DoorDash Will Require All Employees To Deliver Goods or Perform Other Gigs (marketwatch.com) 226
cstacy shares a report: All DoorDash employees, from software engineers up to the chief executive, will have to perform deliveries or maybe shadow a customer-service agent once a month starting next year -- and some of them aren't happy about it. DoorDash confirmed Thursday that it told employees this week it is reinstating the program, called WeDash, in January. The company said it has had the program since its inception and in 2018 tied it to a philanthropic effort to address hunger and food waste, but put it on hold because of the pandemic. The renewed push adds choices for employees who may not be able to do deliveries, a spokeswoman said. Besides WeSupport, which will allow employees to shadow customer-service workers, the company will also eventually offer WeMerchant, a way for employees to take a closer look at the merchant-support side of DoorDash's business. On Blind, an app that lets employees post anonymously, a thread about the delivery requirement has about 1,500 comments. The post, which is titled "DoorDash making engineers deliver food," includes profanity and statements such as "I didn't sign up for this, there was nothing in the offer letter/job description about this."
They'll be hiring soon (Score:4, Insightful)
A whole lot of tech people are going to freshen their resumes and tell DoorDash to fuck off.
This is a good sign that DoorDash is not doing well and will be going under in the near future.
Re:They'll be hiring soon (Score:5, Insightful)
A whole lot of tech people are going to freshen their resumes and tell DoorDash to fuck off.
This is a good sign that DoorDash is not doing well and will be going under in the near future.
Yes, because why would anyone need to learn about any other area of a company's operation than their own? They should stay cocooned in their bubble and never be subjected to anything except what is placed in front of them.
Having worked in tech for decades, your comments are exactly why those in tech are some of the biggest, whiniest snowflakes out there. Needless to say, this is exactly why the shit hits the fan so often. No one wants to know or do anything not related to their job. Just put the blinders on and things will work out.
Re:They'll be hiring soon (Score:5, Interesting)
While I agree in principle, IMHO there is a big difference in offering the option to enroll in such a program, vs. mandating participation. Mandating participation means that employees are more likely to go through the program starting with the wrong foot and a more closed mindset, which tends to be quite detrimental to learning.
IMHO the company is either trying to to fix a company culture problem, or trying to promote a specific company culture. Both are perfectly legitimate goals, but IMHO mandatory programs are not that effective and the wrong tool for such job.
Re:They'll be hiring soon (Score:4)
Non-mandatory stuff becomes mandatory since if you don't do it your performance review notes a lack of participation and development.
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Non-mandatory stuff becomes mandatory since if you don't do it your performance review notes a lack of participation and development.
Participation does not always lead to development though: companies which try to use participation to try to measure "development" are IMHO fundamentally doing it wrong, since such metrics are very easy to game without any actual "development" taking place. Conversely, there can be a lot of positive development without any kind of participation to specific programs.
Mandating stuff is an easy way, just as it's an easy way to use simplistic metrics to try to measure complex aspects: both tend to ultimately be
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Yes, because why would anyone need to learn about any other area of a company's operation than their own?
Holy crap. I better pass on that NATO gig, instead of looking after servers in a bunker, I might end up having to be a special adviser in Ukraine?
When I worked for a large car manufacturer, I did visit one of the production lines, but they were never going to pull someone off the line and put me there for a day. That just wouldn't make sense. When I worked in the head office of a car rental company, I did the same introductory training as people working in the rental offices, but I didn't have to go and wor
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I'm a latin american developer, based off latin america. I work with eurodevs every day, and this is what I've noticed. And, in general, they are incredibly hard to work with.
Their way is the only
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It's one day a month. How much work do you think these people will do in that one day? It's not as if everyone is doing this other job all on the same day.
Re:They'll be hiring soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Those engineers should put on their big-girl pants and stop whining. This is a form of dogfooding, and also gives the entire company insight into the jobs of the front line workers who have to live with what the back-office people dictate or implement. A little sympathy for gig workers wouldn't hurt the software developers here.
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Those engineers should put on their big-girl pants and stop whining.
There is a term for treating employees that way.
