Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

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> You went to university to become a better employee?!

Not the sole reason, no. But it's not like that wasn't a reason, it was certainly a big one. And that's an incredibly common reason to go. And no, I didn't even get a degree in the field I'm working in currently, but the things I learned getting the degree have definitely helped me be far more effective at work.

> Aren’t you yourself proof that that is not true?

No, because I'm not a government employee with near total job certainty. If I'm not keeping up, I'm falling behind, and will likely find myself replaced in short order. There are millions of people in the world who can do what I do, and what I do can be done practically anywhere there's a data signal.

But make me a government employee who practically can never be fired, well, that sure changes incentives doesn't it. Why spend any second to improve when there's no downside to stagnate?

> nothing indicates those people aren’t getting better, they’re just not doing the specific thing the other person suggested as a means to that end. That’s not at all the same thing.

Sure. Believe what you will. I've worked with countless people who have this mentality. Giving these people more job security guarantees they'll care even less about their job performance and growth. Having the job is 100% about getting a check on the pay period, not about actually doing anything useful.

If someone doesn't think €20 and a few hours spread over a month isn't worth it to be better at their job, I can't imagine they're really working hard at improving any other ways.

> If you think most doctors out there are continually improving

I don't think that. I agree many stagnate. And I usually choose to avoid those which seem to be stagnating. Is it a good thing so many in that industry stagnate? So much better for everyone isn't it, having nearly incompetent doctors everywhere.

It’s honestly a bit hard to continue the conversation with you, because it already seemed to me like some of your arguments where bordering on bad faith in the previous comment (but I gave you the benefit of the doubt) and I get that impression in this comment as well. But I don’t want to have an internet argument, I don’t care about “winning”, I want to have a conversation. I sometimes fail at that and I don’t like when that happens, so I’ll try to cover broad strokes instead of quoting specific sections.

You seem to be suggesting that being a government employee gives you near total job certainty and that to have that job security you need to be a government employee. That is not the case. At all. Maybe where you live, but certainly not everywhere. And yes, I am keenly aware of highly incompetent people (in healthcare no less!) who have job security. Is that a good situation? No. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater and making it a free-for-all where everyone is stressed all the time and can be kicked to the curb on a whim isn’t a better way to properly advance a society. Not if you care about something other than the unfettered pursuit of profit, anyway, and I believe we should care about more than that.

Because you edited your previous post, I’ll point out that I find the new examples (teachers and cops) to be even worse. Policemen are notorious for abuses of powers with no repercussions, I honestly don’t know what to tell you if you’re not aware of that. Teachers get the short end of the stick, and the best ones are seldom recognised. Again, if you're not aware of that I’m not really sure what to tell you.

Also, of course it’s not good to have incompetent doctors, and of course that was not the argument. I invite you to steel man if you want to have a productive conversation. Nowhere am I saying unrestricted job security is the right solution, I am instead pointing out that giving all the power to the employer causes worse problems, and that in general we should care about people’s well-being instead of trying to “advance” and being afraid of “being left behind” all the time. That’s not healthy, and it is stupid to chase “progress” if not to improve lives.

> The whole attitude of "I landed a job with job security, so I am not doing a thing more than I have to" is what drives germany into the ground

I'm not in Germany, but I definitely see this attitude in lots of positions in what I see as jobs with excessive job security.

> Policemen are notorious for abuses of powers with no repercussions

So wouldn't it be good if they potentially had less job security so they'd actually face some real repercussions for their bad actions? Instead they often have some of the strongest job protections out there. They can sometimes even murder people and still collect a full paycheck while cooling off for a few weeks.

> Teachers get the short end of the stick, and the best ones are seldom recognised

I agree. And once again, lots of job security programs ensure the ones continuing to scrape by get promoted and kept while those actually trying just face burn out. I definitely think teachers in general should be paid more and should have good incentive systems (of which there are lots of bad incentive systems, it's a tricky thing to do well in this space).

> in general we should care about people’s well-being instead of trying to “advance” and being afraid of “being left behind” all the time.

I truly do agree we should try and have a good balance of work/life, and I do agree tons of people in places like the US are way too overly focused on the work side of that. I'm just pointing out when you focus too much on the other side, all your industries are no longer competitive on the global marketplace[0] and you'll find yourself a lot worse off. Having people who aren't effectively incentivized to improve (for whatever improve means in context) is not a good thing, I think we can both agree on that.

FWIW, that kind of near total job security leading to not caring about improving isn't inherently a government job kind of thing. I've known lots of people in private industry be effectively the same. The real connection is places with extreme bureaucracy. And I'm definitely not trying to bash all government employees, many truly are hard workers who care.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...

Policemen job security is achieved through corruption and protection within the system, not good labour laws, so it’s orthogonal.

With teachers, the laws which protect the bad ones also help the good ones, and I’d say teachers (for the mandatory school system) mostly range from the mediocre to the exceptional. It’s hard to be too incompetent when following a government lesson plan. And it’s not like they can’t be fired for being truly egregious.

> I'm just pointing out when you focus too much on the other side, all your industries are no longer competitive on the global marketplace[0] and you'll find yourself a lot worse off.

Right, but what I’m saying is I think we don’t focus on the life side of things enough. Right now focus pends too much for the work side, which has a detrimental effect on the life side, which in turn has repercussions on the work side. We can improve work output by improving life, but the reverse isn’t really true. Laws like forbidding employers from contacting employees outside work hours are a good step.

> Having people who aren't effectively incentivized to improve (for whatever improve means in context) is not a good thing, I think we can both agree on that.

In the abstract, we definitely agree. But I haven’t forgotten that the context of our conversation was someone giving a particular view of how to improve on a particular job, and that entailed concessions on the life side. Instead of trying to get their colleagues to do something different, the person could advise the employer on how to improve conditions so that employees want to do the thing. In a sense, if you want people feel incentivised you should give them a reason to. While some people may coast on job security, others thrive because they can take risks and don’t have to be afraid all the time.

> I truly do agree we should try and have a good balance of work/life, and I do agree tons of people in places like the US are way too overly focused on the work side of that.

In the end I’m happy we both agree on what’s most important, even if we have slightly different opinions on how to get there. I also agree there are government employees who truly care and are hard workers and that extreme bureaucracy is detrimental.

> We can improve work output by improving life, but the reverse isn’t really true

I've definitely experienced the "improving work output improved life", in that being better at my job has led to continual job growth which has put me in more fun positions and better compensation.

> the person could advise the employer on how to improve conditions so that employees want to do the thing

For large organizations (especially government ones) this is often a sisyphean task. Feel free to keep rolling that boulder though. Personally I'll choose to improve myself for some percentage of my personal time, and suggest to others to do the same. That might be improvement in your current role, or improvement towards a role you actually want to do in the future. I'll also try and suggest to my management to ensure they are ensuring their workers are staying sharp and figure out good ways to keep them so with what company resources are alloted to them. But in the end, you are the one most looking out for you, don't expect your employer to have your best interests at heart. If all your work improvement solely comes from your employer, there's a good chance you won't continue to be relevant after a while. I agree this shouldn't be the case in a "good" society, but its the reality of life. Even for an employer who isn't overly profit-focused and does choose to invest in their employees growth, you can't always assume the ones choosing your future development are actually in touch with what is coming in your future.

> While some people may coast on job security, others thrive because they can take risks and don’t have to be afraid all the time.

In a lot of these overly bureaucratic orgs we're talking about which create these roles which are hard to remove people from allowing such workers to coast forever, they're also often not great about rewarding risk taking.

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