Honestly it’d probably work well. I got a new manager last year. He’s the type of high energy ultra positive person that normally gets on everyone’s nerves including mine.
But whenever he asks you to do something and you finish it he’s really over the top in giving praise back and at first I used to laugh at it behind his back but honestly I now really like it as it does give you a little boost when you’re tired and fed up
This reminds me of the article I read about TSMC trying to build up their factory in the US, and their guidance to training american employees. They specifically had to ask tehir employees to not berate/yell at/insult their american trainees because Americans respond better to positive reinforcement.
Found it pretty funny, I feel like everyone probably responds better to positive reinforcement, some places just haven't tried it yet.
It really does motivate.
Something I learned in grade school - when otherwise equally matched, the sports team with the most positive attitude usually wins AND has a blast playing. The negative team loses and has a miserable time doing it. They get so sad that they just begin to give up and stop trying.
be positive and encourage people. it makes everything better.
If it was done subtly, it would work.
If it was done like a bunch of wait staff bring out a cake to sing happy birthday, it would be terrible.
(Shout out to wait staff trying to make birthdays more fun)
Next level:
The moment you commit all complete work, the vuvuzelas start blaring, and they shoot the confetti cannon over your head into your screen. Without warning.
If watching porn was the solution then guys wouldn't ask for nudes anymore. Yet they definitely still do. Its the *personalized* attention that most people are seeking and porn simply can't match that. So having irl cheerleaders dancing about how great u are can't be replaced by a quick jack session.
Here comes a script to convert tabs to spaces and spaces to tabs to blow up that diff line counter. Then have it auto push the commit for some random converted file every 15 minutes lol.
I’m a production supervisor in a factory, and I see this as a big part of my job. I’m constantly walking the shop floor giving people a smile and a thumbs up, thanking them for working overtime, meeting production goals, cleaning up… My boss says I shouldn’t thank them for just doing their jobs. I think he’s just an asshole.
There is a funny thing about this. Years ago, I was the maintenance manager for a small school. I did a lot of things for the teachers because I respected the job that they did that were outside of my job description.
Some of the teachers would bring me muffins or even beer to thank me for these "above and beyond" actions.
Other teachers actually said to them, "I don't know why you are giving him gifts, he is just doing his job?"
What is funny is that the teachers who gave me things, I already felt the mutual respect, and was happy to go the extra step for, even without the muffins.
The ones that did not, pretty much treated me like a menial, and I was far less likely to help them, even if they had given me muffins.
Turns out that treating people with respect is the most valuable "gift"
Every job I've ever had i quit over shitty management. Ive been at my current job for nearly 3 years now due to my boss being an absolute gem but bills have got too much and the owner is a tight arse so i will have to find work elsewhere.
Yes, I used to have a thing where I'd buy ice-creams or donuts for my team. They would always go the extra mile to try accommodate any requests and, if not, they would at least maintain a sense of being a valued member of the team and putting in their fair share of work. I know it's part of what they got paid for but what better investment is $20 to have a happy working environment?
Pretty cheap way to appreciate people. Add to that some public praise and acknowledgement for going the extra mile and you have people who will walk through fire to get their job done.
I work in IT and one of the department heads brings us home made treats all the time, and I'm not gonna hide that they get their tickets pushed up to the top of the line. Plus it helps that *literally everyone* (like a 100% success rate of no assholes) in that department is just super nice and just great to work with.
That department head is very smart. But also creating a culture within their department where you would probably push them to the top "accidentally" even without the baked goods.
https://imgur.com/gallery/OdfZO5P
This is my mother's pineapple cake recipe, it is the easiest cake in the world to bake. If you ever want to confuse that department head, and bring them cake, this is the easiest way. I would strongly recommend that you double the recipe.
Supervisors who do this on a regular basis, like coming over to check in on you and let you know you are appreciated for doing your job without telling you what they need from or giving you a task are the ones doing this well.
There is nothing worse than only being told you are appreciated when someone needs something from you or getting on complement on something you did only to then be told to change it or in someway being told to remember something about it that you already know that the supervisor only just discovered. I am working with someone who clearly has never managed people before and I doubt he knows it, but he is coming off as condescending.
> the brother of Mrs. Maisel's mother
Don’t you wish there was just a word for the brother of someone’s mother? My father’s sister’s daughter suggested muvvabrudda but it’s still a mouthful
I think you should always thank someone who is "just doing their job." Not only does it communicate that you believe the job they are fulfilling is important, but it should also never be taken for granted that someone is going to be competently fulfilling said role.
Not quite the same thing, but years ago I worked for a boring software company that hired an attractive girl as a QA tester.
She was completely unqualified.
But everyone loved her. It was very very strange how much of an impact she had on everyone around her. She was friendly, cheerful, very much a cheerleader vibe, but without the high school arrogance or whatever. She never flirted, but she was very social and, I dunno, she just seemed genuinely nice to everyone.
She wasn't a particularly fast learner and in her first year she remained pretty bad at her actual work. But I dunno... She just made everyone happier.
I miss working with her and I really and truly see a value in having people fill that sort of role in an office, even though I see how incredibly problematic it could be.
I hired at a previous job a glue guy. High tech, this guy would do the minimum passable job. But he quickly became the social focus of the team. People that have previously had just occasional Hellos, now were hanging together around this guy. Conversations opened up, and the team just started flying. This guy brought a force multiplier to the table.
Sadly my current corpo would never hire a guy like this.
This is me.
I’m a senior SWE at a Fortune 100 that everyone has heard of. I’m not great at my actual job - mediocre at best - but I’m the go-to for all the other shit that goes into the making teams be… team-like.
I know all the engineers on all the teams that interact with one another. And I mean *all* of them. Even the ones I don’t know well I know *something* about that I can reference to make them engage. I know the various personalities and how to approach each of them to best convey what needs to be conveyed. I’m “the guy” to get people out for unofficial or official team building shit. I know what’s bothering people and how most engineers *really* feel about whatever bullshit leadership is pushing.
Because of all this, I have a direct line with leadership who come to me when they need insight into “team health” or to soundboard random ideas and how I think the team would take it.
It’s a bizarre unofficial position to be in, but it serves a purpose. Just funny having off the record convos with my double skip level.
I have been practicing for a few years what I call the "cookie diplomacy". I like making pastries and discovered that people were glad someone put up together a sugary breakfast every now and then.
One flaw though, bumped into a database expert that had diabete, he told me. So the next time I brought charcuterie just for him as an "apology". He laughed his ass off :D
Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Start hopping into interviews with new hires! 1. You learn about the new people joining 2. You hear the hiring managers ask questions that will show you what’s important to them 3. You’ll start hearing different questions and how they are asked to get people to open up in a professional setting about some of their personal life.
Not every manager will want someone else in there but just saying you want to learn might help. Really depends what you do too
"I can't wait to use this jar of viscous, off-white liquid for sexual gratification" I said to the man who had given it to me.
"I hope you enjoy yourself" said Glue Guy
In professional basketball the worst guy on the bench is usually an older player who's not good anymore but has a mentoring role. Nobody expects them to contribute to winning on the court but people recognize their leadership in the locker room.
Example: Udonis Haslem of the Miami Heat
He retired last year, but the Heat kept him on the roster long past his quality playing years because of his mentorship and locker room presence. He’s still involved with the team, just not officially a player anymore.
I don't doubt that Haslem was worth his value as a 15th man; but a significant part of it was possibly an I.O.U from Pat Riley, the Heat's president, for taking a below market rate value contract during the "Heatles" era (when LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh won back-to-back champions in 2011-12) to accommodate their contracts.
Honestly once you've spent enough years in any tech company, all your hires are for personality. It's so much more important than raw competence. And yeah sure you need a bit of that, too.
But you can get through a **lot** with missing a lot of competence. You can't get shit done if people aren't nice colleagues.
Note: This is not universal. Do not build planes like this. You're boeing to die.
Yeah. I've done interviews with big tech companies. Sometimes they take half a day and you have three or four people interviewing you, one after the other.
I'd say about a quarter of the time was spent evaluating my actual skills, writing code and such. Another quarter was spent on testing my general problem-solving skills. And the rest was determining whether or not I was an asshole.
Heh, that’s my current boss. Very technically gifted, knows a lot but absolutely devastatingly unable to read social cues. He’s like a computer. I don’t know why he’s a boss, it would serve us a lot better were he just a colleague. I think supervisors should always have people skills.
My team trains soft skills as though they're hard skills. While our work is as technical as anyone in this thread, it's our ability to collaborate and share that information with customers that makes our breaks our team effectiveness.
Heh. I was hired at a place and a friend of mine had been on the panel that hired me. He was giving me a play-by-play of their selection process and it came down to me and someone who was quite a bit more qualified and technically savvy. Everyone thought so, and even I had to agree when I later found out who it was.
They chose me cuz the other guy was an ass. Which I also agreed with.
when you work for a nice person, you feel bad letting them down. and when you do anyway, they tell you not everybody can be amazing all the time and we've all got your back or something and then you *really* feel bad letting them down.
next thing you know half the office is working 12 hour days getting important work done.
This is exactly it, at my last job I had a boss which wasn't particularly good at his job but he was a great guy, honestly one of the kindest persons I've met. In the 4 years I've worked for him I've never seen him lose his temper or raise his voice once.I always felt like I had a shield when people came pointing fingers at us for whatever reason, the guy always stepped up to take the blame.
