5 ms·

Oh, I agree that the managerial response (particularly with her getting flooded by bonuses which her manager vetoed) was idiotic. That doesn't take away from m

Oh, I agree that the managerial response (particularly with her getting flooded by bonuses which her manager vetoed) was idiotic. That doesn't take away from my concerns about how people may be analysing and using the anecdata though. If someone came to me and said "I did a self-selecting self-reporting survey of salaries, and it says I'm underpaid", I think I'd be more likely to fire them for incompetence than to give them a raise.

anu_gupta 11y ago
An astonishing attitude. Perhaps, if you ever end up managing people, you'll hopefully take a step back and contemplate investigating whether there was, in fact, a valid concern.
asgard1024 11y ago
> If someone came to me and said "I did a self-selecting self-reporting survey of salaries, and it says I'm underpaid", I think I'd be more likely to fire them for incompetence than to give them a raise. Even if besides them being wrong in this one thing, they would actually be competent and underpaid? If the answer to the above question is no, why do you even have to elaborate. Then it doesn't actually matter at all if the employee complains rightly or wrongly! I have to conclude the answer has to be yes, then. It's perfectly understandable that you, as a manager or employer, don't want to pay people for their merit if you don't have to. But it's not something you should be proud of.
- cperciva 11y ago
  Drawing conclusions from self-selected self-reported data (without a careful process for validation and debiasing) is a big red flag for (a) being ignorant of basic statistics, and (b) not even being aware of your ignorance of basic statistics. I mean, "why do we use random samples?" is covered in the first lecture of a 1st year stats course. I expect developers to be familiar with basic statistics.
  - dlitz 11y ago
    Wow. Colin, are you just trying to win an argument online or are you really that flippant when it comes to firing an employee? Keep in mind that we're talking about people's livelihoods, here---it's the sort of thing that can stress people out to the point of mental breakdown, even if you're not actively threatening them. Firstly, this isn't a job interview. If someone's been working with you for long enough that they want to discuss a salary adjustment, then shouldn't your assessment of the value that they bring to the table be more informed than looking for "red flags" on the spot? Secondly, developers are generally not familiar with basic statistics. If it's important to your business that they be better-than-average at stats, then budget some time and money for training. Thirdly, in the real world, we make decisions from incomplete and biased information all the time. Sometimes, those decisions turn out to be wrong, but on the whole, it still works out better than pretending that we have no information at all. If you're in management and you have access to more complete information, then the smart thing for an employee to do is to have a conversation with you. It makes no sense to fire someone for that. I have a lot of respect for your technical work, but the management style you're describing so far sounds authoritarian and abusive. I really hope that's not how you'd actually treat your reports, in practice.
    - lawnchair_larry 11y ago
      He has asperger's.
    - cperciva 11y ago
      are you really that flippant when it comes to firing an employee? I don't know; I've never had to fire anyone yet. I'll admit that when writing at 1AM I may have let some hyperbole slip into my comments. It's quite possible that my reaction would be "great, your assignment for the next week is to do a rigorous statistical analysis of this data". On the other hand, as someone else commented, I said "more likely"; and that's probably true. I can't imagine a situation where I'd accept a naive analysis of self-selected self-reporting data as having any substance at all, so I would certainly not give someone a raise based on that. discuss a salary adjustment Discussing salary is fine. My point is that bad statistics is worse than nothing in this context.
jsmthrowaway 11y ago
In this thread, the repeatedly reinforced observation that expertise in crafting software does not automatically bestow skills for managing, understanding, or empathizing with people, and those whose work you respect tremendously may just disappoint you when it comes to working for them.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
DannyBee 11y ago
Vetoing > 1 peer bonus for the same thing is pretty much policy. Certainly it's manager discretion, but that's usually the right thing to do. (There are other forms of bonusing that would make more sense in such a case, like a spot bonus, or whatever)
geofft 11y ago
> If someone came to me and said "I did a self-selecting self-reporting survey of salaries, and it says I'm underpaid", I think I'd be more likely to fire them for incompetence than to give them a raise. OK, except that's not what's happening here. What seems to be happening here is someone saying "I did a self-reporting survey of salaries, and there's an existence proof that someone at my level is getting paid $X, can I get paid closer to $X than my current salary." Which is sound. The statistics and pivot tables are very interesting, but I suspect they're not directly being used for negotiations. Nobody has any good information about how much money they should be asking for. The data this spreadsheet provides is that, if you ask for $X, it's within the range of reason, and not so high that you'll get laughed at. If I apply for Google and try to negotiate a $200K salary, is that low? high? so high I'll get my offer revoked? (I've heard of that happening in tech!) I have no idea. Knowing even one person who works in my future role and makes $200K would be valuable information. So would knowing that I can't find anyone in that role making more than $110K. Knowing the mean and standard deviation of salaries at 95% confidence is not particularly more useful to me.
- cperciva 11y ago
  What seems to be happening here is someone saying "I did a self-reporting survey of salaries, and there's an existence proof that someone at my level is getting paid $X, can I get paid closer to $X than my current salary." Which is sound. It's sound modulo the assumption that everybody is being honest when they report their salaries, sure. Of course, in a company Google's size, there are always going to be outliers, so "someone at my level is getting paid $X" is a long way from "everybody at my level should be getting paid $X". If I apply for Google and try to negotiate a $200K salary, is that low? high? so high I'll get my offer revoked? (I've heard of that happening in tech!) I have no idea. Right, and that's the proper use of such anecdata -- to help you formulate your bargaining strategy, not as a bargaining chip itself. Ironically, if information like this had been available back in 2006, I might be working for Google: A few months after I rejected their offer, I was told that it was "pathetically low" and that I could have negotiated at least 50% more. If I had been offered that much more it might have factored into my decision; but I didn't know I could negotiate, so I ended up simply rejecting the offer.

