How To Demoralize Employees: A DIY Guide for Terrible Companies
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Why go back?
he admitted to me that the technical department just wasn't the same since I had left.
That's why.
He learned. Most bosses/owners don't bother learning from their employees. Oh, of course other factors would have to be re-examined, but that one factor makes it worth a second look.
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If someone can learn, it's not usually worth leaving. Every position that I've left, it's never been worth coming back (except the one that I left to move across the country, but that's a different thing).
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I had financial pressures to deal with at the time. My wife losing 100% of her income when her pregnancy was showing = no one looking at her seriously for hire. Then my pay being cut 25%, and that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. HER job had health insurance, mine didn't.
I didn't want to leave the job. I had to, because staying was not economically feasible. Life sux like that sometimes.
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An owner of a call center advised my previous company's boss (owner) that all employees are expendable/replaceable.
I would have to agree with him. You should never operate a business without line of succession planning. Businesses should also be capable of being agile without having to worry about acceptance by employees or high performers. I am a big proponent of "hire slowly and fire quickly". No employee should be irreplaceable. Also, as dispassionate as it sounds, the personal circumstances of the employee should not weigh heavily on the decision. Businesses are businesses and not 503c entities. If you make too many decisions that effect the business negatively, but for the sole benefit of one employee, you might find yourself out of business and that will effect all of the employees negatively.
The other side of the coin is that turnover in technology companies is highly desirable. 0% turnover is almost as bad as multiples of 100%, it just takes longer to manifest its ill effects. It is beneficial to both the employee and employer. When I have hired people for a position, I always ask them what they want their next job to be. As a leader/manager/supervisor, I have always considered it my responsibility to prepare people for their next job.
Then my pay being cut 25%, and that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
And that is what happens when you improperly structure compensation.
I really should write a book on management and leadership, but I am pretty sure it is impossible to do so without sounding like a bell-end.
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This job is shit. My life is shit. Remember that depression thread? Yeah. Feeling it.
At least you get to be right about things on the internet.
Does that make you feel better?
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At least you get to be right about things on the internet.
Does that make you feel better?
Placebo effect strikes again?
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@Intercourse said:
No employee should be irreplaceable.
The flipside, though, is that high-performing employees should be retainable. It shouldn't be impossible to get rid of them, but there should be incentives to performing well; arbitrary cutting of good performers for budget reasons pretty much nukes morale. Going around telling everyone they're expendable doesn't do morale any favors either.
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Going around telling everyone they're expendable doesn't do morale any favors either.
I agree 100%. Retainability is a function of being in the proper environment and culture. You also have to structure compensation appropriately. I hate compensation that is either $X/hour or $X/year. Compensation should be mostly performance based. Bring people in at a lower salary level, but tie their compensation to a bonus structure that properly incentivizes productive behavior (this is easy to get wrong, and I could tell you some horror stories if you wanted to hear about messes I inherited). Years ago I picked that up from a business owner I worked with who always told me, "I would put the receptionist here on commission if I could figure out how to make it work."
Employees should also be in an environment where they can learn and grow. If you hire properly, that means you are bringing a lot of people on board that will outlive their effectiveness at an organization. I look for high-performers that have been overlooked in their current position, and then I grow them to where they need to be. I don't keep secrets. The more people know, the more they develop, the more productive they are, the more they feel like they have agency in their position in life...because they do.
You absolutely have to hire the right people for it to work though. I could drive some people nuts because I am constantly asking "Why did you do it that way?" I am not second-guessing people. I just want to make sure they know why they did something, as that is much more important than knowing how to do something. If you teach a person how to do something, you are creating an automaton. If you teach a person why do so something, they develop professionally and they can make decisions on their own. When they make wrong decisions, explain to them why it was an improper decision and why they should have done it differently. The only wrong answer to "why" is "because that is the way it has always been done" and similar answers.
I could go on and on about management and leadership and how so many organizations completely fuck it up. But we are way off on a tangent now. I have to say though, I work with a lot of businesses and I always hate to hear a company say, "Our employees are so happy we have 0% turnover." They are not happy, they are complacent, and they are not growing at all or some of them would have left.
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@Intercourse said:
I agree 100%. Retainability is a function of being in the proper environment and culture. You also have to structure compensation appropriately. I hate compensation that is either $X/hour or $X/year. Compensation should be mostly performance based. Bring people in at a lower salary level, but tie their compensation to a bonus structure that properly incentivizes productive behavior (this is easy to get wrong, and I could tell you some horror stories if you wanted to hear about messes I inherited). Years ago I picked that up from a business owner I worked with who always told me, "I would put the receptionist here on commission if I could figure out how to make it work."
That doesn't always work. Half the time my productivity is hampered because office politics get in the way of me being able to do my job. Right now, I've got a project that is stalled because the CEO, CIO, and COO are arguing over whether it should be done. Every few days, one of them comes by to talk to me about it. If they are for it, I'm told to keep working. If against, I'm asked why I'm still wasting time on that project. And then I have 3 more projects that can't go anywhere because I only have half the necessary tools*.
