6 ms·

There was an even crazier story when someone was fired from Apple, but still kept coming to the office to work on their project for free for like half a year be

There was an even crazier story when someone was fired from Apple, but still kept coming to the office to work on their project for free for like half a year before someone noticed.

Hemospectrum 1y ago
Are you perhaps referring to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33229793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33229793
Gualdrapo 1y ago
Or the stories about Musk firing people for the smallest nuissance, and then their immediate superior sending the "fired" person to another department the day after - next time Musk would see that person and not remember he "fired" them
- mschuster91 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - close04 1y ago
    I think the losses you’re thinking of are more than made up by the gains coming from the employees being afraid they can be fired at any moment.
    - jakelazaroff 1y ago
      I think employees being afraid they can be fired at any moment also creates a loss of productivity.
    - hnlmorg 1y ago
      It’s really disappointing to read someone describing that kind of toxic working environment as a “gain”.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - close04 1y ago
        Of course I was talking from the point of view of the employer. I come from a completely different work culture and expectations.
    - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
      - Make employees scared to point out flaws. - Make employees less engaged in the success of the company. - Encurrage employees to hide or mask issues. - Encurrage employees to pretend to be more productive than they are. - Make employees mentally and physically less healthy. - Make employees shy away from taking on more responsibility or tasks. - Make employees less happy to train up new hires in their work. Yes. Gains. All those gains. I can only see gains here.
      - close04 1y ago
        > I can only see gains here. All of your points are correct. But so many companies/employers keep abusing this power that I have to assume they see some value. Some of the things you mentioned are even short term gains for some companies. For some of Boeing’s execs, employees hiding flaws was a win until it wasn’t and it became someone else’s problem.
      - cindyllm 1y ago
        [dead]
  - tbrownaw 1y ago
    > One might wonder where the US could be if the corporate culture wasn't so trigger happy on firing people and if laws against improper terminations would a) exist and b) be enforced. Probably the labor market would look more like countries that already do that? > The amount of knowledge cost alone that any company incurs with such bullshit is insane, but almost no one gives a fuck because the lost knowledge reacquisition cost is usually booked under "training costs" or whatnot. No. Bean counters don't magically skip counting those beans. Hiring managers aren't magically ignorant of effects on their team's productivity.
  - ufmace 1y ago
    We would probably have much higher unemployment and slower-moving industries, and might no longer be the economic powerhouse of the world. When it's simple and easy to fire people, companies are a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring somebody they aren't 100% sure will be a good employee, and willing to hire a lot and grow fast knowing in both cases they can fire easily if needed. I find it sad that so many people never think about the second and third-order consequences of what sounds like feel-good policies. They often end up being a net-negative for the people they were intended to help.
    - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
      I strongly disagree. If they're is such a massive difference we would see alot less globally competetive European companies. > a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring somebody they aren't 100% sure will be a good employee. Just proof hire them for 6 months to a year. Your argument doesn't hold for someone that has worked for 10 years. If they were a bad hire; it's on you at that point. But the improvements are plenty; - Easier planning life and reduce work anxiety for employees. - It encurrage companies to invest and train their existing employees since they're hard to get rid off. - It makes employees less scared to speak up or discuss problems. - It makes companies more cautious about reckless hiring if they're not sure about their economics. - Allows older workers to remain productive for longer, reducing the burden on the pension or unemployment system from people 55+ having a hard time finding new work for few years before retirement. Finally, i must ask what the societal purpose of jobs and companies are. From a pure "numbers go up", there is a cost to worker protection. But id argue the society as a whole benefit much more from it than having a multinational IT company on the stock market. There is a balance to these things ofourse, but dismissing it outright is not fair.
      - ufmace 1y ago
        You're welcome to disagree, I don't mind some competition. > Just proof hire them for 6 months to a year. As is common with most quickly tossed out "tiny fixes" to Socialist policies of excessive regulation, this makes the whole thing more complex and doesn't really solve the full problem for either workers or companies the way true free markets do. The only real "just" is just stop meddling with what everyone else does, let workers quit and companies fire whenever they want to. > Your argument doesn't hold for someone that has worked for 10 years. If they were a bad hire; it's on you at that point. Yes it does. It's not necessarily only that they're a bad hire. They could have the wrong skills or temperament or something for where the company needs to go, or the company could need to shut down a whole department or something. I don't know, the world has infinite complexity and possibility. I'm not smart enough to come up with everything anyone could ever want to do, and