I fell the fuck down the stairs.
Rather than land straight on my ass though, I had the presence of body to reach up and catch the stairs above to break my fall, which forced my shoulder momentarily to dislocate I think, and then pop back into place. Well, that woke me up, because I haven't felt pain like that in a while. At first I thought I had broken it, but it seems to be moving, so if I haven't torn anything too badly, I might have "got away" with it. Though, depending on how it feels in the morning, I might head over to the doctor for a check-up, while I still have private work cover. At least, they might give me some decent painkillers.
Heard of ghost workers?
I was reading an article that studied 50,000 software engineers at hundreds of companies and it discovered that almost 10% did "virtually nothing", with them doing less than ten percent of the median engineer. That is the middle marker, not the best of the group. And these are professionals, getting paid as professionals. Apparently, the average salary for a SwE in the US is about 130K, which means that collectively, these 5000% people who are performing very, very poorly, are getting paid around $650,000,000 a year, for doing next to know work.
Not a bad gig!
Note: If anyone knows where I might get something like this, please let me know, as I am looking.
And the other thing that was interesting to discover from the study, is,
The research, which has not been peer reviewed, found 14 per cent of software engineers working remotely do “almost no work”, compared to nine per cent in hybrid roles and six per cent in the office. However, engineers were much more likely to work from home and more top performing employees worked remotely rather than in the office.
So, while more top-performing worked from home, far more non-performing did also. As suspected really, isn't it? Sure, some people might perform highly from home, but a lot also won't perform, even though they are getting paid. In fact, the people who held the study suggested that the work submitted is so low, the workers might have another job on the side - or perhaps their main job? - With work submitted being 10% of the median, they might have ten similar jobs I guess, and take home 1.5 million a year.
two quotes I found amusing:
“And no, AI is not writing their code. Most of these people are chilling so hard they have no idea what AI can do,”
“Most people in tech were never surprised that Elon could lay off 80 per cent of Twitter, you can lay off 80 per cent of most of these companies.”
Lols.
What might be interesting with this subset of employees though, is that it is relatively easy to track the numbers, but still they are able to get away with it. Just imagine all the people in other roles that are far less quantitative, and quality is subjective. I am guess that at the very least, the 10% is going to hold true across an entire organization. And, the organizations know it, and are trying to address the situation by getting people back into the office. Even if they can't get rid of all the people, it would have an effect if they could for instance, get 20% of the median out of these people instead.
I am no fan of corporations.
However, I am also not a fan of people who cheat the systems in place, because eventually, it means that the rest are going to lose privileges because of it. This is likely a lot of what we are seeing in the organizations now who are forcing workers back into the office, because they have been crunching the number and on average it would make them more money if people were in the office, than not. They don't care about employee convenience, if it means a loss of profits.
Human behaviour is pretty predictable, and when people are "unsupervised" they are more likely to act as they want to act, rather than how they "should" act. For the majority of people, work is a means to an end to get paid, which means that if they can get paid without doing the work, all the better. And while it is obvious that not all people will give into the temptation to play hooky when no one is around, there will always be some percentage that do.
But, these ghost workers are actually not the biggest issue, but rather, there are also those who are just above them on the scale and all the way up to the median, and possibly above. Productivity isn't just being lost under the 10% mark, it is being lost all the way up, and this is going to likely add up to more and create and compound other problems at scale.
I wonder what would happen if there was a perfect way to evaluate work performed and reward based on the value. For instance, using the setup of 100 software engineers earning 100K for the job, that would be a total salary of 10 million. But, what if it was distributed based on contribution, so the 10 who only did 10% of the median, will only get paid 1% out of the total pool, splitting 100,000 between them, so get 10K each and so on upward. And, this extra savings pool, would be distributed to reward people who are above the median.
Would behaviours change?
Many keep saying they would prefer more of a meritocracy.
Would they like their own results? Would you like yours?
I can't even walk a flight of stairs.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
This is a direct result of a culture which punishes making mistakes. If you don't do anything, you don't risk making any mistakes and you keep your job.
Fuck off, coming with all that clever think-aning, then ending on a modest note. I don't buy it (though am genuinely sorry for your fall. At least you fell in style. You fell the fuck down, not just down. Like some loser.)
Back to your ghosts. I think people trying to cheat is a maladjustment, i.e. someone who's been forced into a lane of the system that's not really suited for them trying their best to make do. At least, that's the people I know cheat. And I don't think they'd prefer a meritocracy, no, though I do have sympathy for them. I don't think their merits were properly encouraged, so how could they thrive in a meritocracy?
Hm. Yes. I would. I think you would, too. We (and by that I mean a lot of us here, not just you and I) are maladjusted too, but in a very different way.
But what the fuck do I know? I've never worked in a corporation. Then again, haven't fallen the fuck down the stairs, either. Mind your shoulder. Your brain seems about right.
And this is the whole problem with one, right? It is still suited to those who have some kind of advantage, a privilige over others that is suited to success.
I probably don't work as hard as I could at times, but I am also trying to help my worker grow. If I solve every problem for him he isn't going to learn anything. I know that probably isn't the reason with some of these folks.
They actually filtered out the engineers who did other things - so they aren't included in these numbers. It is pretty bad.
Hopefully you are OK after falling down the stairs.
Yeah, I work in this industry and I believe that report you are mentioning is accurate.
It isn't going well today. It has also been snowing like hell, and my wife has had to do the snow work...
I believe it too, based on what I have seen at my last job.
I've never heard of ghost workers, but there are "ATM workers" in Turkey. People close to the government or the mayor earn money without ever going to work. All they have to do is have an ATM card.
Lol - that sounds about right.
Working from home is actually a win-win model. It reduces some costs of a company, makes a company ready for working in unusual situations. Besides, it lets employees work comfortably, spend no time for commuting, makes them intervene in work anytime.
Not necessarily, as they have to have offices anyway. Also, if the people at home are less productive or make less impact on customers, it is a cost.
Vice versa at my company. The employees have claimed it and their performance has increased, said by the board.
Meritocracy would do better in my 20s. I am happy with my productivity which surely lies around that median line. I am not an engineer :)
if you are at the median, you would earn what you agreed to :)
If you landed on your head no damage would have occurred.
Would have broken the stairs
Haha, yeah exactly and that can be a cosy repair.
Your such a good sport
Very interesting article and greetings to all of us today.
Damn You gotta be careful as you age... stuff happens, and it hurts a lot.
Glad you didn't break anything.
hi @tarazkp, is like you are always falling down.
the other time you fell counting small steps and now you fell again but not on your ass😂😂. Thank God you woke up.I really find your write ups very interesting and brain tasking while trying to figure out what exactly you meant. Well done tarazkp.