Work
- www.experimental-history.com Startling differences between humans and jukeboxes
OR: The secret geniuses of Wisconsin
Startling differences between humans and jukeboxes
Metadata
- Author: Adam Mastroianni
- Category: article
- URL: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/startling-differences-between-humans?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Highlights
>Similarly, when you survey people about what motivates them at work, they go “Feeling good about myself! Having freedom, the respect of my coworkers, and opportunities to develop my skills, learn things, and succeed!” When you survey people about what motivates others, they go, “Money and job security!” In another survey, people claimed that they value high-level needs (e.g., finding meaning in life) more than other people do.3
>I’m saying “people” here as if I wasn’t one of them, but I would have agreed with all of the above. It was only saying it out loud that made me realize how cynical my theory of human motivation was, and that I applied it to everyone but myself. Yikes!
>It’s not that hard to give people skills. It’s way harder to give them interests.
>The best way to use incentives, then, is to:
>1) find the people who already want what you want
>2) help them survive
>in a department where an internal survey revealed low morale among the graduate students. A town hall was convened to investigate the issue. The students knew that one of the biggest problems was that a handful of professors terrorize and neglect their underlings, and the fastest way to fix this would be to put those faculty members on an ice floe and push it out to sea. This, of course, was difficult to bring up (some of those faculty members were in the room), and so instead we talked about minor bureaucratic reforms like whether there should be some training for advisors, or whether bad advisors should have fewer opportunities to admit students. Nobody could name who these mysterious bad advisors were, of course, so even these piddling suggestions went nowhere.
>If you hire someone based on the shininess of their CV and then hope that, somehow, the employee handbook will show them how to also be a good person and not just a prolific paper-producer, you’re going to end up with a department full of sad graduate students.
>If you’re writing a constitution or a code of conduct, by all means, do a good job. But if you’re counting on something like “SUBSECTION 3A: Being evil is not allowed” to stop people from being evil, or if you think Roberts Rules of Order are going to turn an insecure despot into an enlightened ruler, well, strap in for some Dark Ages and some bad improv.
>discovering your inner motivations takes time and experience, and we gum up the process with lots of strong opinions about what should motivate us.
>If you believe that people need to be treated like jukeboxes or secret criminals, you are accepting the behaviorist premise that we need to put people inside a giant [operant conditioning chamber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber#:~:text=An%20operant%20conditioning%20chamber%20(also,graduate%20student%20at%20Harvard%20University.) that dispenses food pellets for good behavior and electric shocks for bad behavior.
- posthog.com The habits of effective remote teams - PostHog
Remote work sucks. If you work at Dell, that is. In March, it announced remote employees would not be considered for promotions, or be able to…
The habits of effective remote teams
Metadata
- Author: PostHog
- Category: email
- URL: mailto:reader-forwarded-email/1c3a1c8d6e553790a7809f3edb62d8f3
Highlights
>Remote work doesn't work without a strong writing culture.
>If a decision is made on a call and nobody writes it down, was a decision even made?
>Writing is thinking, so it helps you think through both what you’re trying to achieve and how you want to communicate it, making everyone more intentional.
>But the manager's schedule is the enemy of remote work. Successful remote teams avoid it entirely, which makes them incredibly good at getting shit done.
>We optimize for productivity, not presence.
>The biggest (and stupidest) argument against remote work? It makes people less productive. This is demonstrably untrue.
>So, if productivity isn't the problem, what is it? It’s trust. If you trust people to do their very best work, and create a culture that values transparency, they'll deliver.
>We trust people to do their best work and, in return, they deliver.
>Simply put, when something goes wrong, the investigation of the root cause is, as the company puts it, blameless. This encourages everyone to speak up without fear of punishment. People are trusted to make mistakes and, as a result, problems that do arise are easier to solve.
>Successful remote companies build everything out in the open. This gives everyone the context they need, and eliminates the political squabbles that plague less transparent companies.
>As Buffer co-founder and CEO Joel Gascoigne wrote almost a decade ago, “transparency breeds trust, and trust is is the foundation of great teamwork.” It’s still true today.
- justinjackson.ca We need more calm companies
Calm companies are profitable, value freedom, have a purpose, and improve the team's lives. Frenzied companies are crisis-driven.
Would be nice ;)
- www.baldurbjarnason.com The one about the web developer job market
We have the worst job environment for tech in over two decades and that’s with the “AI” bubble in full force. If that bubble pops hard before the job market recovers, the repercussions to the tech industry will likely eclipse the dot-com crash.
