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Using sports metaphors is a particularly bad way to go about it in this instance. The average young NFL player is only expecting a career lasting about 5 years

by adwf 12y ago

Using sports metaphors is a particularly bad way to go about it in this instance. The average young NFL player is only expecting a career lasting about 5 years, maybe 10 for exceptional guys; The average young office worker is looking for 40 years. If you were fired as frequently as players get traded in NFL, we'd be living hellish careers!

walshemj 12y ago
And a lot of pro sports players have fixed contracts can't imagine a firm wanting to continuing to pay some one for 5 years when their job becomes redundant.
arethuza 12y ago
But isn't that the point they are trying to make - that sports teams can be effective despite have very high rates of staff turnover because everyone has realistic expectations of the employer-employee relationship?
- XorNot 12y ago
  In careers which last, at most, 5-10 years. Not 40.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    I'd actually be interested to see the stats for developers and how long the average career is. Now obviously some people make it to their 40s, 50s and later but I suspect most don't.
    - michaelochurch 12y ago
      What do you think they do when they get to that age? Where do they go? My observation is that age discrimination isn't a brick wall, so much as an increased difficulty in doing things a person should be able to do. It's not like you can't get a programming job after 40, because obviously people do. It's just that job searches are no longer completed in 2 weeks; it's closer to 4 months. What no one told us in school was that getting better at our jobs, past a certain point, makes job searches harder and more complex, especially because HR drones don't understand our specialties and tend to use them against us. ("Doesn't have 3 years of Swift experience? No hire.") Structuring a society as a pyramid actually works when it is in transition from poverty to industrial wealth, but it's a disaster in a stable state.
      - arethuza 12y ago
        A lot of organizations, particularly in professional services, are pretty brutal at maintaining a pyramid shaped organization structure - "up or out" as they say.
      - vkjv 12y ago
        In my experience, I've never seen people over 40 have any more issues than younger folks getting programming jobs. However, the reason you don't see many, is that most don't want that job by the time they are that age. For most programmers, they will hit a glass ceiling on salary somewhere in their 30s. If they want to make more money, and most people do, they transition into management. The answer to the question, "where did they go?" is pretty simple. Management.
        JabavuAdams 12y ago
        Yeah, that's been my experience as well. I'm 38, and I get pinged for a job about 2-3 times a week, but basically I don't want to work at any of them (ask me again in 6 months).
    - danielweber 12y ago
      I remember realizing that there didn't seem to be any older people around. A mentor pointed out to me "just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't around." To your first sentence: I, also, would be very interested in a statistical analysis of where the 20-somethings of each decade ended up.
    - ZenPro 12y ago
      Where on earth have you pulled that assumption from? A well regarded Quora answer and several HN discussions have yielded that the myth is not that people beyond 30/40/50 stop being engineers; the myth is the 25-year old creator/entrepreneur/engineer.
      - arethuza 12y ago
        As I said, I'd like to see the actual statistics - I have a hunch one way, but I could well be wrong. But I'd love to see an actual study of the age breakdown of the population of people actually engaged in technical areas.
        ZenPro 12y ago
        It's been done and a little use of the search box here and on Quora will yield the answer you look for. Your hunch is wrong.
- vkjv 12y ago
  And salaries well above the norm.
  - aweinbrg 12y ago
    High salaries, don't necessarily make for effective teams. Work at a bank and you'll see what I mean.
- netcan 12y ago
  But this expectation is a natural fit for what they're doing. Playing in the NFL is their life's ambition. It is their life's income. It's their life's glory. You can't just decide that your company should be like that because you would like that kind of dedication and that kind of HR policy. Does success at these team companies mean anything comparable to what it does fro an NFL player? Is it the pinnacle of their career? The players on a sports team get a lot of glory from their success. They're also in a naturally competitive environment. They want the team to win as much as management of the team does.
overgard 12y ago
I think the point is, if you set proper expectations in the relationship you can have a cohesive team even if it's known that some people aren't going to be there forever.
maaku 12y ago
I change jobs as frequently as players get traded in NFL. Welcome to the new economy.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Here in UK guys who change jobs most often get the most money: contractors.
forgottenpass 12y ago
Using sports metaphors is a particularly bad way to go about it in this instance. It's not one-to-one but I think you're overemphasizing both career length as a fatal flaw to the metaphor and the strictness of the comparison the author is trying to draw. It's a sensible metaphor for the limited points the author wants to make, then he hedges to prevent pushing the metaphor past breaking so I can't point out we don't have office cheerleaders. In this sense, a business is far more like a sports team than a family. Of course, a professional sports team isn’t a perfect analog to your business.
- adwf 12y ago
  I think I objected less to the length of the career, and more to the reason why the career is so short. In sports, you are very physically limited, you eventually hit your physical peak and then get replaced by someone younger and faster. The reason that the players are OK with this is because they get paid an absolute ton of money and can quite possibly retire after those 5-10 years. In business this isn't really the case. Of course, there are a few developers who will get embedded in their particular way of thinking and may end up antiquating themselves out of a job. But in general most people carry on learning, or promote into management or another aspect of business. Essentially, there are a lot of good reasons to be treating employees like long term prospects. Another one that springs to mind is the concept of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. We're constantly told that people are more motivated and do better work when they are intrinsincally motivated, rather than extrinsically. Yet, if you are treating your workers like disposable commodities; or if you as an employee are hopping from job to job every year; Where's the intrinsic motivation? If you're working at a job for 10 years or more, now I can believe that you will be motivated to see the company succeed. That your goals and the companies goals are aligned, because a significant proportion of your life and the companies life are intertwined. Just like family. N.B. Of course, if you don't expect your startup to be around in 3 years time - whether acquired or bust - then by all means go for the sports analogy. But I think in the wider business world, it'd be a mistake.
cjf4 12y ago
NFL players are rarely traded.
brudgers 12y ago
Using American sports teams is a particularly bad example because the draft system typical in American sports means athletes are not free to choose among employers [1]. In addition, American sports teams tend to be massively subsidized in the form of stadium and infrastructure funding from the public till. It's even worse as a metaphor for American companies because the typical office worker isn't under contract let alone a union negotiated one.[2] [1] Ok, maybe the 'no poach' collusion among tech industry titans makes it a little better for that sector. [2] Where the American professional sports metaphor does fit a bit is in its tendency toward non-investment in youth development - i.e. on the job training - which in the American sports model is subsidized from the public till in the form of scholastic sports in local high schools and public universities. Elsewhere in the world, professional sports teams tend to provide elite training to children and teenagers under a model similar to that of Angel Investing. A few big winners pay for all the false positives.

