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Or better yet, work for companies like Google and do the absolute bare minimum to get paid and promoted. Cold hard self interest works both ways. If Google’s t

Or better yet, work for companies like Google and do the absolute bare minimum to get paid and promoted. Cold hard self interest works both ways. If Google’s trajectory is any indication, that’s what their workers are doing anyway.

fnord77 2y ago
> do the absolute bare minimum to get paid and promoted The minimum is actually a lot, because at companies like that individual performance is monitored closely and other people are going to be working very hard.
- gmassman 2y ago
  From what I understand though, it’s often possible to just “look” busy without actually being productive. Seems like cranking out design docs and scheduling meetings to make yourself and your work appear important can push one up the ladder a lot faster than making improvements to the codebase will. Optics matter most in organizations the size of Google.
  - mypalmike 2y ago
    My experience at a FAANG was that it's like any other job. You are on a team and you have a supervisor. You are expected to be productive. The stories of people finding themselves floating freely at a huge company without being expected to deliver business value are mostly apocryphal.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      I don't think we are talking about people floating freely without management. Everyone is on a team and has a supervisor, but different people have wildly different skill at politics and "appearing productive." We all know at least one person who was hired at a lower or similar level, yet who basically does nothing productive. They make up for it with bullshit: lots of managing upward, credit taking, writing good sounding but ultimately contentless docs, they're well dressed and groomed, charming, high charisma, ivy league mannerisms. They always end up with a sharp upward career trajectory, parachuting into Director, VP, SVP and so on roles.
andybak 2y ago
I think there's a subtle point here about the cost of layoffs being hard to quantify but hugely underestimated by large companies. A culture where employees feel that their dedication to the company mission is reciprocated must surely provide value?
- boringg 2y ago
  I think what you are talking about was what large companies that were startups built over the last 5-10 years and felt betrayed by the anti company sentiment even though they had all a ton of fantastical things for employees and mostly unchecked employee growth. Now its swinging the other way. Also don't confuse my statement reading the market with what i believe.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
vasco 2y ago
I think it's a bigger slight against yourself to "not try" in your life and your work. You won't learn as much and feel less accomplished. Just find somewhere where you'll feel good about it.
- philipov 2y ago
  You should definitely try hard in your life and your work. Google is not your life, however, and you don't own your work for them. They only deserve the dedication they demonstrate towards others, which is none.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    Still, kinda sad to be spend such a big portion of your time on earth doing something nobody gives a shit about, not even you. Me, I’d sooner take a job where I’m contributing positively to society, even if I could make a bit more in adtech.
    - anal_reactor 2y ago
      Don't think about the time you waste. Think about the time you actually can use.
- paulcole 2y ago
  Doing the bare minimum at work isn’t “not trying” in your life. It’s not even “not trying” at work. It’s just trying the agreed upon amount.
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    Thought experiment: tell the interviewer you “plan to do the bare minimum at work”. If that harms your chance to be hired, that’s evidence that the status quo agreement isn’t that.
    - ToxicMegacolon 2y ago
aloe_falsa 2y ago
> absolute bare minimum Doing the bare minimum for a "Meets Expectations" rating after performance review and calibrations still means working a lot and delivering on the projects you've committed to, drafting design documents, doing interviews, actively improving existing codebases, and mentoring junior ICs. If you do all that, then the company's happy. (Just to dispel the impression that you can join Google/FAANG by acing the interview, and then coast along. Fake work with zero impact is very obvious.)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- candiodari 2y ago
  > (Just to dispel the impression that you can join Google/FAANG by acing the interview, and then coast along. Fake work with zero impact is very obvious.) Too bad all of those totally don't matter. What you're saying here comes down to doing what management wants. And management, above all else, DOES NOT WANT THE STATUS-QUO UPSET. The chairs in management are to be divided according to endless politicking and 5000 meetings for every line in the org chart, the only thing that matters. If any effort is actually successful beyond what was agreed beforehand ... that would undo the "work" of thousands, maybe tens of thousands of management meetings. In other work drafting design documents, doing interviews, improving existing codebases, mentoring junior ICs (to do the same) ... it's not a design document to create a new successful product on the internet. It's a design document discussing whether component #1823871 of Google maps should be monitored by a Python, C++, Java or Go program, and whether it this monitoring server gets configured using json, yml, chubby, files with strings, protobuf, python (configuration in code, python to configure flags, python to configure startup files, python to change build files, or python read by the program upon startup), Go, Java or Go. Don't forget: 8 page minimum, and you can't have less than 40 reviewers. This document is then followed by a manager from outside your org deciding that the whole monitoring is being shipped to India, and 3 months later you check on borg ... and surprise! There ISN'T anything monitoring it, as far as you can tell. Your manager assures you your work was not for nothing, but your design document curiously has never been accessed, and everybody you ask (btw: you're quickly told you're not supposed to do that) says management forbade them from looking at your design document. Later you learn that there isn't a single team in India that actually has access to your document (if you're working long enough at Google and actually know how to check that, which used to be 99%, but now ... perhaps 20%). A year later, the product takes down all of Google maps, your team's lack of monitoring gets blamed for the outage ... but 10 minutes after you go to your manager with this the postmortem, suddenly, gives you "access denied". Then, you get scheduled for a support checkin where the person doing the support checkin has no idea what it's about. Of course, what it's really about is that your forced one of the managers in your org to explain to higher ups how your concern is being addressed while still meeting budget constraints ... Which could have upset the status quo (recognizable by "Moderate impact" on your GRAD review) or actually upset the status quo ("Not Enough Impact" on your review). Congratulations!
ToxicMegacolon 2y ago
+1 I don't understand why people work hard for such corporations. Doing the bare minimum, and quiet quitting should be the norm. I think if the execs can pay themselves $200M for taking the responsibility and being so horribly wrong about the direction they took the company in, then why shouldn't the rank and file employees do the bare fucking minimum that they are paid to do. Treat intellectual work the same as bagging groceries, do it from 9 to 5, only when sitting at the desk, and only for bugs that have been assigned. If the bug don't say "add an extra debug log" then don't add an extra debug log. <Rant Over>
- Hock88sdx 2y ago
  [dead]
- candiodari 2y ago
  > Doing the bare minimum, and quiet quitting should be the norm Of course, it is the norm. Any real idea, any real effort does what is absolutely number 1 on the forbidden, sacrilege, NEVER DO THIS list: it would upset the social balance in management. More than that, it would upset the balance in unpredictable ways.