It's called "the great resignation."
Re:They'll be hiring soon (Score:5, Informative)
When calling the previous employer to find out why he resigned, the answer will be a variant of "refuses to dogfood their own product".
Which in every sustainable software development environment is a massive red flag right. It means someone who is utterly professionally unwilling to find out how their end product actually works, and therefore is likely a net negative impact on the production team.
And most businesses don't hire people who have an inherent tendency to be more of a liability than an asset.
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When calling the previous employer to find out why he resigned, the answer will be...
Nothing, if they're smart. It's legally complicated to disclose information like that, even in the USA.
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Right. "It's illegal for you to call employees on my CV to check what I was doing. It's also illegal for them to tell anything about my performance. In fact, it's illegal to do anything but hire me pay me a CEO level salary!"
Good luck.
Re:They'll be hiring soon (Score:5, Interesting)
A whole lot of tech people are going to freshen their resumes and tell DoorDash to fuck off.
This is a good sign that DoorDash is not doing well and will be going under in the near future.
Exactly the opposite. It is a good way to get rid of people whose arrogance is in no way matched by their actual skill though. I call this a smart move. Any good engineer will welcome an opportunity to see the processes and services they support hands-on.
Re: They'll be hiring soon (Score:2)
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Indeed. And this is the smart way to do it: Motivate the bad and arrogant ones to leave. The usual way this is done is really dumb: Make conditions worse for everybody and have the good ones (those with plenty of alternatives and often even pending offers) leave. Then you get to keep the dross (those without good alternatives) and everything goes slowly to shit.
I did something like this myself beginning of the year, although I doubt that botched and stupid AGILE introduction was actually a planned RIF. Cowo
Why? I think it sounds great. (Score:3, Insightful)
A whole lot of tech people are going to freshen their resumes and tell DoorDash to fuck off.
If I worked there as a developer I would think this is a fantastic opportunity.
When I've worked at other large companies I strived to get some in the field experience to see how systems were actually being used. I always found it fun and extremely valuable.
Frankly if any developers have no interest in doing this I would question how useful they were to the company in terms of really wanting to make it a better comp
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Before they add "Whiny pussy 2020-2021" to their resumes, surely some of them will, instead, decide to learn about the business they've chosen to work in. I don't think the story about everyone at Sam Adams having to brew at least once, is weird at all.
I guess I shouldn't blow off how the company seems to have pulled a switcheroo (in the brewery anecdote, they're up front with the employee about it). But I still think they're being pussies. Just do it, wtf.
I suppose there are arguments for this (Score:4, Informative)
From the business side, I suppose you could think of this as "dogfooding". But I'm not seeing how this actually accomplishes anything with related to philanthropy in general, or addresses either "hunger" or "food waste" specifically.
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Anything other than normal deliveries will reduce the chance that they will learn something useful from this process.
Re:I suppose there are arguments for this (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't access the article, but perhaps they are having the non-delivery employees deliver charitable donations (bought by doordash) instead of serving normal clientele.
No, they are doing normal customer deliveries. The charitable part is that Doordash is taking the money that the dasher would normally earn for their runs (fees and tips) and donating it to some Hunger fund.
Presumably the engineer-dashers aren't losing money, since they still get their regular salary. Except for the wear-and-tear on their car, which they may be able to deduct on their taxes (50-60 cents/mile).
I wonder if Doordash is paying for the commercial insurance required on the engineer's cars, as they are used for deliveries. Because if the engineer is ever in an accident -- not necessarily on their one-day delivery gig, but now and forever -- the first thing insurance companies ask these days when you file a claim is, "Has this vehicle EVER been used EVEN ONE for rideshare/delivery?" If the answer is Yes, then they declare that your insurance was null and void. Because you lied about using your car for commercial purposes, and were in the normal-people liability pool and rates. And if you lie and say "No", and the insurnace company finds out, well, that's actually a criminal offense (prison) for which they will also have you proseuted.
