Have fun at work
by William L. Livingston · first published 1988
20mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2015–2025first – last mentioned
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See Livingston’s Have Fun At Work and Friends in High Places.
on “Ask HN: How do you solve big, complex problems?” ↗Look at the books "Have Fun at Work" and "Friends in High Places" by Livingston. The confusion you describe reflects the difficulty of getting everyone to pull in the same direction when you are trying to do something that is too complex…
on “Ask HN: Are there jobs that let me code without top-heavy management?” ↗…the right answer either in terms of "correct" or "legitimate". this book covers the head space you are in ("homo sap has gotten in over his head") and you should read it now: https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706...
on “Does the aggregate organism of all humans acting together lack a frontal cortex? [pdf]” ↗See https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706... it has a checklist to answer your question. I am not so sure it is either/or. Probably your product/business people are as concerned about the success of your product as you…
on “Ask HN: Where is the line between being challenged and being set up to fail?” ↗I also appreciated this: https://smile.amazon.com/Managerialism-Critique-Ideology-T-K... And much more obscure but a wry delight: https://smile.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/0937... https://smile.amazon.com/Friends-High-Places-Livingston-1990...
on “McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source” ↗you and the OP should see the excellent book https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706...
on “Ask HN: How have you pushed back against overmeasurement in your workplace?” ↗…lot of work to find a situation you are happy in or (conversely) figure out how to be happy in the situation you are in. Take a look at this classic book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3650010-have-fun-at-work
on “Ask HN: How do I stop hating my job?” ↗…on Wikipedia, and furthermore on HN (finally). Wondering if you have heard of these works, and further resources? The utterance of the shibboleths: The New Plague Friends in High Places Have Fun at Work Design for Prevention I can find nothing else, but I welcome a renaissance of control theory and hard transparency, if we only had the participatory groups exist, or tools that were developed around…
on “Blizzard fires WoW Classic lead after he protests employee evaluation policy” ↗see https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706... and https://www.amazon.com/Friends-High-Places-W-Livingston/dp/0... for practical applications of Ashby thinking.
on “Every Good Regulator of a System Must Be a Model of That System (1970) [pdf]” ↗Some resources you may find of interest: * "Have Fun at Work" by William L. Livingston -- Livingston provide examples of how organizations are often incapable of hiring the people who might help them most. * "The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making…
on “Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already” ↗The books are "Have Fun at Work" and "Friends in High Places," both by William L. Livingston
on “Every Good Regulator of a System Must Be a Model of That System (1970) [pdf]” ↗This https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706... is a manifesto for "small groups" to solve hard problems.
on “Why large firms fail to live up to the lean dream (2014)” ↗…need to find the one bottleneck (e.g. "The Goal") if you need to get a 10x improvement you will hit several bottlenecks on the way there and the writings of W.L. Livingston apply https://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-at-Work-Livingston/dp/093706... When you use goals to "destroy the competition" or "change the world", goals are a powerful technique. If you are setting goals because somebody told you to set goals or somebody…
on “Ask HN: How do you design KPI for teams or organization?” ↗Livingston's Friends in High Places is a sequel to Have Fun at Work. I think it's a bit more positive in outlook but it has a chilling description of the scariest way high-tech projects go wrong... By approaching an asymptote. When your solution is not adequate to…
on “Ask HN: How do you solve big, complex problems?” ↗Related works that mention POSIWID, mostly by W.L. Livingston: The New Plague (1985) Have Fun at Work (1988) Friends in High Places (1990) Design for Prevention (Silva) Seeking further references.
on “The purpose of a system is what it does” ↗