In a fully remote world, you can do something that is a LOT more difficult in the office. Socialize and work essentially simultaneously. For instance, my team and I use Slack for both work and social. While working I can respond to chats w/o really breaking my flow, and if needed, I can always respond to the chat when I'm not super busy without even having to take the time to stop and tell someone I'm busy.
I see where you're coming from, but the asynchronous part of that is a very different type of socialization than getting coffee and chatting, even for 5 minutes. I think it's still anemic in terms of filling social needs.
But I think this has digressed from [the economy] to [one of those unrelated things.]
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
Yeah I'm never using personal equipment for work unless it's my own company, and probably not even then. The corp can see my personal browsing fuckin never.
+23
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
Having repaired/setup that kind of equipment, yeah, it has tracking and surveillance inherent to it. My favorite was fixing up broken handhelds, and bringing up the internal accelerator logs. Being able to prove that yeah, you hammered that device into a wall repeatedly and that's why its broken was common. No you didn't drop it, that produces a simple kinematic curve that anyone who took 100 level physics would be able to recognize. I see over 5 seconds a couple dozen multi G accelerations with hard stop spikes? Yeah, you hammered it into a wall.
It got to the point where I knew exactly which employees had anger issues, and at what time in the day they took lunch, and etc, etc, etc from pretty simple usage data and honestly pretty rudimentary tracking apps.
That gear was from 2004-2006. Things haven't exactly improved on the privacy front since then.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
Unless you're tremendous at understanding what productive work looks like systematically for every role, tracking software is relatively useless. Spoiler alert! No one has that level of expertise, especially for thought work. Instead - empower your managers, give them sane spans of control and make sure they know what they're doing. Most performance issues in orgs can be traced back to managers not wanting to do their jobs.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
Unless you're tremendous at understanding what productive work looks like systematically for every role, tracking software is relatively useless. Spoiler alert! No one has that level of expertise, especially for thought work. Instead - empower your managers, give them sane spans of control and make sure they know what they're doing. Most performance issues in orgs can be traced back to managers not wanting to do their jobs.
It gets even worse because many managers don't actually know the workdflows of the many specialized workers under them.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
Unless you're tremendous at understanding what productive work looks like systematically for every role, tracking software is relatively useless. Spoiler alert! No one has that level of expertise, especially for thought work. Instead - empower your managers, give them sane spans of control and make sure they know what they're doing. Most performance issues in orgs can be traced back to managers not wanting to do their jobs.
It gets even worse because many managers don't actually know the workdflows of the many specialized workers under them.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a manager since it is its own skill; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
Lots of companies know management is a force multiplier and invest in it
Properly motivating and leading people is incredibly difficult though so bad management is sadly the norm despite investment to improve it
Re: Moniker’s point on in-house training, I don’t agree with that; I think companies have in-house training that they feel needs supplementing from consultants or MBA programs (I.e. hiring MBAs), but it’s there
Like, “here’s the manager guide to HR policies; here’s the e-learning module on FSLA requirements; here’s the half-day session on conducting 1x1 development sessions” are probably ubiquitous...
What managers often need, though, is their own boss sitting and observing them regularly to give them help on identifying strategies and flexing their own interpersonal styles to maximize their interactions with their colleagues
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
GM also created a college. It still exists, but is no longer affiliated with GM and is just a random nth tier engineering college in Flint now.
The upside for (and reason behind) the Eisenhower era absurd top tax bracket was that at a certain point rich people just couldn't efficiently plow more money into themselves. The way to avoid just paying all the money to the government was to burn it in the corporate cash furnaces. Profit margins weren't that much lower than now, but rather than half of it going into executive bonuses, most of that half got invested in developing the business, and after the basics get maxed out there's still a lot of money left. Either 80+% goes to the government or you start climbing Diminishing Returns Mountain and run your own feeder schools and find the high schools that feed them and providing services for your employees just for the damn sake of it. It wasn't the *norm*, per se, plenty of businesses provided those services to their executives, but at a certain level that's still probably better than what we have now, because the money gets spent and respent.