And as someone pointed out, doing deliveries exposes you to all sorts of extra dangers. Including COVID exposure (picking up from that busy restaurant, dropping off. interacting with the customer at their door, etc.) Things that you would normally never do. Maybe get a case of mild omicron, with subsequent "long COVID" lifetime medical issues. I wonder what that lawsuit would look like.
And who says engineers are good drivers? Or that they even drive and have a car for this? (Maybe those are the ones who stay in the office and shadow the phone support people).
Finally, the idea that they see the app and the system in action up close and personal is a great idea. But suggestion that they get soe insightgul "life experience" about how the other half lives is ridiculous and incredibly insulting. The engineer is not scraping by getting paid pennies, subject to the incentive/get-fired performance rules that the system imposes, and grinding away in the winter cold ten hours a day six days a week trying to make ends meet. While shelling out for car milage (most dashers get $1/mile or less when you factor in the distance, out of which they have expenses around 50-70 cents/mile). Their ome-short-day lark of playing with the app in no way gives insight into the lives of the dashers.
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> And who says engineers are good drivers? Or that
> they even drive and have a car for this?
Their headquarters is in the SOMA district in San Francisco. When I googled I found two addresses, one on 2nd Street and one on New Montgomery; so they must have moved recently. But either way, that's where most of the engineering jobs are. Parking in the area is extortionately priced, but both locations are well-served by MUNI and BART. So it's quite likely that very few of them drive in. And it's also fa
Re: I suppose there are arguments for this (Score:2)
No shaming in dogfooding. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done it, sometimes at my own request I have spent a day or more doing the shop floor job the software I am writing or designing is supposed to support.
I've worked front line software support, I've process payments. I've done picking, packing and returns management at an e-commerce company.
Understanding the job first hand is important to producing a first class solution.
Re:No shaming in dogfooding. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's a really good idea to understand the product you are working on, and how it feels to the people using it. That is a key principle of "Domain Driven Design."
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I've done it, sometimes at my own request I have spent a day or more doing the shop floor job the software I am writing or designing is supposed to support.
Yeah, from the business side it makes sense. But, again, where’s the philanthropy? Given that’s the actual claim being made by DoorDash.
Unless treating your front line workers decently is somehow considered philanthropic nowadays.
Re:No shaming in dogfooding. (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen to this. When I was programming industrial equipment the company would sometimes send engineers along with the sales reps just to get us familiar with how the products were being used in the field. It was enlightening and I came better able to do my job because of it. IMHO every engineer should get out to customer sites once in a while, even just to observe. It really does help.
I was flabbergasted at a later company when I suggested doing something like this. "The ${PARENT_COMPANY} has a policy against it." Dear god, WHY!? It seems like a really cheap way to give the people who make your products insight into how they're used. I never got an answer about why it was prohibited.
As for Doordash, the engineering dept's customers are the drivers. I can understand not wanting to do the actual driving but the engineers should at least be willing to do a ride-along with the drivers.
Re: No shaming in dogfooding. (Score:2)
They probably wanted to ensure facts and truth didn't get in the way of sales and customer relationships. Engineers have a tendency to share too much with the customers.
Never heard of WeDash. (Score:5, Insightful)
I never paid real attention to DoorDash so no reason fro me to know about WeDash.
Sounds like it might be great experience.
Once upon a time people worked their way up a profession, maybe unless they were relatives of the owner...
You learned the job and if you were better than the others (or related to the boss) you would advance if there was a position to advance to.
Now we are all modern and for IT and other jobs that are isolated from the real $$ earning world of outside customer interactions the closest thing to this might be called cross-training but that often means (in the IT world) that someone in programming gets a look at how someone in the computer room or service center does their job. You don't ever experience what the public is paying the company for.
TLDR:
I love the idea that 'engineers' experience what the REAL experience is of working with what they 'engineered' WHILE facing the customer and seeing if it works well enough for the customer (and driver) to be satisfied enough to be satisfied.
I think I've seen Costco requiring 'corporate' employees work the various store warehouse floor positions (maybe a week or two at a time) so they can have some understanding of what their decisions impact.
reimbursement / car insurance issues? (Score:3)
And if say an full time w2 worker gets into an crash doordash is fully on the hook for damages.
delivery is risky (Score:2)
Re: reimbursement / car insurance issues? (Score:2)
If they're shadowing delivery drivers, then they'll just be in the driver's car.
