6 ms·
Meetings are just a cult gathering. Generally, only the cult leaders are naturals in group settings. Everyone else just copies and tries to fit in (lurkers and
by bloomingkales 2y ago
Meetings are just a cult gathering. Generally, only the cult leaders are naturals in group settings. Everyone else just copies and tries to fit in (lurkers and contributors). The cult leaders will always be the same people, it's an archetype. The meeting goes as comfortably as the cult leaders allow (not necessarily through allowance, but through tone and expectations).
The more you examine what a cult your company and industry is, the more you realize you have to be vigilant about human nature (in yourself and others).
"leadership.garden"
They give themselves away.
"Picture this: You’re in a high-stakes product roadmap meeting. The room is a pressure cooker of competing priorities and barely concealed tension."
These people are in fantasy world. NONE OF YOU have worked on anything high stakes, tech has always been non critical (mostly). But this how they think, and the take away they provide is how to be manipulative (like I said, they are naturals). That's the problem with the cult.
- emchammer 2y agoOmg.
- milesrout 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marxisttemp 2y agoOut of curiosity, what is your role? Programmer, manager, or owner? If the first, you should consider where your allegiances lie and why you’re so frustrated by those who advocate for your working conditions.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throwaway519 2y agoWhy do you seek to paint poisonous lines?
- marxisttemp 2y agoWhy do you think class consciousness is poisonous?
- david-gpu 2y agoYou seem surprised at the notion of workers wanting maximum pay, perks and autonomy in exchange for minimum discomfort. How is it any different in any other occupation?
- milesrout 2y agoNobody in any other occupation expects not to be managed or measured, not to need to meet with their coworkers to discuss their work, not to need to evaluate prospective hires, or not to be expected to to give estimates, timeframes and deadlines for their work. Programmers commonly express all of those and more on this website and it isn't considered unusual or even particularly demanding. It is treated as a truism that you can't possibly expect a programmer to tell you how long a project will take, for example. This has nothing to do with people wanting "minimum discomfort". It is about crazy and obviously unrealistic expectations of work structure, where people are never expected to ever do anything, being promoted as some kind of baseline work environment. There will never be a serious business that does those things. It is impossible to run a business if you pay staff but: - cannot evaluate their quality before hiring them - cannot measure their work - cannot get an estimate out of them - cannot set them deadlines - cannot talk to them - cannot get them into the office - cannot talk to them in groups - cannot evaluate them over time - cannot lay then off etc. It is different from other occupations because nobody outside the HN/reddit bubble thinks any of this let alone all of it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- patrick451 2y agoSoftware devs are not alone here. Have you ever tried asking a doctor how much something will cost? Or if the thing they want to bill you for will even work? They have no fvkin clue.
- the_cat_kittles 2y agocan you please listen to yourself? this is babys first day managing software dev level observation. "there will never be a serious business that does those things" ok, i guess well ignore the entire industry then
- the_cat_kittles 2y agothis is a perfect comment. you basically have a correct read, and express it pretty succinctly. except, you think by saying it directly, youve exposed it as ridiculous. whats ridiculous about it? just think of software like a trade, how do all tradespeople feel about those things?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bloomingkales 2y agoThe person doesn't have a read on it.
- milesrout 2y agoAre you kidding about tradesmen? Tradesmen do all of these things without much complaint. If you worked as a plumber and expected never to have to turn up on site, never to attend a site meeting, never to have to give an estimate of time or cost, never to have your work measured and evaluated, never to have to justify yourself in a performance evaluation, etc. you would be laughed out of the room. A better comparison is probably professional services jobs: mostly done in offices with computers by university-educated people these days, like programming. I can't say I have met any that think they shouldn't have to give estimates or have meetings.
- the_cat_kittles 2y agoyeah, you dont go to alot of meetings, nor are your estimates and timeframes very exact. also, all the stuff that you mockingly said is bad is bad. you say a better comparison for a programming job is a programming job? hmm ok
- milesrout 2y ago[flagged]
- bruce343434 2y agoIt honestly sounds like chatgpt-flavored 'excitement'/hyperbole. I don't know if that's because chatgpt learned it's language from posts like this, or because it's a coincidence, or because chatgpt or similar was used to edit the post.
- bloomingkales 2y agoI'm a natural at being a twat. You’ll just have to believe that some are born with this talent.
- theoreticalmal 2y agoWe stand in awe
- inglor_cz 2y agoHigh-stakes is relative. While I am fairly certain that no one here was ever deliberating on launching a military invasion, debating an investment that may make or break a company you co-founded is certainly personally high-stakes. And there is a lot of founders here on HN.
- rikroots 2y ago> These people are in fantasy world. NONE OF YOU have worked on anything high stakes, tech has always been non critical (mostly) While tech is my current career, it's not my first. 18 years as a (UK) Civil Servant has given me a a different perspective on meeting dynamics which still proves useful in my current work. One useful learning for me was around good meeting preparation - especially for critical meetings which carry a good chance of people agreeing to important (to me) decisions. I like to work out what I want to get out of the meeting, and what other people want (including: no agreement), risks around my desired outcome, impacts on the work (and feelings!) of others, things I can do before the meeting to help people get in the right frame of mind to make the decision I want, etc. If I can get people to sign off and move on to their next meeting within 15mins of the meeting starting - that's the ideal outcome. Of course, YMMV!