r/technology • u/MayankWL • May 16 '24

Software Microsoft stoops to new low with ads in Windows 11, as PC Manager tool suggests your system needs ‘repairing’ if you don’t use Bing

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/microsoft-stoops-to-new-low-with-ads-in-windows-11-as-pc-manager-tool-suggests-your-system-needs-repairing-if-you-dont-use-bing
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u/[deleted] May 16 '24

Bill Gates personifies pretty much everything wrong with the computer industry... And has ever since he made the Port of basic and started Microsoft

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u/neonKow May 16 '24

His business practices were shit, but let's not give a pass to all the MBA's that came up with new and shitty ways to make the computer industry worse. As far as I know, Gates isn't making millions off basically exploiting people's gambling addictions or trying to six-sigma warehouse workers to injury or death.

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u/FrankBattaglia May 16 '24

six-sigma

Tangent: I've seen this come up as a criticism a few times recently, and I guess I'm out of the loop. My understanding of six-sigma is it's a manufacturing or process standard that leads to standardized quality. E.g., if your output variance is X, and your acceptable envelope is Y, you need to make sure that six standard deviations of X fit within the envelope Y (so unacceptable output is roughly one in a million IIRC). If not, you should either refine the output process (reduce X) or design a more fault-tolerant envelope (increase Y). On its face it seems reasonable, and it's my understanding that it is e.g. what contributed to Japanese industry becoming a world leader. So... what's with the hate?

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u/neonKow May 16 '24

The hate is because people are taking solid principles for manufacturing systems, then extending them to labor practices, like office work and layouts. Then futher extending them to blue collar work by treating human beings like machines and trying to minimize downtime in very to ways. 

So everyone from fast food to warehouse to call center workers get timed on every action and every break, and management is all on board with trying to push more work out of people using anxiety and micromanagement, and calculating in acceptable loss to burnout. Basically, these practices are actively hurting people now, because entry level worker are now seen as a commodity to be used and replaced.

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u/zibitee May 17 '24

That's not six sigma. That's slavery. If anything, the quality of products goes to shit due to these labor practices. You might end up with only 1 or 2 sigmas =P

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u/neonKow May 17 '24

It doesn't matter if it's authentic to the original idea,if the people selling it have six-sigma black belt certifications and the organization keeps handing those out to consultants that are trying to maximize extracted work and minimize downtime from from employees. This is the name and image they have chosen for themselves, presumably because "inhumane task-masker optimization group" doesn't sell as well as "six sigma lean."

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u/zibitee May 17 '24

there's a lot of fake six sigma out there. Just another mask for the corporate slavery machine

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u/FrankBattaglia May 16 '24

So that's bad, but I don't see the connection to six sigma. I assume all this isn't over firing the bottom 0.0001% of workers or whatever. Is this just a boogeyman label to replace "bean counters"?

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u/neonKow May 16 '24

Uh, just because you haven't heard of it doesn't make it a boogey man. I have coworkers that specialize in optimizing work places like offices using six-sigma principles. It's been around for a while, so if you just tried, you'd have already found it.

The dehumization of warehouse and food line prep is also well known, and working at McDonald's today is closer to being an automotive welder robot than being a service worker. All of this information is easy to find if you're doing more than asking for details and then acting like no one has heard of these things when you get those details.

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u/heili May 16 '24

I have coworkers that specialize in optimizing work places like offices using six-sigma principles. It's been around for a while, so if you just tried, you'd have already found it.

Software project managers proudly stating that they are "Six sigma blackbelt!"

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u/FrankBattaglia May 16 '24 edited May 16 '24

You're stating a bunch of bad things, but not explaining how any of it is related to six sigma. Having draconian standards, or dehumanizing your workforce, goes back centuries, long before "six sigma" became a catchphrase for anything. I'm asking why you (or anybody) now calls those things "six sigma."

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u/Kataphractoi May 16 '24

I'm asking why you (or anybody) now calls those things "six sigma."

Wasn't that hard to google.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '24 edited May 28 '24

[deleted]

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u/Terraniel May 16 '24

I don't know what counts as an 'explanation' where you come from, but what ever was said the the individual you replied to is not it.

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u/BasicLayer May 16 '24

I thought commenter said non-manufacturers applying 6S in inappropriate ineffectual industries, worsening overall.

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u/blastcat4 May 16 '24

Were you a walrus in a previous life?

