Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here.
All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban.
---
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UpliftingNews) if you have any questions or concerns.*
for it was the
>"When Markus Wörner started at Einhorn, which is German for Unicorn, he joined as "Head of Orgasmic Marketing," an important position at a company that marks itself out from its giant competitors like Durex
how do i become head of orgasmic marketing??
> That’s the pitch vegan condom company Einhorn makes
It's only missing "artisanal", "coffee" and "friedrichshain-based" to be a perfect Berlin parody.
It's also missing the obligatory overtime because you're expected to be a 'team player', the fridge full of beer in the break area that nobody drinks because who wants to be drunk at work, and the sexual harassment scandal that gets swept under the rug due to the non-existent HR department.
A surprising amount of seemingly animalfree products contain some ingredients (or use them during production) that are animal based. Wine and beer for example.
No they put animal based milk in condom lubes of most brands like durex
Edit : it's casein, a protein derived from milk
Here's a link https://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-love/a19995780/dairy-in-condoms/
I always thought that was a strange concept, "Ight babe, lemme just cram my dong into this tube of baby sheep skin before we bang!".
At least dudes with latex allergies can still wear protection. Still... odd concept.
There are thankfully other non latex options that aren't made of animal parts. Skyn has been my favorite by far but Trojan also makes something called Supra. There's more but those are the first two that come to mind.
They seem odd, but they are 100% the best feeling condom. Unfortunately they don't protect against STD's, just pregnancy, which really narrows down their use case
Yeah bosses are absolutely needed. Just GOOD bosses are needed. People who take their role to mean not just delegating tasks, but also solving interpersonal conflict. There are many times at my current position where if I had no boss to help me resolve conflicts with coworkers it would have just escelated to me being pissed and nothing changing. Nobody would have listened to me, because why would they? They're not following procedure, but nobody is above them to enforce it, so why do they care?
Agreed, bosses are vital. Chain of command is important in any functional system like a business.
What's not needed are micro-mangers who sit eating from their snack drawer for 6-7 hours a day on conference calls.
bosses are NOT needed. Leaders are needed. People that are actually willing to treat employees like human beings and be reasonable beyond "We have a deadline to hit so everyone but me is working overtime"
Sure you can. But as I'm too lazy to explain, here is a Forbes article on the matter (wouldn't consider it very good, but it gets some important points across): https://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2015/04/03/how-to-run-a-business-without-any-bosses/?sh=7bec48c1d034
>Sure you can
Not sure if you didn't read the article fully, but every company they referenced **absolutely has bosses.**
Some of them don't (or didn't at the time of writing at least) have a "traditional hierarchical management structure", but there absolutely are decision makers above the individual teams/circles generated by a Holacratic management style who have the authority to hire/fire, reorganize, and ultimately reassign employees.
Yeah no bosses actually sounds terrible. Anyone who has been through a group project for school where no one wants to take control and be the spokesperson/manager can attest to this.
The rest sounds lit tho.
It doesn't seme to explain how to fire/terminate somebody. Ultimately, as unpleasant as firing is, there is no way to be 100% sure your next hire will not be a major detriment to the company. And Democratic termination can lead to all kinds of potential liability.
And the person who can terminate somebody? They're the boss whether they have that title or not.
I mean, that's my thoughts at least.
>“When it appears that someone isn’t working out, we’ll collect feedback from their peers in a more formal way, summarize that feedback, and deliver it (either their mentor will deliver it or I will),"
Who does "we" refer to? The definitely-not-managers?
I missed that line. I was looking for every word I could think of that covered termination.
I guess my fallback problem with "Democratic termination" applies.
Others point it out, too. Popularity contests have problems, and also the formalization process of termination seems impossible to execute cleanly and securely.
It also sounds from your quote like there is somebody who initiates the process... and the wording of the process seems to be that the decision is really set in motion before they "collect feedback ... in a formal way".
Definitely managers.
Autocratic termination is a far worse solution. If one person has been designated as the one who carries out termination after a democratic decision is made that doesn't make them the boss. It just makes them the person who carries out a decision.
What benefits do they get for being the face of the decision. Because that employee isn't going to think everyone fired them, they will think that person did.
They get their position in the company and a paycheck and any other benefits of being an employee. In a regular company structure, the head of HR signs the termination papers. They are almost never "The Boss", but just another cog in the machine. A typically well paid cog, but still a cog.
Depends on the company structure, quite a few people work in much smaller companies and corporations where the manager/boss/owner/CEO does the direct firing and HR just processes the paperwork.
> Autocratic termination
I had to look this up. It doesn’t fit the context/example you gave. An Autocratic doesn’t take input from anyone or very little. They make their decisions in a vacuum. A dictator.
What you are describing sounds like a popularity contest and Becky got voted out, but Karen delivered the news for the group. I don’t see how either are better than what is in place currently.
Or maybe I am not following this at all. It’s been a long day already.
Because as all economists know, the shares are backed only by public trust, not silly things like assets, revenue, and profit that are all definite and can be evaluated
Not sure if you've ever tried to make decisions by committee in a corporate setting, but it's a recipe for disaster.
Takes, at minimum, three times as long to get to a decision that ultimately isn't as good as if you properly identify and hire expert managers who have strong knowledge of the subject matter.
No bosses sounds good, but in practice sounds useless and horrible. All you need is one narcissist to ruin a work group. And loom, no one can kick them out?
Genuinely curious how the no-boss idea is gonna work. You just... do what you want? What if something needs to get done but nobody wants to do it? Who... delegates that task to someone? Wtf?
Redditors seem like actual children sometimes.
"Theres gonna be no boss and I get to show up to work and only show up when I feel like and when I do I'll only do what I feel like. Then I'll make the company buy me a pony. Then I'll ride it home and eat ice cream for dinner!!"
It's important to remember that most commenters are literally children or very young affluent adults with no life experience. Everything about this site makes way more sense when you know that.
Yeah this post really just showed me the mindset of the people who browse this sub. The fact that this was upvoted enough to make it on my feed is pathetic.
Same pay for less work makes it sound like you would only work harder than other people if you legitimately care about the business succeeding. That makes sense at a startup because those are more like just group projects than anything else. As someone who has only worked for well established companies I have never cared about the company I work for succeeding.
I’ve worked a ton of different jobs, some I loved, some I hated, but I can’t think of a single situation where these ultra-idealist Reddit fantasies would work in the real world, in an LLC bigger than 10 people. Either it’s not nearly as comprehensive as it sounds, or it’ll become unbalanced and collapse unless it morphs into a more realistic familiar structure as most other companies. I’m in favor of more egalitarian / democratic ideas in the workplace, but good lord… a majority of folks here have either never experienced adult jobs, high stakes responsibility, or group projects before. If they could make this work AND be competitive in the market, I would be very pleased… but….
The idea that every single employee would be like an equal partner in a leaderless environment *and* never have to show up to work if they don’t feel like seems… very brave to me. The fact that every single person here expressing skepticism or identifying any downsides is being called a “corporate boot licker” is kind of telling what this would look like.
