It's like so obvious, if you've spent any time at all working for one of these places. Or heck, even interviewing with them.
Here's what it all boils down to: aside the quants, the genuinely alpha traders, and few other wonky actuarial types, most of the grunts (you know: the "analysts"... and the vast majority of the IT types) don't seem to be there, or to have any other propelling motive in life, other than: (1) the above-average salary, and (2) once you're in, you're pretty much guaranteed to do alright -- as long as you're willing to fit in, never even think of rocking the boat, and be ready and willing to continually supplicate your superiors at all times.
Hence the ridiculously subdued style of dress (the dainty dress shoes, the blue and bland off-white shirts), and the curiously submissive demeanor of about 80% of the people you'll meet working there.
Oh, and that drug test, that everyone snickers about below their breath? Including your hiring manager? As everybody knows, it certainly isn't there out of any concern that you'd be abusing intoxicants (after all, you're more than welcome to get shitfaced on alcohol every night of the week -- which most nights you'll find yourself more or less needing to, to drown out the pain, and there sheer inanity of what you're asked to do).
It's there as a gesture of supplication and obedience -- nothing more. Getting you to drop your trousers, whip our your gear, and provide a "specimen" upon demand -- just because your superiors told you to! -- isn't an unfortunate side aspect of drug screening; it's the true purpose of the ritual -- the very end goal, in itself.
BTW: the point about drug testing applies to the handful of cool, geeky, "Agile" companies that adhere to this ridiculous practice, too.
In fact, a certain company by the name of Pivotal Labs comes to mind.
So -- anyone from Pivotal reading this? You're more than welcome to share your true thoughts about your employer's urine fetish, here and now -- safely and anonymously! On the off chance that upper management might actually care what you think about the topic, and perchance, take you seriously.
But heavens, don't do this while your frontline manager is standing nearby! You might get... caught!
This is the first that I've heard of Pivotal Labs requiring drug testing.
That makes me really sad - I thought the tech industry was free of this incredibly invasive, offensive, and counterproductive[0] practice.
Do you know any other tech companies that have these policies (particularly startups)? I wonder if this is an outlier or just a commonplace practice I've been unaware of.
[0] Because not all drugs remain detectable for the same amount of time, drug tests simply encourage use of drugs that are tougher to detect (if you use cocaine, amphetamines, DMT, or heroin on a Friday, it will all be gone from your system by Monday). Marijuana sits at the far other end of the spectrum - depending on the means of testing, it can be detectable weeks after use.
My understanding is that it is not uncommon for VCs to push their companies to start drug testing. Can't vouch for exactly why that is, but it seems to be something that happens.
Why do these VC's have shares in drug testing company's I can think of only a handful of job (outside of DV/TS clearance) that should be allowed to test there employees train drivers, airline pilots and so on.
Your MD doesn't have to have drug tests and they have access to the whole damm candy store.
I was a grunt developer at 'one of these places,' and my experience was in complete contrast to your description. I was never in any way required to 'supplicate' my superiors. My input was evaluated on content and how well I argued, not on my lack of seniority.
My colleagues were lively, extremely competent and collaborative. They were far from bland office drones who only got excited at March Madness brackets or whatever the stereotype is.
A lot of them definitely read HN, and that brings me to the most memorable frustration, which was the inability to respond to comments about what it was like to work at the company.
I work in finance, and I have an aesthetic love of finance. I just find it interesting. But most people who work in it have no interest whatsoever. They just want money. This means that it tends to be a joyless environment full of assholes, who think of the world in winner/loser terms.
What do you find so aesthetically pleasing about it?
Is it the mathematics/model building. Portfolio allocation mean-covariance? Different hedging schemes? Black-Scholes model? Different numerical methods?
Is it the system design? Use of FP to model different contracts or concurrency and distributed trading systems?
Or is it the statistics and back-testing?
Personally, I like the aesthetics a bit but mostly I love the thrill of gambling and watching the market tick and the aesthetics of CNBC money-honey's.
Another instance of the principle that money is, in many ways, like violence: you'd like to think that if it hasn't solved your problem already, if you just keep throwing more and more at it it, you'll solve it eventually -- but all to often, it just makes the problem worse.
And inasmuch as Zuck would like to believe that being young means you're smarter... whatever your baseline, oftentimes, having too much money -- in Zuck's case, literally more money than he knows what to do with -- just makes us stupider.
Between 2010 and 2012, The New Yorker reports that "more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms with various specialties: public relations, human resources, communications, data analysis, [and] teacher evaluation." Many of the consultants were being paid upwards of $1,000 a day.
“Everybody’s getting paid but Raheem still can’t read," Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, was quoted saying.
I often compare XML to violence: "if it doesn't solve your problem, you need to use more."
Perhaps in Zuckerberg's case, it was PHP rather than XML.