So much for a labor shortage (Score:2)
And once again this is why you need a union. One of the things I keep hearing over and over is if you don't like it just
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Re:So much for a labor shortage (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't possibly have enough office employees to make it worth the effort to have a handful of them once a month do deliveries. If they're doing something like this it's because they can, not because they need to.
They're not doing this because they have a shortage of delivery drivers. They're doing this so everyone in the company understands at a fundamental level what the company does and how it interacts with its customers and front line staff.
You can argue positives and negatives of that, but it's not some bizarre ruse.
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Indeed. Although I do not think you can really justify any negatives here.
Read some management books (Score:3)
A while back I read a number of management books. One of the problems frequently identified in them was various departments losing sight of the ultimate goals of the company. A phrase that stuck with me from one of them was "where's the cheese?"
Doordash is a company focused on allowing clients to request delivery of food, to be delivered by contracted drivers.
If I'm in IT security, for example, I need to keep in mind that the deliveries need to flow; I can't lock up data so tightly that that can't happen.
If we gotta treat 'em like employees... (Score:2)
We're gonna treat 'em, like employees
So much for the "gig" economy
But it's about the arrogance of management too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fire the engineer (Score:5, Insightful)
DoorDash's business is delivering. That is what they do. Everyone in the company needs to understand and support that mission. If someone is greater than thou and can't dirty their hands with the actual work of the company, that someone needs to go. This is an awesome idea to keep everyone in touch (out of the ivory towers, executive only bathrooms, etc.) with the company's core business. People who propagate the idea that there are two classes of citizens in a company are the worst sort of company morale destroying scum.
I don't care what the company does. People who proudly state, "That's not my job", can go be arrogant somewhere else. (Exceptions would be dangerous work, jobs where the odds of damaging 100's of thousands (or more) in assets are high, working with human waste, brain surgery ;), etc.) Making a delivery isn't too much to ask.
Primadonna princess programmers are more trouble than they are worth!
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Well said.
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you're not being sarcastic, you really think this is valid reasoning?
holy shit
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you're not being sarcastic, you really think this is valid reasoning?
holy shit
Am am in no way sarcastic. Of course, I am also a very senior engineer and have a clue how to actually get things to work well and keep them working well. Good engineers are rare in the software field but arrogance and Dunning-Kruger "far left" cases are plenty.
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Do you see the CEOs of cleaning companies cleaning shit off dirty toilets?
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He did not. He's just yet another person who thinks he got the short end of the stick and whatnot. All his comments are fantasy.
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Do you see the CEOs of cleaning companies cleaning shit off dirty toilets?
Generally, no, but they should. There's a tiiiiny chance they'd be less shitty to their front-line employees.
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Nah. Not unless the driver is willing to be responsible for the chain from the phone app to the dbs to whatever. I like most, understand filling out dialogue boxes where the data is transmitted to whatever the destination is. We also understand alerts come to your phone with a dialogue box that says "go here, get this and take it here." It's not rocket science, it's toil. And before you go off the rails, been there done that and don't need a refresher course.
Most of what you said about private bathrooms and
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People who proudly state, "That's not my job", can go be arrogant somewhere else. (Exceptions would be dangerous work, jobs where the odds of damaging 100's of thousands (or more) in assets are high, working with human waste, brain surgery ;), etc.).
40,000 Americans die every year on roadways. I see you have a solid understanding of what "dangerous" work is.
Making a delivery isn't too much to ask.
Yeah, and that's kind of the entire point coming from those against this. If it's not too much to ask, then define the value-add and why you're demanding it.
What's next, the tobacco executive demanding that every employee start smoking in order to prove they're not "arrogant", or a bunch of primadonnas? Alcohol executives requiring mandatory drinking? Why not? Fits your logic.
TL; DR - A failure
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If asked to do something very different from what I was hired to do, and I don't believe it makes sense for both the company and for my career, I'm going to tell them "it isn't my job."