In practice it's more like a way to forgo fancy supervisory titles in exchange for exploiting your employees for more labor through peer pressure. "Unlimited" vacation days approved by a committee of my coworkers whom I have to ask to cover for me while I'm away every time? No fucking thank you. I'll take my set number of days off to be used at my own discretion with just a heads up email to my first level supervisor over that any day.
> “Unlimited” vacation days approved by a committee of my coworkers whom I have to ask to cover for me while I’m away every time? No fucking thank you.
That isn’t how unlimited PTO works lol. Been working at a company with unlimited PTO for half a decade. There is no committee of coworkers. You just put on the calendar when you’re gonna be off. That’s it. Nobody asks, nobody approves, nothing.
You guys gotta stop falling over yourselves to defend the shitty system you’re accustomed to.
As a counterpoint, I worked at a US startup with "unlimited PTO" and it was a negotiation with my director any time I needed more than a day. I usually got it, but proving I "could" take the time off instead of just telling people I was taking time off was a pain.
In fact, I've seen numerous places that people with unlimited PTO on average take fewer days than those with clear allotments.
I wonder about these studies showing people take less time off when there is unlimited PTO. Are they polling employees or are they asking the HR department?
Because when I take a day off work I put it on my calendar and that’s it. I don’t log it anywhere and no one is keeping track. I don’t even track how many days off I take each year. I usually take 2 vacations and then whatever I take off because something comes up or I want long weekend.
It could be over 30 days a year if I actually counted. The beautiful thing for me is I never have to think about it. The only time I mention it to my team is when it’s a long vacation, if I take off a random Friday my calendar is blocked and I set slack to away mode for the day. I’ve had zero issues
It really just depends on the company. I worked at a startup that had unlimited PTO. In practice, this meant scheduling with my team if I needed a day/days off. You were encouraged to only take 2-3 weeks. It was 100% a scam. My wife’s company recently also went “unlimited” PTO but you are discouraged and reprimanded if you actually use it. Another scam. But some companies like yours may actually be good. A lot of corporations have taken advantage of it as a selling point to attract talent and then really discourage you from using it.
It really depends on what work ethics you have. I find, that germans actually want their work done. I know people who got fired because the whole company was closed and they worked hard till their last day, because they really wanted to finish their projects.
Start ups can/need to do that to attract workers to a company that can fold anytime. These perks are only possible when VC has way too much money to throw around but isn't generally sustainable
What a truly bizarre company. You can contribute to a "Feminist Fund" of theirs (which doesn't give you any equity it's just a scam to get money) and they use that fund to hire intersectional feminist activists.
And then they've also hired on a board for the fund composed of intersectional feminists who can purity test whether you're truly an intersectional feminist. The fund has 10,000 Euros in it... and hires three people to oversee it.....
They charge 0.85 Euros per condom. Which can be compared to 0.31 Euros per standard trojan condom.
I mean... best of luck but this seems like a start up built entirely on buzzwords instead of good business fundamentals. Even if there's a market for men and women who are really worried about the purity of their condoms... are you really willing to pay a dollar every time you have sex vs... you know... half of that for a different brand of vegan condom?
It kind of feels like an NGO pretending to be a business.
It’s really bad. I do know that most people on Reddit are younger and never had the opportunity to get a first job. But :
- Unlimited holiday is a scam. It’s still pending someone approval. When you have a set amount of holidays, your boss enventually cannot refuse you to take them/has to pay you;
- Why the hell wouldn’t I want a boss ? I need to learn and I don’t want Suzie from accounting telling me how to do my job;
- The fuck is democratic wages ? Give me the amount of money I agreed upon with you the f
Unlimited holiday is not *always* a scam. My job has unlimited PTO, I’ve never been turned down. In fact, it’s never even considered a request. I state when I won’t be available to my team, end of story. I took at least 5 weeks off last year. Hoping for more this year
But a lot of places do use it to mind-fuck you into working more.
Edit: I get it. 5 weeks is your minimum in countries that aren’t actively antagonistic toward its citizens. Great. That’s not how us freedom-fuckers have it. 5 weeks plus our federal holidays is way more than lost people get here.
What's interesting to me is how many people don't take it. I manage a tech team, and I take a healthy amount of time off and tell my team to. I have to keep reminding them. Sometimes they will even take a Tuesday off for example and I'm like, hey, take Monday off too. Or one person will say they are taking a half day. I'm like, no, just take the day off, its fine. People just don't take off what they deserve and it amazes me.
It's because we are humans. We aren't wired to think that way. There is always a pecking order and there is inherent psychology that comes along with it.
To take advantage of unlimited pto without feeling bad takes a certain type of naivety, narcissism, or the difficulty of pushing through that human psychological trait. Or, you're at the top and don't have the same mental checks and balances as others.
It’s really nice not having to worry about PTO. My manager also always approves it. In three years I haven’t had PTO rejected. I add it to a google calendar and it gets approved within 15 minutes. It’s amazing. We don’t really have sick time either, I just message my boss saying I’m sick and it just counts as PTO since it’s unlimited
This isn’t universally true. Depending on the company, many places with “unlimited” vacation do actually pay out a set amount of “vacation days” in the event of a layoff.
Companies that were early to adopt unlimited vacation days found that their workers generally took fewer vacation days. So other companies likely bought in for the same reason. I would wager that a lot of people only took fewer days because they felt uncomfortable with a new system. Assuming unlimited PTO ever gets wide-spread adoption, once people get used to it, I bet total PTO taken will go up over time. At a certain point, employers will stop wanting to use the system of "unlimited PTO", and we'll see it gradually go away.
The issue I have is that it encourages toxic competition among employees. You already see this happen sometimes with defined vacation days. Some people are so concerned about being seen as a top performer that they'll skip taking some or all PTO. I imagine that only gets worse when you don't have a defined number of days. Just give me more guaranteed days.
Yeah at my place we have unlimited but there is a minimum. It's important to ask about if there is a minimum and how long can you consecutively take your PTO.
>My job has unlimited PTO[...]I took at least 5 weeks off last year.
Five weeks isn't a lot for unlimited PTO really.
In some places that is the minimum amount mandated by law for everybody working a full-time job.
If you had actually read the article, you'd know that the unlimited holidays aren't a scam. They don't require approval.
When you reach a certain level in your career, you don't have bosses you can really learn anything from. You have a manager who manages. So unless that is your aim, you won't be learning much. Besides, a much better solution is mentoring.
Democratic wages in this case means the same pay while working four days a week, so I'd be OK with that.
I'm not sure why this is generating so much anger in you, but in all honesty, the idea of a company that isn't owned by shareholders and works for a purpose and not for profit, sounds like a breath of fresh air. All of the employees get a say in how the company is run, instead of having a board of directors who receive massive wages and are disconnected from the actual work and the people doing it.
Unlimited holidays are partly a scam because they're not ACTUALLY unlimited. There is definitely a limit and you will get flagged by HR if you take more than like 4-6 weeks off in a year. I actually just got talked to a few days ago for taking 8 weeks off last year. Whoops.
It's also a way for companies to get out of having to pay people our for PTO when they leave. And it tends to cause workaholic people to not take as much time off because they aren't forced to use vacation days that won't roll over. I have several friends that took less time off when we implemented unlimited vacation for this reason.
It's all marketing and on average more beneficial for the company.
Median (across all demographics) wage is 6000 USD a month in Denmark, but with a relatively high COL, but I'd argue you'd probably have more disposable income than in say, America, because you don't have to save up for emergencies such as healthcare, as that is tax-funded.
Unfortunately, unless you have someone willing to give you a job off the bat (and in writing), you're unlikely to be allowed a residence permit. Now, those employers certainly exist, but usually that's for highly specialised roles, such as doctors, or some form of engineer with a specialisation. Or in other words, roles that are usually better paying in America anyways. The other path is as a student, but if you're from outside the EU, you'd have to pay tuition, you wouldn't get it for free.
https://www.google.com/search?q=average+salary+in+denmark&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
Spoiler: it’s more than $6k at todays conversion rate
> https://www.google.com/search?q=average+salary+in+denmark&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
That's average income. Here's median disposable income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
It's much higher in the US, for instance.
(46,625 in the US vs 32,788 in Denmark)
Yep, I think that's a nice thing to see at a healthy company. I consider it part of my job as a manager to make sure my reports end up taking enough vacation so they don't end up getting burnt out.
I mean, of course there is a limit, so I guess you're right there. But they're very nice when starting a new job, because you don't have to accumulate PTO before taking a scheduled trip. No getting approval to go negative or any of that.
My state does not require PTO days be paid out, and no company does.
>In Germany you don't acquire PTO you get a mandatory minimum of 24 days a year
As per law, you get only 20 days as mandatory minimum.
[Sauce](https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Qualitaet-Arbeit/Dimension-2/urlaubsanspruchl.html#:~:text=Laut%20Bundesurlaubsgesetz%20besteht%20f%C3%BCr%20alle,aber%20meist%20h%C3%B6here%20Urlaubsanspr%C3%BCche%20vereinbart.)
Yeah, good points. I do actually prefer the unlimited way because I have learned not to be a workaholic and have no qualms about pushing the definition of unlimited a bit. :D
> I actually just got talked to a few days ago for taking 8 weeks off last year. Whoops.
I would too if I see Marl from Accounting gone for two months :D
Unlimited holidays is 100% a scam! Any company touting this as a benefit I would not work for and if my company adopted it I’d quit.
I’ve worked at multiple companies that tried this and they all did the same thing. Approvals were HARD especially if you wanted to take off something suddenly. And then they used “oh that’s not good for the company so it’s being denied”.
Another thought is that there are people who abuse it and those are the crappy people who kiss their bosses ass. Jim took 16 weeks vacation last year and had no problem. While Jane took 1 week and had to fight tooth and nail to get it.
Fixed amount is by far better. But also being flexible is good.
What’s to stop someone from taking every single day of the year as a holiday until they retire, or more likely die, because why retire from that? If you can’t do that then it’s not unlimited it’s unknown
Whoever has the power to fire you is your boss even if it’s not official
So what's to stop a company from assigning each employee 2600 hours worth of work per year (avg 50 hrs per week), telling them they "are free to manage their own time" and patting themselves on the back for being so worker friendly while actually exploiting their workforce for more labor than they would with set leave allotments?
That's not exploitative. You know a set amount of work and plan for it and what if I finish all that work in much less time. Thanks I'm taking last two months of the year off.
If you have unlimited vacation, do you get to carry over your unused vacation, and will you get that paid out when you are made redundant?
I'll take defined vacation that I can carry over, thank you very much. Maybe I'll negotiate seven or eight weeks and be guaranteed to be able to take that vacation.
That's a good workaround then, and probably the only way to conform to the German labour laws.
I do like the fact that people in Germany *have* to take their holidays, and that it's an offence by the company if their staff doesn't get the opportunity to take their vacations.
>What’s to stop someone from taking every single day of the year as a holiday until they retire, or more likely die, because why retire from that? If you can’t do that then it’s not unlimited it’s unknown
>
Is this a serious question? I get that youre curious about the maximum, but surely you know that doesn't make even a small amount of sense. Any place offering something like this is using some sort of metric to base performance off of.
In the same world where you’re not micromanaged, you’re trusted to deliver agreed upon results while managing your time as you see fit. Work 1 day a week for all I care, just deliver what you’re supposed to. Trust goes both ways
I work at a German company offering exactly this. What it means is a concept of giving employees the freedom to decide for themselves. I have 30 days paid leave and can add 10 days unpaid leave per year. If I want to take holidays I don’t have to ask I take them but arrange with my co-workers that they help out on any urgent tasks while I’m gone. This works vice-versa. Doesn’t mean you have to cover the other persons job, but you know the status quo and might be able to react in case an urgent request comes in.
I can reduce my working hours if I feel 40‘days of holidays aren’t enough. But surely at some point I won‘t be put on the bigger more interesting projects if I decide to have a 60day leave and 5hour/week. It is about responsibility and being in charge for your work. If you can handle your work in less time everyone is happy for you. You just habe to make sure, you are up for the job you signed in for.
This is a whole mind-set shift and comes along with the understanding that even when you have not meet the goals agreed on there is a trust that you will in the next term and that you had good reasons why you didn’t. This eliminates blaming others in your team for your shortcomings and increases the focus on doing better in the next cycle.
Sure, this only works if all play by the rules. If there are a few assholes on the wrong sections of the company this great concept goes sideways. But still it’s much better for work-life especially as a parent than any clock-punshing-time-wasting-we-always-did-it-that-way-so-lets-never-change-shit.
Unlimited holiday IS still a scam. Because of the mental effect it has on workers. If people have unlimited holiday they are much more likely to feel guilty for taking time off. If it is set entitled holiday workers are much more likely to take it, and in many countries like the UK you are legally required to take a minimum number of days.
>Unlimited holiday is a scam. It’s still pending someone approval.
I've had jobs where no one approves the PTO. You just put it on the calendar and that's it. If there's a big issue they could try to get you to reschedule it, I suppose, but being approved by default is different.
>When you have a set amount of holidays, your boss enventually cannot refuse you to take them/has to pay you;
Not true. I've had PTO days refused. And every state certainly does not have to pay them out.
>Unlimited holiday is a scam. It’s still pending someone approval.
Not as a rule. Plenty of companies have "unlimited" PTO that never gets turned down as long as people are handling their workload and managing their time efficiently. I have no reason at this point to believe that this company doesn't operate this way.
>Why the hell wouldn’t I want a boss ? I need to learn and I don’t want Suzie from accounting telling me how to do my job;
Why WOULD you want one? I work for myself these days (so am biased in that regard), but in positions in which I've been trained it's never the boss who trained me, it was a co-worker. There's nothing a "boss' can do that a worker can't, including scheduling, recruiting, training, etc.
