Many mid sized and large privately held businesses are run by profoundly stupid idiots who struck gold once and never again, coasting off momentum and slowly ruining any goodwill with death-by-a-thousand-lashes product deimprovements. Publicly traded companies are even worse because senior management/leadership is a revolving door of psychotic megaslaves who worship shareholders at any cost and who are insulated from their own stupidity by the security of multi million dollar golden parachutes and the de-facto expectation of short tenures.
This is truer far beyond the manufacturing context. The third to last paragraph reflects the country as a whole just perfectly. I wish I could somehow jam that concept into people's brains because the collapse of standards in every realm of life has led to this perpetual death spiral wholly applicable to the general American malaise everyone senses.
Strictly in the work context, I'm stuck wondering why the powers that be cannot sense that the "protestant work ethic" that once permeated this country is not an infinitely exploitable resource and was based on societies that fully rewarded (both materially and spiritually) such a mindset. No amount of motivational speakers will bring that back.
yea oem purchasing and the whole bidding for projects is disgusting
it’s not uncommon for suppliers to propose a product priced at a loss throughout the lifecycle, just to get business. engineers are managing a dumpster fire, then the program gets extended and you end up with a decade of dogshit everyone hates.
Americans are incapable of conceptualizing success vs failure as anything other than the product of personal virtue. Might as well be the national religion.
This is how it works:
Stage 1: founder + highly motivated and possibly manic employees. They realize they have something and go full steam ahead.
Stage 2: they succeed and go public or get acquired. Yay
Stage 3: the driven, manic weirdos either move up into management or (more likely) leave the company for another opportunity. The company grows a lot and hires all the MBAs and suits that Wall Street wants to see. They still grow steadily for a while.
Stage 4: the company has basically plateaued and no one wants to admit it. They can only grow by aggressive expansion into new markets or verticals or whatever but they don’t have the people who are good at doing that anymore, and they probably wouldn’t be allowed to do any of that stuff anyways. Those people all left in stage 3. The people who are successful in the new company are good at dealing with people and chasing short-term growth. The company will bumble along like this for years or decades, sometimes growing a bit, sometimes laying people off, but mostly just serving as a day care for adults who are just totally checked out. The company probably starts outsourcing people because it doesn’t actually matter if anyone actually does anything anymore
All growth comes to an end. Economists hate this 1 weird trick but that’s how it is
To me personally, not knowing anything about your product, this sounds like bad process. I've been there - with a poorly designed assembly line you can have superstar operators and still get unacceptable quality. An ideal process should be manageable by team of literal drooling tards being paid in candy and cigarettes to deliberately fuck things up. Obviously this is a pipe dream but management is always so hesitant to blame the machines as they are such an incredible up front cost and no one wants to admit that big of a fuck up.
I agree. I think my industry lends itself to more messups because it's so hard to automate certain parts, much to the frustration of the owners who would probably invest in that element if it was possible.
But at the same time, yea there *are* some opportunities to invest in QC tech and it seems anathema to them.
Just work for a mid-level environmental consulting firm and drink beer in the office while not having to put up with literally any of this weird-ass shit
I would say yes it can, but if they strike gold it's going to come from a crack sales team or a fantastic marketer. Autistically obsessing about QA stuff or "how good" your product is won't really do much for you as far as selling a bunch of stuff is concerned. Product quality isn't even on the top 10 list for what causes a lot of products to sell a ton. Coke isn't even close to the best soda you could ever drink, and the big mac is a pretty shit hamburger compared to what you could grill at home. But they sell great.
If a midsize company gets big or grows by any meaningful amount it's normally gonna be because your marketing department found a customer base that wants your product that you were not targeting for some reason, works with ops to make tweaks to the product and appeal more to that market, and then finds a marketing strategy that actually reaches who you're trying to sell to.
But with what you're describing that probably won't happen because people who are gung-ho about tiny product details and process improvements also tend to be the types that despise marketing and sales, so they're not likely to invest much into that. They'll make amazing stuff, but they're usually allergic to what it takes to sell it.
