You'd be amazed how many things you can do - physical things you do with your hands, like, say, turning a storage room into an office, a thing I actually did - if you just ignore people telling you you aren't allowed to. If you ask the question "what will happen if I ignore this policy", and the answer is not "I will get a pay cut" or "I will get fired," then the policy in question isn't actually a policy. It's just a suggestion.
Figuring your management's pain points is also very very helpful. I work in a building with metal walls and no windows. As a consequence we get no cell service in the building. We've been asking for cell repeaters for nearly fifteen years; we were always told "we can't do that, it's a personal service provided to employees, we can't pay for personal services."
Eventually the fire alarm went out - for 18 MONTHS. During a lab wide conference call I pointed out that in case of a fire there was no way to alert employees in the building. They said "we'll send cell phone alerts", and I replied that as they knew, because I had been telling them every year for fifteen years, there was no cell service in the building, and that this was a lawsuit waiting for the next building fire.
> If you ask the question "what will happen if I ignore this policy", and the answer is not "I will get a pay cut" or "I will get fired," then the policy in question isn't actually a policy. It's just a suggestion.
I like to phrase this as "never think you need permission to do a good job", but it's ever so true.
Oft espoused at Microsoft BUT, as I found out, that one case where I ordered an extra $150 whiteboard for my office without first going to my manager resulted in a really stern rebuke.
Managers manage resources which usually means strict control over them in an mbas or old mind: even if the whiteboard was $1 that you did not ask them is their issue. This of course has no place in innovative companies.
Given all the under-the-radar, play-it-fast-and-loose stuff I was encouraged to do there, I was quite surprised by the episode. This was just after the consent decree came down and the whole place become very risk-averse practically overnight.
Yeah -- probably only a handful of companies put their money and practice where their mouth is -- aka not a micromanagers' heaven. It is part of the process of a company's death if the company is in the innovation/tech sector.
My spouse teaches in a school that is an isolated area between hills and has so little cell signal that teachers are forced to go outside and stand in a particular part of the parking lot and wave their phones around to transmit or receive a text message, let alone a phone call.
District IT policy prohibits teachers from connecting their phones to the school wifi network (along with many other frivolously absurd IT policies).
For three years, I have sent email to various administrators, including to the school superintendent, pointing out how dangerous it is for teachers to have no cell signal, especially if there is an emergency such as an active shooter or whatever. Beyond a polite response promising that it'll will be "looked in to," nothing has come of my messages.
Last week, teachers across the district were told that they are soon to be required to use 2FA using their personal cell phones to authenticate to the school network for email, grading software, etc.
I have no idea how this will be able to work at her school.
Yeah, I don't care about the hassle of having two phones... If you want me to use a business mandated software, give me a phone or another alternative. Work software won't be on my phone.
2FA using an authenticator app doesn’t need a network connection. If they mean 2FA by receiving text messages, then it could of course.
School administrators aren’t capable of giving you more cell signal though. Those microcells don’t work that well and are specific to your carrier, I think? Complain to the carrier.
I still don't follow why they would elect to install a cell repeater rather than fix the fire alarm. One of the two sounds like a good way to get in jail for embezzling public funds; I certainly don't like the idea of my public tax money going towards unapproved repeaters (if the employees pooled together their own money or something, more power to them). On the other hand, no judge/jury is going to convict for fixing the fire alarm whether the money was authorized or not.
"You have to learn why things work on a starship."
The building itself is "owned" by a separate part of the government than the part that actually sits in it (and this is almost always true, no matter what part of the government you're talking about). As a consequence, getting the building fixed requires coordinating someone else's budget and personnel. Whereas installing unofficial cell repeaters can come out of your own budget, specifically because they're unofficial.
Yeah I get that the convoluted arms of .gov are entangled to the point they strangle themselves; what I don't understand is why can't the unofficial budget be used to fix the fire alarm? It's not like the fire alarm guy is gonna ask for the deed to the building. I could probably get a fire alarm guy to come to the local coffee shop if I wanted and no one would even know the difference.
Chances are there is a department in the other arm of the gov't whose job it is to manage those, and who is going to look bad if you fix it yourself, and they'll get angry. Seen it happen.
> Remember there is no “company.” All of the company’s decisions are actually individuals acting within their own set of incentives. The “company” is what emerges when those individual incentives interact with each other.
This! Doesn't matter what the "company" does, gives information to SEC, publishes Ads at the newspaper. A company is made of people - for good and bad.
If there is no company then why don't individuals become felons when a company is convicted of a felony? Why aren't individuals typically liable when the company goes bankrupt; wouldn't you hold the employees to pay the debt if they were ? Why don't the non-equity holding individuals of the 'company' capture the capital gains and post-operating-expenses profits?
It's important to remember when you are an individual you aren't the company. You typically hold no equity in the company, unless you are lucky enough to have it included in the benefits of certain professional and executive positions.
No the company is carefully constructed to make sure you aren't in it. You are a resource FOR the company, not part of the company.
