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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1096
Sweet flaming Buddha on a pinecone, this culture is lost.

So I'm at work today, and several of us are chatting on our random Slack channel when one person adds a link to an internal site that talks about how the company has started building open plan areas, with "hoteling," because Agile.

That is met with some polite skepticism and disagreement, including me dropping Susan Cain's book Quiet into the conversation, because hello! introverts work here, too.

Suddenly my boss's boss shows up to say he's spent time in one of these open layouts, and here are a bunch of reasons (Agile) why (Agile) it's totally awesome (Agile).

Smelling which way the wind has begun to blow, the conversation shifts to other topics... but then another guy shows up to drop his list of why cubicles are bad and open plan is good and all new workers are demanding open layouts (really?) and OF COURSE everyone won't be forced into this layout and there'll probably be a few "quiet spaces" set aside for the occasions when "extreme focus" is required. (Gee, thanks.) Apparently these people think introversion is just a character defect and all software work is improved by everyone shouting at each other across a table.

But then came the most amazing part, when he said -- and this is a 100% word-for-word exact quote -- "Individualism should not be encouraged."

What.

The.

What.

No one said anything. I think we were too dumbfounded that anyone in the company would talk as though of course it's jolly good fun to toil with the other drones in a forced labor camp, where everyone can see everyone at all times and ARE YOU SUFFERING FROM INDIVIDUALISM, COMRADE?!

F this guy, F his stupid "Agile" agitprop, F his insane Vox-dot-com-like inversion of reality, F a company that tolerates this idiocy, and F this busted-ass Western civilization that is so successful that fools in it can think they're morally superior for demanding that everyone stamp on the very attributes that made it successful.

At this point all I want is just a few more years to pump up my 401(k) so I can retire before I'm ordered to say I see five lights.

"Individualism should not be encouraged."
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1098
Wow, Flat, that's pretty messed up. Is corporate culture like this everywhere? I had no idea how bad it was. Individualism is, like anything else, a strength in moderation - and the same with the whole "hive mind" concept. There's balance to be found in all things, but it doesn't sound like those people got that memo. Now I'm concerned that when I get into IT I'll have similar experiences to yours. :?

Thanks for the mention of Quiet - I've added it to my (admittedly short) list of books to acquire. (I also noticed the well-placed Star Trek reference. ;) )
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1100
The firm I work for is fairly small but we don't have that kind of culture at all. We do have a mostly open-ish plan (fixed, no hoteling) but that's more because we don't have room for individual cubicles - but the loud people (i.e. the sales people) have their own rooms so no sound issues.
Then again, I'm not in the US :shrug:
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1102
Things have actually been pretty good here. I like the company, and for a big employer they're pretty good about how they treat employees.

But the past few years, they've gotten really bureaucratic -- every simple task is an exercise in frustration at having to navigate multiple slow approval systems. And now this introvert-unfriendly nonsense, which seems designed to antagonize the people who solve problems in favor of the people who like to be seen talking about solving problems. Dumb.

I don't know if this is endemic to IT shops in general today. I hope not.

Thanks for letting me howl about this briefly. I needed that. 😄
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1104
I feel your collective pain.

I work in HR. Which is fine, I don't like people, but I do techy thingies, so that's ok. Plus, being in HR I'm by far the most techy person there :twisted: However, I also sit near the recruitment team. Now, sure, they do most of the work by talking, but there's a new guy who seems to think that everyone wants to hear his conversations. There's a deaf man in Cape Town who can't hear him when he talks.

It's like, do you have a volume control? Yes? Can YOU LOWER YOUR FUCKING VOICE SO I CAN HEAR MYSELF THINK?

I might end out ripping his lungs out or throwing a mug at his head.
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1105
We have three on our floor who like to argue, and have the same fucking problem HS.
And sometimes you don't want to put noise cancelling headphones on, without music it gives extreme tinnitus, and with you are often distracted from what you actually want to do. :/
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1107
Talvieno wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 8:43 am
Wow, Flat, that's pretty messed up. Is corporate culture like this everywhere? I had no idea how bad it was. Individualism is, like anything else, a strength in moderation - and the same with the whole "hive mind" concept. There's balance to be found in all things, but it doesn't sound like those people got that memo. Now I'm concerned that when I get into IT I'll have similar experiences to yours. :?

Thanks for the mention of Quiet - I've added it to my (admittedly short) list of books to acquire. (I also noticed the well-placed Star Trek reference. ;) )
if my company would discourage individualism we'd be literally incapable of doing anything.
we're 20 people in our open plan room and everyone of us has wildly different capabilities and everyone is needed.
if we'd equalise we'd lose our capabilities.....
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1108
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Thu Nov 21, 2019 6:46 am
we're 20 people in our open plan room and everyone of us has wildly different capabilities and everyone is needed.
if we'd equalise we'd lose our capabilities.....

In essence, that is exactly what I told the "Individualism should not be encouraged" guy when I emailed him to politely but firmly express my surprised disagreement.

His first response was cordial; his second was basically, "Umm, yes, OK, bye now."

...I may have let myself get a little overexercised on this one. :D

But nothing else has raised my hackles like this in 30+ years of working, and that's enough time to have seen some real nonsense. (For example, there was a VP in my former -- now defunct -- company filled with programmers who made the mistake of publicly expressing the view that "programmers are basically commodities, they're easily replaceable.")

Vive la différence!
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Re: Random Rage Thread

#1109
Flatfingers wrote:
Fri Nov 22, 2019 12:51 am
For example, there was a VP in my former -- now defunct -- company filled with programmers who made the mistake of publicly expressing the view that "programmers are basically commodities, they're easily replaceable."
*thinks of the ancient software systems which are basically forgotten enchantments which were written by wizened mages in dead languages*

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