We received an email asking for feedback:

 

To:      All Slaves
From:    The GODS in the C* Suite
Subject: Feedback

We have recently finalized the management feedback survey. Please go to [link] and
provide feedback on your management team.

If you wish to comment on the survey, please email xxx at yyy@wtf-inc.com.

The survey:

 

Q1. Do you think we are ethical? (pick one)
    a. We encourage ethical behavior
    b. We are always ethical
    c. We provide an ethical environment
    d. We provide training on ethics

Q2. How effective is our ethical program? (pick one)
    a. 80-90%
    b. 90-95%
    c. 100%
    d. Ethics do not apply to my job function
...

...and so on. Forgetting the range-gaps in some of the choices, they don't even give you a way to say there's a problem, other than signing your name (via email address) to it.

And they wonder why these things don't ever lead to effective change.

What does it even mean to say their ethical program [sic] is 85% effective? What would that imply?

snoofle:

We received an email asking for feedback:

 

To:      All Slaves
From:    The GODS in the C* Suite
Subject: Feedback

We have recently finalized the management feedback survey. Please go to [link] and
provide feedback on your management team.

If you wish to comment on the survey, please email xxx at yyy@wtf-inc.com.

The survey:

 

Q1. Do you think we are ethical? (pick one)
    a. We encourage ethical behavior
    b. We are always ethical
    c. We provide an ethical environment
    d. We provide training on ethics

Q2. How effective is our ethical program? (pick one)
    a. 80-90%
    b. 90-95%
    c. 100%
    d. Ethics do not apply to my job function
...

...and so on. Forgetting the range-gaps in some of the choices, they don't even give you a way to say there's a problem, other than signing your name (via email address) to it.

And they wonder why these things don't ever lead to effective change.

I would send an email to yyy@wtf-inc.com and tell him how much of a piece of shit he is. And, if he wonders why you are yelling at him, tell him that he wouldn't know ethics if it filled out a survey and hit him over the head with it.

Wow. It's like the management survey version of "If I ask you for sex, will your answer be the same as to this question?".

I've seen some shitty management feedback, but this is definitely the most blatant bias. The last place I worked that did this was at least a little subtle about it. They worked the numbers by only surveying full time employees. This basically meant it only went to those with few enough options or little enough self respect to have taken 2-3 years of general abuse and outright lies from management while working as a contractor and then thought "Yeah, I want to be more involved with these shifty, inbred knuckle-fuckers. They're my kinda people".

We have a few forms which use a variation on this. For example, on our Workstation Ergonomics questionnaire, to questions such as "Is your monitor at a comfortable viewing height" it will allow you to answer No, but you cannot then submit the form. Instead, you are told "Please discuss any unsatisfactory answers with your supervisor, and resubmit the form when the issues have been resolved"

Q1: I love how they pose a yes/no question, but the answers aren't yes/no. 

Q2: "Ethics do not apply to my job function".  Wait, I thought this email was FROM the C* level, not to. :|

Too bad you can't "accidentally" leak that survey, with unredacted email address, to a board with people who know how to forge a FROM field, and enjoy mischief.

_gaffer:

Wow. It's like the management survey version of "If I ask you for sex, will your answer be the same as to this question?".

 

To which the correct answer is always "maybe".  Duh.

snoofle:

Q1. Do you think we are ethical? (pick one)
a. We encourage ethical behavior
b. We are always ethical
c. We provide an ethical environment
d. We provide training on ethics

First, "We are always ethical".  "Ethical" is open to debate and personal interpretation; so how could you possibly answer this question?  [my child and wife are in peril, and I can save one; what is the "ethical" choice?]

Second, These 4 options appear to be yes/no questions on their own.  "We provide training on ethics" (yes/no) does not exclude "We encourage ethical behavior" (yes/no).

Maybe that was a sad attempt at "humor"?

spamcourt:

Maybe that was a sad attempt at "humor"?

