4 ms·
It's the natural result of "fire the bottom 10% every year". If that's the rule in your organization, and you have a core group of people that actually know th
by nostrademons 6mo ago
It's the natural result of "fire the bottom 10% every year".
If that's the rule in your organization, and you have a core group of people that actually know the systems and get the work done, you better make sure you have 10% padding every year, lest you layoff someone important and their friends all quit in disgust. And since competence and institutional knowledge is built over time, that implies a revolving door of new folks coming in and most of it not making it.
- camillomiller 6mo agoWorkers as cattle. This is utterly disgusting and the way it’s normalized is even more revolting
- BadBadJellyBean 6mo agoIn management terms a human and a printer are the same. Both resources that need to be managed. I hate it.
- StilesCrisis 6mo agoAbsolutely not--the printer is capex, so it's preferable to the humans who are opex.
- jameshart 6mo agoNo no, this quarter we’re trying to shift from capex to opex. Try to keep up.
- magnetometer 6mo agoUsually, companies value opex more than capex - opex is much more flexible. That's one of the reasons why printers, coffee machines, companies cars and other things are typically leased.
- jordanb 6mo agoNot really that simple. Opex gets better tax treatment (you can deduct it in full every year) but people aren't always Opex depending on what they're doing (research tends to be Capex) Also tax treatment isn't the only consideration for financial engineering: It's easier for a company with a huge capital spend to argue that they're investing in the future and CapEx doesn't hurt EBITDA. On the other hand, some companies get worried about reporting a high "capital ratio" (ratio of capital assets to income). In reality you can't say categorically that companies prefer Opex to Capex.
- StilesCrisis 6mo agoConcretely speaking, the FAANG companies are all wildly slashing opex (us) for capex (data centers, TPUs) even as the capex costs skyrocket due to demand outstripping supply.
- jordanb 6mo agoProgrammers are usually capex to be honest, with current tax treatment. When companies switched from data center to cloud they ended up shifting a lot of their compute from capex (buying servers) to opex (paying a hyperscaler for compute by the hour). Of course if you're in one of the five tech companies building datacenters rather than renting (MSFT, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Oracle) then things are different.
- sethops1 6mo agoWe don't send 10% of our printers to the landfill every year just to motivate the other printers.
- hnlmorg 6mo agoI take it you haven’t seen the printer demolition scene from Office Space? /s
- jeffrallen 6mo agoDamn, it feels good to be a gangsta.
- zajio1am 6mo agoYou pretty much do that with wireless devices as a wISP.
- Ray20 6mo ago> This is utterly disgusting This is effective. Therefore, normalization of this plays into the workers' hands, gives them information, and gives economic advantage to honest agents. I mean, you could compare it to any non-capitalist society, where such treatment of workers is declared unacceptable. But what does this translate into in reality? Such strategies are still effective and provide an advantage to those actors who adhere to them. But since firing workers for their relative effectiveness contradicts the proclaimed ideology, such workers are simply accused of random crimes against the country and executed.
- davidjfelix 6mo agoso you're saying its not the evil that's the problem its the hypocrisy?
- 21asdffdsa12 6mo agoIf both sides know it, working as a "churney" can be pretty chill. Like being put on the roof from the getgo.
- muragekibicho 6mo agoLol. Isn't this like being a contractor?
- 21asdffdsa12 6mo agoYes, but your performance review is way more dramatic. Being a PIP-boy for life is not funny, but when they know and you know, it gets something of a comedic element.
- naveen99 6mo agoMaybe 1/10 of the new hires replace 1/90 of the existing old timers. You need some creative destruction.
- jordanb 6mo agoYou may knock this system but it's what made General Electric the company it is today!
- jiveturkey 6mo agoWhich is a F500 company.
- magicalist 6mo ago> Which is a F500 company. And used to be an F5 company.
- idontwantthis 6mo agoThe easiest way to become a F500 company is to start as an F5 company, then financialize your whole business, stop innovating, fire anyone effective, and give the executives huge bonuses.
- marcosdumay 6mo agoWell, if you also put barriers to integration and hire more executives you can turn it into 3 or 4 F5000 companies instead.