I think there are some programming teams where you basically hire the whole team as a group. Which seems like a pretty good idea to me. Especially if you have one guy who is halfway decent at presenting all the neurodivergents who are really good at what they do, but can’t pass a job interview to save their life.
This is what google, Facebook and so used to do. They bought startup companies for the team, throw their product away and move the team to some internal project.
There’s even a name for it. The acquihire.
I actually did this at a Five Guys. They were opening a new store and doing walk-in interviews while my buddy and I were working at a shitty restaurant next door.
We went over on our break and told the managers we were there for an interview. They asked who wanted to go first and my friend just said “Nah, we’re kind of a package deal.”
They thought it was a joke but we just sat down and shook their hands. Walked out 20 minutes later with new jobs.
This works until it doesn’t.
I had the displeasure of working with a pair that side-channelled everything. One was smart but lazy (and thus sloppy), and the other was out of his depth. Made for a bad work environment for everyone else, but I guess they were happy. Ran the show between them by tag-teaming the manager with the “solutions” they came up with, and holy shit were some of them catastrophically and comically bad because they kept designing in a vacuum.
A couple of years ago I worked at a company where our team had become a really tight-knit friendgroup. We were 5 women (by chance about 1.5 years after I started the team consisted of only women) from 30-50. We did a lot together: Eating out/drinking, cinema, invited each other to birthday parties and weddings etc. Unfortunately the boss made some stupid changes and we all wanted to leave. We talked about how cool it would be if the five of us could just apply for jobs as a package deal. “Hire an entire logistics team, all ready to go!” We ended up at different companies, but we still meet up regularly.
That sounds lovely
We do that. My friend and i have worked together across many jobs and industries over the last 20 years.
We recently TUPE’d from one company to another and we were worried we’d get split up as you never have two fully qualified people in our position in one team but we recieved an email from the new company saying they had recieved word from our previous employer that under no circumstances were we to be split up as we work as a team and get more work done than any 3 other teams.Damn, nice previous employer
I thought tupe was some slang but it’s an actual government thing lol
We actually hired two engineers like that. We didn’t know that they were dating, but we knew we needed to get both if we wanted either of them. Worked out really well!
Zero employers want to have their employees be friends AT ALL
Yep divide and conquer
Same problem as hiring couples. If one leaves or gets fired you lose both
In earnest there is something to this. Friends can usually already work together. I am seeing a ton of early-career benefits for both employee and employer.
In practice though, an employer is unlikely to touch even the idea that you might fraternise outside of the established office culture.
But then the bosses wouldn’t be able to exploit you as much.
