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> One of the more incredible (and disturbingly frequent) objections I have heard is: "But is that what you’ll pay support folks?" I continue to find this questi
by michaelt 2y ago
> One of the more incredible (and disturbingly frequent) objections I have heard is: "But is that what you’ll pay support folks?" I continue to find this question offensive, but I no longer find it surprising: the specific dismissal of support roles reveals a widespread and corrosive devaluation of those closest to customers.
The easy way to "pay everyone the same amount" when you sorta don't want to is to outsource everything you don't want to pay the same amount for.
Don't want to pay $200k to your receptionists and cleaners? Rent a serviced office and you get their services without them appearing on your payroll.
- ec109685 2y agoWhy is that a good thing?
- dijit 2y agoits not, its a method of “x-washing”. IE; Green-washing[0] and so forth. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
- hinkley 2y agoMore like commoditization of your complement.
- OJFord 2y agoI don't read GP as saying it's a good thing necessarily, just pointing out that it can be or become a bit arbitrary.
- IshKebab 2y agoIt's not. He's just pointing out that their "we pay everyone the same" line probably isn't true.
- hinkley 2y agoI suppose it depends. Maybe something isn’t worth doing in house. Like for instance if the parts show up unfinished or damaged you don’t pay someone to straighten bent rails, chamfer bolt holes and de-burr surfaces. Maybe you pay the vendor a bit more, find a new vendor, or hire a middleman to bring the parts in ready to ship. Paying your support staff well is virtue signaling to be sure but as someone who’s always had a soft spot for top shelf QA and support folk, that’s not a bad thing.
- __jonas 2y agoNot sure what you're saying, are you implying Oxide is doing this?
- sshine 2y agoThey inevitably are, because anyone who has a service subscription is doing this. Because doing every single thing in-house is a different, more extreme value. I'd love to be a $207k/mo. lunch lady.
- steveklabnik 2y agoWe do not currently have any lunch ladies, outsourced or in-house.
- hinkley 2y agoI want to experience a lunch made by a “lunch lady” that makes 200k a year. That sounds amazing. I can count on both hands the number of meals I’ve had that would be made by such a person. But what I wouldn’t want to experience is the amount of additional exercise I would require for my clothes to still fit.
- JonChesterfield 2y agoThat's a hedge fund thing but it does exist.
- hinkley 2y agoI knew a guy whose tech company managed to keep a chef through the 2008 crash but lost her a few years later when Apple made it harder to sell apps. I saw some pretty impressive leftovers.
- sunshowers 2y agoWe all do our part, but our CEO is ultimately responsible for dish duty at the office.
- knowitnone 2y agoSo outsource everyone?
- panick21_ 2y agoTo a certain extend that is likely what they do. But I don't really think this is bad. Its impossible the force anybody else to have the same compensation model, and its impossible not to work with many, many other companies and people. This applies to many people who make under 200k and many who make over 200k. So in some sense its a decision of who is one the core of the team and who is in a different kind of relationship. And its fine to have those different kinds or relationships. At some point the company might be big enough to have somebody doing or organizing cleaning full time, or work reception full time. By that time that person will be valued the same as everybody else. This make the decision on what to make internal and external very meaningful. And it makes it so that person will be empowered to make the needed changes in order to do their job very well. Lets see for how long they can keep going with this strategy.