* I was going to share here, but I decided it would make a better SideBar.
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Half the time my productivity is hampered because office politics get in the way of me being able to do my job.
That is a culture problem, a leadership problem and an org chart problem. You could still implement a different compensation structure under that would mostly work, but it would require discipline by the upper echelons. With that type of culture, you would never get it though.
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@Intercourse said:
I would have to agree with him. You should never operate a business without line of succession planning.
I agree with your statement here, as ideally there should be things in place to take up the slack. However, this wasn't the key point. In a seven-person shop where you have three techs and a tech manager (me), even one termination affects your organization greatly.
As I alluded to before, I didn't want to leave. I saw potential with the bonus plan to make much more than I had been making, just continuing what I was doing - but I couldn't wait the 1-2 years it would require just to get back to what was my salary. The timing was all wrong, so we had to part ways.
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I am stuck in the world's longest and most boring meeting. This is a good way to demoralize me.
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Learn to knit or chrochet and bring that to the meeting.
this works especially well when you learn a pattern to the point that not only can you carry on a conversation while knitting you don't even have to look at your hands. (extra bonus points for gesticulating with the crochet hook between stitches and still not needing to look at your hands)
it's amazing how many meetings it turns out you didn't have to attend if you start that.
and if it fails, well at least you have a cool scarf or blanket at the end.
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I suggest bringing what a friend of mine does when he goes to meetings.
Get a spray-can. Compressed air will do. Doesn't really matter what so much.
Add a label on it: BULLSHIT SPRAY
Leave it in the middle of the room before everyone else sits down.
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In a seven-person shop where you have three techs and a tech manager (me), even one termination affects your organization greatly.
It should effect the organization, but not greatly. Not with proper succession planning. There should have been a person below you that would be capable of being developed in to your role and already on their way to it. If you do not develop people, you foster stagnation. That will kill a small organization more thoroughly than anything else.
I saw potential with the bonus plan to make much more than I had been making, just continuing what I was doing - but I couldn't wait the 1-2 years it would require just to get back to what was my salary.
Classic case of "ready, fire, aim". There should have been a plan in place to transition to a new comp structure instead of doing it all at once and disenfranchising employees. They could either do a graduated transition, or if they had the cash reserves they could use some to make employees whole in the interim. On big changes like that, communication is also key. Explain things as well as you can and as far in advance as possible and keep your door open to questions.
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I always liked those "salary clock" programs where you plug in the number of employees, their salaries, and it tells you how much money the meeting is costing.
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I always liked those "salary clock" programs where you plug in the number of employees, their salaries, and it tells you how much money the meeting is costing.
Meetings are where productivity goes to die.
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oooh.... i LIKE that!
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The best part is that you don't have to do anything. Just the sight of it seems to induce fear and keep things moving along.
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you, sir and/or/xor/nor/xnor/xand madam, are evil.
I like that.
+13 internetz to you.
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If only I'd come up with it, I'd happily claim the credit, but alas it was a technique passed on to me.
I can, however claim having used it in meetings myself to save some sanity. Evil-in-training.
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@Intercourse said:
It should effect the organization, but not greatly. Not with proper succession planning
Your point is valid, but not realistic EDIT: in this particular case: try finding someone you can train for a management succession post at $28k/year starting salary. Those people aren't starting at that company under me for that salary.
I can work with any budget, but you may not like the results. Recently in response to some ridiculous budgetary constraints, I told management that they can have a replacement intercom system for $10/year - it would consist of two cans and a string, but it would work. I didn't say they'd like it or that it would have all the features that they wanted.
@Intercourse said:
Classic case of "ready, fire, aim". There should have been a plan in place to transition to a new comp structure instead of doing it all at once and disenfranchising employees.
Exactly. +1.
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take the credit for using it then.
i'll set aside 13 more internetz that i owe to the creator if we ever find them.
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@Intercourse said:
Meetings are where productivity goes to die.
You know that if the meeting actually required feedback from @blakeyrat - e.g., estimated time to code said module/feature - that's the meeting they'd omit inviting him to.
I love it when a department meets with various management to launch an initiative that requires a new app, they source the app, make a decision, buy it, sign the multi-year contract - and THEN tell IT "oh by the way, we got this, make it work"...WTF?!
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The creator is currently on holiday in Ibiza. I will tell him when he gets back next week.
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Your point is valid, but not realistic EDIT: in this particular case: try finding someone you can train for a management succession post at $28k/year starting salary.
I get what you are saying, but as you alluded to knowing by your edit, it still comes down to bad hiring decisions and poor compensation structure. Peel off a little more money and hire at least one person that is another high performer. If you look in the right spots, and are selective in hiring, you can pick up people overlooked in their current position and they would be happy to work in a subordinate role for the opportunity to learn and develop.
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Blakeyrat
Yeah.Protip: you have to move the records by modifying two tables. Sigh.
