3 ms·

>> In short, they claim they were just laying off their "bottom" 5% a week after doing reviews, and are in the process of hiring an additional 20% new employees

>> In short, they claim they were just laying off their "bottom" 5% a week after doing reviews, and are in the process of hiring an additional 20% new employees. I note your use of speech marks around the word bottom. I'm just wondering how you put structural technicians on a scale. In other words, does the effectiveness of an individual in this kind of multiply connected technical environment not basically depend on a lot of other people? It isn't selling vacuum cleaners really is it?

hga 12y ago
In this context double quotation marks have an even more specific name, scare quotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes I of course used them precisely for the sorts reasons you cite: outside of domains like sales, where there are concrete metrics, this sort of thing is necessarily a political exercise, one that has harmed many companies including Microsoft. However, if you read the referenced bigger discussion, you'll get some hints that maybe SpaceX can get away with this, essentially their employees believe they're on a mission, which is something I can understand. Although I still wonder about the viability of a super-high tech, literally rocket science, company with an average tenure of 1.5 years. Perhaps they'll end up losing one or more zillion dollar payloads due to this and then try to change their ways, but that can be extremely difficult once a company is driven at the micro level by internal politics instead of external success.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  I take your point, but I'm still trying to work out how you put technicians on a scale. I have some knowledge of medium scale construction projects (50 tenancy flats aka apartments) and the builders are contracted, assemble stuff in the right order, then complete their contracts. If there is one operative that is obviously not performing/dangerous, they get invited to leave. None of this 'worst 5%' malarkey.

hga 12y ago

In this context double quotation marks have an even more specific name, scare quotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes I of course used them precisely for the sorts reasons you cite: outside of domains like sales, where there are concrete metrics, this sort of thing is necessarily a political exercise, one that has harmed many companies including Microsoft. However, if you read the referenced bigger discussion, you'll get some hints that maybe SpaceX can get away with this, essentially their employees believe they're on a mission, which is something I can understand. Although I still wonder about the viability of a super-high tech, literally rocket science, company with an average tenure of 1.5 years. Perhaps they'll end up losing one or more zillion dollar payloads due to this and then try to change their ways, but that can be extremely difficult once a company is driven at the micro level by internal politics instead of external success.

keithpeter 12y ago
I take your point, but I'm still trying to work out how you put technicians on a scale. I have some knowledge of medium scale construction projects (50 tenancy flats aka apartments) and the builders are contracted, assemble stuff in the right order, then complete their contracts. If there is one operative that is obviously not performing/dangerous, they get invited to leave. None of this 'worst 5%' malarkey.