[slg]

>If you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit (e.g. close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able to do so.

Isn't this just a sign of bad management? If employees are capable of doing the work when their job is on the line, it isn't a question of skill or ability. It is a failure of the company to properly motivate, challenge, and reward them for their work.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Isn't this just a sign of bad management? If employees are capable of doing the work when their job is on the line

It’s HN. We’ve all been maliciously compliant. I can close tickets without solving any problems or be on call in the most useless ways imaginable just fine.

[slg]

I just read that as "management has no idea how to evaluate the quality of work of their employees".

Either the company should be able to evaluate an employee's performance and therefore can show proof of poor performance or it can't properly evaluate an employee's performance and therefore shouldn't be firing people based off an admittedly inaccurate measure of performance.

[umanwizard]

> I just read that as "management has no idea how to evaluate the quality of work of their employees".

You probably couldn't explain how you walk, or how you cook an egg, or how you speak English, at the level of detail that would be required for something like this. Yet you do know how to do all those things.

Just because you can't write down detailed objective instructions for how to do something does not at all mean you have no idea how to do it.

[danaris]

So should we apply this logic to other areas where one person's "gut reactions" can have a huge negative effect on someone else's life?

Should we not require any due process under law, because the officer "just knew" that it was that brown guy who stole the bread?

What's being asked for is accountability for decisions that can literally result in someone ending up homeless—and that are hugely subject to bias, both conscious and unconscious, in a country that is currently riven by divisions of race, gender, sexuality, and class.

[umanwizard]

I would be very surprised if there is anyone who would become homeless if they were fired from their tech job at the New York Times.

[JumpCrisscross]

> So should we apply this logic to other areas where one person's "gut reactions" can have a huge negative effect on someone else's life?

Maybe we're balancing the wrong side of the equation? Expanding teach-to-the-test across the economy strikes me as the wrong move.

[haswell]

> Should we not require any due process under law, because the officer "just knew" that it was that brown guy who stole the bread?

This is a bit fallacious and a false analogy. Due process under law exists because it's definable. We have standards for evidence, burden of proof, reasonable doubt, etc.

The challenges in cleanly defining what it means to be a "good employee" don't somehow mean other aspects of society that can be defined shouldn't be.

[haswell]

This assumes that evaluations can be neatly defined and tracked. There's another front page post right now about exactly this. The soft (often difficult to define/measure) skills required of a manager are the same skills that are required to make the decisions to fire people.

I think almost everyone has worked with someone who they know shouldn't be there, but they still are because they keep finding ways to technically meet the letter of the law when it comes to "performance". And yet they are clearly a huge anchor for the team, and everyone knows the team would be better off without them.

I wish we could perfectly evaluate what it means to be a good employee, and we could show the exact measurements used to do so. But this simply is not realistic, never has been, nor will it likely ever be. The spectrum of possible behaviors and the intricate interplay unique to various teams makes such a task impossible. I'm not saying an effort shouldn't be made, but that these decisions are often highly subjective, without much hope of arriving at something more objective.

I've worked at places that had stringent requirements for firing people. The net result was that good people all leave voluntarily instead of being stuck with the problem individuals, ultimately resulting in teams full of mediocre-to-awful teammates.

Managers can both know how to evaluate quality and fit while not having any hope of perfectly defining and documenting those evaluations. I'd rather work in an environment that has at-will employment with all of the downsides that come with that than a place that can't fire employees without spending a year creating a mountain of paperwork that ultimately doesn't get anyone much closer to the objectivity people are striving to achieve.

[JumpCrisscross]

> but they still are because they keep finding ways to technically meet the letter of the law when it comes to "performance"

Remember that homework assignment or group project where you spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on not doing the work as intended in some silly way? This is the adult version of that.

[WalterBright]

I've found it amusing how some people will spend more effort pretending to work than actually doing the work.

The same with students who'd go to great lengths to cheat, rather than spend a few minutes learning the material.

[JumpCrisscross]

Yup. And while it's cutesy when you do it when you're young and in school, it's really quite mystifying when someone with ample career choices does it at work.

[WalterBright]

I was going to reply with something like this, but you nailed it.

[stickfigure]

How are you going to accurately measure "your code is shit"? If it was that easy, it would be a standard git hook.

[WalterBright]

I've noticed it is entirely possible for code to be written that absolutely conforms with every good coding style rule, and is utter garbage (even if it works!).

[vundercind]

Comically, the entire world basically has no idea how to evaluate the quality of management. Not with metrics, anyway. It's all vibes and guesswork, or else it's "data-driven" but transparently bullshit.

[WalterBright]

Good employees make the company successful in spite of bad management. If you don't want to do this, fine, find another company to work for where you do want to do this.

[JamesBarney]

For white collar jobs management's job is to guide and mentor not babysit adults into doing a job they are paid a salary to do.

[_bin_]

...crazy that pro-labor has gone for "reasonable wages and hours please" to "there cannot possibly be a lazy employee." Sure, sometimes there's a lousy manager or exec. But honestly people aren't expected to be particularly "motivated" beyond salary, incentive pay, etc. Like what do you want, the kindergarten-style pizza party tactics? The cringey corporate slogans? Are those actually motivating anyone? There are garbage managers who de-motivate people but that's something of a different problem and hits the whole team rather than just one person. When there's a bad, lazy employee, or when there's that one guy who's just a jerk, fire him. Contracts that say you can't do that are dumb, and they are bad for the majority of workers.