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There have always been people like this, that are simply brainsick and petty, but it's something that is probably being exacerbated by the extreme animosity bet

There have always been people like this, that are simply brainsick and petty, but it's something that is probably being exacerbated by the extreme animosity between the people that run companies, and the people that work on the front lines. I'm not naive enough to think there was a "golden age," when everyone was happy-dappy, but I think it's much worse, now, than it has ever been. I mean, in order to do big, complicated things, you need teams, and teams need to work together. That means much more than just the "hard" skills of individual intelligence, creativity, and discipline. It's also all the "soft" skills, that help the team to retain cohesion, like mutual respect, loyalty, integrity, etc. The problem is that the example needs to start from the top, and there hasn't been much of a good example, up there, recently. It's not difficult to imagine people feeling justified in doing bad things to their team, like deliberately writing shoddy code, taking credit for colleagues' work, bailing out, before their bugs come to the surface, or throwing their teammates under the bus. I always tried to foster a team that had mutual respect, and could focus on common goals, even when everyone had their own motivations and priorities. In my case, it worked, but I know that I was lucky.

ElFitz 2y ago
> but I think it's much worse, now, than it has ever been. At some point, some US employers would hire armed private security companies like Pinkerton to break strikes, often leading to multiple deaths. In other countries, the army would be sent to break prolonged strikes by shooting at strikers. In other words, it has been way worse.
- pr0zac 2y ago
  > In other countries, the army would be sent to break prolonged strikes by shooting at strikers. This happened in West Virginia as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
- behringer 2y ago
  Was it worse though? Before they made it obvious. Now it's insidious. They still destroy lives, just the same.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  Might be comparing apples to oranges, there. Those conflicts (and there was a more recent one, in UK, during the 1980s), are with folks that have difficult, low-skill, low-pay, blue-collar jobs that can be filled by many people. I doubt that you could find similar stuff about high-skill, highly-paid employees, such as engineers. I think that, even in the days when cavalry was being used against striking miners, the white-collar workers were being treated fairly well. Maybe it has been worse for them, but I’m not so sure.

ElFitz 2y ago

> but I think it's much worse, now, than it has ever been. At some point, some US employers would hire armed private security companies like Pinkerton to break strikes, often leading to multiple deaths. In other countries, the army would be sent to break prolonged strikes by shooting at strikers. In other words, it has been way worse.

pr0zac 2y ago
> In other countries, the army would be sent to break prolonged strikes by shooting at strikers. This happened in West Virginia as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
behringer 2y ago
Was it worse though? Before they made it obvious. Now it's insidious. They still destroy lives, just the same.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Might be comparing apples to oranges, there. Those conflicts (and there was a more recent one, in UK, during the 1980s), are with folks that have difficult, low-skill, low-pay, blue-collar jobs that can be filled by many people. I doubt that you could find similar stuff about high-skill, highly-paid employees, such as engineers. I think that, even in the days when cavalry was being used against striking miners, the white-collar workers were being treated fairly well. Maybe it has been worse for them, but I’m not so sure.