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More interesting to me, the email that got the guy fired: http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html An ar

by davi 17y ago

More interesting to me, the email that got the guy fired: http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html An articulate explanation of how good intentions at big companies can often be implemented only slowly.

adw 17y ago
Also a good argument for never putting someone's email up directly on the Web - you've got to paraphrase if you think anyone might ever object to it. And, yes, that's depressing.
- kolya3 17y ago
  Also a good argument against using company email for personal correspondence. "AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot."
  - danek 17y ago
    And try not to use a company computer for anything except work. Big corps usually have spyware installed on their computers so they can track everything you do. The last place I worked had software that took a screenshot of your desktop every so often, and the boss could remote into your machine to see what you were up to. I didn't find out till my last day, it explained why he was so good at busting us when we were on facebook
mwexler 17y ago
While poor intentions appear to be able to be enacted very swiftly.
gaius 17y ago
But doing the design isn’t the hard part, and I think that’s what a lot of outsiders don’t really get That's always the way with any non-trivial undertaking. Recognizing this is the hallmark of actual experience.
gvb 17y ago
Dialog from Makers, by Cory Doctorow http://craphound.com/makers/Cory_Doctorow_-_Makers.htm http://craphound.com/makers/Cory_Doctorow_-_Makers.htm This dialog comes near the end, Lester and Perry discussing the paradox of working for a big company. According to Cory's bio, he never worked in a big company, but he nails it here. gvb ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Lester: "They said that they wanted me to come in and help them turn the place around, help them reinvent themselves. Be nimble. Shake things up. But it’s like wrestling a tar-baby. You push, you get stuck. You argue for something better and they tell you to write a report, then no one reads the report. You try to get an experimental service running and no one will reconfigure the firewall. Turn the place around?" He snorted. "It's like turning around a battleship by tapping it on the nose with a toothpick." Perry: "I hate working with assholes." "They’re not assholes, that’s the thing, Perry. They’re some really smart people. They’re nice. We have them over for dinner. They’re fun to eat lunch with. The thing is, every single one of them feels the same way I do. They all have cool shit they want to do, but they can’t do it." "Why?" "It’s like an emergent property. Once you get a lot of people under one roof, the emergent property seems to be crap. No matter how great the people are, no matter how wonderful their individual ideas are, the net effect is shit." "Reminds me of reliability calculation. Like if you take two components that are 90 percent reliable and use them in a design, the outcome is 90 percent of 90 percent - 81 percent. Keep adding 90 percent reliable components and you’ll have something that explodes before you get it out of the factory. "Maybe people are like that. If you’re 90 percent non-bogus and ten percent bogus, and you work with someone else who’s 90 percent non-bogus, you end up with a team that’s 81 percent non-bogus." "I like that model. It makes intuitive sense. But it’s depressing. It says that all we do is magnify each others’ flaws." "Well, maybe that’s the case. Maybe flaws are multiplicative." "So what are virtues?" "Additive, maybe. A shallower curve."

by davi 17y ago

adw 17y ago

Also a good argument for never putting someone's email up directly on the Web - you've got to paraphrase if you think anyone might ever object to it. And, yes, that's depressing.

kolya3 17y ago
Also a good argument against using company email for personal correspondence. "AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot."
- danek 17y ago
  And try not to use a company computer for anything except work. Big corps usually have spyware installed on their computers so they can track everything you do. The last place I worked had software that took a screenshot of your desktop every so often, and the boss could remote into your machine to see what you were up to. I didn't find out till my last day, it explained why he was so good at busting us when we were on facebook

mwexler 17y ago

While poor intentions appear to be able to be enacted very swiftly.

gaius 17y ago

But doing the design isn’t the hard part, and I think that’s what a lot of outsiders don’t really get That's always the way with any non-trivial undertaking. Recognizing this is the hallmark of actual experience.

gvb 17y ago

Dialog from Makers, by Cory Doctorow http://craphound.com/makers/Cory_Doctorow_-_Makers.htm http://craphound.com/makers/Cory_Doctorow_-_Makers.htm This dialog comes near the end, Lester and Perry discussing the paradox of working for a big company. According to Cory's bio, he never worked in a big company, but he nails it here. gvb ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Lester: "They said that they wanted me to come in and help them turn the place around, help them reinvent themselves. Be nimble. Shake things up. But it’s like wrestling a tar-baby. You push, you get stuck. You argue for something better and they tell you to write a report, then no one reads the report. You try to get an experimental service running and no one will reconfigure the firewall. Turn the place around?" He snorted. "It's like turning around a battleship by tapping it on the nose with a toothpick." Perry: "I hate working with assholes." "They’re not assholes, that’s the thing, Perry. They’re some really smart people. They’re nice. We have them over for dinner. They’re fun to eat lunch with. The thing is, every single one of them feels the same way I do. They all have cool shit they want to do, but they can’t do it." "Why?" "It’s like an emergent property. Once you get a lot of people under one roof, the emergent property seems to be crap. No matter how great the people are, no matter how wonderful their individual ideas are, the net effect is shit." "Reminds me of reliability calculation. Like if you take two components that are 90 percent reliable and use them in a design, the outcome is 90 percent of 90 percent - 81 percent. Keep adding 90 percent reliable components and you’ll have something that explodes before you get it out of the factory. "Maybe people are like that. If you’re 90 percent non-bogus and ten percent bogus, and you work with someone else who’s 90 percent non-bogus, you end up with a team that’s 81 percent non-bogus." "I like that model. It makes intuitive sense. But it’s depressing. It says that all we do is magnify each others’ flaws." "Well, maybe that’s the case. Maybe flaws are multiplicative." "So what are virtues?" "Additive, maybe. A shallower curve."