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> So, in the end, people just started giving the best possible feedback regardless of the team or manager performance. That seems to be the best possible strat

by eru 1y ago

> So, in the end, people just started giving the best possible feedback regardless of the team or manager performance. That seems to be the best possible strategy for any feedback you have to give as a captive audience? Reminds me of the feedback German companies are forced to give about their employees. It's like a formal letter of reference, but you can and will be sued if you you anything negative. Consequences are as you would expect. And because there has been an inflation in how complimentary these letters are, people started suing when their letter wasn't flowery enough, because that somehow could be read as an implicit criticism. (Just like how A is a bad mark, when everyone else gets A+.)

supriyo-biswas 1y ago
> That seems to be the best possible strategy for any feedback you have to give as a captive audience? It is, but at that point why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? Of course, I understand that being able to pat yourself on the back and concluding with statements like "Leadership is truly connected with its employees, keeping in touch every day through questions about improving the workplace. Our surveys show 99% of our employees are very satisfied with their team, their work, and work-life balance" is "valuable", I guess, I just feel very sad about humanity.
- serial_dev 1y ago
  > why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? It is a very good question that you should never bring up as captive audience.
  - baq 1y ago
    If you have a back channel in the audience you should get a large enough group to ask this question in the free form feedback box in the exactly same wording. Should send chills down the lord of HR spine. Don’t do it with a group which isn’t large enough though, you’ll get you all fired for unionizing^W no reason.
    - eru 1y ago
      Again, there's no incentive to do this. It's full of downsides, and the only upside is some lolz from trolling.
      - baq 1y ago
        It all depends on what your utility function is, but for most people I completely agree. For a good example of such activism not blowing up completely in your face would be the OpenAI revolt and sama reinstatement, but that’s obviously survivorship bias.
      - Seattle3503 1y ago
        More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before.
- eru 1y ago
  > It is, but at that point why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? Well, I was talking about the best strategy from the captive audience's point of view. You are now asking about the strategy for the captor. Going a bit beyond: getting honest feedback out of subordinates is a hard problem! Both formally and informally. That was always a big concern on my mind as a manager.
tpxl 1y ago
> And because there has been an inflation in how complimentary these letters are, people started suing when their letter wasn't flowery enough, because that somehow could be read as an implicit criticism. You got a source for this folktale?
- mmarq 1y ago
  The reality is that these letters are written in a kind of pseudolegalistic language, where a phrase like “the employee was punctual” means they were usually late. If they were actually punctual, you'd see something more like “the employee consistently demonstrated exceptional punctuality”. You usually need the reference letter to be reviewed by the works council or by an employment lawyer.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    sighs. Seriously? Good to know though, if true.
    - mafuy 1y ago
      German here. Absolutely true, and has been for many years now. Some examples: - grade D, poor performance: "We were satisfied with his performance" - grade C, meh: "We were entirely satisfied with his performance" - true grade A+: "We were always satisfied to the utmost degree with his performance" plus highly positive and extensive in the rest of the reference letter. - "was sociable": alcoholic - "was always striving for a good relationship with colleagues": was gossiping instead of working - "sociability was appreciated": had sex with colleague - "was very empathic": had sex with customer
      - etoulas 1y ago
        I wonder why there is no LLM that can decode this. Tried many times but it seems the models don’t pick up the nuances.
        1y ago

by eru 1y ago

supriyo-biswas 1y ago

> That seems to be the best possible strategy for any feedback you have to give as a captive audience? It is, but at that point why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? Of course, I understand that being able to pat yourself on the back and concluding with statements like "Leadership is truly connected with its employees, keeping in touch every day through questions about improving the workplace. Our surveys show 99% of our employees are very satisfied with their team, their work, and work-life balance" is "valuable", I guess, I just feel very sad about humanity.

serial_dev 1y ago
> why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? It is a very good question that you should never bring up as captive audience.
- baq 1y ago
  If you have a back channel in the audience you should get a large enough group to ask this question in the free form feedback box in the exactly same wording. Should send chills down the lord of HR spine. Don’t do it with a group which isn’t large enough though, you’ll get you all fired for unionizing^W no reason.
  - eru 1y ago
    Again, there's no incentive to do this. It's full of downsides, and the only upside is some lolz from trolling.
    - baq 1y ago
      It all depends on what your utility function is, but for most people I completely agree. For a good example of such activism not blowing up completely in your face would be the OpenAI revolt and sama reinstatement, but that’s obviously survivorship bias.
    - Seattle3503 1y ago
      More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before.
eru 1y ago
> It is, but at that point why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? Well, I was talking about the best strategy from the captive audience's point of view. You are now asking about the strategy for the captor. Going a bit beyond: getting honest feedback out of subordinates is a hard problem! Both formally and informally. That was always a big concern on my mind as a manager.

tpxl 1y ago

> And because there has been an inflation in how complimentary these letters are, people started suing when their letter wasn't flowery enough, because that somehow could be read as an implicit criticism. You got a source for this folktale?

mmarq 1y ago
The reality is that these letters are written in a kind of pseudolegalistic language, where a phrase like “the employee was punctual” means they were usually late. If they were actually punctual, you'd see something more like “the employee consistently demonstrated exceptional punctuality”. You usually need the reference letter to be reviewed by the works council or by an employment lawyer.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  sighs. Seriously? Good to know though, if true.
  - mafuy 1y ago
    German here. Absolutely true, and has been for many years now. Some examples: - grade D, poor performance: "We were satisfied with his performance" - grade C, meh: "We were entirely satisfied with his performance" - true grade A+: "We were always satisfied to the utmost degree with his performance" plus highly positive and extensive in the rest of the reference letter. - "was sociable": alcoholic - "was always striving for a good relationship with colleagues": was gossiping instead of working - "sociability was appreciated": had sex with colleague - "was very empathic": had sex with customer
    - etoulas 1y ago
      I wonder why there is no LLM that can decode this. Tried many times but it seems the models don’t pick up the nuances.
      - 1y ago