5 ms·

I feel like "useful" and "valued" are very poor terms for the situations described in the article. I think a much better explanation is that just because you ma

I feel like "useful" and "valued" are very poor terms for the situations described in the article. I think a much better explanation is that just because you may excel in one role (and be recognized as such) does not necessarily mean you'll excel in another role. And heck, I think it's important to recognize these qualities and limitations in yourself. Calling this being "useful" or "valued" puts an emotional/moral spin on this that is unwarranted in my opinion. If anything, in a business relationship, I think it's important to recognize that nearly everyone is just "useful". It may be the case that people think you'll be more useful in an expanded role, and thus will give you advancement opportunities. But even then, the business environment may change, and your skills may not longer be highly prioritized. Just look at lots of the recent tech layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't.

cyanydeez 1y ago
another way to look at it is: just because you're excellent in one role, does not mean there's an upgrade path at any given business to improve salary+expectations. Some businesses structure this intentionally, to avoid the upward progression of salaries, and other businesses just arnt churning through projects and clients quick enough to expand to fit the upward momentum of their talent. Recognizing the real constraints on your value to a business model is important to not get stuck in the backwash of business value.
dfxm12 1y ago
I agree that I think "value" might be the wrong term in the essay. I think there is an emotional/moral spin on "value" though. Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. If someone is undervalued, the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly. The article touches on this, but doesn't make the connection. Beyond that, in my experience, when trying to get a bigger role, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Some managers are not useful or just as overworked as we are, so they can't take the step back and properly evaluate who is ready for more responsibility. We have to advocate for ourselves.
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  > Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. If someone is undervalued, the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly I think this is very hard to measure, particularly from our outside perspective. I understand it may be more of a worldview axiom than a fact, and will get a chorus of nods in a group conversation, but I think it should be tested more like a fact than an axiom.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. The inherit friction means that some workers will sometimes be overworked and/or underpaid, but workers do not remain in overworked/underpaid situations for long. Given the real-world constraints, the exact right number of people are in that situation, not "too many". > the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly. If the workers show up, you know you are paying them properly. That's not the issue here. Trouble is, at some point you run out of things to buy. Those who continue to seek more money beyond that do so because they are able to leverage it to increase their social value. — But, in the case of the person in article, they were still failing to establish social value even with more money than they knew what to do with. Even more money than that wouldn't have helped them. They needed to find a new situation that was able to allow them to find the social value they were after.
firesteelrain 1y ago
"Just look at lots of the recent tech layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't" You are actually agreeing with the author here. Rephrase that to "Apparently they were useful, until they weren't" They weren't valued. I think the author is apt in their observation.
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  I think it could be the opposite: they were valued, but not useful.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  I'll clarify, because, at least in my read of it, I am saying something very different than the author. I was using "valued" in scare quotes that sentence you quoted - yes, I agree, the literal meaning of what I was saying is that they were useful until they weren't. But, thus, I think it's important to understand that, at least from a business perspective, they were never "valued", and so I don't think it's helpful to think of things in those terms - again, I think that term implies a, well, value judgement that is inappropriate in the context. By analogy, what I'm trying to say is similar to the difference between using the words "team" and "family" in a business context. I think using team is fine - teams want to win, and they cut people all the time if they don't have the right skills to help them win. Using the word "family" is simply bullshit, and it's just manipulation by business owners to try to get more work out of employees. So my advice is to not ever think of yourself as "valued" in business. Remember that you are always just useful depending on the context of your role, your skills, and the current business environment.
  - phkahler 1y ago
    There's a distinction the author was making. If we ignore the words used "useful" and "valuable", can you see the distinction in the way a company may view people? I'm not sure you even think beyond "useful" and "even more useful". I'm not sure you see it as more than a difference in degree, when the author is claiming it's a difference in kind.
eitally 1y ago
I actually don't agree, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I posit that there's an employer expectation that every employee will be "useful", but utility is a fungible characteristic and the majority of managers and employers treat job descriptions of standardized roles just like that. Employees in those roles are susceptible to both replacement and career advancement, depending how "useful" they are, and how the company is doing. That's an entirely different set of metrics than determining "value". Being valuable means being a trusted strategic voice to some portion of the leadership, and being recognized for contributions that go beyond (horizontally or diagonally) the employee's job description. In many cases, this value = trust relationship is evidenced by how frequently senior managers bring former employees with them when joining new firms, or how small & tight knit the community is for specialty roles/functions. Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued.
- Swizec 1y ago
  > Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued. “People don’t remember who went to grab drinks on a Tuesday, but they’ll remember who helped them close a million dollar deal and get a huge bonus” Give your coworkers superpowers and opportunities will flow.
  - stuartjohnson12 1y ago
    I think both of these things can be true at the same time - the issue with a lot of utility-based value is that it often comes in the form of unsustainable heroism. My capacity to feed back interesting thoughts about product and strategy in domains I'm familiar with is probably greater than your capacity or desire to consume them, but my capacity to do various forms of high-precision grunt work (set up configurations for clients, misc. project work, ship XYZ feature into the product) is much easier to consume and ultimately overload. Closing that million dollar deal as a sprint might be memorable, but being the go-to configurator for Azure cloud services isn't, and the difference between heroic level systems management and mediocre button clicker requires hard squinting if you're non-technical. Hell, I'm technical and would struggle to tell the difference just because IT isn't usually my domain. And if the person you're working with has no appreciation of what an average performance is, any mistake will be seen as a defect even if what you're doing is otherwise heroic.