Don't read if you don't want to ruin your day.
The One About The Web Developer Job Market
Metadata
- Author: Baldur Bjarnason
- Category: rss
- URL: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/the-one-about-the-web-developer-job-market/
Highlights
>Many organisations are also resorting to employee-hostile strategies to increase employee churn, such as forced Return-To-Office policies.
>Finding a non-bullshit job is likely only going to get harder.
>• Finding effective documentation, information, and training is likely to get harder, especially in specialised topics where LLMs are even less effective than normal.
>as soon as you start to try to predict the second or third order consequences things very quickly get remarkably difficult.
>In short, futurists are largely con artists.
>you need to do something Note: ah.. the famous "you need to do something" >This is not a one-off event but has turned into a stock market driven movement towards reducing the overall headcount of the tech industry.
>What this means is that when the bubble ends, as all bubbles must, the job market is likely to collapse even further.
>The stock market loves job cuts
>Activist investors see it as an opportunity to lower developer compensation
>Management believes they can replace most of these employees with LLM-based automation
>Discovering whether it’s true or not is actually quite complicated as it, counter-intuitively, doesn’t depend on the degree of LLM functionality but instead depends entirely on what organisations, managers, and executives are using software projects for.
>Since, even in the best case scenario of the most optimistic prediction of LLM power, you’re still going to need to structure a plan for the code and review it, the time spent on code won’t drop to zero. But if you believe in the best-case prediction, a 20-40% improvement in long term productivity sounds reasonable, if a bit conservative.
>The alternate world-view, one that I think is much more common among modern management, is that the purpose of software development is churn.
>None of these require that the software be free or even low on defects. The project doesn’t need to be accessible or even functional for a majority of the users. It just needs to look good when managers, buyers, and sales people poke at it.
>The alternate world-view, which I think I can demonstrate is dominant in web development at least, is that software quality does not matter. Production not productivity is what counts. Up until now, the only way to get production and churn has been to focus on short-term developer experience, often at the expense of the long term health of the project, but the innovation of LLMs is that now you can get more churn, more production, with fewer developers.
>This means that it doesn’t matter who is correct or not in their estimate of how well these tools work.
>You aren’t going to notice the issue as an end-user. From your perspective the system is working perfectly.
>Experienced developers will edit out the issues without thinking about it, focusing on the time-saving benefit of generating the rest. Inexperienced developers won’t notice the issues and think they’ve just saved a lot of time, not realising they’ve left a ticking time bomb in the code base.
>The training data favours specific languages such as Python and JavaScript.
>• The same tool that enhances their productivity by 20-30% might also be outright harmful to a junior developer’s productivity, once you take the inevitable and eventual corrections and fixes into account.
>From the job market perspective, all that improved and safe LLM-based coding tools would mean is more job losses.
>Because manager world-views are more important than LLM innovation.
>If the technology is what’s promised, the churn world-view managers will just get more production, more churn, with even fewer developers. The job market for developers will decline.
>they will still use the tech to increase production, with fewer developers, because software quality and software project success isn’t what they’re looking for in software development. The job market for developers will decline.
>The more progress you see in the automation, the fewer of us they’ll need. It isn’t a question of the nature of the improvement, but of the attitudes of management.
>Even if that weren’t true, technical innovations in programming generally don’t improve project or business outcomes.
>The odds of a project’s success are dictated by user research, design, process, and strategy, not the individual technological innovations in programming. Rapid-Application-Development tools, for example, didn’t shift outcomes in meaningful ways.
>What matters is whether the final product works and improves the business it was made for. Business value isn’t solely a function of code defects. Technical improvements that address code defects are necessary, but not sufficient.
>tech industry management is firmly convinced that less is more when it comes to employing either.
>Whether you’re a bear or a bull on LLMs, we as developers are going to get screwed either way, especially if we’re web developers.
>Most web projects shipped by businesses today are broken, but businesses rarely seem to care.
>Most websites perform so badly that they don’t even finish loading on low-end devices, even when business outcomes directly correlate with website performance, such as in ecommerce or ad-supported web media.
>The current state of web development is as if most Windows apps released every year simply failed to launch on 20-40% of all supported Windows installs.
>If being plausible is all that matters, then that’s the literal, genuine, core strength of an LLM.
>This is a problem for the job market because if all that matters to these organisations is being seen plausibly chasing cutting-edge technology – that the actual business outcomes don’t matter – then the magic of LLMs mean that you don’t actually need that many developers to do that for much, much less money.