Now, I don't think shadowing production employees who use my software is out of the realm of my particular job. I have some responsibility for all stages of the SDL for the software they use. I can't really know how to build or enhance it if I do not somewhat understand at least the part of their jobs that interfaces with t
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As an engineer I would actually enjoy going on deliveries half a day a month just to see what technologically could be improved from the point of view of the deliverers or the business.
But we all know these people don't get paid much. They maybe get a couple of buck per delivery, and on bike you can't really do more than maybe 3-4 deliveries per hour. So really, instead of
Execs too? (Score:2)
Does this include the executives and management or are they hypocritical bastards as always?
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Gosh if only that were covered in the first line of the summary. Yeah yeah I must be new here.
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It says "everyone" in the summary, but this is the real story. Maybe the first few months it might affect everyone, but at some point, it is only going to affect people that are low enough on the ladder to not get out of it.
Prolly a convenient way (Score:3)
to get rid of the "not my job description" slackers.
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Indeed. And those that are not interested in how the business works as well. Smart move.
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You obviously have not the slightest clue about process optimization.
Fine, as long as it's everyone (Score:2)
I work with a nonprofit that operates a camp/retreat centre at a wilderness site. One of the great equalizers there is that *everyone* takes a turn once a week to do dishes, from the Executive Directors on down to a 3 week volunteer normally working in the gardens. The only exceptions are volunteers who are physically incapable of doing the task (wheelchair or similar). In case of door dash, I think it's good for the organization for all their people to see how the front-line employees... ermm.. "contractor
i'm okay with this if... (Score:2)
... the policy applies to EVERYONE, including all C suits, in the same amount of time.
oh it doesn't apply to executives? then the true reason behind this program is false
Good idea (Score:2)
This is actually a very good idea. It should be a requirement at all companies for all employees to rotate into either observation, ride along, or actual doing other positions if only for a day or two per month. Yeah that means delivery guys should get to virtual sit in on engineers or product management job too, even if itâ(TM)s via video.
Typical slashdot, report only half the story. (Score:2)
Even the C-Suite is exempted. All CxOs are required to park in the "employee" parking lot at least three times a year, take the non-executive elevator at least six times a year and look at the non-executive cafeteria a whopping nine times a year.
Since it's a fine idea, (Score:2)
Data Point (Score:2)
As a consultant I've seen a LOT of work environments. One of those was a couple of years working with a large retail chain where every corporate employee spends at least one day per year working in a store.
That company is the very first call I'd make if I was RIF'd tomorrow.
Not always wise, but makes sense to me here.... (Score:2)
I do I.T. for a company, right now, that's involved in logistics and transportation. They've had a lot of talk about all of us needing to go out to the docks and experience what the guys do who have to scan in and load/unload boxes and what the truck drivers have to deal with, paperwork-wise, as they do their job. Indeed, some of our group (software devs and first level support staff, mostly) have done just that.
I have mixed feelings on how useful it really is in our situation. Yeah, it's good to get that c
Good move (Score:3)
Just last month I was filling out a refund survey from DoorDash. I told them straight up that their service is so shitty, I can only assume their software is buggy because I can't believe they are consistently able to hire such incompetent delivery drivers.
Sounds like I may have hit the nail on the head.
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
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Given how difficult it is to hire good software engineers right now, the most likely outcome is that many of their good software engineers will leave and the remaining will deliver food roughly as well as they write code.
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this all quite ironic.
Last startup I was in, I specifically asked to do a tour of duty in a customer support role (since that's the software we were tasked with improving) but was told by the product manager "Oh, that would be bad use of your time. Your time is too valuable for that." So instead of being able to talk to the users and actually attempt to apply the software to the use cases they were dealing with on a daily basis (and witness their workarounds) I instead had to:
1. spend time in meetings where the product manager gave us sanitized versions of what was happening.
2. spend time in meetings with the manager of the customer support people so they could tell us what they thought they wanted.
3. deal with the engineering manager having more meetings, and shooting down requests from the customer support people.
