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"If you're worried about getting respect, you're worried about the wrong thing". I don't agree with this. I agree that if you're worried about getting populari

by o1iver 15y ago

"If you're worried about getting respect, you're worried about the wrong thing". I don't agree with this. I agree that if you're worried about getting popularity, then you're worried about the wrong thing. Respect is important, but only from the right people.

d4nt 15y ago
Yes. We seem to be trying so hard these days to make our organisational structures appear flat and informal (e.g. open plan office spaces, casual dress policies, "360 degree reviews" and an aversion to using job titles) that I feel it's just pushed the competition for status and respect underground. The people who've been around for a long time simply find other ways to show newcomers that they're important or that they should be listened to. Things like camping out in one of the meeting rooms "because I have a lot of import calls to make". Or wearing something just slightly smarter than everyone else. Or a kind of faux humility like ScottGu's sub-title on his blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/ http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/. Or coming to work in their 1998 "version 1.0 shipping date" T-shirt. I've recently starting to think that people have a fundamental need for hierarchy and what you might call "respect structures" and that if you deny them the job titles and corner offices then they just find other ways of projecting their status. In a way, I'd prefer the overt methods - so long as there's a route to getting there myself someday.
- randomdata 15y ago
  > an aversion to using job titles I just never understood the purpose. Humans are not inelastic beings who are a fixed cog in the wheel. I guess my official title is developer, but I spend just as much time in UX/design and IT roles, not to mention managing people doing the same. And that is just at the place of my primary source of income. I work in other fields, completely unrelated to software, on the side. Out of context of my entire employment picture, developer really makes no sense as a title.
  - d4nt 15y ago
    I think it's a question of balance, at the other end of the spectrum you can get growing startups where the initial "everyone's on a level and talks about everything" approach no longer works and has given way to a combination of multiple people competing over the same territory and the old guard finding ways to remind the noobs what the pecking order is. In that kind of situation, a little hierarchy and a few harmless ways of recognising past achievement/tenure would make for a much more harmonious work place.
rickmb 15y ago
I don't agree with that either. Respect and popularity can both serve as currency in virtually any society. If you want something for which popularity is the currency, by all means feel free to pursue it. It only becomes a problem when people pursue any kind of currency just for the sake of having it, be it money, popularity or even respect.

by o1iver 15y ago

d4nt 15y ago

Yes. We seem to be trying so hard these days to make our organisational structures appear flat and informal (e.g. open plan office spaces, casual dress policies, "360 degree reviews" and an aversion to using job titles) that I feel it's just pushed the competition for status and respect underground. The people who've been around for a long time simply find other ways to show newcomers that they're important or that they should be listened to. Things like camping out in one of the meeting rooms "because I have a lot of import calls to make". Or wearing something just slightly smarter than everyone else. Or a kind of faux humility like ScottGu's sub-title on his blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/ http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/. Or coming to work in their 1998 "version 1.0 shipping date" T-shirt. I've recently starting to think that people have a fundamental need for hierarchy and what you might call "respect structures" and that if you deny them the job titles and corner offices then they just find other ways of projecting their status. In a way, I'd prefer the overt methods - so long as there's a route to getting there myself someday.

randomdata 15y ago
> an aversion to using job titles I just never understood the purpose. Humans are not inelastic beings who are a fixed cog in the wheel. I guess my official title is developer, but I spend just as much time in UX/design and IT roles, not to mention managing people doing the same. And that is just at the place of my primary source of income. I work in other fields, completely unrelated to software, on the side. Out of context of my entire employment picture, developer really makes no sense as a title.
- d4nt 15y ago
  I think it's a question of balance, at the other end of the spectrum you can get growing startups where the initial "everyone's on a level and talks about everything" approach no longer works and has given way to a combination of multiple people competing over the same territory and the old guard finding ways to remind the noobs what the pecking order is. In that kind of situation, a little hierarchy and a few harmless ways of recognising past achievement/tenure would make for a much more harmonious work place.

rickmb 15y ago

I don't agree with that either. Respect and popularity can both serve as currency in virtually any society. If you want something for which popularity is the currency, by all means feel free to pursue it. It only becomes a problem when people pursue any kind of currency just for the sake of having it, be it money, popularity or even respect.