The luxury of a small firm is you can be sure everyone pulls their weight.
If you can't do that in a large firm, then it's run badly. It's not like the CEO has to personally track what 30k employees are doing. Large companies are, obviously, structured hierarchically. When you get to the lowest level of management, you have managers who can easily keep track of what every one of their people are doing. I'm in that situation now. Having worked for small/medium companies for my entire career, I'm now at a large company. I assure you my manager knows what I do, and he's the opposite of a micro-manager.
The biggest problem in large companies is often the opposite. Someone a level or two up won't realize or appreciate what a given group does, so they ask "why do we need this group". However, if they can't figure it out, then that's bad management again.
This is the cheapest way to get a lot of people to just resign without severance pay.
The problem with the "make things worse so people resign" approach is that you tend to lose your best people first, since they're the ones who can find another job most easily.
killing many profitable projects with that decision
Clearly I'm not up on the latest business strategies - I thought killing profitable projects was a bad idea. If it's done for the sake of some illusory goal, whose benefit can only be measured after the CEO has left, then it's pure bull. If you want to get rid of unnecessary bureaucracy, then change the managerial requirements for projects (e.g $10k expense requires VP approval), and maybe fire some useless bureaucrats. Do *not* do it by killing profitable projects.
Even the very concept of the "school year" itself is based on 1800's agricultural needs of the children to be home working on the farm planting/harvesting crops, which is why there exists such a thing as "summer vacation".
No, the busiest times on a farm are planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall. Back when kids had lots of work to do on the family farm, that's when school breaks were. The traditional summer vacation is an early 20th century invention from the cities.
Last time I checked, the telephone, first practical electric lights and AC power generation and transmission, the phonograph, movies, the airplane, etc. all predate WWII.
If the here-and-now work does not involve math, reading, or problem-solving skills, it would appear that the work that Americans do could reasonably delegated to monkeys.
A few percentage points makes the difference between a well educated workforce an a bunch of monkeys? Who knew.
Of course, that's exactly where the jobs go because Americans demand far too much pay for their low-skilled work. Nobody wants to pay the premium for "made in U.S.A." and so the U.S. has assembled the largest trade deficit of any country in history.
You are aware that we've had floating exchange rates for decades, right? And that in a system of floating exchange rates, if a country has a large trade deficit, the exchange rate of its currency is supposed to drop to correct that situation, right? Thus other forces are at work, and your explanation makes no sense.
Short term yes, long term no. Americans will realize that doing well academically is a waste of time, since TPTB will just bring in more cheap labor. Americans may not score the highest on these tests, but they're bright enough to figure that out.
Maybe that should be another test category: you know you're getting screwed when... Definitely a practical skill.
The headlines for these tests are always expressed in ordinal instead of cardinal terms. !st, 2nd 3rd, etc., as though it was a horse race. But what do the actual scores mean? The US is 8%, 12% and 6% below Japan in reading, math and problem solving skills. But what do the numbers mean? How do they translate into practical skills. What can a mean Japanese do mathematically that a mean American can't?
It would have helped if many of those people whose homes were foreclosed during the housing crisis had basic math skills. ..
Does the same apply to people who were paid millions to play with CDO's, CDS's, and all those other wonderful financial instruments that were part of the housing bubble? Or do you not need math skills if you know that you're going to be bailed out no matter how badly you screwed up?
math is an exercise in logic. A population filled with people who can't effectively utilize logic
Speaking of logic, it doesn't follow that people who are bad at the logic used in math, are necessarily bad at other types of logic. Such assumptions can lead to a false sense of superiority though.
Clearly Samsung has a few things to learn about the American way of doing business. I'm willing to be a consultant to them in this regard, and all for the low, low price of$1M/yr. My advice? Give half of what's in petty cash, because that's all it takes. To companies this size, it's not much money, and it's the best ROI you'll ever see.
How do you figure? At least one Apple exec told US workers to stuff it, as Apple doesn't owe them anything. Apple makes almost everything overseas. Meanwhile, Samsung has US operations (for example http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-expand-us-operations-two-new-california-facilities [androidcentral.com] ). Stop thinking of Apple as American just because their headquarters are here.
I have no, none, zero, zip, nada loyalty or favor towards "American" companies. They have no loyalty towards this country, so why should they get special favor from the US government? There is no quid pro quo, so tell 'em to stuff it.
Meanwhile my wife and I drive Toyota's. They're 80% and 85% value added in the USA, which makes them more American than most so-called American cars.
P.S. Part of the 1st paragraph is a cut and paste from my post above, but it seemed even more appropriate here.
Is Apple an American company? At least one Apple exec told US workers to stuff it, as Apple doesn't owe them anything. Apple makes almost everything overseas. Meanwhile, Samsung has US operations (for example http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-expand-us-operations-two-new-california-facilities ). Stop thinking of Apple as American just because their headquarters are here.
Slashdot Mirror
A consortium of major car manufacturers looking to create an open source standard platform demonstrates that open source is anti-business.
Suppose the GP is a woman? I assume there must be some equivalent for female Unix programmers. Not shave under their arms?
The luxury of a small firm is you can be sure everyone pulls their weight.
If you can't do that in a large firm, then it's run badly. It's not like the CEO has to personally track what 30k employees are doing. Large companies are, obviously, structured hierarchically. When you get to the lowest level of management, you have managers who can easily keep track of what every one of their people are doing. I'm in that situation now. Having worked for small/medium companies for my entire career, I'm now at a large company. I assure you my manager knows what I do, and he's the opposite of a micro-manager.