How... ironic.

 This can't possibly be real. It's got to be some sort of a joke or something a C*O typed up blind drunk one night.

snoofle:

d. Ethics do not apply to my job function

 What jobs don't require ethics?  Off the top of my head:  assasin, bank robber, CIA Director

I actually like the idea of putting the "Ethics do not apply" answer on the form.  It lets you know who to either give remedial ethics training to or, more appropriately, who to fire.

DOA:

 This can't possibly be real. It's got to be some sort of a joke or something a C*O typed up blind drunk one night.

Sorry dude, it's real, tho not cooked up (directly) by the brass. They delegated someone to act as a go-between with some management consulting company to create the survey, and they kept sending it back until they liked it. The consulting company obviously just typed what they were told.

sprained:

_gaffer:

Wow. It's like the management survey version of "If I ask you for sex, will your answer be the same as to this question?".

 

To which the correct answer is always "maybe".  Duh.

Or "My answer would be a complaint to HR for sexual harassment."

snoofle:

Q2. How effective is our ethical program? (pick one)

Did you send an e-mail suggesting that the ethical program clearly wasn't very effective and offering this survey as evidence?

The quick definition of ethics is simply "rules of conduct". There is no value judgement as to whether these are good rules or bad rules.

 If 100% of your work day can be defined by "rules of conduct", then you can be replaced by a robot or computer program.

 

Rick:

... then you can be replaced by a robot or computer program.

Crap ... not AGAIN!

snoofle:

The consulting company obviously just typed what they were told.

 

Which makes them clearly competent to consult on ethics. Oh, the irony!

If you go back and look at the entire survey replacing "ethical" with "management-approved", does it suddenly make a whole lot more sense?

snoofle:

And they wonder why these things don't ever lead to effective change.

The implicit assumption here is that Team C* wants effective change. But why would they? They're already at the top of the heap, and I'm sure they are keenly aware that any actually effective change would involve at least some risk of upsetting the established order.

Far safer to keep following standard procedure.

sprained:

_gaffer:

Wow. It's like the management survey version of "If I ask you for sex, will your answer be the same as to this question?".

 

To which the correct answer is always "maybe".  Duh.

I'd say "No, because when you ask for sex, I'll run away screaming."

Something tells me that this is how the questions on the ballot would be formulated if North Korea ever held a referendum.

_gaffer:

I've seen some shitty management feedback, but this is definitely the most blatant bias.

Our most recent survey had "What change has had the most value?" which rather naively assumes that a.) more than one change was going to happen, b.) those changes have actually occurred in the recent past and c.) that these changes had positive value.

The only change I've seen is a couple of pizza parties for the office... management is still clueless, people don't get raises, and HQ still has no strategy accept "do what Gartner recommends." Pretty sure most people responded with "Something changed? Really? Are you sure?"

 I remember having the same kind of survey, less biaised thought, at my company.

 

Some of the question where on the form:

In a range of 0 to 5, How much support do you consider you get from your N+1, and lots of quesitons about your N+1 and N+2

 

Two weeks after starting the survey,  they had to send the whole company a document stating who was N+1 f who, people didn't even know who their head was :D And for people who knew, they had the surprise to discover they actually didn't know!

It seems to me that most management think that 'Ethics' is a county on the East coast of England.

Ex-Navy Dude:

The only change I've seen is a couple of pizza parties for the office...

What puzzles me most about these things is how well they work on some employees. The attitude seems to be "Oh WOW! FREE PIZZA!", and a genuine opinion that the company is being generous.

I get this attitude in places like call centres, where pay isn't great, and time to socialise at work is rare, but seeing highly paid contractors react like that is odd. Free pizza during your normal lunch break just shouldn't be that exciting when most of you are getting paid 5-10x what the pizza cost for your time eating it.

ip-guru:

It seems to me that most management think that 'Ethics' is a county on the East coast of England.

