Yup!
With over a million views of my content, I have noticed that this style is preferred by an overwhelming majority of readers.
I am sure there are who disagree. I am explicitly open to open dialog with all my channels listed on my profile.
My focus is to reach people and listen to what they have to say.
My objective is to test the clarity of my thoughts and the best way to go about it, I feel, is to discuss it with someone who holds a contrarian view.
That said, I've been having a hard time doing that here on HN as once downvotes (which work like a silencing mechanism here) happen, I literally cant respond back until a few hours have passed since the last downvote.
Except in cases where:
- That boss's boss is related to the CEO and is coasting / not at the wheel
- That boss's boss is already looking for ways to let go of them
- That boss's boss needs that boss in place for a while longer, due to other factors, but is still annoyed by the micromanagement
- That boss's boss is intimidated by their underling and feels something bad might happen if they take action against the unwanted behavior
I've seen all of the above and consulted management on a few of those as well. There are a million little ways in which the "system" (dynamic between a group of people at work) has achieved a form of control which is out of the grasp of the individual and in contravention of the ultimate boss's way of doing business.
Specific interventions can completely change the dynamic, but the tendency is to blame the problem on individuals rather than emergent effects, which IMO makes individuals feel even more helpless. Usually something can be done.
Let me explain.
> - That boss's boss is related to the CEO and is coasting / not at the wheel
i.e. the boss is paying for the behavior they want to see.
> - That boss's boss is already looking for ways to let go of him
then it's a solved problem - unless the boss's boss continues to look for ways to let go for months on end, in which case really, again, the boss is paying for the behavior they want to see
> - That boss's boss needs him in place for a while longer, due to other factors, but is still annoyed by the micromanagement
i.e. the boss is paying for the behavior they want to see
"annoyed"?
It seems like the value is "needs him in place for a while longer" and all the "annoyance" does is affect that somewhat.
Can we measure the effect of the "annoyance" on the decision? Let's see:
If I have a racist employee and their racism "annoys" me, I still am supporting racism with my dollars.
Otherwise, real action is: ask them to move on.
If I have a noisy neighbor and their noise "annoys" me, I still am supporting their behavior with my dollars.
The real action would be: I move/ I ask them to move, or take them to court while getting an stay order to ensure the noise is constrained while the matter is settled.
At a previous apartment, there was a stay at home mom above mine who would begin her aggressive yoga and home gymnastics at 5AM and end at 9AM. Constant pounding. I spoke with her first and she felt the gym in the complex was too crowded for her. I recorded her activities from below in my room, sent it to the office, yelp, facebook for the complex, broke my lease and moved.
Life is too short for nonsense.
> - That boss's boss is intimidated by his underling and feels something bad might happen if he takes action against the unwanted behavior
i.e. the boss is paying for the behavior they want to see
I feel there's some sympathy for the boss, almost as if they were misguided children.
Adults are not children.
If your boss behaves like a child it's time to have a conversation.
Depending on your specific situation that conversation might very well be with a new company.
If you see a purported optimization problem and a solution that doesn't fit it, there are two possible explanations. Either whatever does the optimization is bad at optimizing, or the objective function isn't what you think it is.
For almost every feasible solution, you can contrive an objective function so that that solution is the optimum. So perhaps the managers are deliberately engineering the business to take some money out of their bottom line to send a message. But in the spirit of Hanlon's razor, it's more likely that the managers are simply bad at their job.
> In some sense, it doesn't even matter. If the manager is sacrificing profit for a fuzzy feeling of domination, then he's doing a bad job at increasing profit. And if the business is in competition with another that doesn't succumb to that kind of error, then the market will make it very clear
We have to be consistent in our views.
In the first sentence, the Hanlon's razor applies but not in the second one?
What if the market is inefficient and the manager sacrificing profit for a fuzzy feeling of domination actually comes ahead?
Does the Hanlon's razor support that theory?
In that case, how does this conversation proceed?
I am (trying to) applying a consistent view - that there's always an objective function in a game and society is a game.
Right now, you and I are playing a game - I'm trying to clarify my thoughts and so are you.
My objective function is to test the clarity of my thoughts and the best way to go about it, I feel, is to discuss it with someone who holds a contrarian view.
That said, I've been having a hard time doing that here on HN as once downvotes (which work like a silencing mechanism here) happen, I literally cant respond back until a few hours have passed since the last downvote.
Don't hesitate to reach out over email. I am enjoying this exchange.
Reality is what remains after all beliefs have been stripped away.
I did not respond to your comment as the grandparent made no sense - neither management, nor boss nor god in the sky works for you.
Only you work for you and they work for them.
Naivety is believing it works any other way.
There is no "poor management".
What are these uneducated decision makers even doing at your place of work?
There's always a boss.
The boss is paying for the behavior they want to see.
Now if you argue the ultimate boss is clueless, then, what are you even doing there?
You might want to tell yourself that your immediate boss who calls you every 30 minutes you are away from work is just ineffective, but if he was not delivering on what his boss wanted from him, he would be gone.
> in highly secured environments or when dealing with highly sensitive documents
Its about control.
No matter how highly secured an environment is, human ingenuity can and will still work around it. There's literally several professions dedicated to it.
NO matter how highly sensitive a document is, if someone decides to share it, they will.
Crocodiles, fire pits, stripdowns, armed guards, MRIs or any camera is no obstacle to a determined individual.
> If you don’t understand your employees workload and don’t trust them then either you resign or fire the employees.
Nah - it's just about control.
Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_fJh4lzqQ
Did "Jim" not know that he was on facebook for 8 hours yesterday?
Will bringing that to his attention suddenly make him "more productive"?
Why would it have that effect?
You could try and fake empathy for the hand that feeds you (you have reason to!) but even if this kind of management had absolute clarity into employees workload, they still would do surveillance.
Why?
... because their messaging is "we control you during the hours you work for us".
It's unlikely anyone's watching the surveillance data and footage. Honestly, people don't have time and it's a very high noise-to-signal ratio activity. Even at retail where loss prevention is at least one dedicated department, it's impossible to follow up on surveillance data and footage.
Do you honestly believe anyone would look a those verbose reports generated in the video at any detail?
No.
For all purposes, its not the how but the why.
Control.
All this talk about productivity, workload and trust are "feel good" concepts that give the illusion that there just some "miscommunication" happening.
If only that "miscommunication" went away, everything would be perfect with the world again.
It provides a distraction from the reality that the people one's working for are sycophants and extremely manipulative.
The truth is - action has no miscommunication - it either works or it does not.
The toilet needed to be scrubbed?
Its either done or not done. Couldn't be done because someone was having a seizure there that required a team to come in and block the cleaning from happening? Check.
If the cleaner had to badge in and out and had a camera mounted at the restroom entrance to check if they went in or out - does not have any relation to the job getting done.
IF the individual cleaner was so determined to clean the restroom during the seizure, they would manage to do it.
Russia, China and the companies that hire the likes of InterGuard Employee Monitoring for surveillance is doing it for control.
Putin wants dirt on you so when you become a problem for him, he can use it against you.
Surveillance is all about control.