by adwf 12y ago

walshemj 12y ago

And a lot of pro sports players have fixed contracts can't imagine a firm wanting to continuing to pay some one for 5 years when their job becomes redundant.

arethuza 12y ago

But isn't that the point they are trying to make - that sports teams can be effective despite have very high rates of staff turnover because everyone has realistic expectations of the employer-employee relationship?

XorNot 12y ago
In careers which last, at most, 5-10 years. Not 40.
- arethuza 12y ago
  I'd actually be interested to see the stats for developers and how long the average career is. Now obviously some people make it to their 40s, 50s and later but I suspect most don't.
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    What do you think they do when they get to that age? Where do they go? My observation is that age discrimination isn't a brick wall, so much as an increased difficulty in doing things a person should be able to do. It's not like you can't get a programming job after 40, because obviously people do. It's just that job searches are no longer completed in 2 weeks; it's closer to 4 months. What no one told us in school was that getting better at our jobs, past a certain point, makes job searches harder and more complex, especially because HR drones don't understand our specialties and tend to use them against us. ("Doesn't have 3 years of Swift experience? No hire.") Structuring a society as a pyramid actually works when it is in transition from poverty to industrial wealth, but it's a disaster in a stable state.
    - arethuza 12y ago
      A lot of organizations, particularly in professional services, are pretty brutal at maintaining a pyramid shaped organization structure - "up or out" as they say.
    - vkjv 12y ago
      In my experience, I've never seen people over 40 have any more issues than younger folks getting programming jobs. However, the reason you don't see many, is that most don't want that job by the time they are that age. For most programmers, they will hit a glass ceiling on salary somewhere in their 30s. If they want to make more money, and most people do, they transition into management. The answer to the question, "where did they go?" is pretty simple. Management.
      - JabavuAdams 12y ago
        Yeah, that's been my experience as well. I'm 38, and I get pinged for a job about 2-3 times a week, but basically I don't want to work at any of them (ask me again in 6 months).
  - danielweber 12y ago
    I remember realizing that there didn't seem to be any older people around. A mentor pointed out to me "just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't around." To your first sentence: I, also, would be very interested in a statistical analysis of where the 20-somethings of each decade ended up.
  - ZenPro 12y ago
    Where on earth have you pulled that assumption from? A well regarded Quora answer and several HN discussions have yielded that the myth is not that people beyond 30/40/50 stop being engineers; the myth is the 25-year old creator/entrepreneur/engineer.
    - arethuza 12y ago
      As I said, I'd like to see the actual statistics - I have a hunch one way, but I could well be wrong. But I'd love to see an actual study of the age breakdown of the population of people actually engaged in technical areas.
      - ZenPro 12y ago
        It's been done and a little use of the search box here and on Quora will yield the answer you look for. Your hunch is wrong.
vkjv 12y ago
And salaries well above the norm.
- aweinbrg 12y ago
  High salaries, don't necessarily make for effective teams. Work at a bank and you'll see what I mean.
netcan 12y ago
But this expectation is a natural fit for what they're doing. Playing in the NFL is their life's ambition. It is their life's income. It's their life's glory. You can't just decide that your company should be like that because you would like that kind of dedication and that kind of HR policy. Does success at these team companies mean anything comparable to what it does fro an NFL player? Is it the pinnacle of their career? The players on a sports team get a lot of glory from their success. They're also in a naturally competitive environment. They want the team to win as much as management of the team does.