From which it naturally follows that what the company actually needs is a vajazzle.

_gaffer:

Ex-Navy Dude:

The only change I've seen is a couple of pizza parties for the office...

What puzzles me most about these things is how well they work on some employees. The attitude seems to be "Oh WOW! FREE PIZZA!", and a genuine opinion that the company is being generous.

I get this attitude in places like call centres, where pay isn't great, and time to socialise at work is rare, but seeing highly paid contractors react like that is odd. Free pizza during your normal lunch break just shouldn't be that exciting when most of you are getting paid 5-10x what the pizza cost for your time eating it.

Reminds them of college or something? Here, they are at least doing pizza and beer at 6pm on an occasional Friday but they cancel out the positive by including little speeches from local managers. 10 minutes of blather from the accounting controller kills even the hint of fun.

Ex-Navy Dude:

_gaffer:

Ex-Navy Dude:

The only change I've seen is a couple of pizza parties for the office...

What puzzles me most about these things is how well they work on some employees. The attitude seems to be "Oh WOW! FREE PIZZA!", and a genuine opinion that the company is being generous.

I get this attitude in places like call centres, where pay isn't great, and time to socialise at work is rare, but seeing highly paid contractors react like that is odd. Free pizza during your normal lunch break just shouldn't be that exciting when most of you are getting paid 5-10x what the pizza cost for your time eating it.

Reminds them of college or something? Here, they are at least doing pizza and beer at 6pm on an occasional Friday but they cancel out the positive by including little speeches from local managers. 10 minutes of blather from the accounting controller kills even the hint of fun.

Also, being at work at 6pm on Friday would cancel almost any fun for me. Actually, the speeches before being allowed at the food were almost always the most entertaining part. The content of the speeches was just as awful, but it was fun watching the chunkier members of staff trying to shuffle themselves closer to the food without being obvious, so they could be in prime position at the end of the speech. As soon as eating time started, a dozen meaty paws would plunge into whatever food was provided, and the gorging would begin.

DrPepper:

First, "We are always ethical".  "Ethical" is open to debate and personal interpretation; so how could you possibly answer this question?  [my child and wife are in peril, and I can save one; what is the "ethical" choice?]

Easy answer: save the child

Reasoning:

If you could ask your wife if she wanted you to save her or the child, and she said herself, then what kind of mother is she, therefore save the child.  If she says save the child then you better do what your wife says.

Secondly I would have planned in advance for some crazy situtation like this by having life insurance taken out on my wife, so if she dies I would get money.

Thirdly if carrying is involved, getting a small child out of danger is easier than a full grown adult, so you have a better chance of success.

In the end I can save the wife, and end up with either a horrible or very upset wife or I can save the child and get a lot of money.

Does not seem that complicated to me.

I encountered a feedback form like this on a Sony website (must resist urge to rant about Sony.... resisted).

Same sort of thing, back when I had to (my previous employer bought a lot of vaios because the higher ups like having bling laptops) navigating their websites to get something as simple as a set of drivers for a system being re-installed was a nightmare. So When the chance appeared to fill in one of those "How did you find your experience on our website" surveys, I clicked it in the hope that I could have a rant.

The survey was much the same as the one described here, purely an exercise in fudging the statistics with questions like "How easy was it to navigate out website?" and "Was our website helpful in finding what you wanted." all with answers like "A. Absolutely top notch, B. Very good, C. Fucking amazing" (not actually quote obviously). The option to provide and answer they didn't want to hear simply wasn't provided.

The end result being of course that Sony could publish something internally or externally saying "We surveyed X people and 95% of them were satisified (with a 5% margin for error)."

ip-guru:

It seems to me that most management think that 'Ethics' is a county on the East coast of England.