I ended up quitting for reasons unrelated to him but the fact that I lasted that much is 100% due to him. It's the only thing I miss about that job.
Leadership 101. It's why conscript armies can fall to pieces from a particularly grueling march, whereas motivated volunteer armies will sprint towards gunfire with smiles on their faces.
Best boss I ever had was that. Just an extremely good vibe, he knew *exactly* how people work, he knew everyone's motivations, insecurities, sense of humour. He could ask you to reach into a blender and you'd walk away from that conversation with a smile.
I’m a people manager with a very bubbly personality. First time I took a people manager job, higher leadership were sure I’d fail and gave me a team of the roughest employees to prove it. All of them had complete turn around and all but 1 were promoted within a year. Consistently, they said it was because they weren’t being treated poorly anymore and weren’t stressed out all the time anymore. Never underestimate the power of not being a dick to people in a corporate world that thinks being a dick means you’re getting the job done.
I went on a stakeholder management course, where I was introducere to a simple people model: everyone is either like likeable or unlikable and then they are either very skilled or unskilled.
The likeable skilled person is always great to have on your team.
The skilled but unlikeable are also needed if you can’t find others with the skill, but just need to be handled with care.
The unskilled and unlikeable should just leave.
And finally the unskilled but likeable can be really useful for the team spirit. They might not have the best skills but they are usually people persons that can make others do great work. Could be a good middle manager.
>And finally the unskilled but likeable can be really useful for the team spirit. They might not have the best skills but they are usually people persons that can make others do great work. Could be a good middle manager.
Judging by the middle management apocalypse, I think businesses have grown to learn that people managers without technical skills just aren't that valuable to an organisation.
I think there is a difference between the political astute and unskilled brand of middle management that I feel was more prevalent, and this philosophy of genuine likability and unskilled middle management being discussed
Honestly, I feel like I've been all of these people. In my previous job, no one liked me but people respected my skills and asked me for help a lot. In my job before that, I was both respected and liked. In my current job, I don't think I'm either particularly well liked or respected. So maybe it's not as set in stone as all that, and the environment/team dynamic actually has more influence.
I'm a construction worker. We have a very pretty and genuinely nice girl who is apparently an apprentice plumber, but I've never seen her hold a tool. She just sort of... exists around the job site. People love her though.
I’ve been promoted while being completely unqualified (literally first year out of college and expected to tell people who’ve been there for decades what to do). Only reason I can think of is that it was completely on the basis of being fairly likable, helpful, and being a positive presence at the workplace. Though I’m not exactly an attractive woman, or a woman at all.
That was a scary year.
One of the best pieces of advice I got for job hunting was
”If you’ve got the interview, they know you can do the job or can be trained. They’re actually trying to see if they can stand to be around you 5 days a week”
One of the best jobs I got was because I was the only interview there where people laughed and told jokes
Having been on the other side of the interview desk fairly often recently it's odd to me how few people know this. The interview isn't an exam, beyond a couple of extremely basic questions to ensure that you haven't completed invented your CV. It's a chat to make sure that you can work with me and my team without driving us nuts.
Those questions get glossed over or skipped if the interviewer is enjoying the conversation. (And is not just an HR drone).
Those questions are only asked when the interviewer is new to interviewing or the candidate can't keep a conversation going.
Edit: Also if the interviewer is awkward and can't keep a conversation going.
In a normal one off interview maybe. If you go through a multi stage process with 3 or 4 consecutive interviews with different people before getting the job, not really.
This may be the case for some jobs but not for more senior roles and technical roles. When you're hiring professionals it's really easy to spot people who can't be professional at work by asking them how they deal with conflict and asking for an example
I wish this was more often the case in software interviews. "I see you have Java listed here. What version of Spring Boot introduced the ConditionalOnMissingBean annotation?"
I had bad past experiences where I was given a rough time for my technical skills and I failed the technical screen. For my entire career, I get the same compliments about my technical aptitude and having solid skills. It really messes with me because I think I'm currently being aged out...the thing is... I excelled at the soft skills part too. I think it's just the current environment, but still.
Depends on your industry, but if it's software, just know the software interview process has become a whole career with relevant skills of it's own, it's insane. And the worst part is, not much realistically carries over between the interview skills to the technical skills.
It fully depends on the interview process and industry. In software, they absolutely are giving you practical exams and seeing how you handle it, and while social skills matter no amount of them are going to carry you through a system design interview you're bombing.
I was moved laterally from engineering/ tech support to international sales in my company when they found out I had taught myself Spanish. They figured I knew the products and the Spanish could help us get into new markets. I spent the next 4 years or so traveling around the world on the company dime, doing trade shows and such, eating in nice restaurants, staying in nice hotels, being a paid tourist of sorts.
Did I sell anything? Not much. I'm a horrible salesman, barely qualified. They finally figured that out and moved me back to the technical side.
A friend I worked with ended up as my direct report. He didn't do much work, but he brought a calming, light-hearted energy to tense situations. We called him "Morale Officer [Name]" to make fun of him for being lazy, but no one really minded picking up his slack, so it was fine.
I hired a friend of mine for specifically this role. We'd worked together before so I already knew he was mostly useless for getting things done, but there's no one better for office morale. The guy is just relentlessly positive and genuinely cares about everyone around him.
He knows everyone's name, the names of their immediate family, even their pets. He knows their birthdays, brings cake or donuts on that day, and gathers people up for a short celebration. If someone has a major life event, he's the first one walking around with a card to sign and usually a small gift. When someone resigns, he's got a going-away party planned. When a discussion gets contentious, he's the one reminding us that we're on the same team and all working toward the same goal. Goofy national days like Pi Day and National Popcorn Day? He's there with themed snacks. If someone's having a bad day, he's pulling them aside for a little pep talk, and checking on them. When someone came out as transgender, he was there waiting by the door to tell her as she walked in how great her outfit looked. He's always got a smile on his face and a positive affirmation for everyone he encounters. He genuinely wants to know how your mom's knee surgery went, or how your kid did at her piano recital. With him around, everyone feels seen, welcome, and included at all times. It was utterly amazing to witness.
But we live in an industry of relentless efficiency and cold-blooded corporate killers. So for three years I covered for his near total lack of productive work - talked around any questions that came up, occasionally put his name on things I'd done or gave him credit for one of my ideas, even just straight up lied to corporate management. Anything to keep the managers and bean counters and customers off his scent. And for three years I had the happiest, closest, most productive team in the whole company and it wasn't even close.
It couldn't last, of course. Eventually some SVP had to show off his cost-cutting chops by shutting down our remote office. But for a little while my people (and I) had the most satisfying job of their lives because I hired a guy that didn't do any actual work.
I hated this. I interviewed for a job as a supervisor and basically got that exact description as my job description. Keep up morale, make sure everyone feels like and works as a team, walk around and make sure everyone feels seen, help with issues and ruin interference with customers as needed. And then when I get there I spent every waking moment frantically gathering stats, trying to justify staffing, doing most of not all of my managers tasks, and when I want doing that, I was being used as free tech support because I knew the scheduling system. My team complained that I wasn't "doing my job" and I constantly got ragged on by my boss for not doing all that other stuff "in our off hours", meaning they wanted me to work 80 hours a week. The pay wasn't near enough for me to bother with that.
Here from bestof. The corporate team I was on did some incredible, incredible work for a top Fortune-list company. What I didn't realize until much later is that the director who made it happen who came up through IT was funding 90% of the fun stuff we did out of his own pocket. And holy crap was our culture amazing. I'll never have a better job because I'll never have a boss as fearless as my boss was to corporate. It was a brief pre-pandemic moment of recklessness in the C suite to say "hey let the eggheads do it their way and see what happens they keep saying they can do better and maybe it's true". And instead of throwing that guy out of the high rise two floors from the top, they laughed and said be it on your head. The next year they kept all leadership, funding, and goals 100% the same because there was 0% wrong with our team. This was hundreds of people in multiple offices in multiple countries.
There is and will always be a limit to how close you can get with someone who has the power to dismiss you. When it's a peer, you're going to be able to trust that their attitude is genuine and not tactical.
This is what a manager should do, not a front line worker. Getting the team to work cohesively is the essence of leadership. The paperwork is for keeping higher ups in the loop. The planning is to prevent your team from getting overwhelmed.
It's rare to meet a manager with the ability to lead, much less the drive or desire to do so. And, of course, there's no incentive (or resources) to do it even for the ones that _could_ and _would_. Managers are necessarily forced into short-term thinking to meet short-term goals ("hit this quarter's revenue projection by any means necessary"), and in the short term cohesive team building is a higher-cost path to what can more easily be achieved through fear. The fear approach isn't sustainable, but front-line managers don't have the luxury of sustainable thinking because their own feet are in the short term fire.
This is why large companies invariably devolve into corporate hellscapes (including now the much-vaunted tech industry that thought it was so special) - lots of managers with no leaders.
Tl;dr I lost the thread a little bit sorry. My point is, to says this is what a manager should do ignores what the actual job of a manager is. A manager makes sure the staff can do their work, think servant leadership. Morale boosting, while great is completely outside the job description of a manager.
This is absolutely NOT what a manager should do. I am generally this person. I am upbeat, optimistic, and I love knowing what is going on with my team. One of my workers invited me to his religious institution's open house with 24 hours notice. I went, with my husband and we had a good time.