Because the fire alarm is actually on someone's radar. it's been reported up the chain, budget requests have been submitted, it's on checklists and slide decks etc etc. In other words, someone would notice if it magically got fixed.
But if your cell signal suddenly goes from zero bars to three bars in the building, nobody is the wiser.
Yeah I mean I don't work for the government so I guess it doesn't make sense to me. So what, they show up and it's fixed. What's gonna happen, is someone seriously going to get fired / prosecuted for fixing the fire alarm?
I presume if no one is ratting you out for the repeater they're not going to rat you out for the fire alarm, and even if they do the consequences can't be worse for fixing a life-saving alarm vs a possibly frivelous repeater.
Probably not, but once you get high enough up in management, the pain issue really starts to become "how much paperwork will I be required to do?" And in the case of obviously spending money to do something that was someone else's job, the answer is "a surprisingly large amount."
It's worth noting that a) this is a very complicated fire alarm, and fixing it is neither inexpensive nor easy; and b) the issue of warning employees applies to lots of non-fire emergencies. Such as an active shooter event.
Well that sounds fucking painful. If you can swing the change there's lots of small private companies you can work at where getting authorization for a few thousand at a time is as easy as asking the CEO in a 5 second conversation (if that). I think I would last about 5 days with that kind of fuckery before self-imploding in anger and rage quitting.
If you work somewhere where a thesis is required to fix a fucking broken fire alarm, I don't know what to say, that just isn't the right environment the thrive in.
I know. But the trade off is that government is very well resourced. Applying those resources can be painful and slow, but once you get them in gear you can attack problems nobody else can touch.
> If there is no company then why don't individuals become felons when a company is convicted of a felony?
They do. Companies cannot be charged with criminal offenses, so "when a company is convicted of a felony" describes a non-event. Only humans can be charged and convicted of criminal misconduct.
>A four-count felony criminal information was filed today in federal court in the Eastern District of New York charging HSBC with willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program,
>Q. Can a corporation be held criminally liable in the same way as an individual can be held
liable?
>A. Yes. A corporation can be prosecuted for essentially all of the same crimes as individuals
and, if proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, convicted of felonies and misdemeanors.
I think their point is 'and then what happened'. You can't put a company in jail, and no one uses the corporate death penalty anymore it seems. PG&E got criminally convicted, and they just got a fine like they usually do.
It is possible for many people to commit individual acts that when done alone are not a felony, but when combined as part of an organization are.
Convicting a mid-level manager of murder because he turned a valve on, when they to the best of their knowledge, had no idea it would result in 100 people dying in a fire would also not be justice - at least if the necessary records got lost by some lower level functionary somewhere else, and it never got fixed because an exec somewhere was prioritizing some other work elsewhere without having the records of how bad it was.
PG&E has 26,000 employees. Even with as screwed up as it is, the problem is the organization itself. Putting all 26k people in jail doesn't solve the problem either.
"I'd like to help you, but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox -- W-I-L-C-O-X -- on the third floor, but I can't. I also don't advise you to fill out a WS-2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I do not expect someone to get back to you quickly to resolve the matter. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do..."
>> I used to struggle with people not responding to my emails when I tried to get their approval on a change I was making. “People are busy,” my manager explained. “Instead say, ‘I’ll be making this change on Thursday unless you object before then.’”
YUP. I first heard of it as "UOD" = "Unless Otherwise Directed".
Extremely useful, as in politely explain the basic reasoning and "UOD, I'll be implementing X, Y,, and Z starting Thursday..." make sure everyone gets that message and proceed. Works both within organizations and even with partners and customers. I also can't say I've ever heard a complaint when it was used.
The point is to present a solution and give them the chance to just say "GO" or "Woah" instead of handing them a problem with the expectation to work through it with you.
Moreover, the point of just notifying the "UOD, ..." is to minimize getting entangled in the bureaucracy. Calls can often lead to either massive time-wasting for everyone in playing phone-tag, or escalation and further pointless delay which literally benefits no one.
Distracting other people from their tasks to get a definitive answer on an item where it is reasonable for me/you to make an executive decision and give them an opportunity to check it before implementing it is really most often best for everyone.
Now obviously, if it is a real unknown on a critical item where getting it wrong will really fork-up someone's week, then you call and nail down a hard answer and then document it in writing.
But, the point is that for a surprisingly large amount of stuff, "UOD, ..." works amazingly well for everyone — and I do mean everyone.
> The cheaper hotels were 30 minutes away, but then I’d blow the budget for uber rides. I asked if I'd have to cancel my conference trip.
> Manager: “There’s not actually an uber limit”
When the Man exploits you by keeping you guessing about the expense policy, it's your moral imperative to spend as much of the Man's budget as you possibly can.
> I booked that distant hotel and took an uber everyday. Now here’s the kicker: the hotel + uber cost more than what I would have paid if I had gotten a hotel walking distance from the venue.
I ran into the same problem. All the decent hotel rooms near a customer site were booked up, so I bought a blanket from Target for $20 and slept in my car rather than sleep in a bug-infested motel for $100. I couldn't expense the blanket, though. (In the company's defense, I think this is due to tax laws making it too complicated for the company to allow, rather than any particular person's incompetence)
You'd probably have been ok if you destroyed the blanket after you were done with it. Maybe that's a business, certified destruction of items claimed on expenses.
