3 ms·

When you say first meeting, is the implication that they were lying about even trying?

buckle8017 1y ago
He outright said their goal was to lie about trying.
crinkly 1y ago
This is fairly normal. I’ve seen it in every corporate job I’ve had. Most people seemed to have a retirement clock running and wanted to avoid doing anything they don’t give a crap about until then. Giving a crap about your job is an outlier.
- Yeul 1y ago
  It's funny that capitalism rewards jobs that have meaning- healthcare, education- the least.
  - mistrial9 1y ago
    ok so "funny" but historically, it has been worse. Like the legend of a warrior King in a region towards modern Hungary.. the school teachers would be ordered to stop work when the King and his military advisors rode on the main road for inspection. All the teachers were required to stop and clean the litter by the road as the King passed by. Perhaps the implication is -- if you do not have my military protection, then your school would be burned by invaders? actually not wrong in some places, but can you blame that scene on "capitalism" ? Want to guess the expenses of the armor and servants for the King and their party? probably more coins than were spent on teachers, who were paid in farm produce and exchange services?
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > capitalism rewards jobs that have meaning- healthcare, education- the least Doctors and researchers do quite well when they're effective.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  Honestly, when management comes up with some silly idea like replacing a perfectly working piece of software that's core to your business with a completely different alternative that is not giving you anything but being slightly cheaper, caring about your job involves stopping this silly change from happening.
  - soraminazuki 1y ago
    Caring about your job involves being informed enough to not open your organization up to abuse from the likes of Oracle and Microsoft. That would save your customers, or fellow citizens if you work for government.
    - tsimionescu 1y ago
      While I still stand by my sentiment to a small extent (it's often people who do care that actually oppose management initiatives, and proprietary business software can be superior to OSS alternatives, in certain areas), I was working under the mistaken impression that this was about replacing SAP, a German business solution, not SAS, the American company. I should say that I think the real solution here would be to create an EU wide business software public company (or even EU agency), which would build and maintain business software products for EU governments, preferably open source. There is so much commonality in these areas that it's absurd to not build a common core, and later provide consultancy and support services to member states for deep customization, from experts who understand this common core. This is basically the IBM, Oracle, SAS, SAP, or even Microsoft B2B business model, so not some pie-in-the-sky idea. I do believe that having some unified organization that can provide support and expertise on how others have solved similar problems would be much better than having every municipality and institute in the EU develop its own bespoke OSS-based solution, or, worse, buy from a private company that can just extract a profit from the massive cost savings of deploying substantially similar solutions for hundreds of customers, instead of passing on the cost savings.
cjbgkagh 1y ago
Sounds like they were honest about lying, less confusion than lying about lying and helps prevent the unwanted outcome of accidentally succeeding. Not succeeding helps with job security, the problem justifying your job will continue to exist. Since such skills are in demand at all levels of bureaucracy successfully failing to deliver at a lower level will open up opportunities to fail at a higher level.

He outright said their goal was to lie about trying.

This is fairly normal. I’ve seen it in every corporate job I’ve had. Most people seemed to have a retirement clock running and wanted to avoid doing anything they don’t give a crap about until then. Giving a crap about your job is an outlier.

Yeul 1y ago
It's funny that capitalism rewards jobs that have meaning- healthcare, education- the least.
- mistrial9 1y ago
  ok so "funny" but historically, it has been worse. Like the legend of a warrior King in a region towards modern Hungary.. the school teachers would be ordered to stop work when the King and his military advisors rode on the main road for inspection. All the teachers were required to stop and clean the litter by the road as the King passed by. Perhaps the implication is -- if you do not have my military protection, then your school would be burned by invaders? actually not wrong in some places, but can you blame that scene on "capitalism" ? Want to guess the expenses of the armor and servants for the King and their party? probably more coins than were spent on teachers, who were paid in farm produce and exchange services?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > capitalism rewards jobs that have meaning- healthcare, education- the least Doctors and researchers do quite well when they're effective.
tsimionescu 1y ago
Honestly, when management comes up with some silly idea like replacing a perfectly working piece of software that's core to your business with a completely different alternative that is not giving you anything but being slightly cheaper, caring about your job involves stopping this silly change from happening.
- soraminazuki 1y ago
  Caring about your job involves being informed enough to not open your organization up to abuse from the likes of Oracle and Microsoft. That would save your customers, or fellow citizens if you work for government.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    While I still stand by my sentiment to a small extent (it's often people who do care that actually oppose management initiatives, and proprietary business software can be superior to OSS alternatives, in certain areas), I was working under the mistaken impression that this was about replacing SAP, a German business solution, not SAS, the American company. I should say that I think the real solution here would be to create an EU wide business software public company (or even EU agency), which would build and maintain business software products for EU governments, preferably open source. There is so much commonality in these areas that it's absurd to not build a common core, and later provide consultancy and support services to member states for deep customization, from experts who understand this common core. This is basically the IBM, Oracle, SAS, SAP, or even Microsoft B2B business model, so not some pie-in-the-sky idea. I do believe that having some unified organization that can provide support and expertise on how others have solved similar problems would be much better than having every municipality and institute in the EU develop its own bespoke OSS-based solution, or, worse, buy from a private company that can just extract a profit from the massive cost savings of deploying substantially similar solutions for hundreds of customers, instead of passing on the cost savings.

cjbgkagh 1y ago

Sounds like they were honest about lying, less confusion than lying about lying and helps prevent the unwanted outcome of accidentally succeeding. Not succeeding helps with job security, the problem justifying your job will continue to exist. Since such skills are in demand at all levels of bureaucracy successfully failing to deliver at a lower level will open up opportunities to fail at a higher level.