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SteveH
1 year ago
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Counterintuitive problem: Everyone in a room keeps giving dollars to random others
If on quick reflection you thought “more or less equally”, you are not alone. I asked 5 super-smart PhDs this question and they all had the same initial intuition.
I wonder if any of these had their degrees in Physics or Physical Chemistry. The problem sounds conceptually similar to a thermodynamics problem, where you don’t get uniform distributions. For example, the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution arises from ideal gas molecules exchanging energy and momentum in random collisions, and it’s far from uniform.
This also demonstrates why I prefer simulations when thinking about these kinds of things. With the thermodynamics analogy, one might be able to work out some analog of the partition function and calculate the theoretical distribution. But running a simulation directly works out to be much easier.
Both managers are at fault here. A managers’ responsibility is communication, not sneaking around looking for culprits and cracking the whip.
What’s wrong with correcting the issue up front and talking openly about it? (Question for both the author and their manager).
Yeah. It sounds like the manager does not communicate to the team that little fixes are appreciated, and does not recognize team members that do it. So how would anyone else on the team know that it’s something they should be doing, too?
I’m not sure what the author could have done in the situation when management isn’t communicating that, though.
Leave.
Patrick McKenzie had a nice thread about the topic. You have a limited ability to make change, and might want to spend it somewhere you think will be more receptive.
And to forestall one question: this does assume you can easily leave and find someplace good to go. I suspect that’s true of Rachel at this point in her career, and has been for awhile. But it is possible it wasn’t when the story happened. In that case, you’re in a rough spot.
To me that’s my job, to fix things when they break. I don’t understand why someone would expect their manager to tell them they need to fix things when it’s probably part of their job description / duties anyways.
Not everyone is as conscientious as you. There are plenty of “not my problem” people in this world.
If “it’s probably part of their job description / duties anyways”, why is the author the only one doing it? And why is the boss not criticizing the rest of the team for not fixing things?
Is it author the only one doing it or is that just how they feel? Maybe there is other duties the author isn’t covering as much as other workers. The main problem I see here is that the author doesn’t see the team’s objective, only their own.
Communicated it themselves!
It sounds like her team was really into the idea of just silently letting her do all the work:
Eventually, she got fed up and left, which is the right thing to do if it’s possible.
But that “Next, …” happened after this “experiment.”
From the information given, it’s possible that nobody else on the team even knew this task bothered her because she had never communicated it before.
This article would be heavily biased in the authors favor.
Do you need to point out that someone’s account of their own experience is “biased” in their own favor? Why?
Because of your comments:
I don’t find those conclusions as self evident as you did, the team is made up of people who might see the situation completely differently, and her article is smearing them in a way where they can’t defend themselves.
Every single tale of a toxic work environment is amenable to the same obvious objection. I find her perspective credible, given that her manager fully knew of her experiment, and then used that against her in her review.
But regardless, the whole thesis of the article is that you shouldn’t try this unless you have rock solid cover from your manager or lead. “The story is biased toward its author,” is a non-sequitur, and contributes nothing constructive.
What is your point, and why do you think the genius of your voice needs to be heard making it?
Excuse me while I go write a blog post about how nebkor hurt my feelings … I am a genius and my voice needs to be heard, I need the support of all those bleeding hearts too.