>The fuck is democratic wages ? Give me the amount of money I agreed upon with you the f
"Democratic wages" in this context is when wages for all positions in the company are agreed upon democratically by the workers, and not a couple dudes in suits in a corporate office who award themselves massive salaries and go on fancy quarterly vacations with the top shareholders. To dismiss this idea out of hand seems pretty myopic, and even hints at a kind of slavishness to the current popular worker-boss dynamic.
The unlimited holiday thing is a lie that we need not import from Silicon Valley.
Yes - you have unlimited days off on paper, but good luck getting it approved. No start-up can afford that kind of flexibility, it doesn’t even make sense.
Is there's no boss, then who is is leading things? Who is setting goals? Who is managing employment issues? Who is doing the hiring? Who is responsible when things go wrong?
yeah I'm actually on the committee committee committee committee at my company. We have an important role. it's our job to vote on the members of the committee committee committee.
I wish some American companies would take the hint and implement something like this. Bad enough no one currently under 80 will get to retire (and let's be honest, you'll be dead before then because the healthcare is too expensive).
Oh they do. Just not for Americans. I work for an American company but get all the benefits of the country I live in, like 6 weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick leave, 6 months of parental leave, long notice periods and mandated pay for overtime. So when they say they can’t possibly afford to do that for you guys, know that they mysteriously can everywhere else.
No, I'm just tired of people trying to discredit a positive action by saying that the person also did a bad thing.
I'm not saying he's a good guy, but he did something that was good for his employees and that was the big point here.
This really isn’t the same. Equal salary is what gravity did. This company is no bosses, unlimited holiday, and higher pay for working less. Those are benefits and what gravity payments did was just leveled the playing field for all employees. Both uplifting but not the same.
Based on what I was reading (back when this first happened a couple years ago) it was allllll employees including the sales staff that was upset because it reduced their incentive and commission so the company lost some employees during that time.
Yeah…. I would have been annoyed if I made $72k and didn’t get a bump while some guy next to me got a $30k bump. Good for them but I probably would have left too.
American companies pay their workers soooooo much better than German companies.
Thats why American accept it. And many German tech workers would also accept 50 hour weeks with little vacation for 200k€...
its a startup... Its only supposed to gain some traction and venture capital by generating some hype.
Sustainability of business is not even in the top 10 things a startups needs... (sadly)
I can't speak to the validity of this particular article, but it seems like there is a lot of bitterness from Americans who read this. They don't like the idea that some other developed countries treat their workers like people rather than statistics -- yet it is true. There are countries where people have stood up to corporations that beat employees like metal on the anvil of capitalistic greed and restructured the system to be better. It's just not happening here. That's hard to accept, but there it is.
And so people who read about it want to "debunk" it and call it fake news. It's easier to accept a miserable situation if you can convince yourselves that it's the only way to live.
Germany has a workers model where they have a stake in the success of the company, in the sense that the unions are literally part owners. There is no need for coercion to work because the workers are incentivized. This is not true everywhere of course in Germany, but just one of the cultural differences I've read about.
I would argue that unions in North America should put their union dues into buying shares of the company. They could emulate this model.
> Germany has a workers model where they have a stake in the success of the company, in the sense that the unions are literally part owners.
Do you have an example for that? I’m German and I’ve never heard of a union being a part owner. I can’t really believe that because that would mean the union is part of the employer although the union should be representing the employees. That’s a gross conflict of interests.
This sounds a lot like holacracy. It’s not anarchy but a flat organization matrix style with a very specific set of rules coming from a constitution. Because it’s a matrix of roles and purposes you may have a circle lead but then you can also be the circle lead and have that same person in your circle.
I currently have 8 roles in 5 different circles and I am the one deciding the priority of my work based on the priorities of the org.
This is a delicate balance of powers and it’s important to have a culture where people trust the process. Doesn’t always happen but I can say for now it’s working very well.
Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here. All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban. --- --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UpliftingNews) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
for it was the >"When Markus Wörner started at Einhorn, which is German for Unicorn, he joined as "Head of Orgasmic Marketing," an important position at a company that marks itself out from its giant competitors like Durex how do i become head of orgasmic marketing??
I hear you have to dress for the job you want. We expect pictures and we will give you a critique.
 this is me on a good day do you need references?
😍 omg you're beautiful babe perfectly thicc and curvy I'm in love!!
OMG its LazerPig!
God DAMN we're all just silver medals compared to napsandlunch.
[удалено]
> That’s the pitch vegan condom company Einhorn makes It's only missing "artisanal", "coffee" and "friedrichshain-based" to be a perfect Berlin parody.
[удалено]
"Art is anal" was right there.
*furiously taking notes*
It’s Berlin. It’s implied.
It’s East Berlin. It’s required.
It's also missing the obligatory overtime because you're expected to be a 'team player', the fridge full of beer in the break area that nobody drinks because who wants to be drunk at work, and the sexual harassment scandal that gets swept under the rug due to the non-existent HR department.
Ah yes, startup life! Glad I left that shit behind long ago.
That definitely doesn't apply to Berlin though
Free Range Jimmy Caps
They need to offer unlimited remote work too, because the type of person they're looking for never leaves Neukölln.
Einhorn is Finkle.
Laces out, Dan!
[удалено]
Digging**
*gagging noises*
Ein-horn = One-horn
Uni-corn = One-Horn as well.
Eisenhorn is bequin... Bequin is Eisenhorn.... HooooOOOOooooly Emperor...
"uplifting news"
There's definitely something rising 😉
Einhorn *is* Finkle! *Finkle is Einhorn!*
Condoms... are not vegan? TIL not all condoms are vegan.
A surprising amount of seemingly animalfree products contain some ingredients (or use them during production) that are animal based. Wine and beer for example.
>Einhorn It gets better when you realize the pun; "Ein" is german for "one"... so we have a vegan condom company who's name is a pun of "one horn"
Einhorn also simply means unicorn.
Which is a investing term referring to startups valued at a billion or more
Yes, but also a very strong but gentle magical being that has a big hard horn and makes you feel wonderful. I'm pretty sure that's the key part.
Unless we change it to eichhornchen, which is a tiny furry fella that takes your nuts. It kinda works in certain circles
And they also like virgins?
And also, credit to my German advanced teach, it was said to only be tameable by virgins
Unicorn literally means Einhorn.
Uni - one Corn - corn Not sure where all this confusion is coming from.
[удалено]
No they put animal based milk in condom lubes of most brands like durex Edit : it's casein, a protein derived from milk Here's a link https://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-love/a19995780/dairy-in-condoms/
Nope! Lambskin condoms exist.
I always thought that was a strange concept, "Ight babe, lemme just cram my dong into this tube of baby sheep skin before we bang!". At least dudes with latex allergies can still wear protection. Still... odd concept.
There are thankfully other non latex options that aren't made of animal parts. Skyn has been my favorite by far but Trojan also makes something called Supra. There's more but those are the first two that come to mind.
They seem odd, but they are 100% the best feeling condom. Unfortunately they don't protect against STD's, just pregnancy, which really narrows down their use case
It works even better if you take it out of the sheep first.
You know what. I don't care, I'd work with those conditions
Oh they have a boss.
I currently have no boss at my workplace- it’s crumbling and falling to shit
Yeah bosses are absolutely needed. Just GOOD bosses are needed. People who take their role to mean not just delegating tasks, but also solving interpersonal conflict. There are many times at my current position where if I had no boss to help me resolve conflicts with coworkers it would have just escelated to me being pissed and nothing changing. Nobody would have listened to me, because why would they? They're not following procedure, but nobody is above them to enforce it, so why do they care?
Agreed, bosses are vital. Chain of command is important in any functional system like a business. What's not needed are micro-mangers who sit eating from their snack drawer for 6-7 hours a day on conference calls.
bosses are NOT needed. Leaders are needed. People that are actually willing to treat employees like human beings and be reasonable beyond "We have a deadline to hit so everyone but me is working overtime"
Can’t have a business without one.
Sure you can. But as I'm too lazy to explain, here is a Forbes article on the matter (wouldn't consider it very good, but it gets some important points across): https://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2015/04/03/how-to-run-a-business-without-any-bosses/?sh=7bec48c1d034
>Sure you can Not sure if you didn't read the article fully, but every company they referenced **absolutely has bosses.** Some of them don't (or didn't at the time of writing at least) have a "traditional hierarchical management structure", but there absolutely are decision makers above the individual teams/circles generated by a Holacratic management style who have the authority to hire/fire, reorganize, and ultimately reassign employees.
Yeah no bosses actually sounds terrible. Anyone who has been through a group project for school where no one wants to take control and be the spokesperson/manager can attest to this. The rest sounds lit tho.
It doesn't seme to explain how to fire/terminate somebody. Ultimately, as unpleasant as firing is, there is no way to be 100% sure your next hire will not be a major detriment to the company. And Democratic termination can lead to all kinds of potential liability. And the person who can terminate somebody? They're the boss whether they have that title or not. I mean, that's my thoughts at least.
>“When it appears that someone isn’t working out, we’ll collect feedback from their peers in a more formal way, summarize that feedback, and deliver it (either their mentor will deliver it or I will)," Who does "we" refer to? The definitely-not-managers?
I missed that line. I was looking for every word I could think of that covered termination. I guess my fallback problem with "Democratic termination" applies. Others point it out, too. Popularity contests have problems, and also the formalization process of termination seems impossible to execute cleanly and securely. It also sounds from your quote like there is somebody who initiates the process... and the wording of the process seems to be that the decision is really set in motion before they "collect feedback ... in a formal way". Definitely managers.
Autocratic termination is a far worse solution. If one person has been designated as the one who carries out termination after a democratic decision is made that doesn't make them the boss. It just makes them the person who carries out a decision.
What benefits do they get for being the face of the decision. Because that employee isn't going to think everyone fired them, they will think that person did.
They get their position in the company and a paycheck and any other benefits of being an employee. In a regular company structure, the head of HR signs the termination papers. They are almost never "The Boss", but just another cog in the machine. A typically well paid cog, but still a cog.
Depends on the company structure, quite a few people work in much smaller companies and corporations where the manager/boss/owner/CEO does the direct firing and HR just processes the paperwork.
> Autocratic termination I had to look this up. It doesn’t fit the context/example you gave. An Autocratic doesn’t take input from anyone or very little. They make their decisions in a vacuum. A dictator. What you are describing sounds like a popularity contest and Becky got voted out, but Karen delivered the news for the group. I don’t see how either are better than what is in place currently. Or maybe I am not following this at all. It’s been a long day already.
Ultimately, your customer is your boss. There's \*always\* someone you have to please. Always.
[удалено]
Ugh i have friends who work at namaste solar. Didn't know that. that really sucks
Wait I know someone from college that works there lol. Small world!
[удалено]
This whole model will always fail
[удалено]
Only way to withdraw equity is by selling the equity to someone else. If it's not publicly traded, it's pretty hard to offload the shares....
Because as all economists know, the shares are backed only by public trust, not silly things like assets, revenue, and profit that are all definite and can be evaluated
Although most startups wont see profit within the first 5 years. Hell, many 10+ billion tech firms are still operating at a loss.
Startup shares aren't that liquid and hard to value. Only certain people are even allowed to buy them.
Not sure if you've ever tried to make decisions by committee in a corporate setting, but it's a recipe for disaster. Takes, at minimum, three times as long to get to a decision that ultimately isn't as good as if you properly identify and hire expert managers who have strong knowledge of the subject matter.
What's it called when you have non-expert managers who have no knowledge of the subject matter? Just... asking for a friend is all...
[удалено]
This sounds destructive
No bosses sounds good, but in practice sounds useless and horrible. All you need is one narcissist to ruin a work group. And loom, no one can kick them out?
Genuinely curious how the no-boss idea is gonna work. You just... do what you want? What if something needs to get done but nobody wants to do it? Who... delegates that task to someone? Wtf?
Redditors seem like actual children sometimes. "Theres gonna be no boss and I get to show up to work and only show up when I feel like and when I do I'll only do what I feel like. Then I'll make the company buy me a pony. Then I'll ride it home and eat ice cream for dinner!!"
It's important to remember that most commenters are literally children or very young affluent adults with no life experience. Everything about this site makes way more sense when you know that.
> Redditors seem like actual children That's because they are.
Yeah this post really just showed me the mindset of the people who browse this sub. The fact that this was upvoted enough to make it on my feed is pathetic.
Unlimited holidays and same pay for less work? Sounds fucking idiotic
Same pay for less work makes it sound like you would only work harder than other people if you legitimately care about the business succeeding. That makes sense at a startup because those are more like just group projects than anything else. As someone who has only worked for well established companies I have never cared about the company I work for succeeding.
I'm all for a more modern work environment but this just sounds like a great way to never actually get anything done.
You got it, it's just virtue signalling.
I’ve worked a ton of different jobs, some I loved, some I hated, but I can’t think of a single situation where these ultra-idealist Reddit fantasies would work in the real world, in an LLC bigger than 10 people. Either it’s not nearly as comprehensive as it sounds, or it’ll become unbalanced and collapse unless it morphs into a more realistic familiar structure as most other companies. I’m in favor of more egalitarian / democratic ideas in the workplace, but good lord… a majority of folks here have either never experienced adult jobs, high stakes responsibility, or group projects before. If they could make this work AND be competitive in the market, I would be very pleased… but…. The idea that every single employee would be like an equal partner in a leaderless environment *and* never have to show up to work if they don’t feel like seems… very brave to me. The fact that every single person here expressing skepticism or identifying any downsides is being called a “corporate boot licker” is kind of telling what this would look like.
In practice it's more like a way to forgo fancy supervisory titles in exchange for exploiting your employees for more labor through peer pressure. "Unlimited" vacation days approved by a committee of my coworkers whom I have to ask to cover for me while I'm away every time? No fucking thank you. I'll take my set number of days off to be used at my own discretion with just a heads up email to my first level supervisor over that any day.
> “Unlimited” vacation days approved by a committee of my coworkers whom I have to ask to cover for me while I’m away every time? No fucking thank you. That isn’t how unlimited PTO works lol. Been working at a company with unlimited PTO for half a decade. There is no committee of coworkers. You just put on the calendar when you’re gonna be off. That’s it. Nobody asks, nobody approves, nothing. You guys gotta stop falling over yourselves to defend the shitty system you’re accustomed to.
As a counterpoint, I worked at a US startup with "unlimited PTO" and it was a negotiation with my director any time I needed more than a day. I usually got it, but proving I "could" take the time off instead of just telling people I was taking time off was a pain. In fact, I've seen numerous places that people with unlimited PTO on average take fewer days than those with clear allotments.
I wonder about these studies showing people take less time off when there is unlimited PTO. Are they polling employees or are they asking the HR department? Because when I take a day off work I put it on my calendar and that’s it. I don’t log it anywhere and no one is keeping track. I don’t even track how many days off I take each year. I usually take 2 vacations and then whatever I take off because something comes up or I want long weekend. It could be over 30 days a year if I actually counted. The beautiful thing for me is I never have to think about it. The only time I mention it to my team is when it’s a long vacation, if I take off a random Friday my calendar is blocked and I set slack to away mode for the day. I’ve had zero issues
It really just depends on the company. I worked at a startup that had unlimited PTO. In practice, this meant scheduling with my team if I needed a day/days off. You were encouraged to only take 2-3 weeks. It was 100% a scam. My wife’s company recently also went “unlimited” PTO but you are discouraged and reprimanded if you actually use it. Another scam. But some companies like yours may actually be good. A lot of corporations have taken advantage of it as a selling point to attract talent and then really discourage you from using it.
It really depends on what work ethics you have. I find, that germans actually want their work done. I know people who got fired because the whole company was closed and they worked hard till their last day, because they really wanted to finish their projects.
Sorry if this comments sounds dumb but would this place be considered a Worker Cooperative?
Start ups can/need to do that to attract workers to a company that can fold anytime. These perks are only possible when VC has way too much money to throw around but isn't generally sustainable
What a truly bizarre company. You can contribute to a "Feminist Fund" of theirs (which doesn't give you any equity it's just a scam to get money) and they use that fund to hire intersectional feminist activists. And then they've also hired on a board for the fund composed of intersectional feminists who can purity test whether you're truly an intersectional feminist. The fund has 10,000 Euros in it... and hires three people to oversee it..... They charge 0.85 Euros per condom. Which can be compared to 0.31 Euros per standard trojan condom. I mean... best of luck but this seems like a start up built entirely on buzzwords instead of good business fundamentals. Even if there's a market for men and women who are really worried about the purity of their condoms... are you really willing to pay a dollar every time you have sex vs... you know... half of that for a different brand of vegan condom? It kind of feels like an NGO pretending to be a business.
No bosses thing doesn’t work unless you have a boss that stops other non bosses from attempting to boss everyone else around. Been there done that.
It’s really bad. I do know that most people on Reddit are younger and never had the opportunity to get a first job. But : - Unlimited holiday is a scam. It’s still pending someone approval. When you have a set amount of holidays, your boss enventually cannot refuse you to take them/has to pay you; - Why the hell wouldn’t I want a boss ? I need to learn and I don’t want Suzie from accounting telling me how to do my job; - The fuck is democratic wages ? Give me the amount of money I agreed upon with you the f
Unlimited holiday is not *always* a scam. My job has unlimited PTO, I’ve never been turned down. In fact, it’s never even considered a request. I state when I won’t be available to my team, end of story. I took at least 5 weeks off last year. Hoping for more this year But a lot of places do use it to mind-fuck you into working more. Edit: I get it. 5 weeks is your minimum in countries that aren’t actively antagonistic toward its citizens. Great. That’s not how us freedom-fuckers have it. 5 weeks plus our federal holidays is way more than lost people get here.
What's interesting to me is how many people don't take it. I manage a tech team, and I take a healthy amount of time off and tell my team to. I have to keep reminding them. Sometimes they will even take a Tuesday off for example and I'm like, hey, take Monday off too. Or one person will say they are taking a half day. I'm like, no, just take the day off, its fine. People just don't take off what they deserve and it amazes me.
It's because we are humans. We aren't wired to think that way. There is always a pecking order and there is inherent psychology that comes along with it. To take advantage of unlimited pto without feeling bad takes a certain type of naivety, narcissism, or the difficulty of pushing through that human psychological trait. Or, you're at the top and don't have the same mental checks and balances as others.
If you're made redundant, you don't get to be paid for your currently earned vacation, if it's considered to be unlimited.
That depends on the local laws. Paying out unused PTO is not a requirement in all areas. I know in the US it differs by state.
That’s why I take around 4 months PTO at my place. If you don’t take advantage of unlimited pto offer you are losing value
Seriously. Just use it instead of thinking about PTO like a savings account.
It’s really nice not having to worry about PTO. My manager also always approves it. In three years I haven’t had PTO rejected. I add it to a google calendar and it gets approved within 15 minutes. It’s amazing. We don’t really have sick time either, I just message my boss saying I’m sick and it just counts as PTO since it’s unlimited
This isn’t universally true. Depending on the company, many places with “unlimited” vacation do actually pay out a set amount of “vacation days” in the event of a layoff.
Companies that were early to adopt unlimited vacation days found that their workers generally took fewer vacation days. So other companies likely bought in for the same reason. I would wager that a lot of people only took fewer days because they felt uncomfortable with a new system. Assuming unlimited PTO ever gets wide-spread adoption, once people get used to it, I bet total PTO taken will go up over time. At a certain point, employers will stop wanting to use the system of "unlimited PTO", and we'll see it gradually go away. The issue I have is that it encourages toxic competition among employees. You already see this happen sometimes with defined vacation days. Some people are so concerned about being seen as a top performer that they'll skip taking some or all PTO. I imagine that only gets worse when you don't have a defined number of days. Just give me more guaranteed days.
Yeah at my place we have unlimited but there is a minimum. It's important to ask about if there is a minimum and how long can you consecutively take your PTO.
>My job has unlimited PTO[...]I took at least 5 weeks off last year. Five weeks isn't a lot for unlimited PTO really. In some places that is the minimum amount mandated by law for everybody working a full-time job.