overgard 12y ago

I think the point is, if you set proper expectations in the relationship you can have a cohesive team even if it's known that some people aren't going to be there forever.

maaku 12y ago

I change jobs as frequently as players get traded in NFL. Welcome to the new economy.

CmonDev 12y ago
Here in UK guys who change jobs most often get the most money: contractors.

forgottenpass 12y ago

Using sports metaphors is a particularly bad way to go about it in this instance. It's not one-to-one but I think you're overemphasizing both career length as a fatal flaw to the metaphor and the strictness of the comparison the author is trying to draw. It's a sensible metaphor for the limited points the author wants to make, then he hedges to prevent pushing the metaphor past breaking so I can't point out we don't have office cheerleaders. In this sense, a business is far more like a sports team than a family. Of course, a professional sports team isn’t a perfect analog to your business.

adwf 12y ago
I think I objected less to the length of the career, and more to the reason why the career is so short. In sports, you are very physically limited, you eventually hit your physical peak and then get replaced by someone younger and faster. The reason that the players are OK with this is because they get paid an absolute ton of money and can quite possibly retire after those 5-10 years. In business this isn't really the case. Of course, there are a few developers who will get embedded in their particular way of thinking and may end up antiquating themselves out of a job. But in general most people carry on learning, or promote into management or another aspect of business. Essentially, there are a lot of good reasons to be treating employees like long term prospects. Another one that springs to mind is the concept of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. We're constantly told that people are more motivated and do better work when they are intrinsincally motivated, rather than extrinsically. Yet, if you are treating your workers like disposable commodities; or if you as an employee are hopping from job to job every year; Where's the intrinsic motivation? If you're working at a job for 10 years or more, now I can believe that you will be motivated to see the company succeed. That your goals and the companies goals are aligned, because a significant proportion of your life and the companies life are intertwined. Just like family. N.B. Of course, if you don't expect your startup to be around in 3 years time - whether acquired or bust - then by all means go for the sports analogy. But I think in the wider business world, it'd be a mistake.

cjf4 12y ago

NFL players are rarely traded.

brudgers 12y ago

Using American sports teams is a particularly bad example because the draft system typical in American sports means athletes are not free to choose among employers [1]. In addition, American sports teams tend to be massively subsidized in the form of stadium and infrastructure funding from the public till. It's even worse as a metaphor for American companies because the typical office worker isn't under contract let alone a union negotiated one.[2] [1] Ok, maybe the 'no poach' collusion among tech industry titans makes it a little better for that sector. [2] Where the American professional sports metaphor does fit a bit is in its tendency toward non-investment in youth development - i.e. on the job training - which in the American sports model is subsidized from the public till in the form of scholastic sports in local high schools and public universities. Elsewhere in the world, professional sports teams tend to provide elite training to children and teenagers under a model similar to that of Angel Investing. A few big winners pay for all the false positives.