Over the last two newsletters (three, if you include my reply to Google’s “rebuttal” of the Prabhakar Raghavan newsletter), I’ve made the case that while rot economics are responsible for making technology products manifestly worse, this transformation was only possible thanks to the interventions of a managerial class.
I used to work at Big Tech Co where I was told that they designed their promotion policy to avoid the Peter principle, which is why I, an engineer, would not be promoted without going outside of my responsibilities to build up my promo packet.
Later, when I was fired, I thought about how my manager was probably going to be given kudos for firing me. I had been contending with undiagnosed ADHD, and when I told my manager that I had been diagnosed and that they should accommodate my needs, I was told that I needed to be more flexible, i.e. act like a “normal”/neurotypical person. So to the company, this manager was doing a good job, since I was now a drain on resources. But clearly this manager was a failure for not learning how to manage someone with ADHD. Peter principle fulfilled!
I had heard that managers fucking suck, but experiencing it IRL was a different story. So everything ed writes here aligns with the patterns I have experienced. Managers ain’t shit.
I used to work at Big Tech Co where I was told that they designed their promotion policy to avoid the Peter principle, which is why I, an engineer, would not be promoted without going outside of my responsibilities to build up my promo packet.
Later, when I was fired, I thought about how my manager was probably going to be given kudos for firing me. I had been contending with undiagnosed ADHD, and when I told my manager that I had been diagnosed and that they should accommodate my needs, I was told that I needed to be more flexible, i.e. act like a “normal”/neurotypical person. So to the company, this manager was doing a good job, since I was now a drain on resources. But clearly this manager was a failure for not learning how to manage someone with ADHD. Peter principle fulfilled!
I had heard that managers fucking suck, but experiencing it IRL was a different story. So everything ed writes here aligns with the patterns I have experienced. Managers ain’t shit.