Then somebody figured out you could spend all that on lobbyists and after a few years you get a Congress and President who are perfectly fine with you making billions instead of mere millions.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
Having repaired/setup that kind of equipment, yeah, it has tracking and surveillance inherent to it. My favorite was fixing up broken handhelds, and bringing up the internal accelerator logs. Being able to prove that yeah, you hammered that device into a wall repeatedly and that's why its broken was common. No you didn't drop it, that produces a simple kinematic curve that anyone who took 100 level physics would be able to recognize. I see over 5 seconds a couple dozen multi G accelerations with hard stop spikes? Yeah, you hammered it into a wall.
It got to the point where I knew exactly which employees had anger issues, and at what time in the day they took lunch, and etc, etc, etc from pretty simple usage data and honestly pretty rudimentary tracking apps.
That gear was from 2004-2006. Things haven't exactly improved on the privacy front since then.
A long long time ago when i was a syadmin, someone brought one of the work laptops back from travel with a "yeah it doesn't work and i don't know what's wrong with it". After several hours trying the diagnose the super odd behavior (keys doing random stuff other than what they say, screen drawing random colors and patterns, external hard drive scan reveals no virus, i go "what's that smell???". Open up the laptop and there is this orange gel goo all over the electronics. Wtf? I go ask the guy if he spilled something on it, at first he was evasive then goes "oh some beer spilled on it but should be dry by now" and rolls his eyes at me. Well that explains that.
+1
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
I replaced my son's iPhone screen while figuring out an issue today. taking my glasses off and drilling hard into visual focus freed up my mind for other stuff.
0
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
Having repaired/setup that kind of equipment, yeah, it has tracking and surveillance inherent to it. My favorite was fixing up broken handhelds, and bringing up the internal accelerator logs. Being able to prove that yeah, you hammered that device into a wall repeatedly and that's why its broken was common. No you didn't drop it, that produces a simple kinematic curve that anyone who took 100 level physics would be able to recognize. I see over 5 seconds a couple dozen multi G accelerations with hard stop spikes? Yeah, you hammered it into a wall.
It got to the point where I knew exactly which employees had anger issues, and at what time in the day they took lunch, and etc, etc, etc from pretty simple usage data and honestly pretty rudimentary tracking apps.
That gear was from 2004-2006. Things haven't exactly improved on the privacy front since then.
A long long time ago when i was a syadmin, someone brought one of the work laptops back from travel with a "yeah it doesn't work and i don't know what's wrong with it". After several hours trying the diagnose the super odd behavior (keys doing random stuff other than what they say, screen drawing random colors and patterns, external hard drive scan reveals no virus, i go "what's that smell???". Open up the laptop and there is this orange gel goo all over the electronics. Wtf? I go ask the guy if he spilled something on it, at first he was evasive then goes "oh some beer spilled on it but should be dry by now" and rolls his eyes at me. Well that explains that.
I won't share any of the gross details but...
Meat. Packing. Industry. Holy shit. I wouldn't touch some of the things they sent us in for repair, citing biohazards.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
It's an interesting problem, and it's one I'm currently helping my org to solve - figuring out ways to report on individuals' production in meaningful ways when managers can't actual see or directly interact with them. Without resorting to stupid shit like keyloggers.
Interestingly, since we started wfh our productivity has spiked like whoa by every relevant metric.
Management has basically told us this is going to be semi-permanent, SIP or no, because it's largely working great and most people are enjoying it.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a manager since it is its own skill; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
And also the "promoted to their level of incompetence" problem.
Employee A is good at their job. So they get promoted. They do good at THAT job. So they get promoted. Suddenly they're in a job they're not good at, so they don't get promoted further.
Employee B would be great at that other job, but they're mediocre at first job, so they never get promoted up the chain.
People tend to buoy up to the first job they're not great at, then get stuck.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
It's an interesting problem, and it's one I'm currently helping my org to solve - figuring out ways to report on individuals' production in meaningful ways when managers can't actual see or directly interact with them. Without resorting to stupid shit like keyloggers.
Interestingly, since we started wfh our productivity has spiked like whoa by every relevant metric.
Management has basically told us this is going to be semi-permanent, SIP or no, because it's largely working great and most people are enjoying it.
I'm looking forward to the 50-80-99-5 interchange not being a constant hellscape? Maybe? Hopefully?
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
It's an interesting problem, and it's one I'm currently helping my org to solve - figuring out ways to report on individuals' production in meaningful ways when managers can't actual see or directly interact with them. Without resorting to stupid shit like keyloggers.
Interestingly, since we started wfh our productivity has spiked like whoa by every relevant metric.
