I joined a couple of years ago from a tech product company to a more senior position here. Crazy to see how much gossip and open chitchat goes on here, especially in global, about individuals. Don’t people have work to do? Where are the professionals? Management encourages it even.
6 replies (most recent on top)
hate the gossip - never ending
It’s because the tech folks are a lower tier coming mainly from offshore service companies. The level is lower and only way to succeed is through gossip and people. No one cares on impact to business or quality.
@ej Tech is not the one making the calls. It’s business. They are the ones with the biggest budgets, influence and higher allocation. They tell tech what to build. Ecom is not even the biggest seller anymore, it’s wholesale. So much that it’s not even the CEO priority. Important? of course, but we’re not DTC anymore. It’s delusional to think Tech holds the cards which makes me believe you don’t work in a place where brand and business are and don’t know how things actually work in the company.
@ej : sorry to break your illusion. Tech has no power on the table. They may have the funding on paper, but the invest comes from business. Tech cannot decide where to invest, how much to invest and when to invest. They can only do what is being told by the business, if you wish to hear in such harsh words. Smell the coffee!
When you see rumours or gossip about shifts, locations, launches, it’s because Tech holds the purse-strings and the responsibility. If engineering hubs change, headcount shifts, launches accelerate, it’s because Tech leadership is making it happen. It’s normal in an organisation of this scale, when one function carries that much weight, people talk.
Product teams, business units, market functions, they all depend on what Tech delivers. And because Tech has all the budget and the infrastructure, decisions get made there first. The ripple-effects show up everywhere else. So yes: gossip happens. But it’s a signal, not the cause. The cause is real investment, real systems, real global scale, and that lives in Tech.
1) its the same at many companies in my experience, though it doesn’t help the boredom being in the middle of nowhere Bavaria….
2) management are guilty of it for the same reasons, my observation is that some people are far too comfortable to aspire to that level of quality and professionalism to halt die klappe