Comment by dkrich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dkrich | Hacker News Reader

You're not creating the "correct" culture, you're just trading one kind of culture for another. I work to make money. I don't like it when work bleeds into my personal life. When I leave the office at 5 or 6, I am done for the day. That way if I want to spend my free time thinking about things other than work I am free to do so.

I once read a case about Tom Siebel that said that he required that every Siebel office in every city contain the same blue carpet and beige walls. Employees were required to dress formally for work every day. This was at the height of the dot-com "I wear shorts to work and play ping-pong all day" office culture. When people asked him why he was so strict while everybody else was allowed to have fun, he said something like "Employees come to work to make money. They can play on their own time." I read that and thought "this guy is fucking awesome." I think if culture is too lax, work suffers. A lot of people thought Siebel was a dick, but he and a lot of his employees came out very very rich while most of those dot-com's went bankrupt and their relaxed employees ended up looking for work.

That's why when I see people bragging about places like the Googleplex or Zynga's offices with awesome meals and pods to nap in, I think that their priorities are somewhat out of whack. All that said, everybody is different. Some people love their jobs and don't mind intertwining work and play. To each his own.

It's worked pretty well for Google, wouldn't you say? ;)

Ultimately it depends about who works for you. Some people need a well defined framework to perform well, and for those people the "Siebel approach" makes perfect sense.

On the other hand, some people absolutely hate rules and conventions that seem silly to them, and need to be free from artificial constraints to perform at their maximum (that includes playing foosball after spending hours fixing a complex algorithm). This is likely the kind of person that works at Google.

One category of people isn't inherently "better" than the other— it's just different. I have friends who went to some of the top businesses schools in the world and perform very well in renowned firms, but they'd be completely lost and unproductive if they had a Google environment. On the other hand, I have brilliant CS friends from undergrad who would be extremely frustrated and unproductive if they had to show up to work in a "formal attire" at 9am and had to follow strict rules and hierarchy.

As an employer, know the kind of people you employ. As an employee, know who you are and how you perform best.

Yes it has worked for Google for sure. But in response I would say try counting the number of billion dollar companies with a "Google" culture and the number with a "Siebel" culture and see which list grows faster.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It's certainly true that some people work to make money and see their personal time as their own. We're not saying our way is the "correct" one. I'm not sure that a highly restrictive company is necessarily linked to making more money but certainly anecdotes like Siebel's exist.

At Ridejoy, we believe that work is a major part of a person's life and it should be fulfilling and enriching. We believe that create a workplace where people feel respected and cared for is one where people will do their best work.

We have a big goal - making rideshare a ubiquitous and convenient form of transportation for people everywhere - and we aren't looking for worker drones who will follow every rule and wear the company uniform. We're looking for people who believe in our mission and are inspired to come to work toward it.

Just a reminder, these meals are taxable as fringe benefits for your employees.

"Meals provided to improve general morale or goodwill, or to attract prospective employees, are not provided for a substantial noncompensatory reason and are taxable. Reg.1. 119-1(a)(2)"

I know a lot of people associate dress codes and rules with boring offices and asshole bosses, and there are certainly a lot of companies that have both. But I think that if proper management is assumed, formality shows a respect for your work, your coworkers, your customers, and yourself. That sounds like a headline from a company memo, but think about it for a second.

If I run a company and I expect my employees to come to work and take what they are doing seriously, would I encourage them to drift in and out of the office as they please, take naps if they don't feel up to the task at hand, and wear tshirts and cargo shorts into the office? It is true that if I enact strict policies, people will flee the culture shock to the comfort zones of startups with laid back young employees where they can have nerf gun fights and drink beer on the job. But the fact is that those people are like a disease that spreads and I don't want them in my company anyway. I want the people who are coming in to kick ass and make us successful. There is a symbiotic relationship involved here- people who embrace that culture are going to come and be immensely successful and contribute. People who do not would not have done a good job because they would always be half-assing their work because they don't take it seriously. I'm not sure if the reverse is true for the laid-back work environments, however.

Yes, I don't care for nerf gun fights nor beer on the job, either. I'm generally very serious in corporate environments and never consider them fun.

However, I would nevertheless run screaming from the corporate environment you mention. Unless I were desperate, I would not tolerate some "boss" deciding what is the most effective way to accomplish my work. I would be hired for my judgement and directed productivity; if I happened to judge that a nap was the best next step to succeeding in my tasks, then I know better than this busybody manager.

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