Management has basically told us this is going to be semi-permanent, SIP or no, because it's largely working great and most people are enjoying it.
I'm looking forward to the 50-80-99-5 interchange not being a constant hellscape? Maybe? Hopefully?
Nah, it won't make a difference.
It's currently pretty okay, even when I'm driving during what was considered rush hour in the Long Ago Times. I'm sure it'll start getting worse, though.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
It's an interesting problem, and it's one I'm currently helping my org to solve - figuring out ways to report on individuals' production in meaningful ways when managers can't actual see or directly interact with them. Without resorting to stupid shit like keyloggers.
Interestingly, since we started wfh our productivity has spiked like whoa by every relevant metric.
Management has basically told us this is going to be semi-permanent, SIP or no, because it's largely working great and most people are enjoying it.
I'm looking forward to the 50-80-99-5 interchange not being a constant hellscape? Maybe? Hopefully?
Nah, it won't make a difference.
It's currently pretty okay, even when I'm driving during what was considered rush hour in the Long Ago Times. I'm sure it'll start getting worse, though.
I actually rarely have to make it down that way, aside from when I'm going to Seafood City for some Filipino groceries, and that's normally on the weekend.
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
It's an interesting problem, and it's one I'm currently helping my org to solve - figuring out ways to report on individuals' production in meaningful ways when managers can't actual see or directly interact with them. Without resorting to stupid shit like keyloggers.
Interestingly, since we started wfh our productivity has spiked like whoa by every relevant metric.
Management has basically told us this is going to be semi-permanent, SIP or no, because it's largely working great and most people are enjoying it.
It's amazing what happens when you no longer blow something like 10% of your day just getting to and from your place of work in terms of your restedness, attitude, etc.
+22
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a manager since it is its own skill; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
And also the "promoted to their level of incompetence" problem.
Employee A is good at their job. So they get promoted. They do good at THAT job. So they get promoted. Suddenly they're in a job they're not good at, so they don't get promoted further.
Employee B would be great at that other job, but they're mediocre at first job, so they never get promoted up the chain.
People tend to buoy up to the first job they're not great at, then get stuck.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a manager since it is its own skill; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
And also the "promoted to their level of incompetence" problem.
Employee A is good at their job. So they get promoted. They do good at THAT job. So they get promoted. Suddenly they're in a job they're not good at, so they don't get promoted further.
Employee B would be great at that other job, but they're mediocre at first job, so they never get promoted up the chain.
People tend to buoy up to the first job they're not great at, then get stuck.
That's what the Peter Principle is, just fyi
Oh, I somehow misread the above then, thinking they were similar, but related, problems. My mistake
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
GM also created a college. It still exists, but is no longer affiliated with GM and is just a random nth tier engineering college in Flint now.
The upside for (and reason behind) the Eisenhower era absurd top tax bracket was that at a certain point rich people just couldn't efficiently plow more money into themselves. The way to avoid just paying all the money to the government was to burn it in the corporate cash furnaces. Profit margins weren't that much lower than now, but rather than half of it going into executive bonuses, most of that half got invested in developing the business, and after the basics get maxed out there's still a lot of money left. Either 80+% goes to the government or you start climbing Diminishing Returns Mountain and run your own feeder schools and find the high schools that feed them and providing services for your employees just for the damn sake of it. It wasn't the *norm*, per se, plenty of businesses provided those services to their executives, but at a certain level that's still probably better than what we have now, because the money gets spent and respent.
Then somebody figured out you could spend all that on lobbyists and after a few years you get a Congress and President who are perfectly fine with you making billions instead of mere millions.
I don't consider what any of those companies did as creating managers. Those were about building a monolithic company culture and that is reinforced by ostracizing those who went against it. It was all about creating a cis, white, heteronormative bloc that went from factory runners to the corporate offices. Those are caretakers not management.
If those instances were about management, then there wouldn't have to have been the sorts of anti-racism, anti-sexism, or anti-harassment laws that were passed throughout the years. Treating people fairly and equitably is the first task of management.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
GM also created a college. It still exists, but is no longer affiliated with GM and is just a random nth tier engineering college in Flint now.
