This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I actually agree with you that these jobs are probably chaff that owe their existence to higher-ups taking their eye off the ball during times of plenty; there's less pressure to eye the budget like a hawk and make your department a lean mean economic machine when the Line Goes Up is already firmly in the green, which allows all manner of bloat and pathology to creep in.
However, in the interest of Devil's Advocacy:
Others have pointed out something similar, and I'll add to the chorus: it might be the case that having lots of HR people really is business-optimal in times of plenty. When the market falls, your engineers are happy to just have a job at all and don't need much coddling. When the market is rising, and engineers have many options to jump ship, it could be in the company's genuine interests to have a huge HR pool managing their perks / expenses / work retreats / Casual Pizza Party Fridays / etc etc.
Alternatively, we could take a more cynical view that HR is a response to the Administrative State's bullshit legal codes and have it still make sense. Being a stickler for the letter if legal compliance is more important in a bull market than in a bear market because having legal monkey wrenches thrown at your company that slow you down, carries a higher opportunity cost during good times of high turnover than it does during bad times of low turnover. Also, people are more likely to try to sue you when your quarterly reports say "We're loaded" rather than "We've got nothing in the bank to pay settlements". A greater desire to avoid government fines and bad PR therefore incentivises a larger HR department at the zenith of the business cycle than at the nadir.
This is an interesting take, but my experience is the opposite. HR don't coddle, they suffocate. All the bullshit training, the blizzard of emails, the forms, the surveys the requirements. Giving each manager $100 per month per employee to take their team out to dinner is low overhead. Just paying people more is zero overhead. In times of plenty and times of little, I want HR to nothing more than payroll.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link