frankly, neither are you or anyone else. > Easier planning life and reduce work anxiety for employees. That sounds like a personal problem. I don't care to reshape national policy to cater to someone's alleged anxiety. > It encourage companies to invest and train their existing employees since they're hard to get rid off. Eh maybe, but many companies still do that now because good people are still hard to find. That's the better and more reliable way to do all of these things. > It makes employees less scared to speak up or discuss problems. Plenty already do that, I don't think it's much of a point. It's not really proven any more than the counter-statement that it makes employees more willing to slack off. > It makes companies more cautious about reckless hiring if they're not sure about their economics. That's exactly my point. I think it's good to let them "recklessly" hire if they think they can afford it. Some will get things right and grow huge, other will fail and those workers will be able to find new jobs more easily. > Allows older workers to remain productive for longer, reducing the burden on the pension or unemployment system from people 55+ having a hard time finding new work for few years before retirement. "Allow" how? They can already do that fine. Many companies value the experience of older workers just fine without the Government forcing them to do things. And I'd rather they have a comfortable retirement already set up from a robust investment market, possibly with a 401k or something like that. I don't want them to be dependent on either one company or the Government. And intentionally saving this for last along with the end: > If they're is such a massive difference we would see alot less globally competetive European companies. > Finally, i must ask what the societal purpose of jobs and companies are. From a pure "numbers go up", there is a cost to worker protection. But id argue the society as a whole benefit much more from it than having a multinational IT company on the stock market. There is a balance to these things ofourse, but dismissing it outright is not fair. "much less competitive European companies" is exactly what I do see, and you are also arguing that that's a good thing. Europe seems to have very little in the way of invention or growth pretty much since WWII. They haven't invented much new, and most of what they have invented has been eclipsed by more aggressive and nimble American companies. The European economy is still mostly dominated by the same large companies mostly doing the same things they've always done, sometimes adopting new technology long after American companies led the way. I'm not dismissing anything outright. I've carefully observed the results of both styles of economy and I prefer freer markets. I like helping lead the way towards creating awesome things thanks to everyone's free will. It's not always perfect, but the market usually fixes things faster and better than half-baked Government policies.
- 93po 1y ago
  I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he isn't allowed to fire people he manages when he sees behavior or actions that don't align with what he wants in his orgs? Also, what exactly is the source of this information? I spent multiple minutes googling for an anecdote of him firing someone for a small nuissance, or firing someone and then not recognizing them later, or firing someone and then them getting surreptitiously moved to a different department. I'm fine if this actually happened, Elon definitely sucks. But otherwise this just feels like weird middle school gossip.
  - subarctic 1y ago
    I thought it was a funny story...
  - D-Coder 1y ago
    > I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he is required (well, expected) to remember the faces of people he _fired_.
  - krisoft 1y ago
    The dig is three fold. (if the story is true, about which I have my doubts.) One: Elon instead of cultivating an organisation where the right people are rewarded and the wrong people are selected out tries to personally weed out the wrong ones. That is fundamentally foolish even if he is firing people who should be fired. Two: His subordinates don't respect his decision and instead of letting go the people he wanted to fire, they "hide" them in the organisation elsewhere. Three: He is too distracted / stupid / incompetent to then notice that his decision has been undermined.
dilyevsky 1y ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyg5ohTsVY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyg5ohTsVY Aside from Craigs talk which i think never was released publicly my favorite talk
indy 1y ago
Weren't there also stories of people being afraid of stepping into elevators with Steve Jobs? He'd ask them about the work they were doing and if the answer didn't please Jobs he'd fire them
- RyanOD 1y ago
  I had something like this happen to you me once, though not at Apple. I was quite young in my career and ended up on an elevator with the CEO. I got super nervous and just started running my mouth about something I perceived as a problem within the organization (!). On Monday he called me into his office and reamed me. Though I don't think chewing a young employee out in such a situation is the best approach, I'd say I at least deserved a, "Ok, listen youngster..." sort of dressing down. My boss pulled me aside later and said, "Don't ever talk to a CEO. Nothing good can come from it." I followed that advice the rest of my career. Oh and the CEO canceled my end of year bonus. :)
  - greyb 1y ago
    My father, a blue collar immigrant worker, did the same thing in his 40s. His CEO had an open door policy so he went in and expressed concerns. That day, he learnt that an open door policy is a massive red herring and got reamed for disturbing the CEO. It was all performative - they don't actually care.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

There was an even crazier story when someone was fired from Apple, but still kept coming to the office to work on their project for free for like half a year before someone noticed.

