
Epic Systems workers are organizing - mgerdts
https://www.tonemadison.com/articles/epic-workers-arent-just-mad-theyre-organizing
======
summitsummit
you shouldn't have to be mad or pushed beyond a certain emotional threshold to
organize. organization shouldn't be a form of retaliation. this should always
have been the status quo.

~~~
ralusek
Please, no. I do not want software engineering to become unionized.

~~~
reedf1
You'll be the first to suggest it when a tech slump hits - and it will be too
late.

~~~
namdnay
Or when they hit 50 and realize they can’t get a new job in 2 days anymore

------
nthitz
Epic is the area's largest tech employer and their employees are a boon to the
region.

Unfortunately the Company has and continues to treat their staff like
expendable college grads

~~~
cordite
This was my experience.

------
minimaxir
Relevant thread from /r/cscareerquestions:
[https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/i3n1cy/name_...](https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/i3n1cy/name_and_shame_epic_systems_for_unnecessarily/)

------
Negitivefrags
I know this is going to be unpopular, but I just want to think about this
companies perspective to add a bit of balance to this thread.

I know a lot of people on here feel like work from home is just as productive
or even more so than working in the office, especially in the case of open
office layouts, but it's just not universally true.

Some people are really good with responsibility, and some people really are
not.

As an illustrative example, you might have 20% of workers working at 120%
efficiency, 50% of workers working at 80% efficency, and 30% of workers
working at 10% efficiency. This example comes out to about 67% productivity
overall.

But you are still paying 100% of the salaries.

It would be nice if you could just tell the 30% who have terrible efficiency
to come in while everyone else can work from home, but you can't. It
immediately going to be seen as unfair. "Why does X get to work from home and
I don't?!". Many people don't even have the self awareness to tell that they
are terrible at working from home.

Another option would paying people for the amount of work they are actually
delivering. Yeah, that isn't going to happen. I mean, for a start, it's hard
to even quantify most of the time. A good manager knows who is delivering and
who isn't, but you can't exactly point to number of bugs closed, or lines of
code checked in to prove it.

And aside from anything else differing pay is a hard pill to swallow even
without WFH involved. The guy earning 200k might be 4x as useful as the guy
being paid 100k, or he may be no better or even worse!

My point is that there is no really satisfactory option here. I mean, you can
make the argument "It's a pandemic, they should be happy to pay the same
amount for 67% of the work" and sure, maybe that's just the way the cookie
crumbles. I mean, lots of people are being totally forced out of business due
to this pandemic so it's better situation than those guys I guess?

But you can at least understand that it's a sucky position to be in.

~~~
dry_soup
Paying employees according to the true value of their labor is tempting at
first, but you better be careful-- Apply the principle too consistently and
the C-suite gets a huge pay cut.

~~~
eddyfromtheblok
yeah, imagine having to have to wear a suit all day, a horror that only a 8
figure salary can compensate for.

------
foogazi
> It’s hard (actually, it’s impossible) to retain our culture when we’re
> working from our homes

First it was sacrifice for the economy, now it’s for the company culture!

------
amir734jj
I live in Wisconsin and I applied to work there twice after finishing
bachelor's degree about 8 years ago. Both times I was rejected. I was thinking
by working at Epic I would be solving real-world problem and helping humanity
so I was excited. The way I was treated says a lot about their culture and how
much they value their employees. They are a terrible company inside and
outside.

~~~
pmiller2
How were you treated?

~~~
amir734jj
Took the online assessment twice. It takes 2 hours to complete it. Never
received any phone call or email or anything saying that my application was
denied or accepted.

~~~
pmiller2
I'm glad it wasn't worse. It seems like employers ghosting candidates has
become a norm to the extent that I know if I apply for 5 or 10 jobs, I'll be
ghosted at least a couple of times. It's stupidly unprofessional -- IMO, if a
human looks at your application, you should get a personalized email saying
whether or not they intend to move forward; and, if no human looks at the
application, the candidate should get at least an automated email explaining
why, or a timeframe in which a human should be able to get around to looking
at it.

This ain't rocket science. Sure, individual humans who are part of the process
can make mistakes sometimes, but when it's coming from a group that says "we
can't hire enough people! skills shortage!", I have very little sympathy.

------
BooneJS
For those interested, Google’s Madison office has some openings for software
and hardware engineers. Our office is downtown in the same building as The
Sylvee, and Google has publicly announced that voluntary WFH has been extended
through June 2021 to allow employees the confidence to commit to personal
arrangements until then.

------
josh_fyi
Recruiters for remote-working companies: for your attention!

------
s9w
This is about Epic Systems (healthcare software) and not about Epic Games.

~~~
logicslave12
Funny that there’s two well known software companies that have disgruntled
software developers. The title is believable for either

------
Animats
Oh, not Epic Games.

