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Fundamentally, I don't know how you can't see that the current things that companies chase lead to exploitation of their workforce and that unions help the workforce push back against that exploitation.
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Feb 20, 2018 04:44
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There is a middle ground.
Skandranon fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Feb 20, 2018 |
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Feb 20, 2018 04:46
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Having worked in a failed Holacracy, everything that article says was true and worse. Maybe if you had exactly the right people but good luck with that, especially with programmers.
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Feb 20, 2018 04:56
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I think it's important to understand that Unions are run by people, and whenever you have people running things, they can get really bad. HOA are horrible and it's not always retired busybodies, but just those who are hungry for a modicum of power. I want to run a union so I can dictate: I want 4 no-shows and 23 points a sprint on the back end.
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Feb 20, 2018 05:07
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comedyblissoption posted:Worker coops can get money in many of the same ways a business gets money to start a business. That video just glosses over the issues I raised. From the video, the sources of capital are: -A couple of people can put in the seed money (in the real world, we call these people 'investors', and 99.999999% of the time, the want something in return) -The workers can take ownership in lieu of part of their pay (increases the risk for early employees, and is probably a bad idea) -Get money from a church (good luck with your God 2.0 app) -Get money from the government (where's that question mark suit guy) -Get money from political party or labor union (seems pretty unlikely and full of misaligned incentives) Richard Wolff is your classic Marxist (by his own admission) intellectual that has never run even the smallest of profitable businesses. I don't doubt that there can be a place for a few of these institutions out there, but to say it is an easy solution is ridiculous.
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Feb 20, 2018 05:07
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I never said it was easy. Also, banks lend money to worker coops in a similar manner like traditional businesses.
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Feb 20, 2018 05:18
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Wegmans and Publix are both employee-owned and are among the largest employee-owned corporations in the US. They're both good examples of capitalism IMO where the goods and services for customers tend to be pretty solid. We don't have such a company in tech so far. Tech companies seem to be in the same sort of markets as oil where the lion's share of revenue is made by a handful of companies and the tail gets super long or bimodal toward the end of lovely companies that are mostly practicing CoL (both in labor and living senses) arbitrage to enterprises that have some regulatory or other structural reason from using SaaS galore.
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Feb 20, 2018 05:18
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necrobobsledder posted:Wegmans and Publix are both employee-owned and are among the largest employee-owned corporations in the US. They're both good examples of capitalism IMO where the goods and services for customers tend to be pretty solid. Wegmans is not employee owned, they are owned by the Wegman family. They do generally treat their employees rather well, though. Even if they were, however, it would clearly not be in the same manner as some in this thread are suggesting software companies should be: where everyone is involved in decisions and there's something resembling a democracy. I've got lots of confidence that this would work in smaller software consultancies, but a grocery chain with tens of thousands of employees? Or a software company of even a few hundred building a consumer web/mobile app? I have doubts. Of course, I don't know what the threshold is for a company to be considered employee owned. How are people in this thread defining it?
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Feb 20, 2018 05:43
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fantastic in plastic posted:I'd be more worried about the effects it would have on the structure of our profession rather than productivity or wages. We'd almost certainly become more professionalized, like "real" engineers or doctors or lawyers. Credentials might be established, we might start to be held liable for loving up in a way that costs the business revenue, standards would be enforced, and so on. It's not like it would be entirely upside. How is that bad? Just given the amount of plaintext-or-weak-hashed password leaks we have on the reg, some loving professionalism, liability and other poo poo is needed. Add to it trivial security errors standard in IOT, PII leaking everywhere and so on, and tell me how it is a bad thing 
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Feb 20, 2018 10:23
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baquerd posted:That sucks too, and unions may be a good alternative in those kinds of workplaces (like I said - one hallmark of a lovely tech company/management would be that unions exist). Please do tell what companies are good. 
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Feb 20, 2018 10:30
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KoRMaK posted:Fundamentally, I don't know how you can't see that the current things that companies chase lead to exploitation of their workforce and that unions help the workforce push back against that exploitation. Say you're 16 years old in the US and want to get a part-time job at stop and shop. A month after you start working, you get hit with a 'union entrance fee' (it was 100 bucks in 2002, I hear it's 500 dollars now) and have to, after paying it, pay 9 bucks a month from then on to stay in the union, otherwise you get fired automatically as a result of a contract the union has with the grocery store. That loving sucks. It's difficult to view a union constructed this way as anything but a mere extension of the corporation itself - the notion of a 'union shop' places the union in a position where it is a mere sock puppet of the corporation. Moreover, you now face the situation where if you try to get a raise, both institutions (the union and the corporation) will blame each other for not being able to improve your situation. I like the idea of unions but the actual implementation in the US is loving terrible, and a lot of us get exposure to unions through bullshit like the above. There are good unions - my grandfather was a teamster, and that's a union that really knows its poo poo - but in reality, they behave more like the teacher's union and the stop and shop union in the US.
