[Zeklandia]

Overperformance is when a worker overexerts themselves, by working themselves harder or for longer. Overperformance is a problem because it exerts pressure on the other workers to do the same, leading to a runaway effect of increasing expectation for results while workers are left exhausting their bodies and their time, and often their own personal resources, trying to meet that expectation in order to not be fired or miss out on bonuses or promotions. They are not "making everyone else look bad" they are raising the bar higher than most could even reach.

[jupp0r]

Are you implying that performance is proportional to hours worked? Research shows that this is not the case for most people and that returns past a certain work/life balance ratio are marginal or negative.

[hoaw]

I don't think that is the implication. What is being said is that people start e.g. working 10 hours a day and that becomes expected regardless of performance. This type of thing is very common in Asia.

[jupp0r]

That doesn't sound like overperformance, but toxic culture to me.

[AlexB138]

I have a difficult time understanding this world view. A worker choosing on their own to work extra to get ahead is called sacrifice, and is one of the things that differentiates people who do enough to get a paycheck and people who get noticed and promoted.

Coming up with a way to say someone who outworks you is somehow the bad guy because they make you look bad is exactly the kind of mentality that makes me want nothing to do with union membership.

[hoaw]

Say you have two employees. One is smarter than the other. That employee will work relatively hard and deliver constant results. The other will take a big chance and work everything they have for a year. Say the chance of them performing better than the smarter employee is 50%. So measured over one year they essentially perform as well, but over three years the smarter employee wins since the other employee can't keep up their pace.

So what is the problem? Well, now imagine there are multiple less smart employees. Even over three years it might then seem like those employees perform better since they are more and a few might succeed for the whole three years. So now the smart employee might get fired. Performance is therefor no longer about work, but who essentially is lucky enough to not burn out in e.g. three years. Soon enough all the smart employees also have to work similar hours, so now they burn out after a few years as well. All the less smart employees will love it because they feel they have a chance.

[munk-a]

For a while MSFT had a labour review that ranked employees, this would elevate high performers and cull out any people on the bottom of the pile - this is a terrible thing.

When you go to work for a company you are producing something and being paid money to do it, generally what you are reimbursed with is well below the value of what you're producing as a developer - your labour is building a product that needs to be marketed, it needs customer support, it needs a lot of things. There is a classical economic ideal that the market will quickly settle into an equilibrium where your labour will be about equivalent to your whole contribution to the revenue of the company - but that's a classicist economic view, more modern takes on the economy agree that a stagnant economy will settle into such a state but that innovation will constantly fight that effect and widen the profit margin, the end result is that most of the companies we techies work in should not be viewed as a zero sum game. Any money that is being reinvested into the company is part of the fruit of your labour and employees shouldn't be motivated internally or by management to see their salaries as a highly constrained resource that they need to compete against fellow employees for to earn.

This is a super unhealthy state for a company to be in for morale and for growth.

[chrisseaton]

You should be able to see all this as a manager and talk to your people about it. Why does a union need to get involved?

[hoaw]

That is assuming there aren't also less smart managers who have short term interests of showing swift progress until the project collapses. Management will in best case take a long term interest in the company. They won't take a long term interest in employees. Certainly not employees who doesn't seem to be performing. That is what unions are for. To represent the employees concerns about the future.

[chrisseaton]

And you're assuming there aren't also less benign unions who are just working to protect their senior members the expense of both me and the company.

Only I truly have my own interests in mind - not the company and not the union.

[hoaw]

No I am not. I don't think this discussion is worth much more than this though.

[chrisseaton]

> Overperformance is when a worker overexerts themselves, by working themselves harder or for longer.

Nonsense! 'Overperform', not 'overwork'. Someone could out-perform you in fewer hours than you work, by being more efficient, or just by being better at the job than you.

[ducktypegoose]

I think overperformance is a flowery term for a race to the bottom. A vernacular red-herring whose adoption implies an argument. The contention is compromising human dignity and living in the name of getting ahead of ones peers in the workplace doesn't help anybody in the end. I propose we call it what it really is, an egotistical pursuit to instill a heirarchy where one should not exist.