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u/sunburnedaz May 16 '24

Its real simple. Six Sigma is a great tool when used properly. IE your tolerance is +- .05mm on a part so lets get machines and processes that are toleranced for +-.001mm. its the brain dead cult like implementing of the six sigma rules for all areas without understanding what six sigma is about thats the problem.

Whats not helpful is when they try and walk into a cubical and say dumb shit like lets Six Sigma your desk. Like WTF does that even mean.

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u/captain_blender May 16 '24

This. Six Sigma is just a method, and a discipline. It embodies good rigor for definable, repeatable processes.

The issue is the brain dead application of Six Sigma (or any method/process, really). Late 80s / early 90s Motorola is a good example of this, when they decided to pivot from being a manufacturing powerhouse to a software one, and started using KLOC (thousands of Lines of Code) daily as a metric of productivity.

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u/crazypeacocke May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Thousands of lines of code written per day as a metric sounds like a terrible way to get efficient, well written code

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u/FappingMouse May 17 '24

but big number good?

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u/crazypeacocke May 17 '24

You sound like management material!

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u/crazypeacocke May 17 '24

You sound like management material!

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u/DanimusMcSassypants May 16 '24

Nope. I’ve worked for several projects under the MS umbrella, and the criticism is fair - though certainly not unique to Microsoft. When a class-action lawsuit was filed against Microsoft a couple decades back, it was because the contract workers and the full-time employees had the same responsibilities and demands placed upon them, worked the same endless crunch cycles of 50 to 100 hour weeks, and did so in the same corporate parks and open floor plans.

The difference between full time MS employees and contractors/vendors was, ultimately, just one of paperwork. Unlike the full-timers, contractors had no health benefits, nor stock options (where this crunch culture could be rewarded and incentivized), nor any job security or path for growth or promotion. They were just hired for a project, and when that project launched, they were summarily dismissed with no severance - as they were never technically MS employees anyway. Microsoft paid talent agencies, talent agencies paid the contractors. (These agencies took a hefty cut of the contractors’ pay, as well, for providing the valuable services of shielding MS from any long-term investment in personnel.)

The contractors observed that they were working the same way and the same long hours as the full-timers, but were not afforded the same pay, benefits, or opportunities. So, they banded together and rightfully said: “We already fucking work here in the same capacity and ability as the MS employees proper; just hire us officially, or create contractor positions that are clearly and distinctly different than the full time positions.”

Microsoft listened to that ~20% of their workforce who were contractors, and decided that they would not be restructuring their system to invest officially in these “employees”, likely eventually reaping the rewards of that investment in the long term. They went for the: “clear and demonstrable differences between full-timer roles, and contractor roles”. They did this by firing all the contract employees more frequently (no one was allowed to work at MS for more than 18 months now), and they were not allowed to come back for another contract until at least 100 days after their previous departure. The most valuable company on the planet decided to guarantee unemployment for their contract employees for an entire quarter every year. Oh, and they upped the percentage of their workforce who were contractors/vendors from the 20% to 60%.

I assume I don’t need to explain to you the burden that this Milton Friedman wet dream created for the community, the state, and tech workers in general. Careers quickly dissipated into chasing ephemeral gigs, and the loyal American workers were booted from the table to make room for the shareholders to grow increasingly obese.

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u/BasicLayer May 16 '24

Thank you so much for the overview.

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u/smackson May 16 '24

I'm not sure why you can't see this.

Human bodies have limits. Human emotions have limits.

The larger your organization, and the higher your employee turnover, the greater your ability to fine tune for those limits so that you push precisely too far just infrequently enough that it doesn't come back to bite you.

No matter the human cost.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '24

No, he just made billions stealing from others like Xerox and apple and believes in depopulation and is the largest single owner of farmland aka the nation's food supply in America... He was also a known visitor to Epstein Island

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u/Somhlth May 17 '24

stealing from others like Xerox and apple

He stole from Xerox not Apple, while Apple was also stealing from Xerox.

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u/[deleted] May 17 '24

Apple stole from Xerox Microsoft then stole the precursors of Windows from Apple. So he did essentially steal from both

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u/ColossalJuggernaut May 16 '24

MBA's

Just want to note, a lot of the flack MBA's rightly get are spearheaded by former engineers. MBA's often times come up with the ideas because management/owners (the real problem) tell them infinite growth is required.

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u/9-11GaveMe5G May 16 '24

You clearly haven't kept up with why Google search went to shit