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Feb 20, 2018 14:27
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:Say you're 16 years old in the US and want to get a part-time job at stop and shop. A month after you start working, you get hit with a 'union entrance fee' (it was 100 bucks in 2002, I hear it's 500 dollars now) and have to, after paying it, pay 9 bucks a month from then on to stay in the union, otherwise you get fired automatically as a result of a contract the union has with the grocery store. That loving sucks. It's difficult to view a union constructed this way as anything but a mere extension of the corporation itself - the notion of a 'union shop' places the union in a position where it is a mere sock puppet of the corporation. Moreover, you now face the situation where if you try to get a raise, both institutions (the union and the corporation) will blame each other for not being able to improve your situation. I also paid supermarket union dues from my high school job paycheck, but instead of going "how dare the I think some unions need reform but that doesn't make all unions bad, and it doesn't make them all useless. That said, I do think trying to unionize an industry that skews weirdly libertarian is basically impossible.
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Feb 20, 2018 14:52
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baquerd posted:This IATSE? https://www.unionfacts.com/local/employees/172/IATSE/0/ it's the international alliance of theatrical stage employees. technical in the 'trade' sense not that it's a union for software developers. they make lovely money because most of them only work part time in the industry (it's the union that covers film crews, for the most part)
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Feb 20, 2018 14:55
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:Say you're 16 years old in the US and want to get a part-time job at stop and shop. A month after you start working, you get hit with a 'union entrance fee' (it was 100 bucks in 2002, I hear it's 500 dollars now) and have to, after paying it, pay 9 bucks a month from then on to stay in the union, otherwise you get fired automatically as a result of a contract the union has with the grocery store. You seem to be describing policies that discourage low-pay short-term employment. Why do you think that is a management goal rather than a union goal?
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Feb 20, 2018 14:56
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Xarn posted:Please do tell what companies are good. It changes over time, not just company to company but group to group within a company, and it's very dependent on the type of atmosphere you like to work in. This makes it very important to do your own individual research and engage the company in the interview process. My dream job might be your nightmare and vice versa.
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Feb 20, 2018 15:21
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So if companies change so much, even within companies, then there's nothing wrong with working at several jobs in the space of 5~10 years? If you jump ship to greener pastures?
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Feb 20, 2018 16:06
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Pollyanna posted:So if companies change so much, even within companies, then there's nothing wrong with working at several jobs in the space of 5~10 years? If you jump ship to greener pastures? No, there isn't, most of us have told you that before. It becomes 'bad' if it happens too frequently as future employers start to wonder if it is a sign you are the problem, not the company, but most people will give you a lot of leeway there. And by 'bad' I mean it negatively impacts your ability to get next job, which might be good, not that you should feel ashamed (unless the problem IS you, then fix that first).
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Feb 20, 2018 16:19
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Pollyanna posted:So if companies change so much, even within companies, then there's nothing wrong with working at several jobs in the space of 5~10 years? If you jump ship to greener pastures? That's expected these days. Personally I like to see 2-4 years or so in most positions, tending towards the higher range for lead engineers. If you show career progression though, the time frames don't matter as much, and a short stint here or there isn't a deal-breaker. Someone who consistently works for less than 2 years at each position over the last 4-5+ positions is going to make me question them on that, the more so the shorter the stints. Someone who has consistently cycled through a position a year or more as an employee is red flag city. Managers in particular should demonstrate longevity because manager turnover really hurts morale and shakes things up in often unfortunate ways.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:22
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^^ 2-4 years has been, aside from my first major venture, been my goal. I think that's good and proper.Skandranon posted:No, there isn't, most of us have told you that before. It's just really hard to reconcile with the usual "get a job and build a career around it" way of thinking that I'm used to. Sorry I keep repeating questions  quote:It becomes 'bad' if it happens too frequently as future employers start to wonder if it is a sign you are the problem, not the company, but most people will give you a lot of leeway there. And by 'bad' I mean it negatively impacts your ability to get next job, which might be good, not that you should feel ashamed (unless the problem IS you, then fix that first). I understand. I've had mixed results on that front, some places don't care, some places want to hear more information as to why, and some places have been lovely about it (those places seemed bad anyway). I'm more concerned about how it looks to my family.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:36
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Pollyanna posted:It's just really hard to reconcile with the usual "get a job and build a career around it" way of thinking that I'm used to. Sorry I keep repeating questions Stop worrying so much about what your family thinks, you are an adult now, you are responsible for your life, not them. I have found interviewing people has made it a lot easier to see the managers perspective, which is makes it a lot easier to answer their questions. Imagine you are hiring someone. You have to make the decision with very limited information, and there are some questions you just can't ask. You have 300 resumes to go through to hopefully find a few good candidates. Most of the ones who even look OK on paper will interview like poo poo. You don't want to spend 50 hours on this, you also have other things that need doing that you aren't getting to. A resume has some odd work history. You could very well sympathize with having a crap boss 1 or 2 or 3 times in a row, but unless everything else is super compelling, you might get a pass. Even if you want to take the communist perspective, the manager isn't some super bourgeoisie looking to exploit the masses, they are at some level being 'oppressed' by their boss, and understanding that will make you more powerful.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:53
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Pollyanna posted:So if companies change so much, even within companies, then there's nothing wrong with working at several jobs in the space of 5~10 years? If you jump ship to greener pastures? Define ‘wrong’? Is it morally wrong? No. Is it socially wrong? No. Will you have a perceived issue during interviews if you have 14 jobs in the space of 10 years with an average time spent of 8 months? Yes. Is that ‘wrong’? I was looking at a resume last week like that. Last 5 years had 7 jobs across 4 different tech hubs. Even before a phone screen I brought that up as a red flag that would need to dig into during the loop. In my opinion it’s not worth even on-boarding someone who will be around for 8 months given the time to recruit, train, and then start the recruitment and training for their replacement. They’d probably be a net negative velocity.