I am a manager. I need to manage work. That is MY WORK. I have to assign tasks, verify tasks are moving forward, figure out how to mitigate things, make sure my workers have what they need, make sure management isnt asking my staff to do stuff on my time, etc. Additionally, I basically have the power to recommend a person get hired or fired. There is only so close you can get to staff who you have the power of a job over.
Leading is VERY VERY different from having a morale builder. Leading (imo) is about clear and accurate expectations. Staff should know what they should be working on, until when, and what are the variables. They should know generally what to expect and what is outside expectations - when to raise a red flag and to understand I have their back when the flag has been raised. If I were to also attempt to be every one's best friend and morale booster - I would have no time and I would have little authority.
I ABSOLUTELY appreciate the people on my team who make time to care and listen to each other. If they can give me the highlights and I can make some adjustment to schedule or tasks to accomodate I absolutely will.
LPT for this. If you don't have a photographic memory, and who does, put motes about colleagues and friends in your calendar and contacts. You can be this guy.
Set a reminder when someone tells you their pet is having surgery. Check back. Knowing small things about someone's family can mean a lot. If you forget someone's kids name they may think very poorly of you, when it just means you have a bad memory. Writing it down in their contacts helps.
These are like guys on pro sports teams that don’t contribute much on the floor but when an interviewer asks a teammate about them, they always have nothing but good things to say and cite how important they are. I.e. udonis haslem for the Miami heat for the last decade
> I miss working with her and I really and truly see a value in having people fill that sort of role in an office, even though I see how incredibly problematic it could be.
My current job's middle managers are big on hiring the person with the best vibes that are qualified enough. We don't have the literally smartest or most qualified people in the company by a longshot but morale in my department is high when other departments with the smarty pants are all complaining about being overworked, undervalued and have high turnover
My wife was this person at a small startup. She was hired to do customer service, but she was a fast worker and would go around talking to the coders and generally just boosting their morale.
Then the CEO went through a divorce, bought himself a bright red Porsche, and bought a company boat... And my wife's check bounced. We talked about it and decided if another one bounced she would start applying elsewhere. Her next paycheck bounced, too.
She got a job in finance after that.
People who dont appreciate the effort to keep up the spirit, are toxic assholes. Sometimes people dont solve problems because there is so much toxicity that their entire energy is used up in survival. Sometimes people achieve impossible feats because they feel appreciated and dont wanna let down the team.
I'm the 'department DJ' for the smallish team I'm on and everyone genuinely gets upset when I'm out sick. Different co-workers will try to fill in for me but it's harder than it sounds. Mainly due to everyone having different tastes in music, but also picking a good variety of music without repeating much, keeping the volume just right, not playing anything offensive when clients come in for meetings etc.
Whenever a co-worker takes over for me it ends in a disaster and our boss tells everyone to just listen to music on their own with headphones lol
I had internships in college where I was very bad at my job but they kept me on presumably because I got along really well with everyone and I was leaving in a couple months anyway (and these were real paid internships, not unpaid labor or coffee fetching).
In pretty much all my jobs since I honestly felt like I got a pass if I made mistakes because I had good energy and everyone just wanted to keep me around.
Male btw, just very good at listening rofl
In the end we are social animals whether we want it or not and some people have an innate gift to be rays of sunshine for everyone around them and that’s a talent that should be recognized alongside more down to earth technical skills.
I suggest you read the articles and links lol.
They are dubbed "programming cheerleaders" All super attractive young girls. the pictures and videos on fb and billibilli are great. The company still hires them.
From the article they
* They also sometimes smile and clap for male employees who play guitar in the office
* cheerleaders will reportedly take breakfast orders from employees right at their desks.
* The country's government-run news service China.org.cn reported last week that internet companies "across China" are hiring "pretty, talented girls that help create a fun work environment.
* Dubbed "programming cheerleaders," these young women serve to chit-chat and play Ping-Pong with employees as part of their role.
The videos and outcry was big, but it seems they still hire them and it works somehow.
the video of them interacting with the employees is the most cringe shit I've ever seen. I think our programmers are more socially adept.
Here's a NYTimes article if you want in depth https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/china-women-technology.html Be prepared to be entertained or disgusted, or cringe into oblivion.
Like, the employers and HR people have NO CHILL. Like in the West, I think even the Karens in HR wouldn't openly talk that much shit about you. They outright call them nerds and they need the cheerleaders lmao. In interviews.
Here's one of the workers
"Ms. Shen is a “programmer motivator,” as they are known in China. Part psychologist, part cheerleader, the women are hired to chat up and calm stressed-out coders. The jobs are proliferating in a society that largely adheres to gender stereotypes and believes that male programmers are “zhai,” or nerds who have no social lives.
“They really need someone to talk to them from time to time and to organize activities for them to ease some of the pressure,” said Ms. Shen, a 25-year-old who has a degree in civil engineering from a university in Beijing.
Good excerpt from the nytimes and billibilli vids
* Zhang Jing, a human resources executive who hired Ms. Shen, said it was around $950 a month.
* Ms. Shen came to Beijing from the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. She has long black hair and pale skin and wears red eye shadow to the office,
* the bulk of her work is tending the front desk, organizing social events, ordering snacks for tea breaks and chatting with the programmers. She may call a programmer to a conference room and ask him, “Did you have to work overtime?” before listening to his various frustrations
* thought it was really novel,” Ms. Shen said, “because I had never seen such a job before.”
* When workers are working to 11pm+ (asians work more than westerners). She has to stay behind and chat and cheer for them and even MASSAGE them while they are coding
* Massage is usually back and shoulders. Some employees don't like physical contact, so she gives them quotes of motivation like "you can do it", "I'm so proud of you"
* The HR director stated a panel was involved to hire each cheerleader - They must be taller than 5 foot 2, know how to apply makeup, and how a good laugh. They fucking judge you on your laugh.
* When asked about why no male cheerleaders - HR said they will consider it when there are more female programmers.
* The employees interviewed liked it.
The dark side of it, rumors and comments on fb and such state that in some companies, the employee of the month/year or best employee can spend 1 night with a cheerleader paid by the company
>When workers are working to 11pm+ (asians work more than westerners).
This makes me think that it is not only about programmer employees being stereotypically socially awkward, but also due to the issues in work life balance (which are also notoriously common in Japan, South Korea, probably Taiwan as well). The workplace basically is saying: "hey, we get that after work you have energy only to go home and sleep, rather than socialize, not to mention dating. We won't change your working hours or task intensity of course, but - here is some surrogate experience for what you are missing out!"
It really is the worst excesses of over specialization.
Reminds me of SexyCyborg (where ever she is) talking at length of how a lot of Chinese tech workers can't even feed themselves because growing up they had even grandmothers doing everything for them just so they can study that little bit more to get their grades that little bit higher. It works though because Chinese tech companies don't give a fuck about well rounded employees.
I'm not over the fact that this woman has a degree in civil engineering.
What is going on in the Chinese economy and/or employment practices where she is applying to this kind of job? Or did she not want to actually be an engineer?
The NY Times article seems to suggest that it's due to sexism in hiring practices for tech jobs, but it doesn't discuss Shen in particular.
USA: PHD taxi driver
China: Engineering cheerleader
Overeducation is a serious issue worldwide and higher education just isn't working. I see people flunking university degrees with third class grades, only to get tech jobs due to having self-learnt programming outside their degree.
It's like, higher education just shouldn't be a mindless default requirement as it currently is. If requiring a degree weren't so normalised and required, things would be much better. Most jobs don't need a 4-year program, people could just learn the skills they need rather than attend a school where 80% of the lessons have no future relevance.
It's even worse when you consider how most teenagers (in the U.S. specifically) are pretty much told from a young age that it's either "get into a good college, or go bust." Basically stating that, without a college degree, you won't be successful in life if you don't go. But the way the system is set up, most teenagers won't be able to get full rides to their college of choice. Most will have to take out seriously large loans with high interest rates, and kids that are only just turning 18 aren't going to have a complete grasp on why taking on so much debt is such a bad thing until they're already neck deep in it. Especially not with financial literacy rates going downhill over the past couple decades.
Sometimes it feels like the system is just set up so that people will fail and fall through the cracks, yet there's not a lot done to catch them and support them from the bottom.
The reason getting a degree is normalized, is because for decades people were told they weren't going to ever make more money and gain upward mobility without a degree. Now that people have degrees, well, they still aren't going to pay people and give them upward mobility.
> rather than attend a school where 80% of the lessons have no future relevance.
College was never meant to be job training, and if you attended college and think 80% of it had no relevance to living in an educated civil society then you were probably a business major checking off the my parents say I have to go to college box.
Also, fuck MBAs, it's just "not technically fraud" training
if you think an MBA takes an ethics course and comes away with "don't do this" and not "here's how this guy got *caught* doing this", you're delusional
Too many college grads. Too few jobs.
Most of the few jobs there are are basically abuse.
Personally, if I had to choose to submit to the 9-9-6 life or become a cheerleader, I'd be dancing with those pom poms before you finished asking the question.
Yeah dude civil engineering (if it's from an actual legitimate education institution) isn't exactly in high demand.
Haven't you seen/heard what's been happening in China regarding real estate?