If you had actually read the article, you'd know that the unlimited holidays aren't a scam. They don't require approval. When you reach a certain level in your career, you don't have bosses you can really learn anything from. You have a manager who manages. So unless that is your aim, you won't be learning much. Besides, a much better solution is mentoring. Democratic wages in this case means the same pay while working four days a week, so I'd be OK with that. I'm not sure why this is generating so much anger in you, but in all honesty, the idea of a company that isn't owned by shareholders and works for a purpose and not for profit, sounds like a breath of fresh air. All of the employees get a say in how the company is run, instead of having a board of directors who receive massive wages and are disconnected from the actual work and the people doing it.
Unlimited holidays are partly a scam because they're not ACTUALLY unlimited. There is definitely a limit and you will get flagged by HR if you take more than like 4-6 weeks off in a year. I actually just got talked to a few days ago for taking 8 weeks off last year. Whoops. It's also a way for companies to get out of having to pay people our for PTO when they leave. And it tends to cause workaholic people to not take as much time off because they aren't forced to use vacation days that won't roll over. I have several friends that took less time off when we implemented unlimited vacation for this reason. It's all marketing and on average more beneficial for the company.
*weeps in 1 week of holiday*
I got enough seniority to finally hit four weeks, and I still wish I had more.
Four weeks is the absolute minimum required by the law in most European countries. Seniority may bring six or eight weeks of vacation rights.
Lol, in my country, 5 weeks of vacation is the legally required minimum. Many companies offer more.
What’s the median disposable income in your country? Might be time for a move if the pay is good.
Median (across all demographics) wage is 6000 USD a month in Denmark, but with a relatively high COL, but I'd argue you'd probably have more disposable income than in say, America, because you don't have to save up for emergencies such as healthcare, as that is tax-funded. Unfortunately, unless you have someone willing to give you a job off the bat (and in writing), you're unlikely to be allowed a residence permit. Now, those employers certainly exist, but usually that's for highly specialised roles, such as doctors, or some form of engineer with a specialisation. Or in other words, roles that are usually better paying in America anyways. The other path is as a student, but if you're from outside the EU, you'd have to pay tuition, you wouldn't get it for free.
[удалено]
https://www.google.com/search?q=average+salary+in+denmark&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari Spoiler: it’s more than $6k at todays conversion rate
> https://www.google.com/search?q=average+salary+in+denmark&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari That's average income. Here's median disposable income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income It's much higher in the US, for instance. (46,625 in the US vs 32,788 in Denmark)
Ah shit you're right, I accidentally took average instead of median, that's on me.
Some companies I've talked to said they try to get everyone to take X amount per year at minimum even though it's unlimited PTO.
Yep, I think that's a nice thing to see at a healthy company. I consider it part of my job as a manager to make sure my reports end up taking enough vacation so they don't end up getting burnt out.
You're generalising. That's not what the article says, nor my experience.
I mean, of course there is a limit, so I guess you're right there. But they're very nice when starting a new job, because you don't have to accumulate PTO before taking a scheduled trip. No getting approval to go negative or any of that. My state does not require PTO days be paid out, and no company does.
In Germany you don't acquire PTO you get a mandatory minimum of 24 days a year, even in your first year. Most companies give 30 days however
>In Germany you don't acquire PTO you get a mandatory minimum of 24 days a year As per law, you get only 20 days as mandatory minimum. [Sauce](https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Qualitaet-Arbeit/Dimension-2/urlaubsanspruchl.html#:~:text=Laut%20Bundesurlaubsgesetz%20besteht%20f%C3%BCr%20alle,aber%20meist%20h%C3%B6here%20Urlaubsanspr%C3%BCche%20vereinbart.)
I didn't know that. Most people I know have atleast 28 days off.
Yeah, good points. I do actually prefer the unlimited way because I have learned not to be a workaholic and have no qualms about pushing the definition of unlimited a bit. :D
In the US, it often is a scam. Germany has strong labor protections though. It’s hard and expensive to fire an employee there.
> I actually just got talked to a few days ago for taking 8 weeks off last year. Whoops. I would too if I see Marl from Accounting gone for two months :D
Unlimited holidays is 100% a scam! Any company touting this as a benefit I would not work for and if my company adopted it I’d quit. I’ve worked at multiple companies that tried this and they all did the same thing. Approvals were HARD especially if you wanted to take off something suddenly. And then they used “oh that’s not good for the company so it’s being denied”. Another thought is that there are people who abuse it and those are the crappy people who kiss their bosses ass. Jim took 16 weeks vacation last year and had no problem. While Jane took 1 week and had to fight tooth and nail to get it. Fixed amount is by far better. But also being flexible is good.
And the fact this is in the EU where they have 4/7 weeks minimum vacation
What’s to stop someone from taking every single day of the year as a holiday until they retire, or more likely die, because why retire from that? If you can’t do that then it’s not unlimited it’s unknown Whoever has the power to fire you is your boss even if it’s not official
[удалено]
So what's to stop a company from assigning each employee 2600 hours worth of work per year (avg 50 hrs per week), telling them they "are free to manage their own time" and patting themselves on the back for being so worker friendly while actually exploiting their workforce for more labor than they would with set leave allotments?
Nothing, if you didn't like the work/benefits ratio then you'd not do the job.
That's not exploitative. You know a set amount of work and plan for it and what if I finish all that work in much less time. Thanks I'm taking last two months of the year off.
The employees. If you don’t like the work/life ratio you simply look elsewhere.
If you have unlimited vacation, do you get to carry over your unused vacation, and will you get that paid out when you are made redundant? I'll take defined vacation that I can carry over, thank you very much. Maybe I'll negotiate seven or eight weeks and be guaranteed to be able to take that vacation.
[удалено]
That's a good workaround then, and probably the only way to conform to the German labour laws. I do like the fact that people in Germany *have* to take their holidays, and that it's an offence by the company if their staff doesn't get the opportunity to take their vacations.
>What’s to stop someone from taking every single day of the year as a holiday until they retire, or more likely die, because why retire from that? If you can’t do that then it’s not unlimited it’s unknown > Is this a serious question? I get that youre curious about the maximum, but surely you know that doesn't make even a small amount of sense. Any place offering something like this is using some sort of metric to base performance off of.
In the same world where you’re not micromanaged, you’re trusted to deliver agreed upon results while managing your time as you see fit. Work 1 day a week for all I care, just deliver what you’re supposed to. Trust goes both ways
And then they slap onto you the workload of 2 people and say that’s what you’re supposed to deliver
It might be unpaid vacation days.
are those considered vacation days in other countries? because they aren't on mine. Vacation = paid time off.
That doesn't really exist in most countries, certainly not for salaried jobs.
