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Working in retail is 99% lying that you care about your job, so might as well start it out on the right footing.

sgerenser 1y ago
What about working as a SWE at Google? Apparently they recently implemented a personality test as an initial screener (they call it a Googleyness test).
- Retric 1y ago
  It doesn’t necessarily need to be beneficial for the company. Game theoretically there’s an advantage as an employee of a successful company to artificially reduce the number of people who can be employed to raise your own relative value to the company. If Google can only select from left handed employees suddenly they need to pay higher wages and existing employees are facing less competition as new employees are selected from a smaller applicant pool and thus worse. Probably not the actual answer, but it’s worth considering such indirect motivations.
  - trod1234 1y ago
    That's called wrong-think. If one were to do that, you would be imposing costs to the point where demand drops to 0, and supply in the near term would follow that to 0. From there you have a short march to economic collapse.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Management and workers extracting more money from companies isn’t a new thing, that’s the point of unions for example which didn’t collapse the economy. Various interests try to get other people to behave in specific ways, but what actually happens isn’t necessarily as clean as often described.
      - trod1234 1y ago
        That may have been the point of union's initially, but the reason the economy didn't collapse when no production occurred is because this never actually happened and was never tested fully. When it came close to being tested, a legal playbook was provided for crushing unions, negating their intended benefit. This playbook was provided by none other than President Regan, with the 1981 PATCO strike. The government took the side of the companies because they required the services to continue, and so any strike that exceeds a certain point has this bulldozer held in reserve; allowing the companies involved to not negotiate in good faith. The playbook has been used multiple times since to crush union power.
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  Google is screening for compliant, fungible engineers. Especially those swayed by the need to be told they’re the best of the best. Tests like that make sense in an ugly sort of way.
- j_timberlake 1y ago
  Googlers told me that appearing obsessed with climbing the career ladder is an expectation of SWEs, though not a strict requirement. Being a good liar seems like a huge plus.
misnome 1y ago
I had a manager at a part time job at _Blockbuster_ say surprised in review “You make it sound like you are only working here for the money”. I mean, lol, yes?
- bee_rider 1y ago
  My retail managers were mostly pretty chill “this is all bullshit so let’s get through it with minimal hassle” types. The workers were mostly teenagers, and teenagers haven’t learned how to quiet their bullshit detectors yet, so externalizing the bullshit generation seemed to work pretty well. I can’t really understand the mindset that gets really on-mission for that sort of thing, like somebody has a life goal of selling clothes or renting videos out.
  - jona-f 1y ago
    Well if you love clothes or loved movies before the internet was a thing, why not. Of course not at the soulless corporate shitholes we are talking about here. Oh wait, isn't that the exact way of doing business ycombinator is promoting? What are we doing here? Venture capital was the enemy all along.

What about working as a SWE at Google? Apparently they recently implemented a personality test as an initial screener (they call it a Googleyness test).

Retric 1y ago
It doesn’t necessarily need to be beneficial for the company. Game theoretically there’s an advantage as an employee of a successful company to artificially reduce the number of people who can be employed to raise your own relative value to the company. If Google can only select from left handed employees suddenly they need to pay higher wages and existing employees are facing less competition as new employees are selected from a smaller applicant pool and thus worse. Probably not the actual answer, but it’s worth considering such indirect motivations.
- trod1234 1y ago
  That's called wrong-think. If one were to do that, you would be imposing costs to the point where demand drops to 0, and supply in the near term would follow that to 0. From there you have a short march to economic collapse.
  - Retric 1y ago
    Management and workers extracting more money from companies isn’t a new thing, that’s the point of unions for example which didn’t collapse the economy. Various interests try to get other people to behave in specific ways, but what actually happens isn’t necessarily as clean as often described.
    - trod1234 1y ago
      That may have been the point of union's initially, but the reason the economy didn't collapse when no production occurred is because this never actually happened and was never tested fully. When it came close to being tested, a legal playbook was provided for crushing unions, negating their intended benefit. This playbook was provided by none other than President Regan, with the 1981 PATCO strike. The government took the side of the companies because they required the services to continue, and so any strike that exceeds a certain point has this bulldozer held in reserve; allowing the companies involved to not negotiate in good faith. The playbook has been used multiple times since to crush union power.
Waterluvian 1y ago
Google is screening for compliant, fungible engineers. Especially those swayed by the need to be told they’re the best of the best. Tests like that make sense in an ugly sort of way.
j_timberlake 1y ago
Googlers told me that appearing obsessed with climbing the career ladder is an expectation of SWEs, though not a strict requirement. Being a good liar seems like a huge plus.

misnome 1y ago

I had a manager at a part time job at _Blockbuster_ say surprised in review “You make it sound like you are only working here for the money”. I mean, lol, yes?

bee_rider 1y ago
My retail managers were mostly pretty chill “this is all bullshit so let’s get through it with minimal hassle” types. The workers were mostly teenagers, and teenagers haven’t learned how to quiet their bullshit detectors yet, so externalizing the bullshit generation seemed to work pretty well. I can’t really understand the mindset that gets really on-mission for that sort of thing, like somebody has a life goal of selling clothes or renting videos out.
- jona-f 1y ago
  Well if you love clothes or loved movies before the internet was a thing, why not. Of course not at the soulless corporate shitholes we are talking about here. Oh wait, isn't that the exact way of doing business ycombinator is promoting? What are we doing here? Venture capital was the enemy all along.