Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I think this sort of thing, while cheesy in some respects is great for the team morale. A lot of companies do social things, which is great, but they are disconnected from the work. It's like stop work, do something social, and back to work. But with this ritual it's connected and a real celebration.

I hope React is better for you and you don't need to burn again in 5 years! Luckily hooks and non-hooks code works together nicely enough.



Employees of the Chinese company Hayer famously smashed really dodgy and low quality fridges their company had produced in the 1980s as the symbolic start to a new dedication to quality.

See https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/how-china-fr... for one write-up.

> Teetering on the brink of collapse, the collective enterprise had gone through three managing directors in 1984 when Mr Zhang, a 35-year-old city manager, was appointed as the fourth.

> No one expected much of him, since a revolving door of directors had failed to stop the rot. He put it thus:

> People didn’t have faith in the factory.

> But he grabbed the national headlines a year later, upon discovering from a check on the inventory that a fifth of the fridges were faulty.

> Each fridge was worth two years of a worker’s pay, but Mr Zhang ordered the workers to destroy those 76 fridges – with a sledgehammer.

The CEO joined in the smashing as well for extra symbolism.


Just in case anyone wonders if they got away from the brink of collapse or if they only smashed fridges:

> (The young manager) made it China’s version of the American appliance giant (General Electric)

Wow


Love the story. The company is spelled "Haier" by the way, if you are interested in reading more about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haier


Which itself is a bad Latin transliteration of the second half of a bad Chinese transliteration of the German brand name "Liebherr", so I think they'll forgive the misspelling.


Thanks! I had fixed it first, but then must have screwed it up again in editing.


Samsung's Lee Kun-hee did this as well, in the 90s I think, but he made the factory workers watch while he and the other board members smashed stuff and set it on fire.


Agreed. I've always found the group social stuff to be contrived because the work is the only thing I have in common with most folks at work. That's not to say I haven't made friends through work but it's always been isolated and organic.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: