theartofkombat

I like stuff and draw things

  • they/he

COMMISSIONS CLOSED (for now)

Honestly just excited to be here. I'm a Hispanic, bi, non-binary, self-taught artist, burlesque dancer, and witch. I can't really list any favorite things because ND object impermanence. But I do enjoy talking to people and taking commissions when I have the energy, so drop me a line!



quat
@quat
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Cania
@Cania

workers are the lifeblood of a company, NOT customers. the current "customer obsessed mindset" that a lot of modern companies say they have is just another way to deprioritize workers and their rights. increasing hours, decreasing pay, creating fucked up schedules, imposing strict (nonsensical) metrics, forcing people to adhere to scripts, etc. all in the name of "customer outcomes".

and on the practical side, catering solely to customers is a surefire path to ruining a once good product. customers say they want all sorts of shit totally unrelated to what's at the core of a product. this is how you get catch-all software that used to work fine at the 5 things it did now trying to do 35 things in the name of making customers happy.

(also this is all underpinned by the need for infinite growth, make no mistakes there. saying that it's "for the customer" is a veneer on utterly deranged profit motives that only make sense if you think the world's going to end next quarter)

if you want to make customers happy, make workers happy. cater to their needs. listen to what they know. people want to be good at their jobs. people genuinely want the companies they work for to succeed. ignoring workers is not just shitty, it's incredibly short-sighted and stupid.


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in reply to @Cania's post:

theres a video games metaphor to be made here but i used up all my good posting brain points today already. something something customers are just duplicable objective points while the workers are what you invest skill points in

i think that's a great metaphor!! there are practically infinite customers out there but the supply of good, knowledgeable, long-lasting workers is much more limited. Especially considering that half of becoming knowledgeable is just doing the thing for a long fucking time. People who have done a highly specialized job for a long time and gotten good at it are worth their weight in GOLD. they are literally the only people with their skills in the world.

or, from the exec view, they cost a lot of money and aren't flexible to the cavalcade of shitty ideas and pivots from the CEO, so they need to be removed.

Unfortunately capital is doing a bang-up job of abolishing customers already, but not in the good way.

What's happening economy-wide is, because of the extreme state of wealth disparity we're in, increasing your appeal to investors on the stock market is always more valuable than increasing your appeal to customers. In other words, the idea of a product is more valuable than actually making a product.

This is how you get so many companies destroying themselves, effectively selling the copper wiring out of their own walls, just to look good to investors. The money you get from customers? Insubstantial, insignificant, plus you have to actually provide a service for that. The money you get from another round of VC funding? That's the real shit, that's where it's at.

Horrid dysfunctional potemkin-village economy.

yeah this is incredibly true. even in terms of companies producing real products to sell to people (so not 95% of the tech industry), they would love to pivot to only selling to businesses. individual customers are much harder to manage or keep happy than other businesses.