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Feb 20, 2018 17:03
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baquerd posted:It changes over time, not just company to company but group to group within a company, and it's very dependent on the type of atmosphere you like to work in. This makes it very important to do your own individual research and engage the company in the interview process. My dream job might be your nightmare and vice versa. You have said that good companies shower their employees with perks on their own and do not try to gently caress them over. Now back up your words and tell which company is good. Here is a start: It ain't any of the big 5.
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Feb 20, 2018 18:23
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Name a startup that does that, even.
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Feb 20, 2018 18:24
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Skandranon posted:It's not even possible that the answer is they are not competitive? It has to be a conspiracy of evil bads? How are you so sure you aren't the one with the silly idea? I mean, I'm sure they're "not competitive" in much the same way that companies that one labor law are "not competitive" with the hip new business trend of just loving ignoring it and hoping venture capital comes in faster than the fines do. But is that necessarily a good thing?
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Feb 20, 2018 18:26
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B-Nasty posted:-Get money from the government (where's that question mark suit guy) This is called a small business loan. You get them through the Small Business Administration in the US. AWWNAW posted:Having worked in a failed Holacracy, everything that article says was true and worse. Maybe if you had exactly the right people but good luck with that, especially with programmers. The only person talking about Holacracies is the one who's trying to conflate them, a management structure, with a Co-Op which is an ownership E: actually, it's just ownership and the owners could make whatever governance structure they want, laws permitting Munkeymon fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Feb 20, 2018 |
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Feb 20, 2018 18:36
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Xarn posted:You have said that good companies shower their employees with perks on their own and do not try to gently caress them over. I don't know who you are, what your skills are, what you're looking for, or what you enjoy. Accordingly, I can't recommend you a place where you'll be great and showered with perks and money. There's no one company that's great for everyone.
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Feb 20, 2018 19:25
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Xarn posted:You have said that good companies shower their employees with perks on their own and do not try to gently caress them over. Pollyanna posted:Name a startup that does that, even. There’s a massive amount of space in between the Big 5 and random startup #145931 If you’re limiting your job search to those two categories you’re missing out on 95% of available jobs. And many of those “middle of the road” companies are very nice places to work.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:09
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Munkeymon posted:This is called a small business loan. You get them through the Small Business Administration in the US. Serious question: have you ever run a business or applied for a mortgage? Unsecured SBA loans don't fall out of the sky; they have strict requirements and typically require either collateral to back the loan or, if unsecured, personal guarantees from the founders (i.e. putting them at a significant credit/personal asset risk if they default.) Mortgages are significantly easier, since the house is collateral, but even those these days are not the easiest to fly through if you effectively have zero assets. Your weird co-op business plan is going to get a real hearty chuckle out of the loan officers right before they throw the application in the trash. All of those options add up to risk. Real risk that the founders/originators/comrades/hippy commune members take on early in the business. The vast majority of people will demand that the risk must be offset by rewards that are not equal to the stake later employees get.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:25
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Xarn posted:You have said that good companies shower their employees with perks on their own and do not try to gently caress them over. I work for one of the big ones. I have insanely generous perks and benefits. And yes, I have an office. Not sure what is informing your position, but it is not ground truth.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:42
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Pixelboy posted:I work for one of the big ones. I have insanely generous perks and benefits. And yes, I have an office. What kind of work do you do there? What are your responsibilities?