>Web media is a major employer, both directly and indirectly, of web developers. If a big part of the web media industry is collapsing, then that’s an entire sector that isn’t hiring any of the developers laid off by Google, Microsoft, or the rest. And the people they aren’t hiring will still be on the job market competing with everybody else who wouldn’t have even applied to work in web media.
>The scale of LLM-enabled spam production outstrips the ability of Bing or Google to counter it.
>But it gets even worse as every major search engine provider on the market is all-in on replacing regular keyword search with chatbots and LLM-generated summaries that don’t drive any traffic at all to their sources.
>It’s reasonable to expect that the job market is unlikely to ever fully bounce back, due to the collapse of web media alone.
>Experience in Node or React is not a reliable signifier of an ability to work on successful Node or React projects because most Node or React projects aren’t even close to being successful from a business perspective. Lack of experience in Node or React – such as a background in other frameworks or vanilla JS – conversely isn’t a reliable signifier that the developer won’t be a successful hire.
>Lower pay, combined with the information asymmetry about employer dysfunction, would then lead to more capable workers leaving the sector, either to run their own businesses – a generally dysfunctional web development sector is likely to have open market opportunities – or leave the industry altogether. This would exacerbate the job market’s dysfunctions even further, deepening the cycle.
>The first thing to note is that, historically, whenever management adopts an adversarial attitude towards labour, the only recourse labour has is to unionise.
>As employees, we have nothing to lose from unionising. That’s the first consequence of management deciding that labour is disposable.
>Diversifying your skills has always been a good idea for a software developer. Learning a new language gives you insight into the craft of programming that is applicable beyond that language specifically.
>But the market for developer training in general has collapsed.
>Some of it is down to the job market. Why invest in training if tech cos aren’t hiring you anyway? Why invest in training your staff if you’re planning on replacing them with LLM tools anyway?
>After all, as Amy Hoy wrote in 2016:
> Running a biz is a lot less risky than having a job, because 1000 customers is a lot less fragile than 1 employer.
>The tech industry has “innovated” itself into a crisis, but because the executives aren’t the ones out looking for jobs, they see the innovations as a success.
>The rest of us might disagree, but our opinions don’t count for much.
>But what we can’t do is pretend things are fine.
>Because they are not.
Thoughts?
- www.theguardian.com ‘In the US they think we’re communists!’ The 70,000 workers showing the world another way to earn a living
The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the globe’s largest industrial co-operative, with workers paying for the right to share in its profits – and its losses. In return for giving more to their employer, they expect more back
-
Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
- marginalrevolution.com Pay For Performance Increases Performance (Water Runs Downhill) - Marginal REVOLUTION
In my 2011 book, Launching the Innovation Renaissance, I wrote: At times, teacher pay in the United States seems more like something from Soviet-era Russia than 21st-century America. Wages for teachers are low, egalitarian and not based on performance. We pay physical education teachers about the sa...
Specific case about teachers
-
Why a big law firm is rolling back parental leave
>The big picture: Employers don't offer parental leave out of the goodness of their hearts.
>What to watch: So far, no other firms have followed suit — but Big Law is a lock-step world, so it's not something to rule out.
- www.cnbc.com The 16 highest-paying college majors, 5 years after graduation
To make the most money after graduating college, consider majoring in engineering.
- www.itprotoday.com IT Workers Want More Than Just a Paycheck
Money talks – or does it? Coming out of the pandemic, IT pros said they are looking for work/life balance and good communication.
Forward to your manager
- www.wired.com Tech Job Interviews Are Out of Control
Tech companies are famous for coddling their workers but after mass layoffs the industry's culture has shifted. Engineers say that getting hired can require days of work on unpaid assignments.
What is your experience?
- adevait.com Where Have All the Laid-off Engineers Gone? | Adeva
Unraveling the massive layoffs in the tech industry in 2022/2023: the factors behind them, their impact on engineers, and the evolving job landscape.
- www.cnbc.com How Walmart, Delta, Chevron and Starbucks are using AI to monitor employee messages
Aware uses AI to analyze companies' employee messages across Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other communications services.
- abcnews.go.com Strong hiring in most industries has far outpaced high-profile layoffs
Blockbuster job growth in the past several months has coincided with high-profile layoff announcements by a number of large companies
Some Soma
- www.forbes.com CEOs Are Using Return To Office Mandates To Mask Poor Management
Why are companies that promote remote services so opposed to enabling remote work, and more importantly, feel the need to threaten their employees?
