Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks

Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by codemog on Saturday June 20, 2026 @01:14AM (#48606544)

I like Kent Beck, but this reads as mostly boomer nonsense. What if that C player is working 3 jobs at once making 3x as much with more job security to boot. What if that C player is simply working less because they’re content working less and having less responsibility?

Corporations love people with Kent Beck’s mindset, ladder climbers willing to jump on command for praise, working twice as hard for a raise or meaningless title that may not justify the stress and hours.

And when corporate needs to lay off 30% they’ll think nothing of it.

If you have Kent Beck’s mindset and you’re not pouring it into something you have equity in, you may as well just call yourself a useful idiot.

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by girvo on Saturday June 20, 2026 @03:52AM (#48607241)

> And when corporate needs to lay off 30% they’ll think nothing of it.

Having seen this literally play out this year: it was all of the C’s that were first to be cut shrug

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by codemog on Saturday June 20, 2026 @11:53AM (#48610165)

> Typical Kent, trying to do the right thing, regardless of the cost. Unfortunately, this time the cost was him losing his job.

Well Kent got fired from Facebook, so maybe he wasn’t such an A player in their eyes. ;)

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by AlexeyBelov on Sunday June 21, 2026 @03:14AM (#48616432)

In a couple of companies I'm familiar with the cuts weren't based on performance in any discernable way.

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by projektfu on Saturday June 20, 2026 @06:17AM (#48608046)

If I hired a full time programmer and found out they had two other jobs I'd probably let them focus on those other two. If they were showing the "C" behaviors in all three jobs, they have no job security, unless they work where they can't be let go.

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by ponector on Saturday June 20, 2026 @09:36AM (#48609142)

Shouldn't you measure output instead of hours spent on the job? People could be productive or not with one job as well as there.

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by feoren on Saturday June 20, 2026 @11:25AM (#48609894)

Measuring output is what this whole post is about.

1. "If you have poor output, you won't last long. Here's what 'poor output' looks like..."

2. "But what if they have poor output because they're working three jobs?"

3. "Then I'd let them go."

You: "Cruel! Shouldn't you be measuring their output!?"

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by projektfu on Saturday June 20, 2026 @09:44AM (#48609196)

LOL

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by lokar on Saturday June 20, 2026 @12:01PM (#48610246)

IME many people are in it for the love of the game. They want to get better, they want to be able to perform the “magic” the Sr people come up with. It’s fun.

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Re:Hey, N00B, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks by dang on Sunday June 21, 2026 @02:42PM (#48621443)

Please omit swipes, not to mention slurs, from your comments here. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

"Edit out swipes."

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

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