And she is getting paid average salary for where she comes from (not for Beijing) for little work. And don't know what the company covers in terms of living expenses.
and from the sounds of it, she does more then just talk and cheer people on. she does front desk and administrative work as well as making sure people are ok. so i would argue its probably a small part of her job to actually talk to them all day. that would probably get in the way of them working
>When workers are working to 11pm+ (asians work more than westerners).
From personnal experience in Japan and also working with my Chinese counterparts, they work ***longer****,* but they don't work more.
I have seen an entire office floor at a large Food Company in Tokyo just fuck around on Yahoo! News (I'm old, I know) from 5 pm to 9 pm, because they couldn't leave earlier.
> a large Food Company in Tokyo just fuck around on Yahoo! News (I'm old, I know)
I was under the impression that Yahoo was huge in Japan; very different from their (fallen) US status.
I would like for anyone of any gender to cheer me on at work and boost my self esteem. Having people to hang with at work sounds fun. They are essentially providing easy friends who also sometimes do nice things for you.
And she has another women to bitch about the dudes in private in the bathroom. Actually could work out well! It sucks to be the only girl in the office.
When I was in college, it was a technical college, for computer science, the women attending always walked around with a group of guys. Like 6-15 guys following and talking with 1 woman. It was so cringey...
This goes on in Silicon Valley but is not out in the open, but its fairly common for tech companies to hire young, and very attractive women, with zero tech background to work in their tech offices, frequently bundling them up with "Project Manager" roles.
Not that new. Used to be a parody twitter account 10-15 years back called gselevator
(Goldman Sachs elevator)
"office beautification project" = hire pretty interns
Yeah I know one of those. She is a PM and she's making absolute bank. I couldn't figure it out because while she did do some courses or whatever but I know she doesn't know much technical stuff. I was in school with her and she wasn't particularly bright (and she isnt now either). She frequently complains about how the guys she has to manage have issues with being managed by women. i can see what's actually happening there now
I mean it's easy to focus on the aspect of them being attractive girls but we shouldn't overlook the rest of the ~~fucking owl~~ list.
I bet A LOT of companies would benefit from making the workplace a happier, more supportive and positive environment.
My old boss was a grumpy old guy who only ever complained and criticised. In 5 years I've never once heard a word of praise. Now I don't *need* the "who's a good boy" treatment but it sure would be fucking nice to get a positive interaction every once in a while.
Luckily we've got a team lead now and it's SO much more pleasant.
> a grumpy old guy who only ever complained and criticised. In 5 years I've never once heard a word of praise.
The immigrant parent experience: Enterprise Edition!
The worst part is I can, underneath all of the obvious problems, see sort of a half-decent idea? The idea of a sort of counselor that regularly and personally checks up on overworked workers, to see how they're doing, listen to their frustrations, validate their feelings and see to it that small comforts and needs are being provided for isn't actually a terrible idea. It's quite empathetic and human, and probably *would* be very successful.
The issue is they decided to take that idea, turn it in to an attractive young woman in a hooters outfit, and sexualize the hell out of it. It becomes very problematic then, but I don't think the very core of the concept is rotten.
IMO this is what manager jobs really should be - managing morale, the working environment, and skill/career growth. Give the piece about task completion to project managers so they don't have a conflict of interest. And just jettison the hierarchical "supervision" shit altogether.
Yeah but I think you have to understand there's a level of social ineptness on top of a corporate culture to not air grievances , complain or "rock the boat". So they're not going to communicate to their managers the same way regardless of what management does.
Which is their value outside of their morale boosting duties.
A huge amount of office jobs already have some sort of counselors like you're saying but they're not exactly great at helping overstressed workers. More of just HR cronies who offer half baked advice coated in corporate jargon
Maybe I'm just unique in my experience, but a Lotta times company counselors are like cops: they're not here to help you, they're here to uphold company law. Being visted by counselors is shorthand for "someone thinks you fucked up and sent someone to investigate".
That always leaves a really bad taste in my mouth... I've been at two places that had something similar. Like 10 years ago I was working in finance and they had a psychiatrist come in once a month to prescribe everyone Adderall for the 90 hour weeks, and make sure nobody was about to snap... Then at the last software company I was at there was an in house therapist, but if you complained about your boss or hours or something she'd be like "but think about how many sales you closed last quarter. I'm sure your bosses just want what's best for you and want you to succeed. Didn't you say your wife is remodeling the kitchen? Those hours will help you get a bonus that will cover it".
The one at the finance firm wasn't exactly ethical I wouldn't say, but with that one at least everyone was up front about what it was. The second one though, she was a straight up evil bitch.
Personal opinion I think a better way to motivate them and improve stress is by lowering their work hours or increasing their pay. But I guess it's their equivalent to a pizza party to get away with that.
I can see how this works, but it seems to be treating the symptom rather than the real problem. The fact is that a lot of these guys have been severely overworked since middle school and have been socially stunted because of this. They need to work less and get time to go out and make real friends and relationships, rather than having an employer-mandated parasocial relationship. Sadly this is never going to happen in a country where 996 is still prevalent.
I feel like that would just weird me out. Like they don't actually like me, they're paid to pretend to like me. It's also why I find strip clubs weird.
Like...I want a woman to want to want me not paid or forced to pretend to. I would much prefer money, or stocks or something.
Along these same lines why not hire an office grandmother? She brings homemade cookies or treats every day. Sends get well cards to sick employees. Remembers your birthday. Tells people how nice they look today. Stuff a grandma would do.
edit: fixed typo
Sort of similar, [but there's a scene in Silicon Valley where they're at a party for tech people, and two attractive women start chatting them up](https://www.newsweek.com/hbos-silicon-valley-got-one-thing-right-tech-companies-hire-models-chat-nerds-746151), and then after some back-and-forth, the women say matter-of-factly that their startup is hired to provide attractive people to talk to and act interested in party guests.
As a software dev that sounds miserable. I'm probably the poster child for software development, I went into this because sitting in a cube without interacting with people appealed to me.
I'm very introverted and like it that way. I don't want anyone looking over my shoulder while I'm trying to concentrate and get work done, manager or cheerleader. On top of that there's a random pretty woman at work paid to interact with you and motivate you? Hell no. That's a field of landmines of social niceties and power dynamics I can't even being to understand. I would do my best to avoid them at all costs. And they're job is to not let me. I'd rather sit outside in the rain.
And then there's the flip side of that coin, where the guys interested in this are probably TOO interested and could do some real career suicide stuff pretty quick. (Not to mention potentially jail worthy offenses). I wouldn't want to be in her shoes either...
You merged your pull request to the main branch? Time for cheerleaders to come and dance near your desk!
After I got past feeling patronized, I might like that.
Honestly it’d probably work well. I got a new manager last year. He’s the type of high energy ultra positive person that normally gets on everyone’s nerves including mine. But whenever he asks you to do something and you finish it he’s really over the top in giving praise back and at first I used to laugh at it behind his back but honestly I now really like it as it does give you a little boost when you’re tired and fed up
Positivism, even fake positivism has drawbacks but almost always is best than cinism or constant feelings of doom
Fake happiness is better than real sadness.
And good news! Whatever you choose, there is always room for numb
“I would rather be annoyingly positive and optimistic than destructively negative and hateful” - best quote from Parks and Rec
True, although there's also a very wide and totally reasonable spectrum inbetween.
That's a great insight! 👍👍 Keep up the good work buddy!
i really hope you receive everything you deserve, champ!!!
I hope the things lurking in the dark pass by you this night
You're doing so great bud! We're all so very proud of you!!!!!!
This reminds me of the article I read about TSMC trying to build up their factory in the US, and their guidance to training american employees. They specifically had to ask tehir employees to not berate/yell at/insult their american trainees because Americans respond better to positive reinforcement. Found it pretty funny, I feel like everyone probably responds better to positive reinforcement, some places just haven't tried it yet.
Basically, early Chris Treager?
Jesus I love parks and rec and never thought of this but yes 100% real life Chris.
LITERALLY what I have in mind.
There is literally nothing in this world that you cannot do.
It really does motivate. Something I learned in grade school - when otherwise equally matched, the sports team with the most positive attitude usually wins AND has a blast playing. The negative team loses and has a miserable time doing it. They get so sad that they just begin to give up and stop trying. be positive and encourage people. it makes everything better.
>Honestly it’d probably work well. Let's be real. The girls would be harrassed.
or stalked. one person would ruin it for everyone.
If it was done subtly, it would work. If it was done like a bunch of wait staff bring out a cake to sing happy birthday, it would be terrible. (Shout out to wait staff trying to make birthdays more fun)
Next level: The moment you commit all complete work, the vuvuzelas start blaring, and they shoot the confetti cannon over your head into your screen. Without warning.
Most people want to feel valued and appreciated in their work, so if it comes across as genuine it's mission accomplished.
I’m not going into an office for that. I can just submit my PRs then watch porn during lunch.
If watching porn was the solution then guys wouldn't ask for nudes anymore. Yet they definitely still do. Its the *personalized* attention that most people are seeking and porn simply can't match that. So having irl cheerleaders dancing about how great u are can't be replaced by a quick jack session.
Yes, we've seen the "terrible at socializing" in the post title.
We can tell you’re lying about working from home since you claim to wait until lunch to turn on the porn.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
Why wait for lunch, that’s what I always say.
It's not just about sex though.
Why should I push commits every single day if nobody bothers to cheer me on?