fnord77 2y ago

> do the absolute bare minimum to get paid and promoted The minimum is actually a lot, because at companies like that individual performance is monitored closely and other people are going to be working very hard.

gmassman 2y ago
From what I understand though, it’s often possible to just “look” busy without actually being productive. Seems like cranking out design docs and scheduling meetings to make yourself and your work appear important can push one up the ladder a lot faster than making improvements to the codebase will. Optics matter most in organizations the size of Google.
- mypalmike 2y ago
  My experience at a FAANG was that it's like any other job. You are on a team and you have a supervisor. You are expected to be productive. The stories of people finding themselves floating freely at a huge company without being expected to deliver business value are mostly apocryphal.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I don't think we are talking about people floating freely without management. Everyone is on a team and has a supervisor, but different people have wildly different skill at politics and "appearing productive." We all know at least one person who was hired at a lower or similar level, yet who basically does nothing productive. They make up for it with bullshit: lots of managing upward, credit taking, writing good sounding but ultimately contentless docs, they're well dressed and groomed, charming, high charisma, ivy league mannerisms. They always end up with a sharp upward career trajectory, parachuting into Director, VP, SVP and so on roles.

andybak 2y ago

I think there's a subtle point here about the cost of layoffs being hard to quantify but hugely underestimated by large companies. A culture where employees feel that their dedication to the company mission is reciprocated must surely provide value?

boringg 2y ago
I think what you are talking about was what large companies that were startups built over the last 5-10 years and felt betrayed by the anti company sentiment even though they had all a ton of fantastical things for employees and mostly unchecked employee growth. Now its swinging the other way. Also don't confuse my statement reading the market with what i believe.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

vasco 2y ago

I think it's a bigger slight against yourself to "not try" in your life and your work. You won't learn as much and feel less accomplished. Just find somewhere where you'll feel good about it.

