[senko]

> Their CEO Ray Kassar famously said, "You’re no more important to those projects than the person on the assembly line who put them together. You’re a dime a dozen. You’re not unique. Anybody can do ­a ­cartridge.".

Imagine any software company CEO nowadays saying that out loud, no matter what they privately thought.

[MikePlacid]

> Imagine any software company CEO nowadays saying that out loud, no matter what they privately thought.

A daughter of my friend was not very happy in her job: a Silicon Valley company hired her as a security pro, but was using as a coder, which she hates. She was going to leave, but decided to wait ten months or so until her stock options vested. She and a big group of other engineers were fired right before the vesting moment.

All this time the CEO was generating absolutely politically correct sounds: people are our best capital, diversity is our strength, etc. She would be better off if he was honest.

[lultimouomo]

> She was going to leave, but decided to wait ten months or so until her stock options vested. She and a big group of other engineers were fired right before the vesting moment.

I'm not an expert in the Silicon Valley ethos, but to me it sounds that both your friend's daughter and the company were playing the same game: trying to extract the most value from the other party without actually having a long term commitment. I suppose she was not going around saying how much she hated the company and that she would have left as soon as it was convenient.

The company had the upper hand, but can she really complain?

[wink]

You are entitled to hate your job and still do what you're being asked. For lack of knowledge about more facts we should assume the friend was doing the job.

[lultimouomo]

She also most probably had an at-will contract, so the company was entitled to let her go whenever they liked.

[motoboi]

Yes, she can complain.

[MikePlacid]

> The company had the upper hand, but can she really complain?

She is a bright girl, so she is not actually complaining, she knew the risks and trade offs. It was her first job after a college, btw. It’s me who is a bit bothered by her story. You see:

1. She was hired to improve diversity targets (her estimate).

2. After she was hired, her brains were ignored - a rather painful situation for a person with brains.

Would have this bright girl been better of if we as society put less pressure on companies to hire girls?

[joyfylbanana]

> All this time the CEO was generating absolutely politically correct sounds: people are our best capital, diversity is our strength, etc. She would be better off if he was honest.

Honestly rarely pays and is also unthankful. There is only a little benefit and lots of downsides, such as people getting seriously pissed at you. It is not a wonder that corporate leadership roles are filled up with people who see no problem of talking bullshit all day.

[mempko]

They meant honesty from the CEO would be good for her, not the CEO. Because she could have found another job instead of waiting ten months to be fired.

[kkarpkkarp]

> Imagine any software company CEO nowadays saying that out loud, no matter what they privately thought.

Comarch CEO famous quote: "any developer could be replaced with finite number of interns"

This is Polish software company (quite big, one of the biggest) and since this quote went public, they don't have best reputation among developers. You go to work there only if you are actually intern fresh after uni.

[andersonmvd]

Do you have a source? I couldn't find it in English at least

[enedil]

Quote 3 from https://pl.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Janusz_Filipiak

Sadly only in Polish.

[Ziomislaw]

I don't think there are any online sources. I don't think I've met a polish coder that wanted to work for them. Some companies won't even hire a candidate that spent more than a year at Comarch (they would argue - if a candidate could withstand that company for that long there must be something wrong with them).

[DonHopkins]

My mom, who's a programmer, once worked for Computer Sciences Corporation, which she jokingly referred to as "the whorehouse of the computer industry".

But she was just being charitable, because they were into so much more that just that!

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

>The company has been accused of breaching human rights by arranging several illegal rendition flights for the CIA between 2003 and 2006, which also has led to criticism of shareholders of the company, including the governments of Norway and Britain.

>The company has engaged in a number of activities that have resulted in legal action against it. These are:

>Its so called WorldBridge Service (Visa Services), which processed and issued millions of visa applications to enter Britain, did not involve British authorities.

>CSC was one of the contractors hired by the Internal Revenue Service to modernize its tax-filing system. They told the IRS it would meet a January 2006 deadline, but failed to do so, leaving the IRS with no system capable of detecting fraud. Its failure to meet the delivery deadline for developing an automated refund fraud detection system cost the IRS between US$200 million and US$300 million.

[retcore]

>- if a candidate could withstand that company for that long there must be something wrong with them

Or just being exposed to a architecturally dysfunctional organization breeds negative behaviour and mentality.

Privately I consider this kind of behaviour espoused by executive management to clearly qualify as harmful to society surpassing criminal threshold. This needs concerted study however to form the basis of anything more than a grizzled opinion.

[deckard1]

today they have their scrum masters whisper it in our ears at the daily stand up

[Cthulhu_]

I feel like software developers have either the biggest or the smallest egos; the majority is in the last category and will keep their head down. But in companies, all the managerial staff - including these days scrum masters, which is now a dedicated role by a non-developer - will strut around like they own the place and everything would fall apart if it wasn't for them.

[xxs]

no scrum mumbo:jumbo in daily meetings; only engineers

[mk89]

Ahaha this just made my day :)

[YetAnotherNick]

To me honest and harsh conversation, even if it is wrong, is still better than firing 100s of employees in a zoom call with corporate speak.