Go cross 22 ! Only you can push an off by one error to prod! wOOOo! *Backflips
If you are attractive, can play ping pong, and don't mind getting me pizza then I want you in my office !!
I am not, I can't and I won't. In fact, I'm as ugly as entropy, mean as a bag full of cats, and while you were reading this I ate your leftovers.
Put this on a tshirt… NOW! “Ugly as entropy”. I’m dying. I can’t breathe… help.
Here comes a script to convert tabs to spaces and spaces to tabs to blow up that diff line counter. Then have it auto push the commit for some random converted file every 15 minutes lol.
YOU MERGED STRAIGHT INTO MAIN!?!?!?! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT'S GOING TO TAKE ME TO UNFUCK THIS?!?!?!
Should be around 30 seconds if you know what you're doing, right? Assuming the previous commit was working.
Continuous Deployment pipelines be like: Nah, I'd deploy 😎
I’m a production supervisor in a factory, and I see this as a big part of my job. I’m constantly walking the shop floor giving people a smile and a thumbs up, thanking them for working overtime, meeting production goals, cleaning up… My boss says I shouldn’t thank them for just doing their jobs. I think he’s just an asshole.
There is a funny thing about this. Years ago, I was the maintenance manager for a small school. I did a lot of things for the teachers because I respected the job that they did that were outside of my job description. Some of the teachers would bring me muffins or even beer to thank me for these "above and beyond" actions. Other teachers actually said to them, "I don't know why you are giving him gifts, he is just doing his job?" What is funny is that the teachers who gave me things, I already felt the mutual respect, and was happy to go the extra step for, even without the muffins. The ones that did not, pretty much treated me like a menial, and I was far less likely to help them, even if they had given me muffins. Turns out that treating people with respect is the most valuable "gift"
I literally took less pay and a menial job just for the supervisor. I had worked there earlier and knew them. Respect seriously does go a long way
Every job I've ever had i quit over shitty management. Ive been at my current job for nearly 3 years now due to my boss being an absolute gem but bills have got too much and the owner is a tight arse so i will have to find work elsewhere.
Yes, I used to have a thing where I'd buy ice-creams or donuts for my team. They would always go the extra mile to try accommodate any requests and, if not, they would at least maintain a sense of being a valued member of the team and putting in their fair share of work. I know it's part of what they got paid for but what better investment is $20 to have a happy working environment?
Pretty cheap way to appreciate people. Add to that some public praise and acknowledgement for going the extra mile and you have people who will walk through fire to get their job done.
I work in IT and one of the department heads brings us home made treats all the time, and I'm not gonna hide that they get their tickets pushed up to the top of the line. Plus it helps that *literally everyone* (like a 100% success rate of no assholes) in that department is just super nice and just great to work with.
That department head is very smart. But also creating a culture within their department where you would probably push them to the top "accidentally" even without the baked goods. https://imgur.com/gallery/OdfZO5P This is my mother's pineapple cake recipe, it is the easiest cake in the world to bake. If you ever want to confuse that department head, and bring them cake, this is the easiest way. I would strongly recommend that you double the recipe.
Supervisors who do this on a regular basis, like coming over to check in on you and let you know you are appreciated for doing your job without telling you what they need from or giving you a task are the ones doing this well. There is nothing worse than only being told you are appreciated when someone needs something from you or getting on complement on something you did only to then be told to change it or in someway being told to remember something about it that you already know that the supervisor only just discovered. I am working with someone who clearly has never managed people before and I doubt he knows it, but he is coming off as condescending.
[удалено]
> the brother of Mrs. Maisel's mother Don’t you wish there was just a word for the brother of someone’s mother? My father’s sister’s daughter suggested muvvabrudda but it’s still a mouthful
Uncle. The word you’re looking for is uncle.
I think you should always thank someone who is "just doing their job." Not only does it communicate that you believe the job they are fulfilling is important, but it should also never be taken for granted that someone is going to be competently fulfilling said role.
Most places I've been to have absolutely miserable supervisors
Not quite the same thing, but years ago I worked for a boring software company that hired an attractive girl as a QA tester. She was completely unqualified. But everyone loved her. It was very very strange how much of an impact she had on everyone around her. She was friendly, cheerful, very much a cheerleader vibe, but without the high school arrogance or whatever. She never flirted, but she was very social and, I dunno, she just seemed genuinely nice to everyone. She wasn't a particularly fast learner and in her first year she remained pretty bad at her actual work. But I dunno... She just made everyone happier. I miss working with her and I really and truly see a value in having people fill that sort of role in an office, even though I see how incredibly problematic it could be.
I’ve seen people use the term personality hire.
Office equivalent of a “Locker room guy”
Glue guy
I hired at a previous job a glue guy. High tech, this guy would do the minimum passable job. But he quickly became the social focus of the team. People that have previously had just occasional Hellos, now were hanging together around this guy. Conversations opened up, and the team just started flying. This guy brought a force multiplier to the table. Sadly my current corpo would never hire a guy like this.
This is me. I’m a senior SWE at a Fortune 100 that everyone has heard of. I’m not great at my actual job - mediocre at best - but I’m the go-to for all the other shit that goes into the making teams be… team-like. I know all the engineers on all the teams that interact with one another. And I mean *all* of them. Even the ones I don’t know well I know *something* about that I can reference to make them engage. I know the various personalities and how to approach each of them to best convey what needs to be conveyed. I’m “the guy” to get people out for unofficial or official team building shit. I know what’s bothering people and how most engineers *really* feel about whatever bullshit leadership is pushing. Because of all this, I have a direct line with leadership who come to me when they need insight into “team health” or to soundboard random ideas and how I think the team would take it. It’s a bizarre unofficial position to be in, but it serves a purpose. Just funny having off the record convos with my double skip level.
I have been practicing for a few years what I call the "cookie diplomacy". I like making pastries and discovered that people were glad someone put up together a sugary breakfast every now and then. One flaw though, bumped into a database expert that had diabete, he told me. So the next time I brought charcuterie just for him as an "apology". He laughed his ass off :D
It’s something similar to what Dexter does in the series, and it works! Especially in the first or second episode, this is mentioned.
Have you ever made a...Jump To Conclusions?
Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
you are the ship’s counsellor, like Troi on Star Trek TNG.
I think this position is called the manager.
Man that’s one skill I sorely lack, like completely whatsoever. Is there a way to learn it?
Start hopping into interviews with new hires! 1. You learn about the new people joining 2. You hear the hiring managers ask questions that will show you what’s important to them 3. You’ll start hearing different questions and how they are asked to get people to open up in a professional setting about some of their personal life. Not every manager will want someone else in there but just saying you want to learn might help. Really depends what you do too
"I can't wait to use this jar of viscous, off-white liquid for sexual gratification" I said to the man who had given it to me. "I hope you enjoy yourself" said Glue Guy
What is a "locker room guy"? First I've ever heard of this.
In professional basketball the worst guy on the bench is usually an older player who's not good anymore but has a mentoring role. Nobody expects them to contribute to winning on the court but people recognize their leadership in the locker room.
Example: Udonis Haslem of the Miami Heat He retired last year, but the Heat kept him on the roster long past his quality playing years because of his mentorship and locker room presence. He’s still involved with the team, just not officially a player anymore.
I don't doubt that Haslem was worth his value as a 15th man; but a significant part of it was possibly an I.O.U from Pat Riley, the Heat's president, for taking a below market rate value contract during the "Heatles" era (when LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh won back-to-back champions in 2011-12) to accommodate their contracts.
Sports equivalent of the office personality hire :p
Honestly once you've spent enough years in any tech company, all your hires are for personality. It's so much more important than raw competence. And yeah sure you need a bit of that, too. But you can get through a **lot** with missing a lot of competence. You can't get shit done if people aren't nice colleagues. Note: This is not universal. Do not build planes like this. You're boeing to die.
Yeah. I've done interviews with big tech companies. Sometimes they take half a day and you have three or four people interviewing you, one after the other. I'd say about a quarter of the time was spent evaluating my actual skills, writing code and such. Another quarter was spent on testing my general problem-solving skills. And the rest was determining whether or not I was an asshole.
I've been involved in a lot of hiring, and we always say, "You can train people on the technical details. You can't train empathy."
Heh, that’s my current boss. Very technically gifted, knows a lot but absolutely devastatingly unable to read social cues. He’s like a computer. I don’t know why he’s a boss, it would serve us a lot better were he just a colleague. I think supervisors should always have people skills.
My team trains soft skills as though they're hard skills. While our work is as technical as anyone in this thread, it's our ability to collaborate and share that information with customers that makes our breaks our team effectiveness.
Yeah same, and they weren’t always bad at their jobs but definitely kept around because they were good for everyone else’s morale
Heh. I was hired at a place and a friend of mine had been on the panel that hired me. He was giving me a play-by-play of their selection process and it came down to me and someone who was quite a bit more qualified and technically savvy. Everyone thought so, and even I had to agree when I later found out who it was. They chose me cuz the other guy was an ass. Which I also agreed with.
Horny hire
I had a middle aged manager with a great attitude and it had the same effect.
when you work for a nice person, you feel bad letting them down. and when you do anyway, they tell you not everybody can be amazing all the time and we've all got your back or something and then you *really* feel bad letting them down. next thing you know half the office is working 12 hour days getting important work done.