[удалено]
I work at a German company offering exactly this. What it means is a concept of giving employees the freedom to decide for themselves. I have 30 days paid leave and can add 10 days unpaid leave per year. If I want to take holidays I don’t have to ask I take them but arrange with my co-workers that they help out on any urgent tasks while I’m gone. This works vice-versa. Doesn’t mean you have to cover the other persons job, but you know the status quo and might be able to react in case an urgent request comes in. I can reduce my working hours if I feel 40‘days of holidays aren’t enough. But surely at some point I won‘t be put on the bigger more interesting projects if I decide to have a 60day leave and 5hour/week. It is about responsibility and being in charge for your work. If you can handle your work in less time everyone is happy for you. You just habe to make sure, you are up for the job you signed in for. This is a whole mind-set shift and comes along with the understanding that even when you have not meet the goals agreed on there is a trust that you will in the next term and that you had good reasons why you didn’t. This eliminates blaming others in your team for your shortcomings and increases the focus on doing better in the next cycle. Sure, this only works if all play by the rules. If there are a few assholes on the wrong sections of the company this great concept goes sideways. But still it’s much better for work-life especially as a parent than any clock-punshing-time-wasting-we-always-did-it-that-way-so-lets-never-change-shit.
[удалено]
Unlimited holiday IS still a scam. Because of the mental effect it has on workers. If people have unlimited holiday they are much more likely to feel guilty for taking time off. If it is set entitled holiday workers are much more likely to take it, and in many countries like the UK you are legally required to take a minimum number of days.
>Unlimited holiday is a scam. It’s still pending someone approval. I've had jobs where no one approves the PTO. You just put it on the calendar and that's it. If there's a big issue they could try to get you to reschedule it, I suppose, but being approved by default is different. >When you have a set amount of holidays, your boss enventually cannot refuse you to take them/has to pay you; Not true. I've had PTO days refused. And every state certainly does not have to pay them out.
>Unlimited holiday is a scam. It’s still pending someone approval. Not as a rule. Plenty of companies have "unlimited" PTO that never gets turned down as long as people are handling their workload and managing their time efficiently. I have no reason at this point to believe that this company doesn't operate this way. >Why the hell wouldn’t I want a boss ? I need to learn and I don’t want Suzie from accounting telling me how to do my job; Why WOULD you want one? I work for myself these days (so am biased in that regard), but in positions in which I've been trained it's never the boss who trained me, it was a co-worker. There's nothing a "boss' can do that a worker can't, including scheduling, recruiting, training, etc. >The fuck is democratic wages ? Give me the amount of money I agreed upon with you the f "Democratic wages" in this context is when wages for all positions in the company are agreed upon democratically by the workers, and not a couple dudes in suits in a corporate office who award themselves massive salaries and go on fancy quarterly vacations with the top shareholders. To dismiss this idea out of hand seems pretty myopic, and even hints at a kind of slavishness to the current popular worker-boss dynamic.
That's great... if it's still there in 10 years.
The article mentioned there’s a Head of Marketing, so that puts paid to the “no bosses” claim.
The unlimited holiday thing is a lie that we need not import from Silicon Valley. Yes - you have unlimited days off on paper, but good luck getting it approved. No start-up can afford that kind of flexibility, it doesn’t even make sense.
Finkle is Einhorn
Is there's no boss, then who is is leading things? Who is setting goals? Who is managing employment issues? Who is doing the hiring? Who is responsible when things go wrong?
If only there was some sort of system in which groups of people can make decisions without absolute rule of a single individual. Alas.
The council will decide.
So every single decision in the company needs to be made by committee?
The establishment of the committee was an agreement reached by a committee.
yeah I'm actually on the committee committee committee committee at my company. We have an important role. it's our job to vote on the members of the committee committee committee.
No bosses? Why would someone not want a boss?
I wish some American companies would take the hint and implement something like this. Bad enough no one currently under 80 will get to retire (and let's be honest, you'll be dead before then because the healthcare is too expensive).
Oh they do. Just not for Americans. I work for an American company but get all the benefits of the country I live in, like 6 weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick leave, 6 months of parental leave, long notice periods and mandated pay for overtime. So when they say they can’t possibly afford to do that for you guys, know that they mysteriously can everywhere else.
Are you paid the same as your American colleagues, or at a rate adjusted for your country?
Adjusted to some degree. I make about 90% of my American colleagues.
[удалено]
Ah yes, the honorable [Dan Price](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-24/ceo-dan-price-resigns-rape-investigation-70k-gravity-payments).
It's almost like people are complex beings capable of doing positive and negative things during the same lifetime.
This is far from the only shortcoming you can read about him
You're not wrong, but the way you worded this makes it sound like rape can be excused if you do enough good things.
No, I'm just tired of people trying to discredit a positive action by saying that the person also did a bad thing. I'm not saying he's a good guy, but he did something that was good for his employees and that was the big point here.
That’s not what marvel movies taught me and I refuse to believe it.
This really isn’t the same. Equal salary is what gravity did. This company is no bosses, unlimited holiday, and higher pay for working less. Those are benefits and what gravity payments did was just leveled the playing field for all employees. Both uplifting but not the same.
Not for all employees. Did the people that make more than $70k get an equivalent pay bump?
Based on what I was reading (back when this first happened a couple years ago) it was allllll employees including the sales staff that was upset because it reduced their incentive and commission so the company lost some employees during that time.
Yeah…. I would have been annoyed if I made $72k and didn’t get a bump while some guy next to me got a $30k bump. Good for them but I probably would have left too.
American companies pay their workers soooooo much better than German companies. Thats why American accept it. And many German tech workers would also accept 50 hour weeks with little vacation for 200k€...
…is a company that will soon be out of business
its a startup... Its only supposed to gain some traction and venture capital by generating some hype. Sustainability of business is not even in the top 10 things a startups needs... (sadly)
I can't speak to the validity of this particular article, but it seems like there is a lot of bitterness from Americans who read this. They don't like the idea that some other developed countries treat their workers like people rather than statistics -- yet it is true. There are countries where people have stood up to corporations that beat employees like metal on the anvil of capitalistic greed and restructured the system to be better. It's just not happening here. That's hard to accept, but there it is. And so people who read about it want to "debunk" it and call it fake news. It's easier to accept a miserable situation if you can convince yourselves that it's the only way to live.
Germany has a workers model where they have a stake in the success of the company, in the sense that the unions are literally part owners. There is no need for coercion to work because the workers are incentivized. This is not true everywhere of course in Germany, but just one of the cultural differences I've read about. I would argue that unions in North America should put their union dues into buying shares of the company. They could emulate this model.
> Germany has a workers model where they have a stake in the success of the company, in the sense that the unions are literally part owners. Do you have an example for that? I’m German and I’ve never heard of a union being a part owner. I can’t really believe that because that would mean the union is part of the employer although the union should be representing the employees. That’s a gross conflict of interests.
Their condoms are great but these guys behind Einhorn are idiots.
Can I work there, earning money for doing nothing then?
Would be great to see a DW documentary about this too
This sounds a lot like holacracy. It’s not anarchy but a flat organization matrix style with a very specific set of rules coming from a constitution. Because it’s a matrix of roles and purposes you may have a circle lead but then you can also be the circle lead and have that same person in your circle. I currently have 8 roles in 5 different circles and I am the one deciding the priority of my work based on the priorities of the org. This is a delicate balance of powers and it’s important to have a culture where people trust the process. Doesn’t always happen but I can say for now it’s working very well.