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Protagoras comments on The Wrongness Iceberg - Less Wrong Discussion

20 Post author: alfredmacdonald 04 February 2013 09:02AM

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Comment author: Protagoras 04 February 2013 04:21:34PM 6 points [-]

I don't know if a restaurant is such a case (probably it isn't; it seems especially common when you work for managers who have important duties besides managing), but there are jobs where the most important thing you need to do to please the manager is make sure you don't do anything that needs the manager's attention, because they don't have time to deal with you. Asking the manager for advice in such a case is obviously something to be done rarely and carefully.

Comment author: aelephant 05 February 2013 12:00:08AM 1 point [-]

I think you could make the argument that a place where the manager doesn't have time to deal with the people they manage is a poorly managed place. Maybe they need to hire assistant managers or more employees to do the non-managerial work.

Comment author: prase 06 February 2013 06:30:48PM 3 points [-]

That may be true but the argument is of little use for the employee.

Comment author: aelephant 07 February 2013 12:01:30AM 0 points [-]

It might be useful for the employee in determining they no longer want to work for a poorly managed company.

Comment author: prase 07 February 2013 11:44:37PM 1 point [-]

If they don't want to. But as an employee, I care about things that influence me directly; if the company is poorly managed to some degree but offers good wages, I still want to work for them, at least until I find something better. Trying to judge the management quality doesn't seem to be a good employee strategy.