kordlessagain 1y ago
It is the dumbest thing ever for a company to evaluate someone as not useful based on their perceived skill set. What makes someone not useful is their tendency to show up to get shit done or not, nothing else.
strken 1y ago
Sometimes you're an investment, sometimes you're insurance, and other times you're a luxury or even an impulse buy. I think this is a better framing because it explains some behaviours that are otherwise baffling: if I'm hurting for cash, I'm going to stop adding to my savings before I cancel all my insurance, even if the expected rate of return is higher.
- TimTheTinker 1y ago
  Often, especially in large businesses, which of these categories you fall into (investment, insurance, luxury/impulse buy) is more a function of which of these buckets your business unit is in than you as an individual. I've always tried to avoid working for cost centers, where the business's goal is to reduce cost as much as possible while continuing to provide the necessary utility (like on-premise IT). Cost centers are most prone to offshoring and automation; and this is where the "AI threat" is most likely to materialize. But if your business unit is viewed as an investment center (like an R&D center), you're part of a strategic asset and you're also (by proxy) viewed as an investment. Luxury and impulse buys also happen here a lot more often.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  I really like this comment and I think your framing is the correct way to think about it. For example, when I look through the pattern of folks in my LinkedIn network who have been hit hard by layoffs, it's clear to me that a lot of roles were "luxuries" or "impulse buys" during the ZIRP era, and so many of those roles have vanished over the past 2 years or so.
throwaway201606 1y ago
The piece is good but I think the primary segmentation is not 'useful' vs 'valued', it is strategic vs. tactical. The author actually realizes this but did not nail this idea to the church door as part of his manifesto. >Being valued, on the other hand, means that you are brought into >more conversations, not just to execute, but to help shape the > direction. This comes with opportunities to grow and contribute > in ways that are meaningful to you and the business. The first part is not being 'valued'; this is being a 'useful strategically'. The second part - "opportunities to grow and contribute in ways that are meaningful to you and the business." - that is being 'valued strategically' > Being useful means that you are good at getting things done in a > specific area, so that people above you can delegate that > completely. You are reliable, efficient, maybe even > indispensable in the short term. But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler, > someone who delivers on tasks that have to be done but are not > necessarily a core component of the company strategy. “Take care > of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer > headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards. The first is not being 'useful'; this is being a 'useful tactically'. The second part, "Take care of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards." is being 'valued tactically'. So, the theory is every member of staff is dropped BOTH a 'useful' and 'valued' bucket for tactical work and for strategic work. ie: - one can be useful or not useful for strategic or tactical work or both - one can be valued or not valued for strategic or tactical work or both A couple of counterpoints: 1. You can,unfortunately, be useful strategically and not be valued. Think about the hachet man every leader of a large organization has - the guy who does the layoffs. That slot is useful strategically but can be filled by almost anyone - it is not valued by the org. 2. You can, fortunately, be useful tactically, useless strategically, and be be very very valued in an organization. Best examples of this are folks who are very very good at running operations. Think about a good truck dispatcher, or a 911 operator or an air traffic controller. 90% of their job is effective tactical execution - dealing with this emerging situation right now effectively and efficiently. That is highly valuable to organizations. Also note that every org needs strategy people and tactical people for long and short term. One is not better than the other. They are just different. And there are lots of very highly paid tactical roles, sometimes better paid, that are more challenging and more interesting than any strategy role. These tend to be "do this or fix this thing right now efficiently and effectively" jobs. For example, almost any practicing medial role is a tactical one - ER doctor (fix this sick person right now) or controllers for real time stuff - concert and live TV producers (make this thing look good right now), air traffic controllers (keep these planes safe right now) etc etc. So, net net, pick you spot - tactical vs strategic or both, useful vs. valuable or both - get good at it and then may the odds always be in your favor.
potato3732842 1y ago
You're not nearly jaded about about the modern media landscape. A boring and "correct" (whatever that means in context) writing about a subject like this will never make it to the top of a comment based platform because it needs to be wrong or at least loosely worded enough the low denominator reader can engage with it in the form of commentary, further people can bicker with them, etc, etc. It's basically the modern version of a playwright 500yr ago designing a play such that the audience of illiterate peasants can participate, only it's high brow instead of for the masses.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
varispeed 1y ago
In a corporation, everyone is “useful” - that’s the bare minimum for staying on payroll. Even those doing meaningless work are sometimes kept just so competitors can’t poach them. Big tech overhires deliberately, parking talent in BS roles to block rivals. The notion of being “useful” is ironically useless. The only real measure is your pay: if the company pays you well, they consider you important. If you think you’re useful but your compensation doesn’t reflect that, you’re being exploited - and all that talk of “belonging” and “usefulness” is just corporate mind games to keep you emotionally captive.
baxtr 1y ago
I think there is a difference though. I have seen people who are useful but not perceived as being valuable. Key differentiator in all these cases was bad or missing communication. Do good stuff and make sure enough people notice. If you don’t self-market yourself, others who are less useful to the company for sure will.
munificent 1y ago
The choice of words here also didn't resonate with me. I think the distinction the author is really getting at is whether the business views you as fungible. My couch is useful and provides value. It would be hard to relax in my living room without it. But if I had to pack up and move across the country, I'd probably ditch the couch and buy a new one when I got there. It's useful and valuable, but also replaceable. I don't play it much these days, so my bass guitar arguably isn't very useful or valuable. But I've had it 20 years and have a lot of important memories attached to it. If I have to move, I'm not selling it and buying a new one. Maybe another way to state it is whether you have more value to the company than your replacement cost.
m463 1y ago
I remember people I've worked with over the years that have resigned because they were never going to get onto another project and grow while they were so "useful" on the current project. Sort of like holding people who were successful working on the OS from a decade ago, and not letting them work on the current OS.