 

That's the one from the proverbial "you can the girl out of Ethics, but you can't get Ethics out of the girl", innit?

justanotheradmin:

it will allow you to answer No, but you cannot then submit the form. Instead, you are told "Please discuss any unsatisfactory answers with your supervisor, and resubmit the form when the issues have been resolved"

 

Is anyone tracking outstanding forms?

"why haven't you submitted your form yet?"

"my supervisor is still waiting on $management to resolve my issue, but apparently creating useless questionnaires is a higher priority than resolving my issue, so the form resubmission has been delayed"

Ben L.:

sprained:

_gaffer:

Wow. It's like the management survey version of "If I ask you for sex, will your answer be the same as to this question?".

 

To which the correct answer is always "maybe".  Duh.

I'd say "No, because when you ask for sex, I'll run away screaming."

 

But if the "other" question was "will you raun away screaming when asked for sex" then your response to the survey would be "yes".

Very meta.

 

Footnote: we had a staff survey in which all answers were anonymous, except they were to be submitted via an envelope with our names penned top-right. I made a point of scoring specific people low on certain areas, with justification that if we were genuinely interested in making improvements then they'd call me up (or out) to discuss the reasons behind those scores.

So far, nobody's come knocking...

 

I don't know if your environment needs to be SOX compliant, but I seem to recall that SOX requires an anonymous, out of band reporting mechanism be available to employees to report ethical violations within the company. A cooked "ethics survey" would seem to qualify.

Wikileaks also comes to mind.

 On a scale of fantastic to amazing, how awesome are we?

Cassidy:

But if the "other" question was "will you raun away screaming when asked for sex" then your response to the survey would be "yes".

Answer to second question:		First answer
		Affirmative	Negative
Desired	Sex	Yes.	Yes.
outcome	No sex	[paradox]	Get the fuck away from me!

Anketam:

Easy answer: save the child

Disagree: If the child has, let's say, 6 year, it will take you about 7 year to grow back a new child to this level and perhaps more children. Growing back a wife will take you about 20 years if you want a young one. More over, if you are leftover single dad, it will cost you money and can reduce your chance of "finding a new wife" (if you don't want to go thru the grow process). In terms of experience lost, money lost, and time investments, save the child is always a bad option.

Pretty sure that was a plot point in the Will Smith I, Robot movie.

I worked at a company a few years ago that sent out a similar survey to all of their employees.  The survey was extremely clear that it was anonymous feedback.  It went out to around 1000 people.  Bear in mind, the survey was only accessible through the company's intranet...  As a contractor I decided not getting involved was the best bet.

A few days later the CTO and CEO came up to the guy sitting next to me (also a contractor) and asked him to pull up the logs on who submitted a particular set of survey responses.  He did.  Those people (about 60) found that their positions had been eliminated due to cost savings that afternoon.

Point is: unless you have praise for the company you shouldn't respond to these.

hunter9000:

 On a scale of fantastic to amazing, how awesome are we?

-2.5 amazing

_gaffer:

Wow. It's like the management survey version of "If I ask you for sex, will your answer be the same as to this question?".

 

Hm..."No, my answer would be much less polite than this one."

tchize:

Anketam:

Easy answer: save the child

Disagree: If the child has, let's say, 6 year, it will take you about 7 year to grow back a new child to this level and perhaps more children. Growing back a wife will take you about 20 years if you want a young one. More over, if you are leftover single dad, it will cost you money and can reduce your chance of "finding a new wife" (if you don't want to go thru the grow process). In terms of experience lost, money lost, and time investments, save the child is always a bad option.

To answer your last sentence, this is only true in a subsistence environment. To answer your first paragraph, it's all stuff and nonsense. You don't "grow back a wife." If you wanted another one you would look through the pool of adults (generally those in your age range, but of course it doesn't have to be.) Absent a subsistence environment I would be leery of any parent whose answer *wasn't* "save the child." In particular, I wouldn't want to associate with any *mother* who said "save me," because they're almost certainly morallly defective. I can only assume you're not a parent.

