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“It’s ok to fail” Yeah, right. Failing is what gets you fired. Basically it’s a collection of safe, saccharine little pseudo maxims supposed to make everyone f

“It’s ok to fail” Yeah, right. Failing is what gets you fired. Basically it’s a collection of safe, saccharine little pseudo maxims supposed to make everyone feel better I prefer the poster with the cat hanging on to the branch going “hang in there”

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hkon 3y ago
Ok to fail is what you say to the competition.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
Places that won't tolerate mistakes are arguably places you don't want to work anyway. Huge management red flag for a bunch of reasons. It means people will start to tell their bosses what they want to hear. Instead of products you'll build a fractal of potemkin villages.
- liquidpele 3y ago
  Mmm, depends on what “failing” means. Everyone makes mistakes, some people seem to be mistakes themselves.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > Places that won't tolerate mistakes are arguably places you don't want to work anyway. That's hardly helpful advice. You don't have recruiters telling job applicants that they do not tolerate mistakes. By definition, employees get no warning before being fired for making a mistake, which is hardly the situation for advice such as "you don't want to work there anyway". When that happens, all there is to do is gather all your stuff, rethink your life, and update your resume, and prepare to explain in the next job interview how your last job finished so abruptly. Neither of these steps is in your best interest.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    It's a pain, but it's the reality that we're stuck with. If you go out of your way to hide failure or burn yourself out trying to never fail, how is that better? What's a realistic alternative to accepting that you're human and might make mistakes, and accepting that some places are simply too dysfunctional to be able to handle it?
    - rewmie 3y ago
      That's really not the point. The whole point is that it's not possible to know with any degree of certainty whether a given position will have more or less tolerance towards mistakes. That can be determined by anyone in your organization, from CEOs to your own team members, and certainly that's not advertised by recruiters. It's something that you can only tell after you're already onboard and head-first into your job. And then what? are you going resign and job-hop to yet another unknown? That itself burns through a lot of goodwill, as you're trading your escape from potential burnout for a limited chance of avoiding that issue attached to a resume that labels you as unreliable and finicky. It matters nothing if anyone claims that making mistakes is human nature. What it really matters is whether your organization employs people who weaponize mistakes. Another fact of human nature is personal ambition, and there are far too many people who don't mind throwing others under the bus to use them as stepping stones in their career paths. Some of those types succeed, others try until they succeed. What's your answer for that?
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    It's on you to figure that sort of stuff during the interview process. The interview is not just where they figure out whether they want to hire you, but where you decide whether or not to accept their offer. You are allowed to interview the interviewers. In fact, you'd be a fool not to, since this sends a positive signal that you are interested but not desperate. Makes you seem like a quality hire.
atomicnumber3 3y ago
I have been at three different companies in my career and while I know that's not that many, I can only job hop so much and I have at this point simply given up on believing that a company with good culture can possibly exist. And if it does, it's only like 5 people tops and it'll break down if/when it tries to scale. Every leader views his workers as replaceable feckless layabouts, front line managers are the designated whip-crackers with far too little actual power, middle managers are stressed out fear-driven creatures with both little real authority AND no whip to crack over the workers, and leaf-node workers are depressed tired cogs in a system that cares tremendously little about them and cares increasingly less about even pretending otherwise, especially post-layoffs. And yet the software still needs to get written. I cope by just doing what I can, not trying to do anything the system doesn't support me in doing, and making as many friends as I can along the way. And putting my family first every single time.
- financltravsty 3y ago
  In a pit of despair, are we? If you focus on the shit, life will be shit. Focus on what's in your control. Maybe not a lot is, but the little things are. What time you go to bed, what you eat, how you spend the little free time you may have. Take control of that first, then build off of it. Step by baby step, you'll crawl out of the abyss, and remember that you aren't resigned to eating shit the rest of your life.
  - ulizzle 3y ago
    A very long-winded fortune cookie A.I could have written this.
    - Moomoomoo309 3y ago
      Here's it shorter: Take control of the things you can control and accept the things you cannot. It's good advice. If you spin your wheels on things you have no control over, it's a waste of your time and energy. Focus on the things you enjoy, and the things you can change.
  - 3y ago
vore 3y ago
If you can dress your failure up as a success in some way to management, then you can totally avoid getting fired.
drekipus 3y ago
I, and many other people I know, failed all the time; and we never got fired, we simply learned from it and moved on. People who get fired are the ones who never learn, and have a shitty attitude about failure. I know which camp I'd rather be in.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > I and many other people I know, failed all the time; and we never got fired, we simply learned from it and moved on. How confident are you that your example isn't just survivorship bias? I know people who failed and got fired. I know people who failed and were forced to resign. Where does your advice fit in the real world?
  - drekipus 3y ago
    Because I also know people who've failed and got fired. Quite a lot of them, in fact. As in "they failed and subsequently got fired". The fact that there's some sample of "failed and fired" AND "failed and not fired" - even if this was 80/20, one still has to conclude that there's more than just failure at play. Inconclusive evidence to say it's only failure involved.. My experience hasn't been 80/20, it's been more 10/90. My whole company has people failing and founding around the place, I've only seen two people fired: 1 who blamed anyone else but himself, and another who never asked for help and wanted to save face at any opportunity. Failures are a part of life, if you are at a company that doesn't acknowledge that I suggest perhaps finding someplace else for your own good
- ulizzle 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - drekipus 3y ago
    The fact that people have failed and haven't gotten fired, means that there's evidence against the claim, so that it's not absolute. OP is the one claiming monopoly on the truth. "everything sucks and burn those who disagree"
lioeters 3y ago
> cat hanging on to the branch going “hang in there” I saw an artist who did a parody of this poster that said, "Give up."
- Izkata 3y ago
  Frozen's Let It Go turned into Give Up after going through Google Translate too many times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAoVlFYf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAoVlFYf0
CM30 3y ago
Not in my experience. For one thing, this is usually what the peer review process, tests and QA team are there to fix. Almost everyone's work will have at least some things that need improvement/fixing before they can go live, but there's a process to make sure they don't go through into production without those fixes. If the issue actually happens in production and say, a bank's payment API goes down that may be a different story, but even then I've usually seen the managers say it was a process issue rather than finding someone responsible and calling for their firing. Or as the old story goes, treating it like an expensive learning experience. But eh, your mileage may vary.
- ulizzle 3y ago
  I suppose you do have a monopoly on the truth.
  - windmark 3y ago
    We got your point the first time you posted this. You come across as someone who tries to keep the monopoly for themselves.
- salawat 3y ago
  >For one thing, this is usually what the peer review process, tests and QA team are there to fix. The QA team are not your personal team of muckrakers. The more you treat them as such, the faster we burn out, because it's our job to say no, and saying no is a recipe for interpersonal disaster or attrition in an org, especially once management inevitably starts overriding the department consistently, regardless of the amount of risk that they end up taking on in spite of it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hkon 3y ago

