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Comment by jojobas | Hacker News Reader

We (Australians) have been hit with some serious stuff with our Filipino subsidiary. They've been asked to do something, they realized it was not the right thing to do a week in, still did what they've been asked for more than two months.

Later when we realized we asked the wrong thing, they said "oh yes of course we knew it was not the right thing". The convention that you don't argue with "the boss" cost us many man-months of work.

You can only successfully discuss technical matters if both parties are willing to do just that.

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Sounds like incompetency to me. Knowingly wasting months should be a dealbreaker.

> ... if both parties are willing to do just that

If only both parties created trust between each other.

You grow what you sow.

That's a bullshit take. We had an Australian go there and hire everyone. If it were Australians he hired out the blue (i.e. with just that little trust), he would have heard about the problem as soon as they were discovered.

There has to be an understanding that you won't be penalized for saying it's not the right thing. Which might be obvious in your company culture but not really obvious even for different companies much less broader cultural differences.

Well what is it if not a cultural difference in discussing a technical issue that the thread-starting comment asserted don't exist?

Guessing those Australians would have had much better labour protections and a better social safety net if they did get fired, giving them the safety to criticise. Not "trust" exactly since it's more about not needing to trust a given employer, but a similar pattern.

What's a more guaranteed way to get fired: report an issue with a task upfront or keep doing useless work for a couple of months until the boss finds out?

You’re looking at it with western eyes and a big salary.

Now imagine being at McDonald’s on minimum wage. Your manager asks you to do something that in your eyes make no sense. Last time he did, you said something and got réprimantes for it. Do you bring it up again? Or you let the manager decide and move on with your life.

Well, again it depends on the culture. Some boss wouldn't take any disagreement from subordinates well. No matter what the result looks like, if the boss doesn't declare the project failed, than that's not a failure. Even if it failed, the subordinate takes the blame, it's less serious than bringing up issues early because the boss's order is faithfully carried through to the end.

It wasn't even about a disagreement.

If was like "Get a mop, a bucket in the storeroom, pour in a cup of sugarsoap into the bucket and fill up with water then wash the floors". They washed the floors even though they couldn't find the sugarsoap because by accident they god sent sugar and soap instead, so they put that in, perfectly understanding what sugarsoap is and why sugar and soap won't replace it.

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