Hacker News Reader

Comment by aantix | Hacker News Reader

First off, I saw Ernie present at this years Railsconf and it was absolutely fantastic. Definitely go watch his talk on this very subject.

Secondly, over the course of my 16 years of software development, I've found that when a I get treated less of a human (e.g. boss is barking orders, denied vacation, etc), that most of the time, these issues are rarely directly confronted. These confrontations create mental roadblocks in my head; all of the sudden I'm less productive/creative, lethargic, generally less excited about my work.

When a boss cracks the whip for employees to "work harder, faster!", it results in these subtle, mental withdrawals that are hard to pin down but are definitely costing the company money. Internal resentment results in a subconscious "fuck you" that most bosses may not even realize is occurring.

View on HN

Nice topic.

There's a lot towards treating people as human and Most of my distaste from scrum in many implementations was because of shops implemented in such a way that I felt like I was in kindergarten. The process wasn't always to blame, but a process can make things inhuman - often done in a way to discourage design, table neccessary discussion, de-prioritize architecture, or assign tasks arbitrarily.

The empathy and trust part is key, and they lose meaning the second they are framed on the wall. I wrote a bit (http://michaeldehaan.net/post/115291819627/the-management-le...) about how I think most conflicts (i.e. politics) are from mutually conflicting priorities and things might get easier if people tell everyone what their mutual conflicts are and what constraints they are operating under and remember they are all in it together.

Once people don't talk about these things, they build up walls (and false assumptions about the other person) and it's often too late to repair.

I have a bad habit of opening tons of links and then when closing their parents not knowing where they came from but that article was so good I had to backtrack and see where it came from, I really enjoyed it.

Now and then (not nearly as often nowadays) I come across really great blogs that I'd like to read on an ongoing basis and I think I used to use Google Reader or something until they killed it and then I just stopped - is there something comparable nowadays, and do most blogs support some common protocol?

Thanks! FWIW, I picked Feedly to replace google reader.

It has a decent phone app and also the web page version. There are probably some other good ones.

There's a term in German organization psychology of "Innere Kündigung", internal termination, that fits the phenomenon rather well. Unlike formal terminating your job, you're still around, but from a psychological point of view you might as well leave.

Wikipedia didn't link to an English term - I wonder if there is any established term of similar effect.

"One foot out the door"? "Mentally absent"? "Checked out"? Whatever it is, I'm familiar.

"Phoning it in", too.

Working out the clock, is one that I'm familiar with. Although it makes more sense when you work in an hourly position.

Not engaged.

Here's Ernie's Railsconf 2015 talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZLYxLjwNWo&list=PLE7tQUdRKc...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com