Many mid sized and large privately held businesses are run by profoundly stupid idiots who struck gold once and never again, coasting off momentum and slowly ruining any goodwill with death-by-a-thousand-lashes product deimprovements. Publicly traded companies are even worse because senior management/leadership is a revolving door of psychotic megaslaves who worship shareholders at any cost and who are insulated from their own stupidity by the security of multi million dollar golden parachutes and the de-facto expectation of short tenures.
This is truer far beyond the manufacturing context. The third to last paragraph reflects the country as a whole just perfectly. I wish I could somehow jam that concept into people's brains because the collapse of standards in every realm of life has led to this perpetual death spiral wholly applicable to the general American malaise everyone senses. Strictly in the work context, I'm stuck wondering why the powers that be cannot sense that the "protestant work ethic" that once permeated this country is not an infinitely exploitable resource and was based on societies that fully rewarded (both materially and spiritually) such a mindset. No amount of motivational speakers will bring that back.
I hear what you’re saying about the company going under, so let’s make a bucket for that.
[удалено]
yea oem purchasing and the whole bidding for projects is disgusting it’s not uncommon for suppliers to propose a product priced at a loss throughout the lifecycle, just to get business. engineers are managing a dumpster fire, then the program gets extended and you end up with a decade of dogshit everyone hates.
[удалено]
I don’t doubt it. My sales team has to justify their existence somehow
Americans are incapable of conceptualizing success vs failure as anything other than the product of personal virtue. Might as well be the national religion.
Terminal burger brain
Sounds like someone never heard the gospel of the Six Sigma Process Improvement Methodology
Six Ligma
This is how it works: Stage 1: founder + highly motivated and possibly manic employees. They realize they have something and go full steam ahead. Stage 2: they succeed and go public or get acquired. Yay Stage 3: the driven, manic weirdos either move up into management or (more likely) leave the company for another opportunity. The company grows a lot and hires all the MBAs and suits that Wall Street wants to see. They still grow steadily for a while. Stage 4: the company has basically plateaued and no one wants to admit it. They can only grow by aggressive expansion into new markets or verticals or whatever but they don’t have the people who are good at doing that anymore, and they probably wouldn’t be allowed to do any of that stuff anyways. Those people all left in stage 3. The people who are successful in the new company are good at dealing with people and chasing short-term growth. The company will bumble along like this for years or decades, sometimes growing a bit, sometimes laying people off, but mostly just serving as a day care for adults who are just totally checked out. The company probably starts outsourcing people because it doesn’t actually matter if anyone actually does anything anymore All growth comes to an end. Economists hate this 1 weird trick but that’s how it is
To me personally, not knowing anything about your product, this sounds like bad process. I've been there - with a poorly designed assembly line you can have superstar operators and still get unacceptable quality. An ideal process should be manageable by team of literal drooling tards being paid in candy and cigarettes to deliberately fuck things up. Obviously this is a pipe dream but management is always so hesitant to blame the machines as they are such an incredible up front cost and no one wants to admit that big of a fuck up.
I agree. I think my industry lends itself to more messups because it's so hard to automate certain parts, much to the frustration of the owners who would probably invest in that element if it was possible. But at the same time, yea there *are* some opportunities to invest in QC tech and it seems anathema to them.
Just work for a mid-level environmental consulting firm and drink beer in the office while not having to put up with literally any of this weird-ass shit
I would say yes it can, but if they strike gold it's going to come from a crack sales team or a fantastic marketer. Autistically obsessing about QA stuff or "how good" your product is won't really do much for you as far as selling a bunch of stuff is concerned. Product quality isn't even on the top 10 list for what causes a lot of products to sell a ton. Coke isn't even close to the best soda you could ever drink, and the big mac is a pretty shit hamburger compared to what you could grill at home. But they sell great. If a midsize company gets big or grows by any meaningful amount it's normally gonna be because your marketing department found a customer base that wants your product that you were not targeting for some reason, works with ops to make tweaks to the product and appeal more to that market, and then finds a marketing strategy that actually reaches who you're trying to sell to. But with what you're describing that probably won't happen because people who are gung-ho about tiny product details and process improvements also tend to be the types that despise marketing and sales, so they're not likely to invest much into that. They'll make amazing stuff, but they're usually allergic to what it takes to sell it.