cyanydeez 1y ago

another way to look at it is: just because you're excellent in one role, does not mean there's an upgrade path at any given business to improve salary+expectations. Some businesses structure this intentionally, to avoid the upward progression of salaries, and other businesses just arnt churning through projects and clients quick enough to expand to fit the upward momentum of their talent. Recognizing the real constraints on your value to a business model is important to not get stuck in the backwash of business value.

dfxm12 1y ago

I agree that I think "value" might be the wrong term in the essay. I think there is an emotional/moral spin on "value" though. Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. If someone is undervalued, the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly. The article touches on this, but doesn't make the connection. Beyond that, in my experience, when trying to get a bigger role, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Some managers are not useful or just as overworked as we are, so they can't take the step back and properly evaluate who is ready for more responsibility. We have to advocate for ourselves.

robertlagrant 1y ago
> Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. If someone is undervalued, the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly I think this is very hard to measure, particularly from our outside perspective. I understand it may be more of a worldview axiom than a fact, and will get a chorus of nods in a group conversation, but I think it should be tested more like a fact than an axiom.
9rx 1y ago
> Too many workers are overworked and underpaid. The inherit friction means that some workers will sometimes be overworked and/or underpaid, but workers do not remain in overworked/underpaid situations for long. Given the real-world constraints, the exact right number of people are in that situation, not "too many". > the answer isn't to give them more responsibilities (without a commensurate bump in pay). The answer is to pay your workers properly. If the workers show up, you know you are paying them properly. That's not the issue here. Trouble is, at some point you run out of things to buy. Those who continue to seek more money beyond that do so because they are able to leverage it to increase their social value. — But, in the case of the person in article, they were still failing to establish social value even with more money than they knew what to do with. Even more money than that wouldn't have helped them. They needed to find a new situation that was able to allow them to find the social value they were after.

firesteelrain 1y ago

"Just look at lots of the recent tech layoffs that have snared well-respected, senior technologists. Apparently they were "valued", until they weren't" You are actually agreeing with the author here. Rephrase that to "Apparently they were useful, until they weren't" They weren't valued. I think the author is apt in their observation.

