leading product and your own so you can experience the same pain users do when they are forced to use the inferior choice after becoming accustomed to best-in-class.
- neurostimulant 4y agoI'm sure Google Meets works flawlessly at Google's office (presumably a short hop away to their data centers via dedicated fiber optics link).
- lazide 4y agoGoogle has invested heavily in sound management in their rooms, and issued noise cancelling headphones to everyone awhile back they got to take home. That might explain some things.
- lostgame 4y agoI'm working on the iOS/WatchOS app(s) for a major bank, and fortunately of course most of our staff uses it; too - because of course we bank with the bank we work for. (There's tangible benefits to a staff account, even those who have accounts elsewhere I'm willing to bet still do their primary banking with us.) I've actually had an instance or two over my four years there where I discovered a bug in our PROD/App Store version myself; simply from using the software enough. It's really unfortunate that this isn't the case for a lot of dev shops. Dogfooding is incredibly important to QA.
- thedangler 4y agoWhat HR payroll ?
- throwayyy479087 4y agoOscar is the same. They no longer offer Oscar insurance to their employees. It's a liability to mandate that your coworkers information is stored in Production and accessed by Client Services.
- throwaway2037 4y agoIt is strange that you did not name the company. Other people here might want to learn about your product.