[slowtrek]

Could a company keep a subjective poor performer on for the lifespan of the company? As in, what is the plus or minus in overall revenue or profit from this charity? What if all companies did that? Could we distribute the "burden" of the charity across all companies for a better society? My point is, I don't even know if metrics are good or bad, we may need to look at why we see each other like this. Is it so offensive to the mind of the captain of a ship that they may have a few of not the best sailors? It's a chance for them to be on a ship, go on a journey. The concept of a "free ride" appears to be a serious moral hazard for us, but I can't figure out why.

[kragen]

Sure, as long as they don't have any responsibilities. I've been a great performer at some companies and a poor performer at others, including one that kept me around without letting me have any responsibilities. It was not good for me. But I have been through worse.

A better alternative I've seen is to help the poor performer hunt for a new job.

[sour-taste]

This is what Japan does. Employment is presumed to be for life. There are games companies play to get out very poor performers but most people get approximately lifetime employment.

[slowtrek]

How was that society taught this? Or how did they come to know this?

[hadlock]

What are you asking

[neverokay]

I’m not asking you if you read carefully. This is not to be mean, I asked the GP specifically because they demonstrated that they understand the spirit of what I am talking about. Your own confusion is stemming from something else, not my question (you don’t even recognize my question, as evidenced).

For example, who raised you? See, that’s a question you might not understand but it’s the spirit of my original question.

So what am I asking?

[sour-taste]

I still have absolutely no idea

[ponector]

Are you going to accept such free rider in your team? You will eventually do both your and his tasks but for the same or worse pay. Given you have a fixed budget for the team - do you want to split it more ways?

Where can I send a CV?

[slowtrek]

If we were to do this, we wouldn't just pick someone so out of the range of what's needed. So basically, if you reframe your question, would I hire a 70 average student on a team of 90 average students? Yes. We would not pick the 50 average students. This is all possible within reason, the kind of stuff being discussed in this thread is to purge people who are 80 average students (free riders in a 95 average class).

Will we need to tutor and support the 70 average student? Yes. Why would we do this? It's good for the soul. The stuff I'm talking about has no place in business, as far as we care to understand as a society at the moment.

[rpmisms]

My dangerous opinion is that the purpose of a company is to provide a living for its employees.

[slowtrek]

As in, if you are on the ship, we can absolutely find something for you to do. Here, color the fucking map, clean the sails. Why would we throw them off the ship?

[rpmisms]

That's another angle of what I mean, but absolutely. Stop expecting everyone to be above average, use your human resources intelligently, put people where they're productive and happy, and stop chasing nonstop growth. Mostly the last one. If we recalibrate our expectations about growth, I think we could tame the boom/bust cycle.

[slowtrek]

We need to start blogging about this, because it's been a torrent of utter filth advice being marketed to businesses.

[milesrout]

That isn't dangerous, just ignorant.

[rpmisms]

It's not ignorant, it's a different perspective on priorities that is outside your orthodoxy.

[milesrout]

It is ignorant of history, law, politics and logic. Companies do not exist for that purpose. It isn't why they arose as a concept. It isn't why they are created today. It isn't why the law of companies exists today. It just has nothing to do with reality.

If you said that businesses should exist for the benefit of their staff as much as for the benefit of their proprietors it might make some sense as an opinion. But you said that companies (a specific type of legal structure) do in fact exist for the benefit of their employees (a specific class of contractual relationship), which is simply false.

If you want to make statements about how you think the world ought to be, then be my guest. If you want to lie about the state that the world is actually in, then you should be relieved when someone interprets your lie as mere ignorance.

[tbossanova]

This reminds me a bit of how VCs bet on a bunch of startups in full knowledge that many will fail. The failures in some sense get a “free ride”. Why not the same with people?