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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

> weather storms

This is good. Means they're less likely to be impacted by temporary fads and I can count on them being around in a decade

> Policies to control workers and inventory

Policies are good and usually law abiding. Meaning that they treat their employees fairly, pay taxes and obey labor laws or they'll get sued.

> send their profits out of the community

The main beneficiaries are the patrons and people working there, who are as likely to live in the community than a mom and pop shop. The profit margin, if any, accrues to stock holders which are widely distributed to people with 401ks pensions and others. I'm okay with that

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> Meaning that they treat their employees fairly

The existence of a policy doesn't make it fair, in fact the reason I abhor 1-size-fits-all policies is because of places like Amazon warehouses where you're fired for being late X times ("sorry, it's policy, my hands are tied :( ). Corporate policies are there to protect the company from lawsuits, and as a consequence they erode the agency of individuals which is literally dehumanizing. It's one step away from a human and one toward a robot. people should be treated like humans.

I don't know, I like policies. What's the alternative? Different rules for different people? How does that square with anti discrimination. Because I am willing to bet the ones that get disproportionate punishment will be a historically marginalized group. Same rules for everyone is a good thing. And it adds transparency and order.

Treating someone like a human doesn't mean firing someone for being late while not firing someone that does the same thing. Make the late policy lenient and applied consistently. That's more human

This requires the humans applying the policy to apply them fairly. For example, I've seen "friends of the boss" be hired into tech roles after failing the interview. The policy of needing to pass an interview panel is only for those not a friend of someone higher up. Technically the policy is fair, in practice it is not.

That is before we get into whether or not those policies treat people well.

But I don't have a good alternative, other than more and better policies I suppose...

Barnes and Noble is privately held, so I’m not sure how it would be in anyone’s 401k.

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