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    Motivating Workers

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IT Careers
    69 Posts 11 Posters 22.3k Views
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    • scottalanmillerS
      scottalanmiller @A Former User
      last edited by

      @thecreativeone91 said:

      @MattSpeller said:

      @thecreativeone91 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

      6 United States 43,585*
      7 Canada 41,280
      8 South Korea 40,861
      9 Kuwait 40,854
      10 Netherlands 38,584
      11 New Zealand 35,562

      I was referring to my area not the whole country. But still most people make well below $50,000. And that is also household income, not individual income so it could be significantly less for each person.

      And "most" people are not knowledge workers, in a position to be inspired or making enough to be comfortable.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • ?
        A Former User @scottalanmiller
        last edited by

        @scottalanmiller said:

        O'Reilly has been pushing a book that they have on why you can't motivate workers.

        Link?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • scottalanmillerS
          scottalanmiller @Nic
          last edited by

          @Nic said:

          @scottalanmiller said:

          @creayt said:

          @Nic said:

          Joel Spolsky has a good article series on this topic:
          http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/10.html

          Joel makes abysmal software so I'll read it with a bucketful of salt but am excited to see if he found any actual evidence.

          I have to agree with @creayt here. Joel writes well and has some good insights, I have all of his books and find them valuable. But what he turned out at Microsoft is the worst of what MS has produced (VBA!!) and Fog Creek's products are definitely a joke. We tried one once based on his reputation and we were completely shocked and what garbage it was. No support for any enterprise OS, didn't install or work. The only thing we were happy about was how easy it was to get our money back. Customer service was excellent. Nice people, terrible software. Their use of VBScript has made them a laughingstock in development circles. I would never put it on my resume, it could easily be a career ending place to work.

          Yeah I've heard mixed things about FogBugz, but Trello and Stack Exchange seem to be taking off. Either way, kudos to him if he can keep a good business running and attract and keep good talent. Tom Limoncelli just went to work for them.

          Who said that he can attract good talent? He's got VBScripters working for him. I'd not want to hire the people he is hiring. As far as I know, he has to hire college students because the cream of the crop won't give him a second thought. If you read his writing on hiring (funnily, I'm halfway through an article that references this exact thing) he specifically avoids hiring the best and looks for middling people.

          Sadly, this makes Tom Limoncelli look bad, not Joel look good. FogBugz is a black mark on a resume. A sign of desperation, not of excelling.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            Joel hires people like he is a Fortune 100.... and they, basically by definition, can't hire the best because of their scale. Most companies can't hire the best, there aren't that many of the best out there, but he has some strong processes for getting the solidly upper mediocre.

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            • creaytC
              creayt @MattSpeller
              last edited by

              @MattSpeller said:

              I'd be motivated a lot more by a 4 day work week than more money. Unless it's substantially more money.

              That's the same thing as money ( my opinion ). It's more money for less time. And I agree with you.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • creaytC
                creayt @A Former User
                last edited by creayt

                @thecreativeone91 said:

                Where do you need $50,000 to get the basics? Median income here is $37,000

                Scott made it sound like $75k was just enough for "the basics", I was using 50 to demonstrate that 75 doesn't mean "the basics", it means "spending money". I agree with you but didn't want to get into a debate about how much "the basics" would be, so I went higher. In a lot of cities though, even terrible places to live require pretty shocking rent prices, so I don't think 37k could get you much above poverty in a place like New York City for example. It all depends.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • NicN
                  Nic
                  last edited by

                  The money stuff all depends on where you live and the cost of living.

                  Generally salary is what is called a "sanitary factor". Not enough will make you quit, but more won't make up for a shitty work environment.

                  tonyshowoffT MattSpellerM 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                  • tonyshowoffT
                    tonyshowoff @Nic
                    last edited by

                    @Nic My cousin and one of my sisters in Bosnia live on about 500 euros a month pretty well. Compared to how much I had to spend living in Manhattan...

                    tl;dr I agree.

                    scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • scottalanmillerS
                      scottalanmiller @tonyshowoff
                      last edited by

                      @tonyshowoff said:

                      @Nic My cousin and one of my sisters in Bosnia live on about 500 euros a month pretty well. Compared to how much I had to spend living in Manhattan...

                      Even here in Spain, which is a moderately wealthy country, one Euro will get you a glass of great wine and a bit to eat! And that is with the taxes included!!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • MattSpellerM
                        MattSpeller @Nic
                        last edited by

                        @Nic said:

                        The money stuff all depends on where you live and the cost of living.

                        Very true. I'd bet there are places where 50k is comfy as hell, but it would not be enough to buy a 800sqft condo here unless you've been saving for years or have extremely good discipline (and cheap hobbies!).

                        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • scottalanmillerS
                          scottalanmiller @MattSpeller
                          last edited by

                          @MattSpeller said:

                          Very true. I'd bet there are places where 50k is comfy as hell, but it would not be enough to buy a 800sqft condo here unless you've been saving for years or have extremely good discipline (and cheap hobbies!).

                          Here in Spain you could buy a home and live decent. In Texas you could buy a small home and live very frugally. In Upstate NY you can do okay, too.

                          There are definitely places where it is comfy. And definitely places where it is starvation.

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