4. finally go talk to the customer support people outside of normal channels and figure out what was actually going on. But I'm still not allowed to actually process a case from beginning to end because that would actually cut into "productive time" when we were on the clock.
5. spend a shit ton of meetings with the various managers trying to convince them why the feature I wrote to directly address the immediate problem was something we wanted to include in the next release instead of the crap that the various managers were trying to push.
6. ship actual feature, and then repeat the entire process over again.
In retrospect, it all started going to shit the moment we switched from a bonus based on company performance, to a bonus plan based on personal performance...
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Re: Arrogant sods (Score:2)
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I feel you, but customer support isn't a job anyone can just jump in and do for a day with no training, and that would be wasting your time. It's too bad they wouldn't let you shadow someone though.
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Given how difficult it is to hire good software engineers right now, the most likely outcome is that many of their good software engineers will leave and the remaining will deliver food roughly as well as they write code.
This program sounds bad because it is enforced and failing to get the engineers involved in it by choice, however IMHO, a "good software engineer" is interested in the problem domain they are involved in. Getting full software engineer pay for going to have a trip outdoors seems completely fine to me. I'd guess that they'll lose some of the good engineers but quite a few of the ones they lose will be the lazy ones they could do without.
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
Given how difficult it is to hire good software engineers right now, the most likely outcome is that many of their good software engineers will leave and the remaining will deliver food roughly as well as they write code.
Very, very unlikely. The good ones will appreciate the opportunity. Only the bad and arrogant ones will leave and nothing of value will be lost.
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Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Interesting)
I started into software in the chemical industry, specifically working at a silicon smelter. It was early days of Distributed Control System, and as a shift boss (with many other hats) I and the other few guys in our position had to use that system daily. It was by necessity custom coded/configured to work with our plant systems. And at first it was brutal how it worked. But the main developer kept telling us we were whiners and pussies, etc. We talked to the operations manager and had him put on 12 hour midnight shifts for a month as an operator. That is, he had to use his shitally cobbled together system. And he had to do it on a shitty shift for a long time. Before he was even over with that assignment, the system started to improve drastically as he got to experience the reality of having to work the system he developed. He though he knew it all because he was an engineer, but he had never actually ran a facility and never had to use his code. ALL developers should have to use their own code as a normal user at least part of every year. ALL developers.
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Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
The reaction here is remarkably elitist isnt it.
Years ago I took a job in IT Finance at a big retailer. One of things they had all first year employees do at some point was be assigned to a local store for three days and the manager there would have you shadow and do work. You got paid your regular day rate - so why complain? -
You know what it was a great experience. It really helped understand how store software got used, so you knew what data points might be less reliable. You developed the vocabulary used in the stores vs customer service center etc. The was helpful in all kinds of ways and it was even useful when looking at data. Hum it took 272 units to unpack a multipack of whatever.. Is that min, sec, tmu(s), something else? Well if you have actually been in a store for a few days you can make an intelligent guess.
I am glad I did it because it gave me a lot insight into a lot of data I had to look at. I am sure actually store systems folks learned a lot watching people really use their software etc. I really don't understand this 'I did not sign up for this attitude' I am sure these guys are all collecting their regular salary, and probably be assigned day time deliveries during their regular hours. Honestly they should suck it up approach the task with an open mind and maybe gain a little insight into what really goes on in the field.
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
The reaction here is remarkably elitist isnt it.
More like faux elitist wannabees. To be really and truly good at something, you have to understand it on all levels, there is no other way.
Also: "Those that are to big for the small jobs are to small for the big jobs" (Jaques Tati)
Now, I am not saying an engineer should spend a major time working the process they are supporting or optimizing, but spending a few days working alongside the people that have this as their main job demeans nobody (except small people) and will generate actual understanding and surprising insights.
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Back in the day, there was a bunch of engineers to wrote a TCP stack for VAX/VMS. The company TGV (Three Guys and VAX) had the engineers cycle through taking tech support calls to get an understanding of what problems customers were seeing with the software. It was a very literal port of the TCP/IP stack and tools. Anyone familiar with UNIX would have no problem using it.