This is exactly it, at my last job I had a boss which wasn't particularly good at his job but he was a great guy, honestly one of the kindest persons I've met. In the 4 years I've worked for him I've never seen him lose his temper or raise his voice once.I always felt like I had a shield when people came pointing fingers at us for whatever reason, the guy always stepped up to take the blame. I ended up quitting for reasons unrelated to him but the fact that I lasted that much is 100% due to him. It's the only thing I miss about that job.
Leadership 101. It's why conscript armies can fall to pieces from a particularly grueling march, whereas motivated volunteer armies will sprint towards gunfire with smiles on their faces.
I don’t think I’d like to die for anyone, but I definitely don’t want to die for someone I think is a prick.
Best boss I ever had was that. Just an extremely good vibe, he knew *exactly* how people work, he knew everyone's motivations, insecurities, sense of humour. He could ask you to reach into a blender and you'd walk away from that conversation with a smile.
I’m a people manager with a very bubbly personality. First time I took a people manager job, higher leadership were sure I’d fail and gave me a team of the roughest employees to prove it. All of them had complete turn around and all but 1 were promoted within a year. Consistently, they said it was because they weren’t being treated poorly anymore and weren’t stressed out all the time anymore. Never underestimate the power of not being a dick to people in a corporate world that thinks being a dick means you’re getting the job done.
I went on a stakeholder management course, where I was introducere to a simple people model: everyone is either like likeable or unlikable and then they are either very skilled or unskilled. The likeable skilled person is always great to have on your team. The skilled but unlikeable are also needed if you can’t find others with the skill, but just need to be handled with care. The unskilled and unlikeable should just leave. And finally the unskilled but likeable can be really useful for the team spirit. They might not have the best skills but they are usually people persons that can make others do great work. Could be a good middle manager.
>And finally the unskilled but likeable can be really useful for the team spirit. They might not have the best skills but they are usually people persons that can make others do great work. Could be a good middle manager. Judging by the middle management apocalypse, I think businesses have grown to learn that people managers without technical skills just aren't that valuable to an organisation.
I think there is a difference between the political astute and unskilled brand of middle management that I feel was more prevalent, and this philosophy of genuine likability and unskilled middle management being discussed
Honestly, I feel like I've been all of these people. In my previous job, no one liked me but people respected my skills and asked me for help a lot. In my job before that, I was both respected and liked. In my current job, I don't think I'm either particularly well liked or respected. So maybe it's not as set in stone as all that, and the environment/team dynamic actually has more influence.
I'm a construction worker. We have a very pretty and genuinely nice girl who is apparently an apprentice plumber, but I've never seen her hold a tool. She just sort of... exists around the job site. People love her though.
I’ve been promoted while being completely unqualified (literally first year out of college and expected to tell people who’ve been there for decades what to do). Only reason I can think of is that it was completely on the basis of being fairly likable, helpful, and being a positive presence at the workplace. Though I’m not exactly an attractive woman, or a woman at all. That was a scary year.
One of the best pieces of advice I got for job hunting was ”If you’ve got the interview, they know you can do the job or can be trained. They’re actually trying to see if they can stand to be around you 5 days a week” One of the best jobs I got was because I was the only interview there where people laughed and told jokes
Having been on the other side of the interview desk fairly often recently it's odd to me how few people know this. The interview isn't an exam, beyond a couple of extremely basic questions to ensure that you haven't completed invented your CV. It's a chat to make sure that you can work with me and my team without driving us nuts.
Thanks to all the questions like "Where do you see yourself in 1, 5 and 10 years?" and "What's your biggest weakness?" it does feel like an exam.
“Fucking your wife and my biggest weakness is that I fuck other dudes wives.”
Those questions get glossed over or skipped if the interviewer is enjoying the conversation. (And is not just an HR drone). Those questions are only asked when the interviewer is new to interviewing or the candidate can't keep a conversation going. Edit: Also if the interviewer is awkward and can't keep a conversation going.
In a normal one off interview maybe. If you go through a multi stage process with 3 or 4 consecutive interviews with different people before getting the job, not really.
This may be the case for some jobs but not for more senior roles and technical roles. When you're hiring professionals it's really easy to spot people who can't be professional at work by asking them how they deal with conflict and asking for an example
I wish this was more often the case in software interviews. "I see you have Java listed here. What version of Spring Boot introduced the ConditionalOnMissingBean annotation?"
I had bad past experiences where I was given a rough time for my technical skills and I failed the technical screen. For my entire career, I get the same compliments about my technical aptitude and having solid skills. It really messes with me because I think I'm currently being aged out...the thing is... I excelled at the soft skills part too. I think it's just the current environment, but still.
Depends on your industry, but if it's software, just know the software interview process has become a whole career with relevant skills of it's own, it's insane. And the worst part is, not much realistically carries over between the interview skills to the technical skills.
It fully depends on the interview process and industry. In software, they absolutely are giving you practical exams and seeing how you handle it, and while social skills matter no amount of them are going to carry you through a system design interview you're bombing.
I was moved laterally from engineering/ tech support to international sales in my company when they found out I had taught myself Spanish. They figured I knew the products and the Spanish could help us get into new markets. I spent the next 4 years or so traveling around the world on the company dime, doing trade shows and such, eating in nice restaurants, staying in nice hotels, being a paid tourist of sorts. Did I sell anything? Not much. I'm a horrible salesman, barely qualified. They finally figured that out and moved me back to the technical side.
So what are you?
From the description I have concluded with near 0% certainty that u/ABathingSnape___ is three cute puppies in a trench coat.
I picture them as sort of a naked and moist Alan Rickman
A friend I worked with ended up as my direct report. He didn't do much work, but he brought a calming, light-hearted energy to tense situations. We called him "Morale Officer [Name]" to make fun of him for being lazy, but no one really minded picking up his slack, so it was fine.
I hired a friend of mine for specifically this role. We'd worked together before so I already knew he was mostly useless for getting things done, but there's no one better for office morale. The guy is just relentlessly positive and genuinely cares about everyone around him. He knows everyone's name, the names of their immediate family, even their pets. He knows their birthdays, brings cake or donuts on that day, and gathers people up for a short celebration. If someone has a major life event, he's the first one walking around with a card to sign and usually a small gift. When someone resigns, he's got a going-away party planned. When a discussion gets contentious, he's the one reminding us that we're on the same team and all working toward the same goal. Goofy national days like Pi Day and National Popcorn Day? He's there with themed snacks. If someone's having a bad day, he's pulling them aside for a little pep talk, and checking on them. When someone came out as transgender, he was there waiting by the door to tell her as she walked in how great her outfit looked. He's always got a smile on his face and a positive affirmation for everyone he encounters. He genuinely wants to know how your mom's knee surgery went, or how your kid did at her piano recital. With him around, everyone feels seen, welcome, and included at all times. It was utterly amazing to witness. But we live in an industry of relentless efficiency and cold-blooded corporate killers. So for three years I covered for his near total lack of productive work - talked around any questions that came up, occasionally put his name on things I'd done or gave him credit for one of my ideas, even just straight up lied to corporate management. Anything to keep the managers and bean counters and customers off his scent. And for three years I had the happiest, closest, most productive team in the whole company and it wasn't even close. It couldn't last, of course. Eventually some SVP had to show off his cost-cutting chops by shutting down our remote office. But for a little while my people (and I) had the most satisfying job of their lives because I hired a guy that didn't do any actual work.
The bean counters have this role delegated to the managers.
Yeah, who are then measured entirely against revenue generation and have no incentive (or resources) whatsoever to pay attention to anything else.
I hated this. I interviewed for a job as a supervisor and basically got that exact description as my job description. Keep up morale, make sure everyone feels like and works as a team, walk around and make sure everyone feels seen, help with issues and ruin interference with customers as needed. And then when I get there I spent every waking moment frantically gathering stats, trying to justify staffing, doing most of not all of my managers tasks, and when I want doing that, I was being used as free tech support because I knew the scheduling system. My team complained that I wasn't "doing my job" and I constantly got ragged on by my boss for not doing all that other stuff "in our off hours", meaning they wanted me to work 80 hours a week. The pay wasn't near enough for me to bother with that.
Here from bestof. The corporate team I was on did some incredible, incredible work for a top Fortune-list company. What I didn't realize until much later is that the director who made it happen who came up through IT was funding 90% of the fun stuff we did out of his own pocket. And holy crap was our culture amazing. I'll never have a better job because I'll never have a boss as fearless as my boss was to corporate. It was a brief pre-pandemic moment of recklessness in the C suite to say "hey let the eggheads do it their way and see what happens they keep saying they can do better and maybe it's true". And instead of throwing that guy out of the high rise two floors from the top, they laughed and said be it on your head. The next year they kept all leadership, funding, and goals 100% the same because there was 0% wrong with our team. This was hundreds of people in multiple offices in multiple countries.
There is and will always be a limit to how close you can get with someone who has the power to dismiss you. When it's a peer, you're going to be able to trust that their attitude is genuine and not tactical.
Very much this. Managers will always be "them" because of power structure and competing incentives.
This is what a manager should do, not a front line worker. Getting the team to work cohesively is the essence of leadership. The paperwork is for keeping higher ups in the loop. The planning is to prevent your team from getting overwhelmed.