The upside for (and reason behind) the Eisenhower era absurd top tax bracket was that at a certain point rich people just couldn't efficiently plow more money into themselves. The way to avoid just paying all the money to the government was to burn it in the corporate cash furnaces. Profit margins weren't that much lower than now, but rather than half of it going into executive bonuses, most of that half got invested in developing the business, and after the basics get maxed out there's still a lot of money left. Either 80+% goes to the government or you start climbing Diminishing Returns Mountain and run your own feeder schools and find the high schools that feed them and providing services for your employees just for the damn sake of it. It wasn't the *norm*, per se, plenty of businesses provided those services to their executives, but at a certain level that's still probably better than what we have now, because the money gets spent and respent.
Then somebody figured out you could spend all that on lobbyists and after a few years you get a Congress and President who are perfectly fine with you making billions instead of mere millions.
I don't consider what any of those companies did as creating managers. Those were about building a monolithic company culture and that is reinforced by ostracizing those who went against it. It was all about creating a cis, white, heteronormative bloc that went from factory runners to the corporate offices. Those are caretakers not management.
If those instances were about management, then there wouldn't have to have been the sorts of anti-racism, anti-sexism, or anti-harassment laws that were passed throughout the years. Treating people fairly and equitably is the first task of management.
It's really not. The first task of management would probably more be something like "ensuring your team is functioning smoothly and efficiently" or similar.
Unfortunately, treating people fairly and equitably is not management. Dealing with people and ensuring things happen is management.
It's also not an explicitly capitalist function, seeing as how management is important in public organizations, even those not creating easily monetized goods or services (like fire, or police, or budgeting, or social services, etc.)
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
GM also created a college. It still exists, but is no longer affiliated with GM and is just a random nth tier engineering college in Flint now.
The upside for (and reason behind) the Eisenhower era absurd top tax bracket was that at a certain point rich people just couldn't efficiently plow more money into themselves. The way to avoid just paying all the money to the government was to burn it in the corporate cash furnaces. Profit margins weren't that much lower than now, but rather than half of it going into executive bonuses, most of that half got invested in developing the business, and after the basics get maxed out there's still a lot of money left. Either 80+% goes to the government or you start climbing Diminishing Returns Mountain and run your own feeder schools and find the high schools that feed them and providing services for your employees just for the damn sake of it. It wasn't the *norm*, per se, plenty of businesses provided those services to their executives, but at a certain level that's still probably better than what we have now, because the money gets spent and respent.
Then somebody figured out you could spend all that on lobbyists and after a few years you get a Congress and President who are perfectly fine with you making billions instead of mere millions.
I don't consider what any of those companies did as creating managers. Those were about building a monolithic company culture and that is reinforced by ostracizing those who went against it. It was all about creating a cis, white, heteronormative bloc that went from factory runners to the corporate offices. Those are caretakers not management.
If you redefine management to exclude all managers before the creation and widespread adoption of MBA's, then sure I suppose. It's rather amazing how many CEO's and Presidents were never in management in the 40's and 50's though.
It's so interesting reading about "managerial capitalism" from writers and researchers in the 60s and 70s and comparing it to today. Like, it's obvious we still live under that kind of umbrella but it's such a very different type of managerial class of people incapable of actually managing people (and the ones that are good at managing people stand out).
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a managercompanies won't invest in it since it is its own skill and costs a good amount of money to get right; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
GM also created a college. It still exists, but is no longer affiliated with GM and is just a random nth tier engineering college in Flint now.
Quick note here, GM U (now Kettering University) is very expensive and still tightly tied to the auto industry. When I worked at GM, of course tons of the people there came from Kettering, which isn't really a surprise. I was however surprised to see so many Kettering interns at my current Japanese company until I discovered that they only get interns and co-ops from Kettering. Don't have 20k a semester to burn and went to UM instead? Get fucked peasant, go find work experience somewhere else. Explains why I had such a hard time finding an internship to get started in the industry.
It's a good school, but getting locked out of job opportunities even with a degree from a good public 4 year University because you didn't have the cash to burn on a private school that cornered the market on interns is some bullshit.
Did you really have a hard time getting an internship with a stem degree from UM? That's one of the best universities in the world, and in the top 5 public in the US.
It's not entirely comparable, but the big law firm my wife used to work at would solely recruit from the Ivies because they were trying to become more of a white shoe firm. Which was somewhat ironic because the biggest rainmaker at the firm went to UIUC forever ago. And maybe if you were valedictorian from there or U Mich they'd consider you, but that's basically it and only valedictorian. Being top of your class at Wayne State or Kent or Northwestern or anywhere else that also have sterling law schools didn't matter because it has the wrong seal. Even if you were a better lawyer than someone middling at Harvard. This wasn't so much the case for lateral hires, but it still makes a hurdle by effectively outsourcing your recruitment to the admissions office.
