3 ms·

Usually stack ranking is aimed at culling the bottom of the stack, no? Wonder how getting rid of the employees with the most agency and options will turn out f

Usually stack ranking is aimed at culling the bottom of the stack, no? Wonder how getting rid of the employees with the most agency and options will turn out for the office-heads.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Knowing stack ranking is in effect completely changes the work dynamics. Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. Performance now becomes singularly competitive where you would rather have some chaff losers on the team. Work becomes even more performance art where you need to make the boss value you the most. All gameable metrics will be gamed.
- FredPret 2y ago
  This is exactly why the House That Jack Built (GE) was made out of cards. To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term. It's only hard when you're constantly trying to squeeze more money out and trying to cut wages and make people work multiple peoples' jobs.
- englishspot 2y ago
  > Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. I feel like helping a coworker should be factored into your performance. "force-multiplier", or however the industry calls it. but then, I've never worked at a toxic, hyper-competitive rank-and-yank..
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > feel like helping a coworker should be factored into your performance. This is how you get voting rings where there's an old guard on the team who help each other get good reviews, and a steady stream of sacrificial team members who are doomed to be in the bottom x% regardless of their competence. "Hire to fire" is another symptom of this blight.
  - consteval 2y ago
    The better the KPIs are the more abstract they become, eventually being impossible to measure. These are rough, rough approximations of the human condition. The idea is that you can lossily compress 40 hours of work into 1 number, about a centimeter across on a computer screen. You WILL lose a lot of data.
- fragmede 2y ago
  > Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. That's why you have mentoring as a metric.
  - erik_seaberg 2y ago
    Big tech holds impersonal performance/promotion calibration meetings where written track records are debated, so this work goes unmeasured.
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      Calibrations are far from impersonal. Managers absolutely play favorites in who they stick out their necks for.
  - synicalx 2y ago
    As an IC, you don't really get a say in what your metrics are though.

Usually stack ranking is aimed at culling the bottom of the stack, no? Wonder how getting rid of the employees with the most agency and options will turn out for the office-heads.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago

Knowing stack ranking is in effect completely changes the work dynamics. Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. Performance now becomes singularly competitive where you would rather have some chaff losers on the team. Work becomes even more performance art where you need to make the boss value you the most. All gameable metrics will be gamed.

FredPret 2y ago
This is exactly why the House That Jack Built (GE) was made out of cards. To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term. It's only hard when you're constantly trying to squeeze more money out and trying to cut wages and make people work multiple peoples' jobs.
englishspot 2y ago
> Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. I feel like helping a coworker should be factored into your performance. "force-multiplier", or however the industry calls it. but then, I've never worked at a toxic, hyper-competitive rank-and-yank..
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > feel like helping a coworker should be factored into your performance. This is how you get voting rings where there's an old guard on the team who help each other get good reviews, and a steady stream of sacrificial team members who are doomed to be in the bottom x% regardless of their competence. "Hire to fire" is another symptom of this blight.
- consteval 2y ago
  The better the KPIs are the more abstract they become, eventually being impossible to measure. These are rough, rough approximations of the human condition. The idea is that you can lossily compress 40 hours of work into 1 number, about a centimeter across on a computer screen. You WILL lose a lot of data.
fragmede 2y ago
> Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. That's why you have mentoring as a metric.
- erik_seaberg 2y ago
  Big tech holds impersonal performance/promotion calibration meetings where written track records are debated, so this work goes unmeasured.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    Calibrations are far from impersonal. Managers absolutely play favorites in who they stick out their necks for.
- synicalx 2y ago
  As an IC, you don't really get a say in what your metrics are though.