Ok to fail is what you say to the competition.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

Places that won't tolerate mistakes are arguably places you don't want to work anyway. Huge management red flag for a bunch of reasons. It means people will start to tell their bosses what they want to hear. Instead of products you'll build a fractal of potemkin villages.

liquidpele 3y ago
Mmm, depends on what “failing” means. Everyone makes mistakes, some people seem to be mistakes themselves.
rewmie 3y ago
> Places that won't tolerate mistakes are arguably places you don't want to work anyway. That's hardly helpful advice. You don't have recruiters telling job applicants that they do not tolerate mistakes. By definition, employees get no warning before being fired for making a mistake, which is hardly the situation for advice such as "you don't want to work there anyway". When that happens, all there is to do is gather all your stuff, rethink your life, and update your resume, and prepare to explain in the next job interview how your last job finished so abruptly. Neither of these steps is in your best interest.
- Sakos 3y ago
  It's a pain, but it's the reality that we're stuck with. If you go out of your way to hide failure or burn yourself out trying to never fail, how is that better? What's a realistic alternative to accepting that you're human and might make mistakes, and accepting that some places are simply too dysfunctional to be able to handle it?
  - rewmie 3y ago
    That's really not the point. The whole point is that it's not possible to know with any degree of certainty whether a given position will have more or less tolerance towards mistakes. That can be determined by anyone in your organization, from CEOs to your own team members, and certainly that's not advertised by recruiters. It's something that you can only tell after you're already onboard and head-first into your job. And then what? are you going resign and job-hop to yet another unknown? That itself burns through a lot of goodwill, as you're trading your escape from potential burnout for a limited chance of avoiding that issue attached to a resume that labels you as unreliable and finicky. It matters nothing if anyone claims that making mistakes is human nature. What it really matters is whether your organization employs people who weaponize mistakes. Another fact of human nature is personal ambition, and there are far too many people who don't mind throwing others under the bus to use them as stepping stones in their career paths. Some of those types succeed, others try until they succeed. What's your answer for that?
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  It's on you to figure that sort of stuff during the interview process. The interview is not just where they figure out whether they want to hire you, but where you decide whether or not to accept their offer. You are allowed to interview the interviewers. In fact, you'd be a fool not to, since this sends a positive signal that you are interested but not desperate. Makes you seem like a quality hire.