The biggest problem in large companies is often the opposite. Someone a level or two up won't realize or appreciate what a given group does, so they ask "why do we need this group". However, if they can't figure it out, then that's bad management again.
This is the cheapest way to get a lot of people to just resign without severance pay.
The problem with the "make things worse so people resign" approach is that you tend to lose your best people first, since they're the ones who can find another job most easily.
killing many profitable projects with that decision
Clearly I'm not up on the latest business strategies - I thought killing profitable projects was a bad idea. If it's done for the sake of some illusory goal, whose benefit can only be measured after the CEO has left, then it's pure bull. If you want to get rid of unnecessary bureaucracy, then change the managerial requirements for projects (e.g $10k expense requires VP approval), and maybe fire some useless bureaucrats. Do *not* do it by killing profitable projects.
While layoffs are sometimes necessary, if layoffs and pay/benefit cuts are the only thing you can think of to do, the company is toast anyway.
Even the very concept of the "school year" itself is based on 1800's agricultural needs of the children to be home working on the farm planting/harvesting crops, which is why there exists such a thing as "summer vacation".
No, the busiest times on a farm are planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall. Back when kids had lots of work to do on the family farm, that's when school breaks were. The traditional summer vacation is an early 20th century invention from the cities.
Whether or not you meant it as a joke, others will say it seriously. Certainly it's implied regularly.
We've had a brief supremacy spell after WW2
Last time I checked, the telephone, first practical electric lights and AC power generation and transmission, the phonograph, movies, the airplane, etc. all predate WWII.
this comes more from your historical, social and geographical advantages and less from any education
Maybe, or maybe what counts is the education of the top (1%, 5%, 10%?). Many American universities are amongst the top in the world.
If the here-and-now work does not involve math, reading, or problem-solving skills, it would appear that the work that Americans do could reasonably delegated to monkeys.
A few percentage points makes the difference between a well educated workforce an a bunch of monkeys? Who knew.
Of course, that's exactly where the jobs go because Americans demand far too much pay for their low-skilled work. Nobody wants to pay the premium for "made in U.S.A." and so the U.S. has assembled the largest trade deficit of any country in history.
You are aware that we've had floating exchange rates for decades, right? And that in a system of floating exchange rates, if a country has a large trade deficit, the exchange rate of its currency is supposed to drop to correct that situation, right? Thus other forces are at work, and your explanation makes no sense.
When the rich get to keep their money, so does everyone else.
Do you think it's poor math skills that cause Americans to be so easily hoodwinked about economics?
Short term yes, long term no. Americans will realize that doing well academically is a waste of time, since TPTB will just bring in more cheap labor. Americans may not score the highest on these tests, but they're bright enough to figure that out.
Maybe that should be another test category: you know you're getting screwed when ...
Definitely a practical skill.
It doesn't matter if you're taking the test in Japan.
The headlines for these tests are always expressed in ordinal instead of cardinal terms. !st, 2nd 3rd, etc., as though it was a horse race. But what do the actual scores mean? The US is 8%, 12% and 6% below Japan in reading, math and problem solving skills. But what do the numbers mean? How do they translate into practical skills. What can a mean Japanese do mathematically that a mean American can't?
I'd love to see that too, but people with poor math skills don't understand histograms.
It would have helped if many of those people whose homes were foreclosed during the housing crisis had basic math skills. . .
Does the same apply to people who were paid millions to play with CDO's, CDS's, and all those other wonderful financial instruments that were part of the housing bubble? Or do you not need math skills if you know that you're going to be bailed out no matter how badly you screwed up?
math is an exercise in logic. A population filled with people who can't effectively utilize logic
Speaking of logic, it doesn't follow that people who are bad at the logic used in math, are necessarily bad at other types of logic. Such assumptions can lead to a false sense of superiority though.
Right - Republicans don't take bribes.
Not even close. Apple is trying to play catch-up with some petty cash. Starting to build a $100M manufacturing facility? In Texas alone Samsung has an existing $13B investment: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/07/memo-to-u-s-politicians-samsung-is-a-very-american-company/
Clearly Samsung has a few things to learn about the American way of doing business. I'm willing to be a consultant to them in this regard, and all for the low, low price of$1M/yr. My advice? Give half of what's in petty cash, because that's all it takes. To companies this size, it's not much money, and it's the best ROI you'll ever see.
Cite?
as long as people think of Samsung as a Korean company...
And Apple as an American company.
Apple is an American company.
How do you figure? At least one Apple exec told US workers to stuff it, as Apple doesn't owe them anything. Apple makes almost everything overseas. Meanwhile, Samsung has US operations (for example http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-expand-us-operations-two-new-california-facilities [androidcentral.com] ). Stop thinking of Apple as American just because their headquarters are here.
I have no, none, zero, zip, nada loyalty or favor towards "American" companies. They have no loyalty towards this country, so why should they get special favor from the US government? There is no quid pro quo, so tell 'em to stuff it.
Meanwhile my wife and I drive Toyota's. They're 80% and 85% value added in the USA, which makes them more American than most so-called American cars.
P.S. Part of the 1st paragraph is a cut and paste from my post above, but it seemed even more appropriate here.
Is Samsung an American company all of a sudden?
Is Apple an American company? At least one Apple exec told US workers to stuff it, as Apple doesn't owe them anything. Apple makes almost everything overseas. Meanwhile, Samsung has US operations (for example http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-expand-us-operations-two-new-california-facilities ). Stop thinking of Apple as American just because their headquarters are here.
I respect the senior guy for saying "I don't know", unlike some idiots who think they're showing weakness if they admit they don't know something.
Plains, deserts, tundra - all available in the US.