robertlagrant 1y ago
I think it could be the opposite: they were valued, but not useful.
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
I'll clarify, because, at least in my read of it, I am saying something very different than the author. I was using "valued" in scare quotes that sentence you quoted - yes, I agree, the literal meaning of what I was saying is that they were useful until they weren't. But, thus, I think it's important to understand that, at least from a business perspective, they were never "valued", and so I don't think it's helpful to think of things in those terms - again, I think that term implies a, well, value judgement that is inappropriate in the context. By analogy, what I'm trying to say is similar to the difference between using the words "team" and "family" in a business context. I think using team is fine - teams want to win, and they cut people all the time if they don't have the right skills to help them win. Using the word "family" is simply bullshit, and it's just manipulation by business owners to try to get more work out of employees. So my advice is to not ever think of yourself as "valued" in business. Remember that you are always just useful depending on the context of your role, your skills, and the current business environment.
- phkahler 1y ago
  There's a distinction the author was making. If we ignore the words used "useful" and "valuable", can you see the distinction in the way a company may view people? I'm not sure you even think beyond "useful" and "even more useful". I'm not sure you see it as more than a difference in degree, when the author is claiming it's a difference in kind.

eitally 1y ago

I actually don't agree, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I posit that there's an employer expectation that every employee will be "useful", but utility is a fungible characteristic and the majority of managers and employers treat job descriptions of standardized roles just like that. Employees in those roles are susceptible to both replacement and career advancement, depending how "useful" they are, and how the company is doing. That's an entirely different set of metrics than determining "value". Being valuable means being a trusted strategic voice to some portion of the leadership, and being recognized for contributions that go beyond (horizontally or diagonally) the employee's job description. In many cases, this value = trust relationship is evidenced by how frequently senior managers bring former employees with them when joining new firms, or how small & tight knit the community is for specialty roles/functions. Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued.

Swizec 1y ago
> Lots of fresh grads and junior staff focus 99% on being useful, but career advancement beyond the first one or two promotions depends MUCH more on being valued. “People don’t remember who went to grab drinks on a Tuesday, but they’ll remember who helped them close a million dollar deal and get a huge bonus” Give your coworkers superpowers and opportunities will flow.
- stuartjohnson12 1y ago
  I think both of these things can be true at the same time - the issue with a lot of utility-based value is that it often comes in the form of unsustainable heroism. My capacity to feed back interesting thoughts about product and strategy in domains I'm familiar with is probably greater than your capacity or desire to consume them, but my capacity to do various forms of high-precision grunt work (set up configurations for clients, misc. project work, ship XYZ feature into the product) is much easier to consume and ultimately overload. Closing that million dollar deal as a sprint might be memorable, but being the go-to configurator for Azure cloud services isn't, and the difference between heroic level systems management and mediocre button clicker requires hard squinting if you're non-technical. Hell, I'm technical and would struggle to tell the difference just because IT isn't usually my domain. And if the person you're working with has no appreciation of what an average performance is, any mistake will be seen as a defect even if what you're doing is otherwise heroic.

kordlessagain 1y ago

It is the dumbest thing ever for a company to evaluate someone as not useful based on their perceived skill set. What makes someone not useful is their tendency to show up to get shit done or not, nothing else.

strken 1y ago

Sometimes you're an investment, sometimes you're insurance, and other times you're a luxury or even an impulse buy. I think this is a better framing because it explains some behaviours that are otherwise baffling: if I'm hurting for cash, I'm going to stop adding to my savings before I cancel all my insurance, even if the expected rate of return is higher.

TimTheTinker 1y ago
Often, especially in large businesses, which of these categories you fall into (investment, insurance, luxury/impulse buy) is more a function of which of these buckets your business unit is in than you as an individual. I've always tried to avoid working for cost centers, where the business's goal is to reduce cost as much as possible while continuing to provide the necessary utility (like on-premise IT). Cost centers are most prone to offshoring and automation; and this is where the "AI threat" is most likely to materialize. But if your business unit is viewed as an investment center (like an R&D center), you're part of a strategic asset and you're also (by proxy) viewed as an investment. Luxury and impulse buys also happen here a lot more often.
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
I really like this comment and I think your framing is the correct way to think about it. For example, when I look through the pattern of folks in my LinkedIn network who have been hit hard by layoffs, it's clear to me that a lot of roles were "luxuries" or "impulse buys" during the ZIRP era, and so many of those roles have vanished over the past 2 years or so.

