1/22 Layoffs at Microsoft, Intel, IBM. See, this is part of the problem
with deflation amid a recession. When prices crater, companies'
revenue decreases and people get layoffs.
\_ Poll: If you're the CEO, would you try to lay off a large
percentage of your workers, or would you implement changes
like mandatory vacation or pay cut? Either case will decrease
morale but it seems for me to make sense to me to cut pay since
it's darm hard to hire talented engineerss when you need them.
Then again, I'm not in management so maybe pay cut is a lame
thing in the first place. -dumb engineer
\_ Maybe the layoffs are an excuse to get rid of dead wood:
"Lay off your lowest 20% of people, the underperformers."
Alternately, perhaps they concentrate the layoffs in
areas where replacement is easy: leave the engineers,
fire the salesforce.
\_ Layoffs *always* get rid of deadwood, unless the company is in
a death spiral. In good times, you get fatty, in slim times,
you cut the crap. Unless of course you're in government.
\_ Seriously, here in the government, instead of firing
people, we give incentives to leave. So, the good people
take the money and get a job elsewhere. The deadwood
stays.
\_ Not all government positions are the same. When you
say "here", what is here? There's a huge difference
between DMV and NSA. Even within JPL there's a huge
difference between people who are launching missions
and people who do IT support for people who do missions.
\_ You clearly know nothing about how intelligence
agencies are staffed.
\_ I don't. Please enlighten me.
\_ Check out "Spies For Hire" which is a good
overview of this topic. Basically, large
portions of "employees" at the big intel shops
are actually (extremely expensive) outsourced
contractors, a trend which is true across the
board in the federal govt. right now. Also
check out SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton, et al.
Random factoids:
- 50% of the clandestine case officers at
CIA are contractors.
- Virtually 100% of the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is contracted
- 70% of all US Intelligence Community funds
are spent on external contracts rather
than internal capabilities.
- Booz Allen Hamilton has 10,000 employees
with Top Secret Codeword clearances
\_ The private sector is obviously more
efficient at creating spooks than the public
sector.
\_ Your analysis would be correct, except for
the fact that most of the intelligence
contractors are massive barrels of FAIL.
\_ Your analysis would be correct, except
for the fact that most of the
intelligence contractors are massive
barrels of FAIL.
\_ BTW, finding a competent salesperson is much harder than
finding a competent engineer. Sales also has a more
direct effect on the bottom line. These two reason are
why salespeople make more money than engineers despite
the perception that they are "dumb leeches".
\_ Good salespeople make more money. Bad salespeople
get fired.
\_ What happens to bad engineers?
\_ They usually hang on much longer than bad
salespeople.
\_ #t. Bad engineers are hard to weed out
because they tend to get close to management
and management is nicer to people who are
loud and social (vs. those that are technically
good). These are the same people who move
up the chain and manage more bad engineers.
The plus side is that they create more job
opportunities for even more engineers who
have to fix up 20 year old legacy code. Heck
50% of the engineering jobs in Silicon Valley
are systems integration, QA, and bug fixing.
\_ One of the most depressing attitudes at
Berkeley is the one that social skills
and coding skills are diametically opposed.
It is possible (in fact, extremely desirable)
to have both.
\_ Sure. But the reality is that serious
coding is a rather isolating and time-
consuming activity. This doesn't lend
itself to practicing social skills.
I've noticed a definite correlation
between sociability and low engineering
skill. The sociable ones make up for
their lack of engineering prowess by
talking a lot and getting others to
give them insights. Or they constantly
make noise and are visible to management
even though in reality their antics are
a waste of time (theirs and others)
if you compare it to the quiet engineer
who just Gets Shit Done(TM) because he
is smart enough to figure stuff out.
Of course, the noisy visible stuff is
pretty much what a manager is supposed
to do; but management is really a
separate career to engineering.
Then there's marketing, which has few
performance metrics compared to sales
and engineering...
\_ Actually, I disagree. The "silent"
serial killer coder types are actually
among the worst to work with for
other engineers. A primary reason for
this is their distorted view of their
own intelligence and value, and their
inability to listen to other people.
One of the worst jobs I ever had was
populated with these "silent geniuses,"
and they spent so much time being
impressed with their own genius that
they forgot to produce a marketable
product.
\_ I agree with you. Most of the
best engineers have good people
skills. Not all of them, of
course. They are willing to talk
to people to bounce ideas around
and they are receptive to criticism.
Engineers should pay more attention
to scientists. Most scientists
are extremely smart just like
engineers and yet also more
social. Would you say Feynman
was a bad scientist because he
was social? Of course not, so
why make the same assumption
about engineers? If the social
engineers are the ones getting
ahead then maybe you should pay
attention to that. The few true
"quiet geniuses" I know who
likely are affected with something
like Aspberger's get taken
advantage of. That doesn't mean
the ones who do not display that
quality are not just as competent
or add less value to the
organization. What adds more
value to the company? A bad
engineer like Steve Jobs or a
good one like Steve Wozniak? I
can tell you they are both very
successful but one got taken
advantage of and the other made
the most of his talents. Try to
be the latter.
\_ But Jobs's value isn't
really as an engineer, that's
the point. Jobs uses other
people and makes judgement calls.
That's what a manager/executive
is supposed to do.
Wozniak did ok. But ultimately Woz
was replaceable and Jobs is not,
\_ This is the key. Good
engineer or not, Jobs added
more value to the organization.
It wasn't that he was
"loud and social" which
made his career a success.
What Bitter Engineer needs to
realize is that some of the
people he is badmouthing are
adding more to the
organization than he is
and that just because they
are "loud and social" does
not automatically make
them bad engineers anymore
than it makes Feynman a
bad scientist. He needs to
be less jealous, realize what
is contributing to their
success, and learn from it.
Otherwise, he will always
be Bitter Engineer With
Feelings of Jealousy and
Smug Superiority stuck in
a crappy role while other
move on up.
because Jobs had the market
vision. Jobs successfully
judges human desirability of
products. It's a lot different
than just making a faster CPU or
a cost-effective highway bridge.
\_ Microsoft is sitting on more cash than some sovereign nations.
They're just using this opportunity to get rid of dead wood.
\_ In my econ classes we learned that most people would prefer
layoffs to pay cuts when given the choice and just hope they
are not the ones being cut. Presumably this is because they
think they are more valuable than their peers and will be kept.
There is some truth to this (see: dead wood) but most people
also consider themselves better-than-average drivers
\_ Most people are better-than-average drivers. Learn your
medians and means.
\_ I know the difference between median and mean. I doubt
most people are better-than-average drivers. |
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