Co-Worker
Well, better to catch it now then during the deploy.Blakeyrat
Right, but that's why I was hoping to get it out a little earlier, I'm so sick of thisI seriously honestly and truly with access to the Prod environment UI, could have manually moved those 2600 records in this time this has taken
Co-Worker
"Welcome to [Workplace]"!Blakeyrat
right but why even have developers if the process is so inefficient you'd be bettre off doing it manually with a stable of interns? hahCo-Worker
Don't question the Pocess! It gives us life.You'll make the Process angry!
Blakeyrat
HahCo-Worker
We used to only have 2 days between min mgr approval and CM approval, now we have 3.Don't question the Process.
Blakeyrat
What bothers me more is I've been here much longer than a month and I haven't accomplished a single thingCo-Worker
Welcome to the collective.Blakeyrat
I pushed it all out a weekCo-Worker
... and the neat thing is that we pay you for this.Blakeyrat
I'm just as interested in a sense of job satisfaction as I am payWell maybe next week at this time I'll have accomplished something, haha.
Co-Worker
lolI usually get that "sense of accomplishment" by filling out my timesheet.
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TIL Blakey is the new snoofle.
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The difference between me and Snoofle is the millisecond my contract is up, or I get an offer good enough to justify burning bridges, I'm fucking out of here.
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Meetings are not real work.
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The difference between me and Snoofle is the millisecond my contract is up, or I get an offer good enough to justify burning bridges, I'm fucking out of here.
Come on blakey, be strong! You owe us more funnies from the WTF factory v2.
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I'm a .NET developer.
We do .NET development here. Except every app is horrible, and web three-oh-ey, and basically everything is done client side.
I look at the .NET code, and I see how bad it is.
In my position, I'm not allowed to touch anything unless I have a project blessed by everyone above me (which never happens).
So, to use everyone's favorite type of analogy, we have a bunch of cars that run ok, but they tend to spit out gas vapors from the exhaust, which are lit by the hot exaust pipes. They set the brush next to the road on fire, and, as a mechanic, it's obviously my job to just put out the fires, instead of fixing the cars.
That's how to demoralize a technical worker.
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Web 3.0rhea? Wow. What's the future like?
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You know that if the meeting actually required feedback from @blakeyrat - e.g., estimated time to code said module/feature - that's the meeting they'd omit inviting him to.
This. So much this. Take a project very optimistically scheduled to take a week. Have a meeting to
figure out how tocut the schedule to a day and a half. (The actual schedule is longer, but the proportions are the same.) Who is not invited to the meeting? Anyone actually working on the project.
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Lots of JavaScript. No exception reporting.
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JavaScript does exceptions. It does them worse than PHP does, but it does do them.
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Yeah, but I'm saying that even our .NET exceptions are swallowed.
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@Intercourse said:
I work with a lot of businesses and I always hate to hear a company say, "Our employees are so happy we have 0% turnover."
I hear that and I get a mental flash of Colonel Klink proudly announcing "we have never had an escape from Stalag 13!"
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BULLSHIT SPRAY
BULLSHIT BINGO for the win. But forget the silly cards and filling it in secretly. Bring your own whiteboard or use your laptop and turn it so all attendees can follow.
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I never found that with the meetings I got invited to.
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I never found that with the meetings I got invited to.
You need more management meetings!
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No, I really don't.
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I know just how much fun they can be which is why I don't want any more of them.
Oh the joy of standing up in front of a SVP of a Fortune 500 company and telling him that his plan was wrong for so many (valid) technical reasons. Most of which involved fucking Citrix.
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I may be insufficiently educated to understand, but I have in the past used citrix quite successfully to work from home, once I convinced the IT department to give me access to MSTSC.exe (i.e. remote desktop) from the citrix environment and then remote into my work PC.
can we expand on why citrix is so terrible? I can totally understand that it probably is, and the stupid applications the website made me install to check my machine for things made me think it was probably terrible, but I just haven't had any problems with it as a user.
words?
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can we expand on why citrix is so terrible? I can totally understand that it probably is, and the stupid applications the website made me install to check my machine for things made me think it was probably terrible,
I'm not claiming it doesn't have its moments/merits but ...- it can't handle multi-monitor correct
- having clients inside the citrix environment always seems to lead to trouble when your application has to use specific hardware connected to the damn client device itself
- people managing the citrix environment often seem to forget that some actions have to be performed at every server
- printing still remains a headache
- user rights will bite you in the butt
- the server is shared so resource hugs from one user will degrade performance for other users. A lot of people don't seem to be getting their head around that.
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I can definitely understand that, I always used the single monitor mode because I wanted to
watch netflixkeep my second monitor for other tasks, and it certainly took some work getting IT to set up MSTSC correctly, I presume that might have been user rights related as you mention. I guess providing everyone who used citrix then remoted from citrix to their desktop PC, most of the problems would be gone though?
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I guess providing everyone who used citrix then remoted from citrix to their desktop PC, most of the problems would be gone though?
That makes no sense ... You assume there is a desktop to connect to.
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yes, I do assume that, I guess I am thinking from the perspective of "standard office employee sometimes working from home" which doesn't necessarily match all possible users of citrix.