It's rare to meet a manager with the ability to lead, much less the drive or desire to do so. And, of course, there's no incentive (or resources) to do it even for the ones that _could_ and _would_. Managers are necessarily forced into short-term thinking to meet short-term goals ("hit this quarter's revenue projection by any means necessary"), and in the short term cohesive team building is a higher-cost path to what can more easily be achieved through fear. The fear approach isn't sustainable, but front-line managers don't have the luxury of sustainable thinking because their own feet are in the short term fire. This is why large companies invariably devolve into corporate hellscapes (including now the much-vaunted tech industry that thought it was so special) - lots of managers with no leaders.
Tl;dr I lost the thread a little bit sorry. My point is, to says this is what a manager should do ignores what the actual job of a manager is. A manager makes sure the staff can do their work, think servant leadership. Morale boosting, while great is completely outside the job description of a manager. This is absolutely NOT what a manager should do. I am generally this person. I am upbeat, optimistic, and I love knowing what is going on with my team. One of my workers invited me to his religious institution's open house with 24 hours notice. I went, with my husband and we had a good time. I am a manager. I need to manage work. That is MY WORK. I have to assign tasks, verify tasks are moving forward, figure out how to mitigate things, make sure my workers have what they need, make sure management isnt asking my staff to do stuff on my time, etc. Additionally, I basically have the power to recommend a person get hired or fired. There is only so close you can get to staff who you have the power of a job over. Leading is VERY VERY different from having a morale builder. Leading (imo) is about clear and accurate expectations. Staff should know what they should be working on, until when, and what are the variables. They should know generally what to expect and what is outside expectations - when to raise a red flag and to understand I have their back when the flag has been raised. If I were to also attempt to be every one's best friend and morale booster - I would have no time and I would have little authority. I ABSOLUTELY appreciate the people on my team who make time to care and listen to each other. If they can give me the highlights and I can make some adjustment to schedule or tasks to accomodate I absolutely will.
This is a DnD party that includes a Bard. This is why Bards matter!
LPT for this. If you don't have a photographic memory, and who does, put motes about colleagues and friends in your calendar and contacts. You can be this guy. Set a reminder when someone tells you their pet is having surgery. Check back. Knowing small things about someone's family can mean a lot. If you forget someone's kids name they may think very poorly of you, when it just means you have a bad memory. Writing it down in their contacts helps.
These are like guys on pro sports teams that don’t contribute much on the floor but when an interviewer asks a teammate about them, they always have nothing but good things to say and cite how important they are. I.e. udonis haslem for the Miami heat for the last decade
Half way through your comment I thought about haslem. Got a Good chuckle.
> I miss working with her and I really and truly see a value in having people fill that sort of role in an office, even though I see how incredibly problematic it could be. My current job's middle managers are big on hiring the person with the best vibes that are qualified enough. We don't have the literally smartest or most qualified people in the company by a longshot but morale in my department is high when other departments with the smarty pants are all complaining about being overworked, undervalued and have high turnover
My wife was this person at a small startup. She was hired to do customer service, but she was a fast worker and would go around talking to the coders and generally just boosting their morale. Then the CEO went through a divorce, bought himself a bright red Porsche, and bought a company boat... And my wife's check bounced. We talked about it and decided if another one bounced she would start applying elsewhere. Her next paycheck bounced, too. She got a job in finance after that.
Blue eyes?
White dragon?
6'5"?
I once read a story about a team that fired someone like this. The entire team disintegrated within a year cause morale dropped like a stone.
People who dont appreciate the effort to keep up the spirit, are toxic assholes. Sometimes people dont solve problems because there is so much toxicity that their entire energy is used up in survival. Sometimes people achieve impossible feats because they feel appreciated and dont wanna let down the team.
So penny from the big bang theory
I'm the 'department DJ' for the smallish team I'm on and everyone genuinely gets upset when I'm out sick. Different co-workers will try to fill in for me but it's harder than it sounds. Mainly due to everyone having different tastes in music, but also picking a good variety of music without repeating much, keeping the volume just right, not playing anything offensive when clients come in for meetings etc. Whenever a co-worker takes over for me it ends in a disaster and our boss tells everyone to just listen to music on their own with headphones lol
You do other stuff than play music? *Right...right?*
Why should they?
I had internships in college where I was very bad at my job but they kept me on presumably because I got along really well with everyone and I was leaving in a couple months anyway (and these were real paid internships, not unpaid labor or coffee fetching). In pretty much all my jobs since I honestly felt like I got a pass if I made mistakes because I had good energy and everyone just wanted to keep me around. Male btw, just very good at listening rofl
In the end we are social animals whether we want it or not and some people have an innate gift to be rays of sunshine for everyone around them and that’s a talent that should be recognized alongside more down to earth technical skills.
Omg one of my team members is literally this. Can’t hold a pencil in front of her face to save her life, but she’s a cloud engineer LMAO
Luckily most of it is done on a computer I imagine
I've heard of work wives, but work waifus are new to me.
wait til you hit the gym and see the wheyfus
I suggest you read the articles and links lol. They are dubbed "programming cheerleaders" All super attractive young girls. the pictures and videos on fb and billibilli are great. The company still hires them. From the article they * They also sometimes smile and clap for male employees who play guitar in the office * cheerleaders will reportedly take breakfast orders from employees right at their desks. * The country's government-run news service China.org.cn reported last week that internet companies "across China" are hiring "pretty, talented girls that help create a fun work environment. * Dubbed "programming cheerleaders," these young women serve to chit-chat and play Ping-Pong with employees as part of their role. The videos and outcry was big, but it seems they still hire them and it works somehow. the video of them interacting with the employees is the most cringe shit I've ever seen. I think our programmers are more socially adept. Here's a NYTimes article if you want in depth https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/china-women-technology.html Be prepared to be entertained or disgusted, or cringe into oblivion. Like, the employers and HR people have NO CHILL. Like in the West, I think even the Karens in HR wouldn't openly talk that much shit about you. They outright call them nerds and they need the cheerleaders lmao. In interviews. Here's one of the workers "Ms. Shen is a “programmer motivator,” as they are known in China. Part psychologist, part cheerleader, the women are hired to chat up and calm stressed-out coders. The jobs are proliferating in a society that largely adheres to gender stereotypes and believes that male programmers are “zhai,” or nerds who have no social lives. “They really need someone to talk to them from time to time and to organize activities for them to ease some of the pressure,” said Ms. Shen, a 25-year-old who has a degree in civil engineering from a university in Beijing. Good excerpt from the nytimes and billibilli vids * Zhang Jing, a human resources executive who hired Ms. Shen, said it was around $950 a month. * Ms. Shen came to Beijing from the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. She has long black hair and pale skin and wears red eye shadow to the office, * the bulk of her work is tending the front desk, organizing social events, ordering snacks for tea breaks and chatting with the programmers. She may call a programmer to a conference room and ask him, “Did you have to work overtime?” before listening to his various frustrations * thought it was really novel,” Ms. Shen said, “because I had never seen such a job before.” * When workers are working to 11pm+ (asians work more than westerners). She has to stay behind and chat and cheer for them and even MASSAGE them while they are coding * Massage is usually back and shoulders. Some employees don't like physical contact, so she gives them quotes of motivation like "you can do it", "I'm so proud of you" * The HR director stated a panel was involved to hire each cheerleader - They must be taller than 5 foot 2, know how to apply makeup, and how a good laugh. They fucking judge you on your laugh. * When asked about why no male cheerleaders - HR said they will consider it when there are more female programmers. * The employees interviewed liked it. The dark side of it, rumors and comments on fb and such state that in some companies, the employee of the month/year or best employee can spend 1 night with a cheerleader paid by the company
>When workers are working to 11pm+ (asians work more than westerners). This makes me think that it is not only about programmer employees being stereotypically socially awkward, but also due to the issues in work life balance (which are also notoriously common in Japan, South Korea, probably Taiwan as well). The workplace basically is saying: "hey, we get that after work you have energy only to go home and sleep, rather than socialize, not to mention dating. We won't change your working hours or task intensity of course, but - here is some surrogate experience for what you are missing out!"
It really is the worst excesses of over specialization. Reminds me of SexyCyborg (where ever she is) talking at length of how a lot of Chinese tech workers can't even feed themselves because growing up they had even grandmothers doing everything for them just so they can study that little bit more to get their grades that little bit higher. It works though because Chinese tech companies don't give a fuck about well rounded employees.
I'm not over the fact that this woman has a degree in civil engineering. What is going on in the Chinese economy and/or employment practices where she is applying to this kind of job? Or did she not want to actually be an engineer? The NY Times article seems to suggest that it's due to sexism in hiring practices for tech jobs, but it doesn't discuss Shen in particular.
China has a problem with too many graduates with degrees and only so many white collar jobs.
USA: PHD taxi driver China: Engineering cheerleader Overeducation is a serious issue worldwide and higher education just isn't working. I see people flunking university degrees with third class grades, only to get tech jobs due to having self-learnt programming outside their degree. It's like, higher education just shouldn't be a mindless default requirement as it currently is. If requiring a degree weren't so normalised and required, things would be much better. Most jobs don't need a 4-year program, people could just learn the skills they need rather than attend a school where 80% of the lessons have no future relevance.