anu_gupta 11y ago

An astonishing attitude. Perhaps, if you ever end up managing people, you'll hopefully take a step back and contemplate investigating whether there was, in fact, a valid concern.

asgard1024 11y ago

> If someone came to me and said "I did a self-selecting self-reporting survey of salaries, and it says I'm underpaid", I think I'd be more likely to fire them for incompetence than to give them a raise. Even if besides them being wrong in this one thing, they would actually be competent and underpaid? If the answer to the above question is no, why do you even have to elaborate. Then it doesn't actually matter at all if the employee complains rightly or wrongly! I have to conclude the answer has to be yes, then. It's perfectly understandable that you, as a manager or employer, don't want to pay people for their merit if you don't have to. But it's not something you should be proud of.

cperciva 11y ago
Drawing conclusions from self-selected self-reported data (without a careful process for validation and debiasing) is a big red flag for (a) being ignorant of basic statistics, and (b) not even being aware of your ignorance of basic statistics. I mean, "why do we use random samples?" is covered in the first lecture of a 1st year stats course. I expect developers to be familiar with basic statistics.
- dlitz 11y ago
  Wow. Colin, are you just trying to win an argument online or are you really that flippant when it comes to firing an employee? Keep in mind that we're talking about people's livelihoods, here---it's the sort of thing that can stress people out to the point of mental breakdown, even if you're not actively threatening them. Firstly, this isn't a job interview. If someone's been working with you for long enough that they want to discuss a salary adjustment, then shouldn't your assessment of the value that they bring to the table be more informed than looking for "red flags" on the spot? Secondly, developers are generally not familiar with basic statistics. If it's important to your business that they be better-than-average at stats, then budget some time and money for training. Thirdly, in the real world, we make decisions from incomplete and biased information all the time. Sometimes, those decisions turn out to be wrong, but on the whole, it still works out better than pretending that we have no information at all. If you're in management and you have access to more complete information, then the smart thing for an employee to do is to have a conversation with you. It makes no sense to fire someone for that. I have a lot of respect for your technical work, but the management style you're describing so far sounds authoritarian and abusive. I really hope that's not how you'd actually treat your reports, in practice.
  - lawnchair_larry 11y ago
    He has asperger's.
  - cperciva 11y ago
    are you really that flippant when it comes to firing an employee? I don't know; I've never had to fire anyone yet. I'll admit that when writing at 1AM I may have let some hyperbole slip into my comments. It's quite possible that my reaction would be "great, your assignment for the next week is to do a rigorous statistical analysis of this data". On the other hand, as someone else commented, I said "more likely"; and that's probably true. I can't imagine a situation where I'd accept a naive analysis of self-selected self-reporting data as having any substance at all, so I would certainly not give someone a raise based on that. discuss a salary adjustment Discussing salary is fine. My point is that bad statistics is worse than nothing in this context.

jsmthrowaway 11y ago

In this thread, the repeatedly reinforced observation that expertise in crafting software does not automatically bestow skills for managing, understanding, or empathizing with people, and those whose work you respect tremendously may just disappoint you when it comes to working for them.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

DannyBee 11y ago

Vetoing > 1 peer bonus for the same thing is pretty much policy. Certainly it's manager discretion, but that's usually the right thing to do. (There are other forms of bonusing that would make more sense in such a case, like a spot bonus, or whatever)

geofft 11y ago

> If someone came to me and said "I did a self-selecting self-reporting survey of salaries, and it says I'm underpaid", I think I'd be more likely to fire them for incompetence than to give them a raise. OK, except that's not what's happening here. What seems to be happening here is someone saying "I did a self-reporting survey of salaries, and there's an existence proof that someone at my level is getting paid $X, can I get paid closer to $X than my current salary." Which is sound. The statistics and pivot tables are very interesting, but I suspect they're not directly being used for negotiations. Nobody has any good information about how much money they should be asking for. The data this spreadsheet provides is that, if you ask for $X, it's within the range of reason, and not so high that you'll get laughed at. If I apply for Google and try to negotiate a $200K salary, is that low? high? so high I'll get my offer revoked? (I've heard of that happening in tech!) I have no idea. Knowing even one person who works in my future role and makes $200K would be valuable information. So would knowing that I can't find anyone in that role making more than $110K. Knowing the mean and standard deviation of salaries at 95% confidence is not particularly more useful to me.

cperciva 11y ago
What seems to be happening here is someone saying "I did a self-reporting survey of salaries, and there's an existence proof that someone at my level is getting paid $X, can I get paid closer to $X than my current salary." Which is sound. It's sound modulo the assumption that everybody is being honest when they report their salaries, sure. Of course, in a company Google's size, there are always going to be outliers, so "someone at my level is getting paid $X" is a long way from "everybody at my level should be getting paid $X". If I apply for Google and try to negotiate a $200K salary, is that low? high? so high I'll get my offer revoked? (I've heard of that happening in tech!) I have no idea. Right, and that's the proper use of such anecdata -- to help you formulate your bargaining strategy, not as a bargaining chip itself. Ironically, if information like this had been available back in 2006, I might be working for Google: A few months after I rejected their offer, I was told that it was "pathetically low" and that I could have negotiated at least 50% more. If I had been offered that much more it might have factored into my decision; but I didn't know I could negotiate, so I ended up simply rejecting the offer.