I've seen things getting fast-tracked because they were passed through the CEOs girlfriend (also employed there), who was but the only person able to consistently reach the man.
Another strategy I highly recommend is to not let companies have leverage on you. Don’t commit to any long-term contracts (you want the ability to stop paying them at any time without having to potentially litigate to get out of long-term obligations) and have backup plans in case your primary supplier screws up.
The dynamics change dramatically when the company needs you more than you need them.
Instead of you having to fight them to get what you want, you can simply notify them that they’re not gonna get any more money out of you unless the problem is fixed, and leave the “fighting” to your contact at the company whose paycheck depends on people continuing to buy services from them.
This article was hard to read, even though its short because I could just feel my anxiety rising while getting through it.
After being a founder of a small startup, the adjustment back to corporate life has been difficult, and the instances where the company cannot behave logically as an organism really take an emotional tole.
There was this guy at my previous work who was in charge of Salesforce. Literal sales force members were denied access to Salesforce information under the guise of “SOX Compliance”. He threw this bureaucratic wall out every time. I don’t think he knew what SOX policy meant. It was purely subjective and was really a ploy for power and control. The company suffered for it.
Counterpoint: you're not that important, you're not that special, the control framework may exist for a reason that is not apparent to you or that you haven't bothered to understand, and the people who own that framework may well be empowered to get you fired as you try to circumvent.
Well, that's a possibility. Another possibility is that, yes, the work you are doing is as important as you imagine it to be. Not everybody is delusional.
If you go and try to circumvent the process, there is a chance you will find out.
“Remember there is no “company.” All of the company’s decisions are actually individuals acting within their own set of incentives. The “company” is what emerges when those individual incentives interact with each other.”
> Ever tried dealing with a large company, only to get stonewalled? You're talking to a black box that repeats “Sorry, that’s against policy” or “I can’t do that”
Unless you have equity in the company, why would you waste time doing that?
I regularly have to interact with large companies I have no "direct" equity in, and I think it's fairly standard.
Some are my clients, who may need my help BECAUSE their internal bureaucracy is causing them problems. One recent personal example: a company has a hiring freeze or other policy preventing them from hiring a new full time member, but they still require technical support, and have some budget for an "outside consultant" to get them through this period. I have no equity in this company, but I am still being paid by them and incentivized to work through their problem even when another internal department of theirs is blocking or otherwise complicating the process with bureaucracy.
There have been times where I need to provision something for less than $20 dollars on a company card... and to justify that cost, I have to hold multiple hour long meetings with multiple higher level employees attending and discussing. My agency is billing them at least $100 for my hour alone, meaning that holding the meeting and deciding not to spend said money has already cost them more than just spending the $20 even if that was a complete waste of $20 on an unnecessary service.
Another common example is working with my client's clients, usually large platform or service vendors. While I might not have direct equity in a provider, there is usually a high cost to re-platform or replace a key service, even with a near-equivalent provider, and so it makes sense for me to spend time trying to work with the original service provider even if they are difficult to work with.
In my previous career as a teacher I had to deal with a metric fuckton of school bureaucracy and administrators. Not sure why the education system around my area is so bloated with non-teaching administrative staff members; not sure how you can justify paying more people as "administrators" than ground level workers like teachers and custodians, but some places seem to have the opposite allocation of staff resources.
In the past this is why things like per diems came into being - the paperwork tracking it was more expensive than just letting everyone have their $50 and who cares if some brought a sandwich from home and pocketed it.
A wise company would make sure any consulting contract had a fixed $500 or whatever for "incidentals" - and if they weren't needed and the consultant pocked it, who cares?
A paycheck, meaningful work that aligns with your values or goals in life, getting experience in a more mature org before jumping to a startup, job stability of a large company, interesting work, off the top of my head.
Sometimes you need to deal with a glitch on their end and end up stonewalled because nobody who you're allowed to talk to has the authority to fix your problem
You'd be amazed how many things you can do - physical things you do with your hands, like, say, turning a storage room into an office, a thing I actually did - if you just ignore people telling you you aren't allowed to. If you ask the question "what will happen if I ignore this policy", and the answer is not "I will get a pay cut" or "I will get fired," then the policy in question isn't actually a policy. It's just a suggestion.
Figuring your management's pain points is also very very helpful. I work in a building with metal walls and no windows. As a consequence we get no cell service in the building. We've been asking for cell repeaters for nearly fifteen years; we were always told "we can't do that, it's a personal service provided to employees, we can't pay for personal services."
Eventually the fire alarm went out - for 18 MONTHS. During a lab wide conference call I pointed out that in case of a fire there was no way to alert employees in the building. They said "we'll send cell phone alerts", and I replied that as they knew, because I had been telling them every year for fifteen years, there was no cell service in the building, and that this was a lawsuit waiting for the next building fire.
Guess what is being installed as we speak?