atomicnumber3 3y ago

I have been at three different companies in my career and while I know that's not that many, I can only job hop so much and I have at this point simply given up on believing that a company with good culture can possibly exist. And if it does, it's only like 5 people tops and it'll break down if/when it tries to scale. Every leader views his workers as replaceable feckless layabouts, front line managers are the designated whip-crackers with far too little actual power, middle managers are stressed out fear-driven creatures with both little real authority AND no whip to crack over the workers, and leaf-node workers are depressed tired cogs in a system that cares tremendously little about them and cares increasingly less about even pretending otherwise, especially post-layoffs. And yet the software still needs to get written. I cope by just doing what I can, not trying to do anything the system doesn't support me in doing, and making as many friends as I can along the way. And putting my family first every single time.

financltravsty 3y ago
In a pit of despair, are we? If you focus on the shit, life will be shit. Focus on what's in your control. Maybe not a lot is, but the little things are. What time you go to bed, what you eat, how you spend the little free time you may have. Take control of that first, then build off of it. Step by baby step, you'll crawl out of the abyss, and remember that you aren't resigned to eating shit the rest of your life.
- ulizzle 3y ago
  A very long-winded fortune cookie A.I could have written this.
  - Moomoomoo309 3y ago
    Here's it shorter: Take control of the things you can control and accept the things you cannot. It's good advice. If you spin your wheels on things you have no control over, it's a waste of your time and energy. Focus on the things you enjoy, and the things you can change.
- 3y ago

vore 3y ago

If you can dress your failure up as a success in some way to management, then you can totally avoid getting fired.

drekipus 3y ago

I, and many other people I know, failed all the time; and we never got fired, we simply learned from it and moved on. People who get fired are the ones who never learn, and have a shitty attitude about failure. I know which camp I'd rather be in.

rewmie 3y ago
> I and many other people I know, failed all the time; and we never got fired, we simply learned from it and moved on. How confident are you that your example isn't just survivorship bias? I know people who failed and got fired. I know people who failed and were forced to resign. Where does your advice fit in the real world?
- drekipus 3y ago
  Because I also know people who've failed and got fired. Quite a lot of them, in fact. As in "they failed and subsequently got fired". The fact that there's some sample of "failed and fired" AND "failed and not fired" - even if this was 80/20, one still has to conclude that there's more than just failure at play. Inconclusive evidence to say it's only failure involved.. My experience hasn't been 80/20, it's been more 10/90. My whole company has people failing and founding around the place, I've only seen two people fired: 1 who blamed anyone else but himself, and another who never asked for help and wanted to save face at any opportunity. Failures are a part of life, if you are at a company that doesn't acknowledge that I suggest perhaps finding someplace else for your own good
ulizzle 3y ago
[flagged]
- drekipus 3y ago
  The fact that people have failed and haven't gotten fired, means that there's evidence against the claim, so that it's not absolute. OP is the one claiming monopoly on the truth. "everything sucks and burn those who disagree"

lioeters 3y ago

> cat hanging on to the branch going “hang in there” I saw an artist who did a parody of this poster that said, "Give up."

Izkata 3y ago
Frozen's Let It Go turned into Give Up after going through Google Translate too many times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAoVlFYf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bVAoVlFYf0

CM30 3y ago

Not in my experience. For one thing, this is usually what the peer review process, tests and QA team are there to fix. Almost everyone's work will have at least some things that need improvement/fixing before they can go live, but there's a process to make sure they don't go through into production without those fixes. If the issue actually happens in production and say, a bank's payment API goes down that may be a different story, but even then I've usually seen the managers say it was a process issue rather than finding someone responsible and calling for their firing. Or as the old story goes, treating it like an expensive learning experience. But eh, your mileage may vary.

ulizzle 3y ago
I suppose you do have a monopoly on the truth.
- windmark 3y ago
  We got your point the first time you posted this. You come across as someone who tries to keep the monopoly for themselves.
salawat 3y ago
>For one thing, this is usually what the peer review process, tests and QA team are there to fix. The QA team are not your personal team of muckrakers. The more you treat them as such, the faster we burn out, because it's our job to say no, and saying no is a recipe for interpersonal disaster or attrition in an org, especially once management inevitably starts overriding the department consistently, regardless of the amount of risk that they end up taking on in spite of it.