philipov 2y ago
You should definitely try hard in your life and your work. Google is not your life, however, and you don't own your work for them. They only deserve the dedication they demonstrate towards others, which is none.
- michaelt 2y ago
  Still, kinda sad to be spend such a big portion of your time on earth doing something nobody gives a shit about, not even you. Me, I’d sooner take a job where I’m contributing positively to society, even if I could make a bit more in adtech.
  - anal_reactor 2y ago
    Don't think about the time you waste. Think about the time you actually can use.
paulcole 2y ago
Doing the bare minimum at work isn’t “not trying” in your life. It’s not even “not trying” at work. It’s just trying the agreed upon amount.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  Thought experiment: tell the interviewer you “plan to do the bare minimum at work”. If that harms your chance to be hired, that’s evidence that the status quo agreement isn’t that.
  - ToxicMegacolon 2y ago

aloe_falsa 2y ago

> absolute bare minimum Doing the bare minimum for a "Meets Expectations" rating after performance review and calibrations still means working a lot and delivering on the projects you've committed to, drafting design documents, doing interviews, actively improving existing codebases, and mentoring junior ICs. If you do all that, then the company's happy. (Just to dispel the impression that you can join Google/FAANG by acing the interview, and then coast along. Fake work with zero impact is very obvious.)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
candiodari 2y ago
> (Just to dispel the impression that you can join Google/FAANG by acing the interview, and then coast along. Fake work with zero impact is very obvious.) Too bad all of those totally don't matter. What you're saying here comes down to doing what management wants. And management, above all else, DOES NOT WANT THE STATUS-QUO UPSET. The chairs in management are to be divided according to endless politicking and 5000 meetings for every line in the org chart, the only thing that matters. If any effort is actually successful beyond what was agreed beforehand ... that would undo the "work" of thousands, maybe tens of thousands of management meetings. In other work drafting design documents, doing interviews, improving existing codebases, mentoring junior ICs (to do the same) ... it's not a design document to create a new successful product on the internet. It's a design document discussing whether component #1823871 of Google maps should be monitored by a Python, C++, Java or Go program, and whether it this monitoring server gets configured using json, yml, chubby, files with strings, protobuf, python (configuration in code, python to configure flags, python to configure startup files, python to change build files, or python read by the program upon startup), Go, Java or Go. Don't forget: 8 page minimum, and you can't have less than 40 reviewers. This document is then followed by a manager from outside your org deciding that the whole monitoring is being shipped to India, and 3 months later you check on borg ... and surprise! There ISN'T anything monitoring it, as far as you can tell. Your manager assures you your work was not for nothing, but your design document curiously has never been accessed, and everybody you ask (btw: you're quickly told you're not supposed to do that) says management forbade them from looking at your design document. Later you learn that there isn't a single team in India that actually has access to your document (if you're working long enough at Google and actually know how to check that, which used to be 99%, but now ... perhaps 20%). A year later, the product takes down all of Google maps, your team's lack of monitoring gets blamed for the outage ... but 10 minutes after you go to your manager with this the postmortem, suddenly, gives you "access denied". Then, you get scheduled for a support checkin where the person doing the support checkin has no idea what it's about. Of course, what it's really about is that your forced one of the managers in your org to explain to higher ups how your concern is being addressed while still meeting budget constraints ... Which could have upset the status quo (recognizable by "Moderate impact" on your GRAD review) or actually upset the status quo ("Not Enough Impact" on your review). Congratulations!

ToxicMegacolon 2y ago

+1 I don't understand why people work hard for such corporations. Doing the bare minimum, and quiet quitting should be the norm. I think if the execs can pay themselves $200M for taking the responsibility and being so horribly wrong about the direction they took the company in, then why shouldn't the rank and file employees do the bare fucking minimum that they are paid to do. Treat intellectual work the same as bagging groceries, do it from 9 to 5, only when sitting at the desk, and only for bugs that have been assigned. If the bug don't say "add an extra debug log" then don't add an extra debug log. <Rant Over>

Hock88sdx 2y ago
[dead]
candiodari 2y ago
> Doing the bare minimum, and quiet quitting should be the norm Of course, it is the norm. Any real idea, any real effort does what is absolutely number 1 on the forbidden, sacrilege, NEVER DO THIS list: it would upset the social balance in management. More than that, it would upset the balance in unpredictable ways.