Hemospectrum 1y ago

Are you perhaps referring to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33229793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33229793

Gualdrapo 1y ago

Or the stories about Musk firing people for the smallest nuissance, and then their immediate superior sending the "fired" person to another department the day after - next time Musk would see that person and not remember he "fired" them

mschuster91 1y ago
[flagged]
- close04 1y ago
  I think the losses you’re thinking of are more than made up by the gains coming from the employees being afraid they can be fired at any moment.
  - jakelazaroff 1y ago
    I think employees being afraid they can be fired at any moment also creates a loss of productivity.
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    It’s really disappointing to read someone describing that kind of toxic working environment as a “gain”.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - close04 1y ago
      Of course I was talking from the point of view of the employer. I come from a completely different work culture and expectations.
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    - Make employees scared to point out flaws. - Make employees less engaged in the success of the company. - Encurrage employees to hide or mask issues. - Encurrage employees to pretend to be more productive than they are. - Make employees mentally and physically less healthy. - Make employees shy away from taking on more responsibility or tasks. - Make employees less happy to train up new hires in their work. Yes. Gains. All those gains. I can only see gains here.
    - close04 1y ago
      > I can only see gains here. All of your points are correct. But so many companies/employers keep abusing this power that I have to assume they see some value. Some of the things you mentioned are even short term gains for some companies. For some of Boeing’s execs, employees hiding flaws was a win until it wasn’t and it became someone else’s problem.
    - cindyllm 1y ago
      [dead]
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  > One might wonder where the US could be if the corporate culture wasn't so trigger happy on firing people and if laws against improper terminations would a) exist and b) be enforced. Probably the labor market would look more like countries that already do that? > The amount of knowledge cost alone that any company incurs with such bullshit is insane, but almost no one gives a fuck because the lost knowledge reacquisition cost is usually booked under "training costs" or whatnot. No. Bean counters don't magically skip counting those beans. Hiring managers aren't magically ignorant of effects on their team's productivity.
- ufmace 1y ago
  We would probably have much higher unemployment and slower-moving industries, and might no longer be the economic powerhouse of the world. When it's simple and easy to fire people, companies are a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring somebody they aren't 100% sure will be a good employee, and willing to hire a lot and grow fast knowing in both cases they can fire easily if needed. I find it sad that so many people never think about the second and third-order consequences of what sounds like feel-good policies. They often end up being a net-negative for the people they were intended to help.
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    I strongly disagree. If they're is such a massive difference we would see alot less globally competetive European companies. > a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring somebody they aren't 100% sure will be a good employee. Just proof hire them for 6 months to a year. Your argument doesn't hold for someone that has worked for 10 years. If they were a bad hire; it's on you at that point. But the improvements are plenty; - Easier planning life and reduce work anxiety for employees. - It encurrage companies to invest and train their existing employees since they're hard to get rid off. - It makes employees less scared to speak up or discuss problems. - It makes companies more cautious about reckless hiring if they're not sure about their economics. - Allows older workers to remain productive for longer, reducing the burden on the pension or unemployment system from people 55+ having a hard time finding new work for few years before retirement. Finally, i must ask what the societal purpose of jobs and companies are. From a pure "numbers go up", there is a cost to worker protection. But id argue the society as a whole benefit much more from it than having a multinational IT company on the stock market. There is a balance to these things ofourse, but dismissing it outright is not fair.
    - ufmace 1y ago
      You're welcome to disagree, I don't mind some competition. > Just proof hire them for 6 months to a year. As is common with most quickly tossed out "tiny fixes" to Socialist policies of excessive regulation, this makes the whole thing more complex and doesn't really solve the full problem for either workers or companies the way true free markets do. The only real "just" is just stop meddling with what everyone else does, let workers quit and companies fire whenever they want to. > Your argument doesn't hold for someone that has worked for 10 years. If they were a bad hire; it's on you at that point. Yes it does. It's not necessarily only that they're a bad hire. They could have the wrong skills or temperament or something for where the company needs to go, or the company could need to shut down a whole department or something. I don't know, the world has infinite complexity and possibility. I'm not smart enough to come up with everything anyone could ever want to do, and frankly, neither are you or anyone else. > Easier planning life and reduce work