Some quotes from the article:
There is something very strange about having this very intimate view into someone’s life. It feels odd to see someone’s daily drive, but it’s also an important part of correcting and refining the program.
We review about five and a half to six hours of footage per day. It can be very hard to focus. You can get in this kind of fog when you’re just watching clip after clip and it can be difficult to keep yourself sane.
Anytime you’re not clicking around in the software program, it tracks you as if you aren’t working and it basically sets off an alarm to your superiors.
These jobs sound very dystopian to me, and a bit psychopathic as well. All the movies I watched growing up about dystopian societies is reflected in what this guy says about his job.
These jobs sound very dystopian to me,
Absolutely, this too from the article:
“Why didn’t you make any changes to the software program for 15 minutes?” You could basically get fired for spending too long in the bathroom.
This is absolutely a hell hole of a job, they 100% need a union.
Also this actively undermines quality in what they do, a requirement to make changes, may make people make changes that aren’t needed, and even possibly changes that can be detrimental to the function.
That definitely sounds like an Elon thing to say. The same dude, who demanded people print out a week worth of their commits on paper.
These people have just about zero idea about how the engineering process works, and it shows.
These people have just about zero idea about how the engineering process works, and it shows.
Well, now that’s obviously not true. They wouldn’t have drivable cars if they had no idea how to engineer one…
I once paid an electrician to do some electrical work in my house, therefor I am an electrician, otherwise, how would I have working power in my house?
He’s referring to Elon himself, and I presume whomever else instantiated their productivity metrics.
I’m lucky enough that both of the shareholders of my company are software engineers; one has transitioned to sales and project management, the other is still an engineer, he’s also the CTO.
Was discussing office chairs with our team lead/office supplies person (it’s a really small company, some people have multiple roles) and when I mentioned that my chair gets really creaky when leaning back but otherwise it works so it really just needs some lubrication, she asked why I would even lean so far back in my chair and the CTO told her “There’s two sitting positions for programming. The writing position and the thinking position”
TL;DR: Takes an engineer to know how engineering works. Turns out that you have to spend a lot of time just thinking
Also this actively undermines quality in what they do, a requirement to make changes, may make people make changes that aren’t needed, and even possibly changes that can be detrimental to the function.
Indeed, but not only that. Having employees that have as their only task to spend that much time on such a mind numbing task is pretty much in itself a guarantee for poor quality work. Such work should be divided up among people who do other things as well, so that they can break the video watching up in smaller pieces to be able to remain focused and do a better job.
