this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
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The fact they had to do this to earn a promotion is an institutional problem. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
I can do both, tbh. Though I do generally hate the game more than the player.
Game rules: You want a promotion? Make something cool, improve something while using approaches that will show that you deserve a higher position and, therefore, a bigger salary.
Player: (Lies and creates shit that is even worse than the initial situation.)
Lemmy: Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
You are contradicting yourself. If writing bullshit and making things worse gets you a better career position
Is not the rule of the game. Sell your story to your superiors is the rule of the game, that's the real metric, the the thing that really matters.
Some people will do anything to justify scumbag behavior. How about instead of trying to define what a player and a game are we just say "this guy is clearly a scumbag, he should be sued".
The scumbag behavior is from the employer. He's only fighting fire with fire.
Some people will do anything to justify scumbag behavior
Do you want me to present you with a definition of "lie"? I believe you don't understand the phrase "Lies and creates shit".
They built something worse and we're still promoted for it despite it being demonstrably worse. Where's the lie? They described something complex and techy sounding, did it, and got the promotion anyway regardless of the actual results, proving the results didn't matter.
So you want the manager to be cleverer than the engineer in engineering, so the manager would be able to detect a deliberate lie from the engineer?
Yes, but more competent, not cleverer. Some managers aren't fit to be in IT.
You expect a manager to be more competent in engineering than an engineer? You expect the manager to always expect a lie from an engineer and recheck any data received from the engineer?
Well, we have very different ideas about how engineers and managers work.
Technical managers exist. Yes, it's a manager's responsibility to understand the field he's working in. He doesn't need to be a more skilled engineer, but he needs to understand what his/her people are saying.
It isn't enough to detect deliberate lies from an engineer like in this case.
There are ways to know. Did the manager ask for proof of concept? Asked for performance tests of the update and compared it to existing/baseline?
How can I know? Plus engineer could easily lie as he did it right from the start.
Of course don't just ask the engineer. Any piece of code written by the engineer should ultimately be tested by a separate testing team before getting pushed to production. Ideally you have a performance and regression testing team that would help evaluate the changes being introduced and how it compares with the existing.
I'd expect a manager to be able to determine that testing data for the new process is showing it is worse than the previous system it replaced, and NOT promote that person, at the very least ...
More like game rules: manager needs shiny buzzwords and big number go up. Having something that works fine for 5 years is considered stale and corporate culture is all about useless innovation.
But that isn't the game rule, now is it?
The rule is more: convince the c-suite that you deserve a promotion by any means necessary. Even if you have to make things up.
This is the difference between RAW and RAI.
the player can always choose not to play, though
It's a big company. Someone's going to play.
Yes, everyone should be evil at all times because otherwise someone else might out-evil you.
No. That putting the onus of change on individuals is a losing proposition. The incentives have to change or no number of good people will fix it. I hear the French have had very effective solutions in the past.
That's just repeating the same thing: you think life being shitty is a reason to be evil, and someone not you has to make life less shitty before being evil is no longer acceptable. I disagree.
You seem to believe that I think it a justification for evil. I do not, people should not do such things and they are shitty people for doing them.
I'm saying that the idea of some good people doing the right thing fixing the problem is naive and doomed to failure and a real solution to the problem has to be bigger than the lazy "just no one be evil" proposition you seem into to champion.
Where on earth am I championing that as a solution?
My mistake. I believed you to be proposing a solution to the evil proposed. Not idly judging people with no meaningful contribution toward making things better.
Also not whats happening but that's fine
I do find it funny, though, that you think judgement is not a meaningful contribution as if that's not how the vast majority of change happens.
I'm curious how you'd characterize yourself then
It's not a meaningful contribution. Judging someone in person, sure. Judging someone when you have a platform people pay attention to, yeah. Random comment on Lemmy? No one gives a shit. I fully recognize my own pointlessness in all this, especially this far down in the comments.
I said you shouldn't be evil regardless of whether someone else is evil. It's not an excuse. That's not judgement, nor is it a solution, it's me saying you have a choice and there is a clear right answer. Would you rather be Steve Bannon or not Steve Bannon?