You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Yvain comments on Ask and Guess - Less Wrong Discussion

68 [deleted] 01 December 2010 05:54PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (64)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Yvain 01 December 2010 09:24:42PM 49 points [-]

Consider an "ask culture" where employees consider themselves totally allowed to say "no" without repercussions. The boss would prefer people work unpaid overtime so ey gets more work done without having to pay anything, so ey asks everyone. Most people say no, because they hate unpaid overtime. The only people who agree will be those who really love the company or their job - they end up looking really good. More and more workers realize the value of lying and agreeing to work unpaid overtime so the boss thinks they really love the company. Eventually, the few workers who continue refusing look really bad, like they're the only ones who aren't team players, and they grudgingly accept.

Only now the boss notices that the employees hate their jobs and hate the boss. The boss decides to only ask employees if they will work unpaid overtime when it's absolutely necessary. The ask culture has become a guess culture.

Comment author: IanKanchax 02 December 2010 01:42:38AM 1 point [-]

Is this a concrete example? Or based on one or many? I am having trouble considering it. (Walmart perhaps?)