
Ask HN: How do you find an honest and truthful workplace? - bitflipbit
I&#x27;m looking for a job where people highly value honesty and truthfulness in all areas of the company.<p>Where do I start?
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eevilspock
They do exist, but they are rare because dishonesty is far more profitable
financially, even though it comes at the expense of "moral profit" and "social
profit" for the world.

And it is a bottom up as much as it is a top down problem. Employees self-
servingly turn a blind eye if not actively participate in the dishonesty to
benefit their careers and salary. Check out _The Banality of Systemic
Evil_.[1]

You are far more likely to find honesty in small orgs than large.

I wish the post about Kickstarter choosing social profit over financial[2]
profit lasted longer on the front page today. That it didn't says something
sad I think about the priorities of HN readers and the tech community as a
whole.

Don't give up! The most important thing is to work against the banality of
evil not just in your workplace but in yourself. It takes a lot of courage and
sacrifice.

-

[1] [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-
banality...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-banality-of-
systemic-evil) (HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6436719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6436719))

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10250120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10250120)

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carsongross
You will have a hard time finding a place like this, because honesty and
truthfulness do not perform well in large groups where there is not a pre-
rational basis (e.g. religion or blood-ties) for them.

You should look for smaller companies for more honesty, but also recognize
that there is another side of the coin: there will be a stronger ingroup
tendency and it may be harder to gain trust, and there will be less stability
in this economic environment, which can add tensions.

I worked for a company that started as a fairly small, high-trust startup of
about 50 people and that grew into a huge public company. Despite the
leadership remaining relatively constant, once a certain size was hit it
became apparent that political management and power relations became more
important than productivity. Honesty regarding mistakes, in particular, almost
completely vanished.

I'm convinced that group size is the most important factor in trust formation.

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PhilWright
Workplaces are made up of people. People vary in their levels of honesty and
transparency. An individuals level of honesty can vary over time as
circumstances change. Two people might not even agree on what constitutes the
truth.

So to expect any workplace to be completely honest and transparent is not only
impossible but naïve.

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MrTonyD
I remember the point in my career when I started having to routinely sign non-
disclosure agreements, put "proprietary" labels on my writing, and meet with
attorneys regarding agreements and contracts. I gradually realized that all
real managers and executives routinely work with information which can't be
shared - much of it specifically being hidden from coworkers. Combine that
with all the competing interests (maximize profit & minimize costs for all the
major stockholders and investors vs. all the employees). And so, eventually, I
finally realized that "honesty" and "integrity" in the corporate workplace are
largely an intentional illusion. If someone believes in that their workplace
is "moral", it tells me that he is either someone insignificant in the company
or someone who has, like most executives, adopted a "business value system"
which is usually very "Ann Rand-ish" and "free market" usually with some
"personal responsibility" thrown in (it helps to ease the cognitive dissonance
when justified by "they deserved it" and dehumanized by "markets")

Addendum: I've spent more than a decade in open source, so anyone who tells me
that I should try that is just drinking the kool-aid.

~~~
codeonfire
There is a spectrum. Obviously the evil turds at companies (mostly) don't go
around murdering people like common gangsters. But the way some of them act I
don't understand why they just don't quit their job and start robbing and
shooting people. There are quite a few pieces of shit out there that will make
anyone wonder why they are even try to pretend to follow any sort of rules or
laws at all. Why go through the effort of coming to an office. Perhaps they
are playing a game to see how well they can fool people.

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Mz
Be very careful what you wish for. The sword of truth is a hard thing to live
with. You might consider tempering the high value you place on these things.

Having said that, if this matters to you a whole lot, I recommend growing your
own. Create a business that fits your high values. If you can create something
that both fits your high values and also pays the bills, you will have added
something of real value to the world.

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bootload
_" How do you find an honest and truthful workplace?"_

Make it yourself. Another way is find people where the intersection of
technology and these attributes collide. Hacker spaces are a good place where
technology is made unburdened by commerce. When money is introduced though,
that's where you'll need to pay extra attention.

Honesty, truth and money mix like oil and water.

~~~
insoluble
> When money is introduced though, that's where you'll need to pay extra
> attention.

It should be pointed out that while money is a prime example here, money is
not the only system of value in society. Any system of value can be abused.
Sometimes prestige and fame are abused similarly to money. Look at all the
weightlifters and athletes who have been found using performance enhancers,
and not all these people were doing it merely for the money. Politicians and
Priests are further examples where occasionally money is secondary to the real
drive. Then there are Police Officers and Soldiers, not that I am trying to
paint any stereotypes here since each individual is unique.

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gt565k
You start by interviewing and asking your interviewers questions. Important
questions! Ask about their backgrounds, work process, the types of projects
they work on, turnover rate, etc.

I made the mistake of not asking the right questions when I accepted my first
job out of college. I left in less than a year.

You'll find that there are a lot of different ways companies run, and you
won't know much about them until you've worked at a few, and interviewed at
20-30 of them.

Know this: Every company has problems to a certain extent. It's your job to
make sure you can balance the pros and cons in your favor. Decide what's the
most important thing for you.

Go out there and interview as much as you can. It'll give you a sense of the
companies and people who run them.

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gadders
Reading between the lines, it sounds like something bad has happened to you at
work. Rather than ask for the impossible (because as PhilWright says in this
thread, companies are made up of people), you might be better served to
explain the incident that has prompted this question.

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dreamdu5t
Truth!? People can't handle the truth. If people valued truth and honesty
there wouldn't be "the company". If you speak the truth you can't tow the
line! Tell people that shadows are shadows and they'll probably kill you.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Carry a lantern and live in a barrel.

~~~
gadders
Diogenes - is this you?
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope)]