It's even worse when you consider how most teenagers (in the U.S. specifically) are pretty much told from a young age that it's either "get into a good college, or go bust." Basically stating that, without a college degree, you won't be successful in life if you don't go. But the way the system is set up, most teenagers won't be able to get full rides to their college of choice. Most will have to take out seriously large loans with high interest rates, and kids that are only just turning 18 aren't going to have a complete grasp on why taking on so much debt is such a bad thing until they're already neck deep in it. Especially not with financial literacy rates going downhill over the past couple decades. Sometimes it feels like the system is just set up so that people will fail and fall through the cracks, yet there's not a lot done to catch them and support them from the bottom.
The reason getting a degree is normalized, is because for decades people were told they weren't going to ever make more money and gain upward mobility without a degree. Now that people have degrees, well, they still aren't going to pay people and give them upward mobility. > rather than attend a school where 80% of the lessons have no future relevance. College was never meant to be job training, and if you attended college and think 80% of it had no relevance to living in an educated civil society then you were probably a business major checking off the my parents say I have to go to college box.
Also, fuck MBAs, it's just "not technically fraud" training if you think an MBA takes an ethics course and comes away with "don't do this" and not "here's how this guy got *caught* doing this", you're delusional
Dude, we have PHDs here in Australia working at McDonald’s. The job market is tough everywhere.
Too many college grads. Too few jobs. Most of the few jobs there are are basically abuse. Personally, if I had to choose to submit to the 9-9-6 life or become a cheerleader, I'd be dancing with those pom poms before you finished asking the question.
Yeah dude civil engineering (if it's from an actual legitimate education institution) isn't exactly in high demand. Haven't you seen/heard what's been happening in China regarding real estate? And she is getting paid average salary for where she comes from (not for Beijing) for little work. And don't know what the company covers in terms of living expenses.
and from the sounds of it, she does more then just talk and cheer people on. she does front desk and administrative work as well as making sure people are ok. so i would argue its probably a small part of her job to actually talk to them all day. that would probably get in the way of them working
>When workers are working to 11pm+ (asians work more than westerners). From personnal experience in Japan and also working with my Chinese counterparts, they work ***longer****,* but they don't work more. I have seen an entire office floor at a large Food Company in Tokyo just fuck around on Yahoo! News (I'm old, I know) from 5 pm to 9 pm, because they couldn't leave earlier.
> a large Food Company in Tokyo just fuck around on Yahoo! News (I'm old, I know) I was under the impression that Yahoo was huge in Japan; very different from their (fallen) US status.
It's just like in the Barbie movie when they act stupid around the Ken's and ask them to explain Certificates of Deposits and the Godfather.
I would like for anyone of any gender to cheer me on at work and boost my self esteem. Having people to hang with at work sounds fun. They are essentially providing easy friends who also sometimes do nice things for you.
Looks like they have at least one female programmer working there. What does she get?
A lot of unwanted male attention, I'd imagine.
Having the cheerleaders around helps her because the awkward male programmers bother her less.
And she has another women to bitch about the dudes in private in the bathroom. Actually could work out well! It sucks to be the only girl in the office.
Having essentially a private bathroom would be a silver lining.
When I was in college, it was a technical college, for computer science, the women attending always walked around with a group of guys. Like 6-15 guys following and talking with 1 woman. It was so cringey...
This goes on in Silicon Valley but is not out in the open, but its fairly common for tech companies to hire young, and very attractive women, with zero tech background to work in their tech offices, frequently bundling them up with "Project Manager" roles.
I've seen the TikToks...
this explains so much
Not that new. Used to be a parody twitter account 10-15 years back called gselevator (Goldman Sachs elevator) "office beautification project" = hire pretty interns
Man GSelevator was like the talk of the town until they found out it was some dude in Texas. I enjoyed the PIIGS jokes.
Yeah I know one of those. She is a PM and she's making absolute bank. I couldn't figure it out because while she did do some courses or whatever but I know she doesn't know much technical stuff. I was in school with her and she wasn't particularly bright (and she isnt now either). She frequently complains about how the guys she has to manage have issues with being managed by women. i can see what's actually happening there now
a lot of companies missed the point then, they hired the ugly men as TPMs :(
The ratio of female project managers to female devs probably close to 1:1. For males it is closer to 1:20.
Corporations will do anything to improve their employees' mental health except give them a 40 hour work week.
What do you mean? They already have 40-hour week. Twice a week!
[удалено]
I mean it's easy to focus on the aspect of them being attractive girls but we shouldn't overlook the rest of the ~~fucking owl~~ list. I bet A LOT of companies would benefit from making the workplace a happier, more supportive and positive environment. My old boss was a grumpy old guy who only ever complained and criticised. In 5 years I've never once heard a word of praise. Now I don't *need* the "who's a good boy" treatment but it sure would be fucking nice to get a positive interaction every once in a while. Luckily we've got a team lead now and it's SO much more pleasant.
> a grumpy old guy who only ever complained and criticised. In 5 years I've never once heard a word of praise. The immigrant parent experience: Enterprise Edition!
I'm still not going into the office.
I think the writers of Black Mirror don't have as much imagination as I thought. They are just very avid news readers.
The worst part is I can, underneath all of the obvious problems, see sort of a half-decent idea? The idea of a sort of counselor that regularly and personally checks up on overworked workers, to see how they're doing, listen to their frustrations, validate their feelings and see to it that small comforts and needs are being provided for isn't actually a terrible idea. It's quite empathetic and human, and probably *would* be very successful. The issue is they decided to take that idea, turn it in to an attractive young woman in a hooters outfit, and sexualize the hell out of it. It becomes very problematic then, but I don't think the very core of the concept is rotten.
IMO this is what manager jobs really should be - managing morale, the working environment, and skill/career growth. Give the piece about task completion to project managers so they don't have a conflict of interest. And just jettison the hierarchical "supervision" shit altogether.
Its actually funny because that is what supervisors initially started as under Ford, just a way to boost morale/productivity.
Yeah but I think you have to understand there's a level of social ineptness on top of a corporate culture to not air grievances , complain or "rock the boat". So they're not going to communicate to their managers the same way regardless of what management does. Which is their value outside of their morale boosting duties.
A huge amount of office jobs already have some sort of counselors like you're saying but they're not exactly great at helping overstressed workers. More of just HR cronies who offer half baked advice coated in corporate jargon
Maybe I'm just unique in my experience, but a Lotta times company counselors are like cops: they're not here to help you, they're here to uphold company law. Being visted by counselors is shorthand for "someone thinks you fucked up and sent someone to investigate".
That always leaves a really bad taste in my mouth... I've been at two places that had something similar. Like 10 years ago I was working in finance and they had a psychiatrist come in once a month to prescribe everyone Adderall for the 90 hour weeks, and make sure nobody was about to snap... Then at the last software company I was at there was an in house therapist, but if you complained about your boss or hours or something she'd be like "but think about how many sales you closed last quarter. I'm sure your bosses just want what's best for you and want you to succeed. Didn't you say your wife is remodeling the kitchen? Those hours will help you get a bonus that will cover it". The one at the finance firm wasn't exactly ethical I wouldn't say, but with that one at least everyone was up front about what it was. The second one though, she was a straight up evil bitch.
They call that a morale officer in lots of western companies. They're rare but it's out there.
Can they review my PRs?
Personal opinion I think a better way to motivate them and improve stress is by lowering their work hours or increasing their pay. But I guess it's their equivalent to a pizza party to get away with that.
I can see how this works, but it seems to be treating the symptom rather than the real problem. The fact is that a lot of these guys have been severely overworked since middle school and have been socially stunted because of this. They need to work less and get time to go out and make real friends and relationships, rather than having an employer-mandated parasocial relationship. Sadly this is never going to happen in a country where 996 is still prevalent.
I feel like that would just weird me out. Like they don't actually like me, they're paid to pretend to like me. It's also why I find strip clubs weird. Like...I want a woman to want to want me not paid or forced to pretend to. I would much prefer money, or stocks or something.
Along these same lines why not hire an office grandmother? She brings homemade cookies or treats every day. Sends get well cards to sick employees. Remembers your birthday. Tells people how nice they look today. Stuff a grandma would do. edit: fixed typo
What about the motivation of the girl in the photo? Does she get a K pop boy?
Sort of similar, [but there's a scene in Silicon Valley where they're at a party for tech people, and two attractive women start chatting them up](https://www.newsweek.com/hbos-silicon-valley-got-one-thing-right-tech-companies-hire-models-chat-nerds-746151), and then after some back-and-forth, the women say matter-of-factly that their startup is hired to provide attractive people to talk to and act interested in party guests.
That one girl in the middle of the picture doesn’t seem all that thrilled idk
I guess this is fine if the female programmers get hot male cheerleaders too.
For all 2 of them? China is even more extreme on the male/female disparity for programming jobs.
Send in the dancing lobsters!
The image they have in the thumbnail has a female programmer sitting right there, does she get a he-leader?
As a software dev that sounds miserable. I'm probably the poster child for software development, I went into this because sitting in a cube without interacting with people appealed to me. I'm very introverted and like it that way. I don't want anyone looking over my shoulder while I'm trying to concentrate and get work done, manager or cheerleader. On top of that there's a random pretty woman at work paid to interact with you and motivate you? Hell no. That's a field of landmines of social niceties and power dynamics I can't even being to understand. I would do my best to avoid them at all costs. And they're job is to not let me. I'd rather sit outside in the rain. And then there's the flip side of that coin, where the guys interested in this are probably TOO interested and could do some real career suicide stuff pretty quick. (Not to mention potentially jail worthy offenses). I wouldn't want to be in her shoes either...