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Job offer:

"There is no hierarchy within this company."

Bullshit.

Given a group of people, a hierarchy will emerge. In any company, a hierarchy will emerge. Even within a team a hierarchy will emerge.

Some people like to butt heads, some people like to go with the flow. It's how you deal with these personalities that matters.

You can try to be as fancy you want and declare your hierarchy to be as flat as a pancake, yet the reality is: there will be one.

Certain people will be trusted more by other people. Certain people will have more power in the decision making process.

Can we please stop deluding ourselves that this is not the case?

And that is not necessarily a bad thing. It only becomes bad if the company culture sucks. Instead of platitudes in regards to the assumed absence of hierarchy, I would be more interested to know how a company deals with its hierarchy.

How is feedback handled? How do people argue? How are decisions made, challenged and implemented?

That's what I would find much more interesting.

Comments
  • 7
    Exactly. I have been in places before where shit like that would happen. Surprising, one would expect clicks to be a thing of highschool, then reality hits you and you realize that it is only human nature. Fucking bullshit
  • 4
    @AleCx04 no hierarchy sucks ass. People need to know who their line manager is, they need to know who they are accountable to, and who THEY are accountable to.

    Flat hierarchy’s are a utopian pipe dream. They just lead to frustration and chaos.
  • 7
    *Quality rant stamp*
  • 0
  • 1
    Couldn't agree more. The foundation of computer software systems ARE hierarchical structures (among other things)...

    Then again it's the corporate strategy of "cross-breeding industries."

    Reminds me of Mr. Morgandorfer getting a job with a 90's tech company. Eerie.
  • 1
    So true, hierarchical structures exist in even the most [clueless] flat structures of business.
  • 1
    @AleCx04 Just when you thought the world would grow up...
  • 2
    @SSDD Wouldn't no hierarchy just be anarchy? Or is no hierarchy a form of hierarchy? This shit meta af
  • 4
    The last time I saw an organization insist they were completely flat and democratic...

    Well, they had an organization chart that took me several minutes to follow. They had a president, a treasurer, (i honestly forget the several other roles), tons of committees, and each committee had a lead who talked to the committee's one or more chairs, and there was a lead chair for this group of chairs from all the committees that had meetings with the president and co-president.

    Completely flat organization indeed!
    I laughed and laughed and went on my merry way.
  • 1
    To be completely flat will always be impossible. I'd say that companies can strive to be as flat as possible though. Where I work, I sit beside the CTO, and I can basically ask him anything when he's there. Besides, I'm almost always a part of taking technical decisions, and so is anyone else on the developer team. I'd argue that's pretty much as flat as it can be.
  • 1
    @aaxa How many employees does your company have? (I'd argue that flat doesn't scale.)
  • 0
    @k0pernikus To a certain degree, I agree that it doesn't scale. We're 10 in total, that's included CEO and CTO.
  • 0
    So yeah, we're a small company
  • 0
    We're a mostly flat company, please fucking spare me your ridiculous teenager platitudes about life and how you know human nature sooo well.

    There's nothing magical. The sales sell projects, the staffing team staff devs on those projects, devs do the thing in self-organized teams.
    I don't have a boss, I'll have nobody but my teammates to slap me if I fuck up.

    We're not democratic, not everyone is involved in decision making and we don't elect representatives. That doesn't make anyone my boss.

    It's very similar to a hierarchical company, except that there's no politics because there's nothing to be gained this way.

    What the fuck with all those certitudes, do all of you really think you know everything about people or organizations??
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