NotHere:

I worked at a company a few years ago that sent out a similar survey to all of their employees.  The survey was extremely clear that it was anonymous feedback.  It went out to around 1000 people.  Bear in mind, the survey was only accessible through the company's intranet...  As a contractor I decided not getting involved was the best bet.

A few days later the CTO and CEO came up to the guy sitting next to me (also a contractor) and asked him to pull up the logs on who submitted a particular set of survey responses.  He did.  Those people (about 60) found that their positions had been eliminated due to cost savings that afternoon.

Point is: unless you have praise for the company you shouldn't respond to these.

We're well into topic drift here, but my company's web product has an "anonymous suggestion" feature. We take pains to point out to customers that it's not, strictly speaking, truly anonymous, although we have one customer who thought it was. And then someone actually trolled through database logs to find out who'd submitted a "suggestion" she found offensive. Interestingly enough, they *wanted* a truly anonymous suggestion box. We pointed out to them several times that that meant, you know, serious-sounding death threats, for example, couldn't be traced, which was more or less exactly why the original feature wasn't truly anonymous and they said they'd take the risk, so I wrote a replacement version for them that was as anonymous as possible. Now theoretically someone could do mass examinations of employees' browser caches or something, but it'd be a lot harder to track down who submitted a suggestion.

FrostCat:

tchize:

Anketam:

Easy answer: save the child

Disagree: If the child has, let's say, 6 year, it will take you about 7 year to grow back a new child to this level and perhaps more children. Growing back a wife will take you about 20 years if you want a young one. More over, if you are leftover single dad, it will cost you money and can reduce your chance of "finding a new wife" (if you don't want to go thru the grow process). In terms of experience lost, money lost, and time investments, save the child is always a bad option.

To answer your last sentence, this is only true in a subsistence environment. To answer your first paragraph, it's all stuff and nonsense. You don't "grow back a wife." If you wanted another one you would look through the pool of adults (generally those in your age range, but of course it doesn't have to be.) Absent a subsistence environment I would be leery of any parent whose answer *wasn't* "save the child." In particular, I wouldn't want to associate with any *mother* who said "save me," because they're almost certainly morallly defective. I can only assume you're not a parent.

I'm pretty sure he was mildly joking however I do agree that the only rational choice is to save the mother unless there are special circunstances but I don't get how saving X over Y is morally defective (after all self preservation is a basic instinct which we have and lack of it would make me suspect that there is something really wrong about that person) or how parenting would make you a better judge on a life or dead situation (I would assume that it would be a deterrent as feeling would cloud your reasoning)

serguey123:

I'm pretty sure he was mildly joking however I do agree that the only rational choice is to save the mother unless there are special circunstances

Sure, sure, it's just a 24th trimester abortion, after all.

boomzilla:

serguey123:

I'm pretty sure he was mildly joking however I do agree that the only rational choice is to save the mother unless there are special circunstances

Sure, sure, it's just a 24th trimester abortion, after all.

If you have provable rational arguments that contradict that proposition you are more than welcome to post them, I would love to read them. If you prefer to use the abortion debate, I also welcome provable rational arguments on whichever side you like as well as solutions if you like.

serguey123:

boomzilla:

serguey123:

I'm pretty sure he was mildly joking however I do agree that the only rational choice is to save the mother unless there are special circunstances

Sure, sure, it's just a 24th trimester abortion, after all.

If you have provable rational arguments that contradict that proposition you are more than welcome to post them, I would love to read them. If you prefer to use the abortion debate, I also welcome provable rational arguments on whichever side you like as well as solutions if you like.

So, what's the rational reason for saving the mother instead of the child?

