So many articles about how WFH sucks SMH | Hacker News Reader

So many articles about how WFH sucks SMH

10 pointsunexaminedlife9 comments

Like most of you I have been working from home since early 2020. I left SO MANY companies during that time too, in order to find a company who had some semblance they knew what they were doing... And what I have observed is very similar to what I observed while working in the office. Too many people just don't understand how to run technology projects / companies. Yet those are the people who are running the projects.

I think I have gained some insight into why this is too. You see, not only have I been leaving companies out of disgust for how they run themselves, I have been engaging in dialogue with upper management to explain in extraordinary detail why the way we're doing things is just wrong. I was doing this as well while I was working in the office. And I can't imagine, at least for the companies I've worked for in recent past, that they could've become any less productive since everyone started working from home.

The insight is this, I think the people who have ended up in these positions of power have been running through the same gauntlet as all their predecessors before them. This has created what I think are some extremely rigid constructs that seem to be churning out the same garbage we keep getting out of our leaders. At all levels.

My question is, how do we break this cycle? The people in charge abide by the wrong principles and the way our leaders are chosen are by these same principles.

I'm beginning to doubt that will change in my lifetime...

Use your feet and your coin. I refuse to live in a city or work for a company that supports uncommon stupidity of allowing drug abuse, homelessness due to the drug abuse and crime also due to drug abuse to do whatever they want. I will leave and have left and would do it again and again. If they support this stuff let them loose talent and fail. I started my own business and doing fine. Start your own stuff and create circumstances YOU want. Not any harder than that but it is not easy to do so.

What does your company do? I have the technical chops but I lack the business idea.

The world runs on nepotism, connections and luck, not on competence. WFH or not.

I also think, in a secondary capacity, there is a reluctance often to come to consensus about things that should be brought to consensus among teams. The reason, though, that I don't think consensus is gained is because of the way projects are organized / structured. These are, in my mind, things that are dictated at a higher level (if at all).

> The people in charge abide by the wrong principles and the way our leaders are chosen are by these same principles.

What are those wrong principles? Can you elaborate? I also feel disgusted about how companies and tech projects are run, just don't know if you're talking about the same thing.

I think part of the reason is that most of the economy does things that aren't interesting to the brightest people in the world. I'm relatively certain that most of the largest companies in the world wouldn't exist if we had truly gifted people leading their competitors.

I would be interested in some of your examples of what these companies were doing wrong? Bear in mind they have multiple pressures. One is to make a good working environment for staff but they need to compete and stay profitable.

Are you familiar with Bonhoeffer‘s theory of stupidity? https://youtu.be/ww47bR86wSc

Almost as if it’s a coordinated propaganda push. Hmm …

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