anxiety for employees. That sounds like a personal problem. I don't care to reshape national policy to cater to someone's alleged anxiety. > It encourage companies to invest and train their existing employees since they're hard to get rid off. Eh maybe, but many companies still do that now because good people are still hard to find. That's the better and more reliable way to do all of these things. > It makes employees less scared to speak up or discuss problems. Plenty already do that, I don't think it's much of a point. It's not really proven any more than the counter-statement that it makes employees more willing to slack off. > It makes companies more cautious about reckless hiring if they're not sure about their economics. That's exactly my point. I think it's good to let them "recklessly" hire if they think they can afford it. Some will get things right and grow huge, other will fail and those workers will be able to find new jobs more easily. > Allows older workers to remain productive for longer, reducing the burden on the pension or unemployment system from people 55+ having a hard time finding new work for few years before retirement. "Allow" how? They can already do that fine. Many companies value the experience of older workers just fine without the Government forcing them to do things. And I'd rather they have a comfortable retirement already set up from a robust investment market, possibly with a 401k or something like that. I don't want them to be dependent on either one company or the Government. And intentionally saving this for last along with the end: > If they're is such a massive difference we would see alot less globally competetive European companies. > Finally, i must ask what the societal purpose of jobs and companies are. From a pure "numbers go up", there is a cost to worker protection. But id argue the society as a whole benefit much more from it than having a multinational IT company on the stock market. There is a balance to these things ofourse, but dismissing it outright is not fair. "much less competitive European companies" is exactly what I do see, and you are also arguing that that's a good thing. Europe seems to have very little in the way of invention or growth pretty much since WWII. They haven't invented much new, and most of what they have invented has been eclipsed by more aggressive and nimble American companies. The European economy is still mostly dominated by the same large companies mostly doing the same things they've always done, sometimes adopting new technology long after American companies led the way. I'm not dismissing anything outright. I've carefully observed the results of both styles of economy and I prefer freer markets. I like helping lead the way towards creating awesome things thanks to everyone's free will. It's not always perfect, but the market usually fixes things faster and better than half-baked Government policies.
93po 1y ago
I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he isn't allowed to fire people he manages when he sees behavior or actions that don't align with what he wants in his orgs? Also, what exactly is the source of this information? I spent multiple minutes googling for an anecdote of him firing someone for a small nuissance, or firing someone and then not recognizing them later, or firing someone and then them getting surreptitiously moved to a different department. I'm fine if this actually happened, Elon definitely sucks. But otherwise this just feels like weird middle school gossip.
- subarctic 1y ago
  I thought it was a funny story...
- D-Coder 1y ago
  > I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he is required (well, expected) to remember the faces of people he _fired_.
- krisoft 1y ago
  The dig is three fold. (if the story is true, about which I have my doubts.) One: Elon instead of cultivating an organisation where the right people are rewarded and the wrong people are selected out tries to personally weed out the wrong ones. That is fundamentally foolish even if he is firing people who should be fired. Two: His subordinates don't respect his decision and instead of letting go the people he wanted to fire, they "hide" them in the organisation elsewhere. Three: He is too distracted / stupid / incompetent to then notice that his decision has been undermined.

dilyevsky 1y ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyg5ohTsVY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyg5ohTsVY Aside from Craigs talk which i think never was released publicly my favorite talk

indy 1y ago

Weren't there also stories of people being afraid of stepping into elevators with Steve Jobs? He'd ask them about the work they were doing and if the answer didn't please Jobs he'd fire them

RyanOD 1y ago
I had something like this happen to you me once, though not at Apple. I was quite young in my career and ended up on an elevator with the CEO. I got super nervous and just started running my mouth about something I perceived as a problem within the organization (!). On Monday he called me into his office and reamed me. Though I don't think chewing a young employee out in such a situation is the best approach, I'd say I at least deserved a, "Ok, listen youngster..." sort of dressing down. My boss pulled me aside later and said, "Don't ever talk to a CEO. Nothing good can come from it." I followed that advice the rest of my career. Oh and the CEO canceled my end of year bonus. :)
- greyb 1y ago
  My father, a blue collar immigrant worker, did the same thing in his 40s. His CEO had an open door policy so he went in and expressed concerns. That day, he learnt that an open door policy is a massive red herring and got reamed for disturbing the CEO. It was all performative - they don't actually care.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]