In any case, the headline gets a gigantic "well, DUH" from me. Two reasons:
1. It strikes me as unlikely that a lack of funding is Newark's fundamental problem here.
2. Even if lack of money is the fundamental problem, the annual budget for the system is a billion dollars. Why would anyone expect 10% of their annual budget, spent over a period of years, to do anything interesting?
At the time, people were wondering if it was a PR move to help defuse _The Social Network_. Zuckerberg isn't mentioned as being incensed at the waste of money, so...
Or a drone to help husbands "chastise" their wives (or children) -- being as "the UAE penal code, sanctions beating and other forms of punishment or coercion providing the violence leaves no physical marks" -- as determined in 2010 by the UAE's highest court:
Or my personal favorite, the Sheik Issa Mark V -- a drone that can run over a man while driving a Mercedes SUV; rub salt into his wounds; and set his genitals afire with lighter fluid -- all while instructing a camereman (filming everything for the world to see), "Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show":
Not a bad analogy (despite the fecal reference). Arguably the U.S. should also have been sanctioned by the world community for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere. Not to mention for the conditions endured by prisoners in solitary confinement in its own domestic system.
But what you need to understand is that the UAE is perfectly aware of its horrendous human rights record, and so undertakes "feel good" campaigns like this "good drones" program (and its partnership with NYU... and all the scholarships, and funding for the arts) specifically to distract your attention, and to burnish its image.
And BTW, speaking of shit:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - An American held in the United Arab Emirates for nine months for his role in an online parody video about youth culture in Dubai said Friday that he was scared at times and was kept in filthy conditions where guards "shouted at everyone like dogs."
...
Cassim said he stayed for about two months in the Dubai jail, where guards "shouted at everyone like dogs" and conducted room searches in full riot gear. The food was abysmal, and for a time Cassim ate just enough bread to keep himself going.
He said the conditions were unsanitary. Blankets were shared without being washed, and 130 people had to use a communal bathroom.
"The smell was horrendous," he said, adding that he thought the toilets were made of clay until one detainee cleaned them - only to find they were metal and had been covered with caked-on feces. When the communal sink was cleaned with bleach, he said, black maggots crawled out from the tile.
Complex, yes, but not nearly as complex as junior founders tend to think they are.
Like as not their definition of a "complex" business ethical comes down to, more or less:
"Say WHA? They're actually reading the contract I downloaded from somewhere (or which some random mentor gave to me) -- and they actually think it means what it says? And they want to negotiate some aspect of it? OMG they're lawyering up on me! Worse, they seem to know more than I do! I'm scared!"
If you are signing big contracts without legal advice, certainly, that's a big problem. I've lost money that way.
I don't think I'd call it an ethical problem, though. It is more of a "I did something stupid because I thought I had capabilities that I do not, in fact, have."
More likely it was an aggregation of events that prompted it.
It's amazing the extent to which (what should be) self-evident principles such as this whole "fairness and respect" thing, "honoring handshake deals", and "generally behaving in an upstanding way (even though it may be convenient or profitable for you not to)" seem to be beyond the cognitive grasp of certain "founders" I know.
I've heard about a few instances of the past year of startup founders treating their employees really badly... from lying about work hour expectations, to the details of the day to day job in order to get someone to sign on the dotted line. Even firing people, without cause, within days of them starting.
What do you mean, "without cause"? There are plenty of good reasons for firing people just after you've hired them:
"We really appreciate your strong backend skills (especially being as we're still trying to figure out like, namespaces and stuff). But we just found this frontend guy who's really hawt! And we can't afford him unless we fire you."
Being fired for "not being a culture fit" within days of being hired sounds reasonable to you? Especially after what was most likely a rather involved interview process?
(1) I'm just putting this up there for the picture feed; not because I support the viewpoint in the blogpost (which I declined to translate further, once I came across phrases like "Typical Hollywood (USA/Israeli) false flag operation.")
(2) It's a child link of the blog post discussed here yesterday:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7708342
(3) Somewhat more balanced (or at least better documented) information about the Trade House clashes + aftermath may, perhaps, be found the the WP news item page:
California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right.
I think what you meant to say was:
"The defendant's position is that California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right."
As in: this "does not override" phrase you gingerly tucked is not only far from obvious (in this use case); it's highly, highly contentious -- and requires aggressive substantiation to be tenable. In fact, it's a lot like saying:
"The title for this Brooklyn brownstone I just bought ultimately traces back to the Dutch land grants (or Lenape tribe covenants, etc; take your pick); NYC's zoning restrictions do not override the existing property rights. So if you don't like this 40-story casino-hotel-brothel complex I'm building, well, you can just bugger off."
Fair point - I'd edit, but the edit window time has passed.
I was trying to summarize the previous discussions, but
yes, this is contentious, and the outcome is not yet clear.
"Underpowered" would have been damning enough, and a reasonably fair accusation to make.
But it wasn't good enough for Horvath: in order to get her point across -- and to play with your head -- she needs you to believe that you to believe there was "no investigation."