I would state that one of the primary purposes of being a parent is to protect the child. Also, the mother's instincts would be to protect the child. Since both the father and the mother generally hold the child's well being above their own, isn't the rational thing to respect those wishes? Now, there are exceptions and horrible human beings. It may be better if those people do not have offspring who reach maturity.

boomzilla:

serguey123:

boomzilla:

serguey123:

I'm pretty sure he was mildly joking however I do agree that the only rational choice is to save the mother unless there are special circunstances

Sure, sure, it's just a 24th trimester abortion, after all.

If you have provable rational arguments that contradict that proposition you are more than welcome to post them, I would love to read them. If you prefer to use the abortion debate, I also welcome provable rational arguments on whichever side you like as well as solutions if you like.

So, what's the rational reason for saving the mother instead of the child?

I would state that one of the primary purposes of being a parent is to protect the child. Also, the mother's instincts would be to protect the child. Since both the father and the mother generally hold the child's well being above their own, isn't the rational thing to respect those wishes? Now, there are exceptions and horrible human beings. It may be better if those people do not have offspring who reach maturity.

 

Taken from a solely and coldly rational standpoint, the purpose of being a parent is to propagate one's genes. One does so more successfully by surviving (and one's mate's surviving) to support any existing children and create more children, than by sacrificing one's life to save a single offspring that is likely too young to survive on its own.  That is, if one is still young and healthy enough to procreate and support children.  That equation changes if one has aged past the point of fertility or the ability to contribute significantly to the feeding and care of the offspring.

 

 

boomzilla:

So, what's the rational reason for saving the mother instead of the child?

A full explanation would require some math and would be fairly long so I'll simplify it by saying that a child is a long term/high risk investment and an adult is in most cases the opposite of that, a safe bet and the reward for a child in relation to the adult is not guaranteed to be better (by reward I mean the net benefit of that person in society at large).

boomzilla:

I would state that one of the primary purposes of being a parent is to protect the child.

Agreed, most mammal including humans do tend to their cubs in some fashion, however they do so to further their gene pool so unless your wife is too old to procreate and help raise the child (in which case you should save the child) or if you are too old to procreate (in which case saving neither is also acceptable).

boomzilla:

Also, the mother's instincts would be to protect the child.

No such thing exist. Humans as well as most mammals do have some imprinting that makes most of them react favorably to younglins (that is why most people likes pictures of babies or puppies) as well as some basic herd instinct to protect them even when they are not their own, but this is not particular to females or parents. Furthermore most mammals including humans can easily overcome this if the situation requires it.

boomzilla:

Since both the father and the mother generally hold the child's well being above their own

Do you have statistical proof of this? Again, this flies against the basic instinct of self preservation so I highly doubt that is true.

boomzilla:

there are exceptions

I agree but I think that what I consider exceptions is totally different to what you consider exceptions

boomzilla:

isn't the rational thing to respect those wishes?

No, not really.

boomzilla:

horrible human beings.

?? This baffles me a lot, I have never heard of an actual horrible human being, unless you mean ugly and that is of course subjected to cultural and race differences

boomzilla:

It may be better if those people do not have offspring who reach maturity.

Hmm, I would say that parenting requires some effort that not everybody might be willing to do or not be equally committed but some interesting humans do come from broken homes and there is at least a correlation between their nurture and later life acomplishments.

serguey123:

boomzilla:

So, what's the rational reason for saving the mother instead of the child?

A full explanation would require some math and would be fairly long so I'll simplify it by saying that a child is a long term/high risk investment and an adult is in most cases the opposite of that, a safe bet and the reward for a child in relation to the adult is not guaranteed to be better (by reward I mean the net benefit of that person in society at large).

That's some high quality trolling. Wow. I see how you did it. Nothing as explosive as a moral issue, so you hop on it, make a bold statement contradiction the common sentiment, and, bang!, you're a successful troll. And then some hand waiving about "require some math", I mean: brillant! Let them defend themselves for saving the child. Wonderful strategy. You say maths, and everyone overlooks the load of assumptions that have to be made to turn a problem like this into math. You get away the winner.

Successfull troll is successfull!