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11380787
> CEOs Are Using Return To Office Mandates To Mask Poor Management::Why are companies that promote remote services so opposed to enabling remote work, and more importantly, feel the need to threaten their employees?
- www.cnbc.com U.S. payrolls increased by 216,000 in December, much better than expected
Nonfarm payrolls were expected to increase by 170,000 in December, according to a Dow Jones consensus estimate.
- www.businessinsider.com Panera founder says employees aren't motivated by the idea of making money for shareholders: 'Nobody cares'
Panera's founder says "therapists belong in the C-Suite" and can help CEOs understand workers' motivations.
😅 🤪 🤪 🤪 😱
- www.businessinsider.com The workplace is transforming because workers want good jobs, not just jobs
The workers of America rediscovered the idea of a good job during the pandemic.
Hopefully it is working
- www.businessinsider.com Marc Benioff just can't make up his mind on RTO
The Salesforce CEO recently said the hybrid work balance is not "one-size-fits-all," despite mandating his own workers back to the office three days a week.
- www.404media.co Bandcamp Editorial Director: “Fuuuuuck Bandcamp United”
"Bandcamp United is privileged tech workers cosplaying as Amazon warehouse workers," he said.
- blog.roblox.com The Future of How We Work Together at Roblox - Roblox Blog
Today I shared an update with our employees about the future of how we work together at Roblox. *** Dear Roblox Employees, Today we will be asking a number of our remote employees to begin working from our headquarters in San Mateo by next summer and transitioning away from remote work at Roblox. We...
Back to roots
- www.insider.com A Gen Z tech worker went viral for saying her corporate job feels like a 'full-time acting gig,' and now wants to inspire others to be themselves at work
"Why do we show up every day pretending our genuine passion in this lifetime is the growth of the business?" she asked.
- www.wsj.com 5:01 and Done: No One Wants to Schmooze After Work
Office happy hours, client dinners and other after-hours work gatherings lose their luster as more people feel the pull of home.
Good thing or bad?
-
Bosses mean it this time: Return to the office or get a new job!
What are we gonna do?
- finance.yahoo.com Leaked Microsoft memo tells managers not to use budget cuts as an explainer for lack of pay rises: ‘Reinforce that every year offers unique opportunity for impact’
Managers are being ordered to dodge employees' questions about how the latest budget cuts will impact their pay.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4109487
> Leaked Microsoft memo tells managers not to use budget cuts as an explainer for lack of pay rises: ‘Reinforce that every year offers unique opportunity for impact’::Managers are being ordered to dodge employees' questions about how the latest budget cuts will impact their pay.
- boingboing.net Restaurants near Target's Minneapolis HQ demand it bring workers back to the office | Boing Boing
Target is among the Fortune 100 firms still happy with its Covid-era remote working arrangements, but its Minneapolis HQ drove so much traffic to local businesses that they are demanding it force i…
;))
- www.june.so The Rise of Engineering-Driven Development (EDD)
Before the specs, the Jira tickets, the sprints, and the briefs, there are agile tech companies. These are the startups built by people hacking away at problems their customers talk about online. Engineers aren’t in a corner with noise canceling headphones, they're listening in on customer calls wit...
What do you think?
- qz.com Companies can drop degree requirements, but they don't know how to hire without them
If businesses really want to be inclusive, they'll need to change more than a diploma requirement
- decrapifywork.substack.com The wrong end of the telescope
Looking For Clues “Remote Work Is Dead: Zoom Tells Employees to Return to the Office” is pretty typical of the headlines for the (mis)reporting of Zoom’s ‘Return to Office’ announcement. Frankly, I don’t care. I am SOOOOOOOO bored of this ‘conversation’, which is mostly a load of empty posturing pai...
decrapifywork
- www.computerworld.com The working-from-home debate gets old
If your people are happy and productive doing their job from home, let them!
- www.cnbc.com 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans: ‘A lot of executives have egg on their faces’
As some business leaders accept hybrid work as a permanent reality, others are backtracking on earlier pledges to let employees work from home.
- www.theguardian.com Amazon starting to track and penalize workers who work from home too much
Notice sent to employees who were not in office at least three times a week, after other tech firms’ efforts to get workers back on site
cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/2420117
> Some staff members were alerted on Wednesday they were “not currently meeting our expectation of joining your colleagues in the office at least three days a week”, according to emails shared with the Financial Times. The emails were also discussed on the anonymous corporate message board platform Blind.