In contrast, DEC came out with their own version and it was very hard to use. The interface and command line was very VMS-like requiring
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Well it makes sense that DEC would make their stack follow the same syntax as VMS commands. Why would you want one specific piece of the OS to behave completely different?
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Doing the delivery might help the engineer understand the job requirements better and produce better software
Possibly, or just understand things (human life) in general a bit better. There have been cases where politicians have tried to go and live on welfare for a month, for example, and learned something useful. Not all fact-finding needs to be a series of junkets.
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With regards to the executive team doing this: I’m sure that each will “deliver” a bottle of cognac to a buddy executive during a carefully planned party at the country club, and call it a “delivery”.
Why not have every delivery guy shadow an engineer once per month as well? Hell, let em spend few hours each quarter in
Re:Arrogant sods (Score:4, Interesting)
I basically agree with you. Hey, if Doordash wants to pay engineers 100-150k per year to deliver door to door, thats their right. They write the checks.
This is a problematic situation in certain states. Using California as an example, one cannot require employees to do tasks outside of the normal job description except under limited circumstances. (Maybe the 1x a month will fly. I'm neither a judge nor a lawyer so who knows).
This was a direct result of abuses in the past (Bosses making a secretary fetch dry-cleaning or make coffee, etc). This was how the "personal assistant" position became fairly popular.
Will be interesting to see if there are any legal challenges to this. Apart from the infrequency of 1x a month (which may hold up), this would certainly appear to be precisely what the law attempts to prohibit. You don't hire someone to be an engineer and then make them deliver shit. Just as you don't hire a delivery-driver and then tell him/her to go in the back room and do... engineering.
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I think every job I've had since I started working in the tech industry in 1999 has thrown in that "other duties as assigned" just as a CYA. I'd be shocked if most jobs don't have something like that these days.
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I would be more than happy to deliver for door dash at my current rate (assuming I worked there). I like to know all the areas of the business, and I like to get paid. As they say, eat your own dogfood.
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:2)
Once per month is a full time job?
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Not all of them. As an engineer, I think it is extremely important to understand the actual services that a company perform. One of the few good ways to get there is to perform some of them yourself, with assistance of course, or to closely observe them. In particular, writing good software is pretty much impossible without a good understanding of how and for what it is going to be used. Too much crappy software comes from arrogant developers that frankly do not qualify as engineers, in part because of that
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Arrogant sods (Score:5, Insightful)
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As a sysadmin, I'm a huge proponent of having visibility into all portions of the business simply because, as the person who keeps the systems that support everyone else's ability to do their jobs running, knowing what people just put up with because "that's just the way it is" can sometimes lead to the good kind of change. (i.e.
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So to care about the middles classes, as dev I need to start delivering shit? What do you think, we sit at a desk all day, tap out some crap you can't read, and then go party the rest of the night? You're off your rocker if I'm going to put my degree to use delivering crappy food to randos in the street. I got it to AVOID that kind of work. Not happening. And all the feelgood leftist bullshit isn't going to make me feel bad about that choice.
No, to understand what their job involves and how the decisions you make when writing your code impact them then you need to spend time either doing their job or shadowing them. The funniest part of arrogant cunts like you though is you're going to be the first to fucking starve to death and will be one of those that suffers the worst should things take a shit. Oh and your degree is worth less every year as every year universities churn out tens of thousands with the same degrees so you're nothing unique, y
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They think they will be at the top of the pyramid when the great socialist revolution comes. Spoiled bastards, but the tech bubble will eventually pop.
The irony being that it only takes the lowly cleaner to turn off the mains switch and they're fucked. These spoiled bastards haven't got a clue, they have to pay people to do simple things that most other people consider common knowledge, things like changing a flat wheel, a tap washer, even replacing a fuse in a plug. They're very clever at what they do but outside that essential fucking retards and will be amongst the first to starve and die should said revolution come.
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yup, then the AI will eat us. :-)
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Yeah, now you are just being a dbag. But I guess the gal who delivered dinner the other night was software eng by day because it was one person with the BMI of four people. GTFO with this crap.