Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020)

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by notch656a on Monday May 23, 2022 @03:06PM (#31483592)

If there is no company then why don't individuals become felons when a company is convicted of a felony? Why aren't individuals typically liable when the company goes bankrupt; wouldn't you hold the employees to pay the debt if they were ? Why don't the non-equity holding individuals of the 'company' capture the capital gains and post-operating-expenses profits?

It's important to remember when you are an individual you aren't the company. You typically hold no equity in the company, unless you are lucky enough to have it included in the benefits of certain professional and executive positions.

No the company is carefully constructed to make sure you aren't in it. You are a resource FOR the company, not part of the company.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by GlenTheMachine on Monday May 23, 2022 @03:23PM (#31483772)

Because the fire alarm is actually on someone's radar. it's been reported up the chain, budget requests have been submitted, it's on checklists and slide decks etc etc. In other words, someone would notice if it magically got fixed.

But if your cell signal suddenly goes from zero bars to three bars in the building, nobody is the wiser.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by notch656a on Monday May 23, 2022 @03:25PM (#31483791)

Yeah I mean I don't work for the government so I guess it doesn't make sense to me. So what, they show up and it's fixed. What's gonna happen, is someone seriously going to get fired / prosecuted for fixing the fire alarm?

I presume if no one is ratting you out for the repeater they're not going to rat you out for the fire alarm, and even if they do the consequences can't be worse for fixing a life-saving alarm vs a possibly frivelous repeater.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by GlenTheMachine on Monday May 23, 2022 @03:28PM (#31483812)

Probably not, but once you get high enough up in management, the pain issue really starts to become "how much paperwork will I be required to do?" And in the case of obviously spending money to do something that was someone else's job, the answer is "a surprisingly large amount."

It's worth noting that a) this is a very complicated fire alarm, and fixing it is neither inexpensive nor easy; and b) the issue of warning employees applies to lots of non-fire emergencies. Such as an active shooter event.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by notch656a on Monday May 23, 2022 @03:33PM (#31483873)

Well that sounds fucking painful. If you can swing the change there's lots of small private companies you can work at where getting authorization for a few thousand at a time is as easy as asking the CEO in a 5 second conversation (if that). I think I would last about 5 days with that kind of fuckery before self-imploding in anger and rage quitting.

If you work somewhere where a thesis is required to fix a fucking broken fire alarm, I don't know what to say, that just isn't the right environment the thrive in.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by GlenTheMachine on Monday May 23, 2022 @03:42PM (#31483973)

I know. But the trade off is that government is very well resourced. Applying those resources can be painful and slow, but once you get them in gear you can attack problems nobody else can touch.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by sneak on Monday May 23, 2022 @05:59PM (#31485326)

> If there is no company then why don't individuals become felons when a company is convicted of a felony?

They do. Companies cannot be charged with criminal offenses, so "when a company is convicted of a felony" describes a non-event. Only humans can be charged and convicted of criminal misconduct.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by notch656a on Monday May 23, 2022 @06:07PM (#31485401)

You might want to speak with the slightest shred of factual basis before you embarrass yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_convicted_of...

>Volkswagen AG (VW) has agreed to plead guilty to three criminal felony counts

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/volkswagen-ag-agrees-plead-gu...

>A four-count felony criminal information was filed today in federal court in the Eastern District of New York charging HSBC with willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program,

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/bae-systems-plc-pleads-guilty...

>Q. Can a corporation be held criminally liable in the same way as an individual can be held liable?

>A. Yes. A corporation can be prosecuted for essentially all of the same crimes as individuals and, if proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, convicted of felonies and misdemeanors.

https://www.mololamken.com/assets/htmldocuments/FAQs%20-%20C...

In quite a few criminal cases, but not all, the company was charged without any individual being held criminally liable.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by lazide on Monday May 23, 2022 @10:54PM (#31487510)

I think their point is 'and then what happened'. You can't put a company in jail, and no one uses the corporate death penalty anymore it seems. PG&E got criminally convicted, and they just got a fine like they usually do.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by notch656a on Tuesday May 24, 2022 @03:33PM (#31496563)

Which brings me back to:

>If there is no company then why don't individuals become felons when a company is convicted of a felony?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by lazide on Tuesday May 24, 2022 @04:43PM (#31497340)

It is possible for many people to commit individual acts that when done alone are not a felony, but when combined as part of an organization are.

Convicting a mid-level manager of murder because he turned a valve on, when they to the best of their knowledge, had no idea it would result in 100 people dying in a fire would also not be justice - at least if the necessary records got lost by some lower level functionary somewhere else, and it never got fixed because an exec somewhere was prioritizing some other work elsewhere without having the records of how bad it was.

PG&E has 26,000 employees. Even with as screwed up as it is, the problem is the organization itself. Putting all 26k people in jail doesn't solve the problem either.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hacking the bureaucracy to get stuff done (2020) by notch656a on Tuesday May 24, 2022 @07:11PM (#31498641)

But then that breaks OP's model of "there is no company."

[ Parent | on HN ]