throwaway201606 1y ago

The piece is good but I think the primary segmentation is not 'useful' vs 'valued', it is strategic vs. tactical. The author actually realizes this but did not nail this idea to the church door as part of his manifesto. >Being valued, on the other hand, means that you are brought into >more conversations, not just to execute, but to help shape the > direction. This comes with opportunities to grow and contribute > in ways that are meaningful to you and the business. The first part is not being 'valued'; this is being a 'useful strategically'. The second part - "opportunities to grow and contribute in ways that are meaningful to you and the business." - that is being 'valued strategically' > Being useful means that you are good at getting things done in a > specific area, so that people above you can delegate that > completely. You are reliable, efficient, maybe even > indispensable in the short term. But you are seen primarily as a gap-filler, > someone who delivers on tasks that have to be done but are not > necessarily a core component of the company strategy. “Take care > of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer > headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards. The first is not being 'useful'; this is being a 'useful tactically'. The second part, "Take care of that and don’t screw up” is your mission, and the fewer headaches you create for your leadership chain, the bigger the rewards." is being 'valued tactically'. So, the theory is every member of staff is dropped BOTH a 'useful' and 'valued' bucket for tactical work and for strategic work. ie: - one can be useful or not useful for strategic or tactical work or both - one can be valued or not valued for strategic or tactical work or both A couple of counterpoints: 1. You can,unfortunately, be useful strategically and not be valued. Think about the hachet man every leader of a large organization has - the guy who does the layoffs. That slot is useful strategically but can be filled by almost anyone - it is not valued by the org. 2. You can, fortunately, be useful tactically, useless strategically, and be be very very valued in an organization. Best examples of this are folks who are very very good at running operations. Think about a good truck dispatcher, or a 911 operator or an air traffic controller. 90% of their job is effective tactical execution - dealing with this emerging situation right now effectively and efficiently. That is highly valuable to organizations. Also note that every org needs strategy people and tactical people for long and short term. One is not better than the other. They are just different. And there are lots of very highly paid tactical roles, sometimes better paid, that are more challenging and more interesting than any strategy role. These tend to be "do this or fix this thing right now efficiently and effectively" jobs. For example, almost any practicing medial role is a tactical one - ER doctor (fix this sick person right now) or controllers for real time stuff - concert and live TV producers (make this thing look good right now), air traffic controllers (keep these planes safe right now) etc etc. So, net net, pick you spot - tactical vs strategic or both, useful vs. valuable or both - get good at it and then may the odds always be in your favor.

potato3732842 1y ago

You're not nearly jaded about about the modern media landscape. A boring and "correct" (whatever that means in context) writing about a subject like this will never make it to the top of a comment based platform because it needs to be wrong or at least loosely worded enough the low denominator reader can engage with it in the form of commentary, further people can bicker with them, etc, etc. It's basically the modern version of a playwright 500yr ago designing a play such that the audience of illiterate peasants can participate, only it's high brow instead of for the masses.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

varispeed 1y ago

In a corporation, everyone is “useful” - that’s the bare minimum for staying on payroll. Even those doing meaningless work are sometimes kept just so competitors can’t poach them. Big tech overhires deliberately, parking talent in BS roles to block rivals. The notion of being “useful” is ironically useless. The only real measure is your pay: if the company pays you well, they consider you important. If you think you’re useful but your compensation doesn’t reflect that, you’re being exploited - and all that talk of “belonging” and “usefulness” is just corporate mind games to keep you emotionally captive.

baxtr 1y ago

I think there is a difference though. I have seen people who are useful but not perceived as being valuable. Key differentiator in all these cases was bad or missing communication. Do good stuff and make sure enough people notice. If you don’t self-market yourself, others who are less useful to the company for sure will.

munificent 1y ago

The choice of words here also didn't resonate with me. I think the distinction the author is really getting at is whether the business views you as fungible. My couch is useful and provides value. It would be hard to relax in my living room without it. But if I had to pack up and move across the country, I'd probably ditch the couch and buy a new one when I got there. It's useful and valuable, but also replaceable. I don't play it much these days, so my bass guitar arguably isn't very useful or valuable. But I've had it 20 years and have a lot of important memories attached to it. If I have to move, I'm not selling it and buying a new one. Maybe another way to state it is whether you have more value to the company than your replacement cost.

m463 1y ago

I remember people I've worked with over the years that have resigned because they were never going to get onto another project and grow while they were so "useful" on the current project. Sort of like holding people who were successful working on the OS from a decade ago, and not letting them work on the current OS.