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I see where you're coming from, but the asynchronous part of that is a very different type of socialization than getting coffee and chatting, even for 5 minutes. I think it's still anemic in terms of filling social needs.
But I think this has digressed from [the economy] to [one of those unrelated things.]
I just assume tracking and surveillance is always running on work equipment anyways. Especially if you don't disclose that you're watching me on my camera at the time that you're doing it, you don't get to complain if you see my dick. I'm working from in my house, a semi regular lack of pants is one of the benefits, and you don't get to tell me when I have to wear pants in my own house. Probably gonna need to build a ferro cage to put work equipment into outside work hours.
The article mentions a small company wanting employees to install it on their personal computers. Which, lol.
Having a discussion somewhere else, but I think companies that use this stuff are just gonna fall apart more quickly. They rely on automated software to do the job of quality managers because they don't have good managers that know how to deal with people. You can't measure productivity by time in fucking G-Suite or microsoft excel for fuck's sake.
Having repaired/setup that kind of equipment, yeah, it has tracking and surveillance inherent to it. My favorite was fixing up broken handhelds, and bringing up the internal accelerator logs. Being able to prove that yeah, you hammered that device into a wall repeatedly and that's why its broken was common. No you didn't drop it, that produces a simple kinematic curve that anyone who took 100 level physics would be able to recognize. I see over 5 seconds a couple dozen multi G accelerations with hard stop spikes? Yeah, you hammered it into a wall.
It got to the point where I knew exactly which employees had anger issues, and at what time in the day they took lunch, and etc, etc, etc from pretty simple usage data and honestly pretty rudimentary tracking apps.
That gear was from 2004-2006. Things haven't exactly improved on the privacy front since then.
Unless you're tremendous at understanding what productive work looks like systematically for every role, tracking software is relatively useless. Spoiler alert! No one has that level of expertise, especially for thought work. Instead - empower your managers, give them sane spans of control and make sure they know what they're doing. Most performance issues in orgs can be traced back to managers not wanting to do their jobs.
It gets even worse because many managers don't actually know the workdflows of the many specialized workers under them.
Like I said "not wanting to do their jobs".
Peter Principle. Simultaneously a problem of people get promoted to management because it's the next step in the ladder, but nobody has in house training anymore to teach them how to be good at being a manager since it is its own skill; while also having people go straight from MBA programs to management and floating between entirely different industries when they change jobs as though understanding what the company actually does is immaterial to the ability to manage the people doing it. Because, while yes managing is its own skill to be good at, you have to know what you are managing for in the first place.
I contend that there wasn't a time when a strictly capitalist enterprise ever invested in management any further than the individual involved sought it out on their own.
That's... quite the assumption.
Properly motivating and leading people is incredibly difficult though so bad management is sadly the norm despite investment to improve it
Re: Moniker’s point on in-house training, I don’t agree with that; I think companies have in-house training that they feel needs supplementing from consultants or MBA programs (I.e. hiring MBAs), but it’s there
What managers often need, though, is their own boss sitting and observing them regularly to give them help on identifying strategies and flexing their own interpersonal styles to maximize their interactions with their colleagues
I literally spend significant time during the day walking around my home office fidgeting with something while I mentally work on a problem, which is exactly what I did when I was working in the actual office.
Did tasks get completed on time and with high quality? If the answer is yes, then fuck-off with this micro-management keystroke bullshit.
IBM built and maintained their own personal system of country clubs for management and never engaged in layoffs prior to the 90's and Louis Gerstner bringing in 'shareholder value' mindsets.
McDonald's created Hamburger University. That it still exists makes them an outlier in many ways.
GM also created a college. It still exists, but is no longer affiliated with GM and is just a random nth tier engineering college in Flint now.
