Your definition of open allocation seems to be "work on whatever you want". You don't need a PhD in organizational theory to know that this doesn't scale. I think what you really mean is "I want to work on whatever I want".
First, open allocation doesn't mean "work on whatever you want". It means that people work for the company directly rather than having their allowable contributions restricted by an intermediary who will usually use that power for extortionist purposes and force the other person to serve his career goals (rather than the good of the company, or the employee).
Employee and company actually have a common interest that is typically thrown under the bus in a closed-allocation environment.
Second, this sure as hell isn't just about me. Open allocation has second-order cultural effects that are positive for everyone.
You don't get a good environment if one or a few people get to work on whatever they want but the rest are stuck in narrow niches.
So I actually wouldn't be attracted to a job where I got to work on whatever I wanted but everyone else lived under closed allocation.
Under closed allocation you get a culture of internal social climbing. It's no longer about doing things. It's about getting permission. You have a society founded on getting jobs rather than doing work, then.
Also, the quality of projects that exists under closed allocation is inferior because people can't vote with their feet.
open allocation as a panacea to all organizational problems ... You don't need a PhD in organizational theory to know that this doesn't scale.
Open allocation is not a panacea. Far from it. Organizational problems happen because that's how people are. However, open allocation is almost always strictly superior to the alternative, which is closed allocation.
Open allocation is the more natural state. Closed allocation is the bulky add-on that needs to be justified, and only when there are necessary information barriers whose integrity is more important than maximal productivity (this is true in secure government jobs, and in some parts of finance) is there any justification for it.
Please -- moderate yourself, or you'll probably end up hellbanned.
> rather than having their allowable contributions restricted by an intermediary who will usually use that power for extortionist purposes and force the other person to serve his career goals
What you're describing is a borderline sociopath, not a result of closed allocation.
You make a lot of conjectures. Do you have any evidence or verifiable experience to back up these claims:
> Employee and company actually have a common interest that is typically thrown under the bus in a closed-allocation environment.
> Also, the quality of projects that exists under closed allocation is inferior because people can't vote with their feet.
> However, open allocation is almost always strictly superior to the alternative, which is closed allocation.
Sounds like you should be a management consultant.
> Is that a threat?
Sigh...there's your persecution complex again. I wish I had the power to delete your posts from my own feed (perhaps a browser extension?).
Michael, I mean this very, very sincerely, and out of genuine concern -- please do consider the possibility of talking to a counselor. I don't know a thing about you or your situation beyond your posts here, but I've seen you bring up suicide in another thread (not to imply that you're suicidal), and your inability to move on from an ostensibly bad experience at Google suggests to me that you might well benefit from a professional ear.
Edit: I'm only saying to you what I would if I knew you in person.
I don't know you or Michael, but just from this exchange, it looks like you are the one out of line here. Nothing you have written has contributed to the discussion.
Sometimes people have obsessions. I will rant for days on how much Java sucks as a language, how 99% of American corporations have idiots running their supply chains, how energy storage is the singular important problem facing alternative energy, and how City Planners are a bunch of nimwits that are inadvertently destroying livelihoods of millions of people in their quest for the ultimate Sim City. I'm sure you have some of your own. It isn't that big of a deal to ignore someone's posts on HN.
That's the problem -- it's not just from this exchange. It's the exact same theme in stories that are very, very tangentially related to Google, over many, many weeks on many, many stories.
I've been here for a while, and I can list the very few usernames that stick out to me in comment threads: tptacek, edw519, pg, matt_cutts, patio11, and michaelochurch. The others almost always add to the discussion in interesting ways. Michael, unfortunately, is a one-track record.
I read it. You said, "First, open allocation doesn't mean "work on whatever you want"and then spent rest of the paragraph saying it does.
How do the bathrooms get cleaned? How does maintenance code get written? You've said in the past that such code is always just a manager trying to show power over peons, that is just paranoid insanity with maybe a touch of bitterness from having to work on it.
Your writing is predictable, tepid, and spam. You have a comment on every single story here dealing with employment.
If I hear VC-istan one more fucking time.. Well let's just say you have probably driven away lots of people from this site.
First, open allocation doesn't mean "work on whatever you want". It means that people work for the company directly rather than having their allowable contributions restricted by an intermediary who will usually use that power for extortionist purposes and force the other person to serve his career goals (rather than the good of the company, or the employee).
Employee and company actually have a common interest that is typically thrown under the bus in a closed-allocation environment.
Second, this sure as hell isn't just about me. Open allocation has second-order cultural effects that are positive for everyone.
You don't get a good environment if one or a few people get to work on whatever they want but the rest are stuck in narrow niches.
So I actually wouldn't be attracted to a job where I got to work on whatever I wanted but everyone else lived under closed allocation.
Under closed allocation you get a culture of internal social climbing. It's no longer about doing things. It's about getting permission. You have a society founded on getting jobs rather than doing work, then.
Also, the quality of projects that exists under closed allocation is inferior because people can't vote with their feet.
open allocation as a panacea to all organizational problems ... You don't need a PhD in organizational theory to know that this doesn't scale.
Open allocation is not a panacea. Far from it. Organizational problems happen because that's how people are. However, open allocation is almost always strictly superior to the alternative, which is closed allocation.
Open allocation is the more natural state. Closed allocation is the bulky add-on that needs to be justified, and only when there are necessary information barriers whose integrity is more important than maximal productivity (this is true in secure government jobs, and in some parts of finance) is there any justification for it.
Please -- moderate yourself, or you'll probably end up hellbanned.
Is that a threat?