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Feb 20, 2018 20:44
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baquerd posted:I don't know who you are, what your skills are, what you're looking for, or what you enjoy. Accordingly, I can't recommend you a place where you'll be great and showered with perks and money. There's no one company that's great for everyone. It's amazing that this list goes from innumerably many awesome companies just sloshing buckets of cash on rando code monkeys to a scant few that depend wholly on the individual person, seemingly entirely dependent on the last quoted post. Where do you work? A good place or are you a sucker?
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Feb 20, 2018 20:47
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baquerd posted:I don't know who you are, what your skills are, what you're looking for, or what you enjoy. Accordingly, I can't recommend you a place where you'll be great and showered with perks and money. There's no one company that's great for everyone. JawnV6 posted:It's amazing that this list goes from innumerably many awesome companies just sloshing buckets of cash on rando code monkeys to a scant few that depend wholly on the individual person, seemingly entirely dependent on the last quoted post.  Pixelboy posted:I work for one of the big ones. I have insanely generous perks and benefits. And yes, I have an office. I never claimed the big 5 don't provide a lot of cash and benefits. I do however claim that they do not do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but because of current market realities in IT. If you don't believe me, explain e.g. wage collusion*. * TBH I think American job market is completely stupid and the more extreme parts are unhealthy.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:56
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Pollyanna posted:What kind of work do you do there? What are your responsibilities? I'm a Principal Engineer, but I'm straddling the line between that and a dev manager -- I have a few direct reports. I work in games.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:58
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Xarn posted:
I don't believe it's because they're being magnanimous, they do it because I could be working up the street at SpaceX or NVidia by the end of the week and they know it.
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Feb 20, 2018 21:00
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JawnV6 posted:It's amazing that this list goes from innumerably many awesome companies just sloshing buckets of cash on rando code monkeys to a scant few that depend wholly on the individual person, seemingly entirely dependent on the last quoted post. I didn't think I needed to qualify that you needed to also be a great employee at a "good company" to qualify for lots of money, but apparently I did. Huh. I'm not sure at all where you got the impression I thought people could walk off the street and be handed buckets of cash. I love where I work and feel I'm very well compensated. I would absolutely turn down on its face one of the Robert Half salaries that was posted a bit ago.
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Feb 20, 2018 21:09
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B-Nasty posted:Serious question: have you ever run a business or applied for a mortgage? Unsecured SBA loans don't fall out of the sky; they have strict requirements and typically require either collateral to back the loan or, if unsecured, personal guarantees from the founders (i.e. putting them at a significant credit/personal asset risk if they default.) Mortgages are significantly easier, since the house is collateral, but even those these days are not the easiest to fly through if you effectively have zero assets. Your weird co-op business plan is going to get a real hearty chuckle out of the loan officers right before they throw the application in the trash. Yes and yes. I help run the Co-Op I live in (in that I've been president for five+ years and on the board longer) and had to get a mortgage to buy into it. When we refinanced to pay the balloon on our last ten-year the bank tried to get us to borrow more, but I imagine that's not uncommon. Of course, we own real estate assessed at few million dollars, so I guess we're borrowing on easy mode. I was also working in an ESOP for a while, which is about how I'd imagine such a business would be structured, but with voting shares (mine were non-voting). ESOPs pay no income taxes in my state, which helps with underwriting.
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Feb 20, 2018 21:20
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Some people are lucky enough to be treated fairly even in this wild west world with no unions. Plenty of others aren't. There's really no need to dip into "well, I have my own office, therefore workers aren't oppressed by our generous corporate overlords", nor is there any need to go "I don't believe you, tell me everything about your job so I know you're not lying about being paid well".
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Feb 20, 2018 21:51
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baquerd posted:I didn't think I needed to qualify that you needed to also be a great employee at a "good company" to qualify for lots of money, but apparently I did. Huh. I'm not sure at all where you got the impression I thought people could walk off the street and be handed buckets of cash. baquerd posted:Engineers are only being exploited by lovely companies, the companies you want to work for are showering their workers with money and benefits.
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Feb 20, 2018 23:30
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JawnV6 posted:You don't need to qualify anything, you need to start naming companies. Qualifying things, and taking quite the attitude as you pick out yet another throwaway line to justify Not Naming Companies, is what's aggravating about this current discussion. Like this really shouldn't be difficult, you split the entire world into two piceces here: Do you want me to name companies so you can apply to them, to tear them down, or what? I don't see how naming specific companies will benefit the discussion compared to keeping things abstract.
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Feb 20, 2018 23:48
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It's possible to be both highly compensated and paid less than your labor is worth, and when this happens it is often due to price-fixing, either on the part of your employer or of a competitor taking advantage of the unfairly depressed competition.
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Feb 21, 2018 00:44
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