The upside for (and reason behind) the Eisenhower era absurd top tax bracket was that at a certain point rich people just couldn't efficiently plow more money into themselves. The way to avoid just paying all the money to the government was to burn it in the corporate cash furnaces. Profit margins weren't that much lower than now, but rather than half of it going into executive bonuses, most of that half got invested in developing the business, and after the basics get maxed out there's still a lot of money left. Either 80+% goes to the government or you start climbing Diminishing Returns Mountain and run your own feeder schools and find the high schools that feed them and providing services for your employees just for the damn sake of it. It wasn't the *norm*, per se, plenty of businesses provided those services to their executives, but at a certain level that's still probably better than what we have now, because the money gets spent and respent.
Then somebody figured out you could spend all that on lobbyists and after a few years you get a Congress and President who are perfectly fine with you making billions instead of mere millions.
A long long time ago when i was a syadmin, someone brought one of the work laptops back from travel with a "yeah it doesn't work and i don't know what's wrong with it". After several hours trying the diagnose the super odd behavior (keys doing random stuff other than what they say, screen drawing random colors and patterns, external hard drive scan reveals no virus, i go "what's that smell???". Open up the laptop and there is this orange gel goo all over the electronics. Wtf? I go ask the guy if he spilled something on it, at first he was evasive then goes "oh some beer spilled on it but should be dry by now" and rolls his eyes at me. Well that explains that.
I replaced my son's iPhone screen while figuring out an issue today. taking my glasses off and drilling hard into visual focus freed up my mind for other stuff.
I won't share any of the gross details but...
Meat. Packing. Industry. Holy shit. I wouldn't touch some of the things they sent us in for repair, citing biohazards.
It's an interesting problem, and it's one I'm currently helping my org to solve - figuring out ways to report on individuals' production in meaningful ways when managers can't actual see or directly interact with them. Without resorting to stupid shit like keyloggers.
Interestingly, since we started wfh our productivity has spiked like whoa by every relevant metric.
Management has basically told us this is going to be semi-permanent, SIP or no, because it's largely working great and most people are enjoying it.
And also the "promoted to their level of incompetence" problem.
Employee A is good at their job. So they get promoted. They do good at THAT job. So they get promoted. Suddenly they're in a job they're not good at, so they don't get promoted further.
Employee B would be great at that other job, but they're mediocre at first job, so they never get promoted up the chain.
People tend to buoy up to the first job they're not great at, then get stuck.
I'm looking forward to the 50-80-99-5 interchange not being a constant hellscape? Maybe? Hopefully?
Nah, it won't make a difference.
It's currently pretty okay, even when I'm driving during what was considered rush hour in the Long Ago Times. I'm sure it'll start getting worse, though.
I actually rarely have to make it down that way, aside from when I'm going to Seafood City for some Filipino groceries, and that's normally on the weekend.
But those few times I had to go previously, woof.
It's amazing what happens when you no longer blow something like 10% of your day just getting to and from your place of work in terms of your restedness, attitude, etc.
That's what the Peter Principle is, just fyi
Oh, I somehow misread the above then, thinking they were similar, but related, problems. My mistake
I don't consider what any of those companies did as creating managers. Those were about building a monolithic company culture and that is reinforced by ostracizing those who went against it. It was all about creating a cis, white, heteronormative bloc that went from factory runners to the corporate offices. Those are caretakers not management.
If those instances were about management, then there wouldn't have to have been the sorts of anti-racism, anti-sexism, or anti-harassment laws that were passed throughout the years. Treating people fairly and equitably is the first task of management.
It's really not. The first task of management would probably more be something like "ensuring your team is functioning smoothly and efficiently" or similar.
It's also not an explicitly capitalist function, seeing as how management is important in public organizations, even those not creating easily monetized goods or services (like fire, or police, or budgeting, or social services, etc.)
But really just the same CEO repeating himself?
If you redefine management to exclude all managers before the creation and widespread adoption of MBA's, then sure I suppose. It's rather amazing how many CEO's and Presidents were never in management in the 40's and 50's though.
Quick note here, GM U (now Kettering University) is very expensive and still tightly tied to the auto industry. When I worked at GM, of course tons of the people there came from Kettering, which isn't really a surprise. I was however surprised to see so many Kettering interns at my current Japanese company until I discovered that they only get interns and co-ops from Kettering. Don't have 20k a semester to burn and went to UM instead? Get fucked peasant, go find work experience somewhere else. Explains why I had such a hard time finding an internship to get started in the industry.
It's a good school, but getting locked out of job opportunities even with a degree from a good public 4 year University because you didn't have the cash to burn on a private school that cornered the market on interns is some bullshit.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
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Kent State