I always carry a two dollar bill and fifty-cent piece, for when (e.g.) an entry-level store-clerk does something which most-other-clerks wouldn't resolve, I can say to them "Thank you for giving. a . shit."<p>As a blue-collar electrician (although retired), I want to hire anybody that seems to give even the tiniest shit. While working, it took me a decade to realize that "if you're the only person that 'gives a shit,' YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME."
I am from a small country in Europe. When I first read the article I was confused. A clarification for people who do not have English as a first language: "give a shit" about something, it means they care deeply or are genuinely interested in that particular thing.<p>So, in essence, "giving a shit" in this context means being highly dedicated, passionate, and attentive to the details, which often leads to a better outcome and a more satisfying experience for the customer
I know a lot of people here are writing about how this can be done for small consulting companies, but I also saw it in Big Tech.<p>Amazon until 2022 really genuinely exemplified this. I saw it for more than a decade leading up to this. Just an unbelievable collection of people that truly Gave A Shit. Publicly we called it "Customer Obsession" and through that lens you could move mountains around here in the pursuit of Doing The Right Thing.<p>The first sign of trouble was 2021. Salaries skyrocketed in the industry. Amazon didn't keep up. A lot of great people left because they got obscene offers, and you know, who could blame them? Our core of "intermediate" engineers (L5 here) got decimated - why bust your ass for a promotion when you can just get a Senior offer from one of 100 over-funded Unicorns for more money than you would've made here. Sensible.<p>Then in 2022 the stock price dropped in half and a bunch of folks who seems like were only putting up with the bullshit as long as the stock grew indefinitely left too.<p>Then 2023 brought layoffs.<p>There's still a lot of us around that Give A Shit, but I feel like we are outnumbered more and more by those that just want to punch in and out and no longer Make History. I get it. I can't blame anyone individually. But I miss it.
> <i>If you email 4 software studios for a quote and 3 say “Sure, here’s a quote” but the 4th says “Hm, we certainly could build it but we can’t be sure about cost without knowing X and Y, and here are some other concerns we’d have” then the 4th is going to seem like they give a shit.</i><p>I usually end up responding like that, having started to think about the problem and approach. But I just know what the takehome message will be for some.<p>Now it'll be someone's CRM startup feature: responds to RFQs with an LLM prompted to give the <i>appearance</i> of thoughtful consideration of the problem. Because, one time, a blogger said you should ask questions like that, to make a better impression, was the takehome message they got.<p>Or it'll become a mnemonic for remembering the mix of kinds of questions on an RFQ you should ask, for the sake of appearances, and you'll fail an interview for not hitting each letter of the mnemonic exactly once, and in order. ("Sorry, bro, I was really hoping you'd pass, but you forgot the R in SCROT. You're not Amazoogle caliber yet, but take some more interview prep classes, and you can try again in a year.")
Yes, absolutely.<p>I'm starting a business, and <i>this</i> is my real product.<p>Most everybody will see my FOSS code as my product, but that's my loss leader.<p>My real product, the stuff people will actually pay for, is doing stuff such as responding to bug reports like [1].<p>In other words, my product is caring about <i>your</i> needs and meeting them.<p>On the flip side, I want customers who care too. I think one reason those furniture people did so well is because they had a customer who cared, and it was refreshing.<p>When you do something day in and day out, you either become careless, or obsessed.<p>As a customer, you want to seek out the latter, but as a vendor, when you <i>are</i> the latter, getting a customer who cares is not just refreshing, it's enormously <i>fun!</i><p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc/issues/66">https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc/issues/66</a>
The Forks episode of The Bear is one of my favorite stories on giving a shit: a fork polisher at a fancy restaurant learns you don’t work in food service because you love polishing forks. You do it because you want to bring people joy and polishing the forks is one of many steps to that end. You can find purpose in fork polishing through both excellence and empathy for your customers. There’s a lot of days the code I write is about as exciting as fork polishing, but you do it for your teammates and users.
<i>I used to puzzle over why potential clients who reached out to me always seemed to get more interested in hiring us if I tried to dissuade them by asking challenging questions. I think the biggest reason is that pushing back demonstrated that I care.</i><p>This seems bizarre. I work in sales, and I avoid making things too challenging for potential clients. Pushing back on the scope is one thing, but I think the way to show that you care about a potential client is to listen, identify their issue, and provide them with a solution that meets their budget. So many sales people try to push the envelope, to maximize the sale, for better or for worse, but I've never done that.
It comes down to incentives. If you're the owner of a small business that relies on a good reputation and repeat customers, you're going to care about quality of service because it directly impacts your bottom line.<p>As companies grow, they might choose to hire employees and managers who are paid flat wages regardless of whether the company does a lot of business or a little. If the employees work hard and the business flourishes, but they see no reward of any kind, this fosters resentment and they stop caring about quality of service.<p>Intelligent business owners recognize this reality and offer incentives that reward employees if business is good - e.g. commissions on sales in the retail world, stock options in the startup world, wage increases in the manufacturing sector, etc. Greedy shortsighted owners ignore this dynamic, so their employees are incentivized to do the least amount of work possible, just enough to avoid being fired.<p>Where things get really bad is when monopolization grows and markets end up controlled by very few players, so customers have nowhere else to turn to (Comcast etc.).
There is probably a lot of bias with these two companies - one is a bespoke software company
, and the other a bespoke woodcraft company. At a glance, the software company produces native apps for iOS and Android, rather than React Native, which to me seems indicative of attention to detail.<p>People with that mindset tend to want it in others, and will believe it to be the cause of successful relationships. I say this as someone with precisely the same belief. I’ve no idea if it’s causal, correlated, or simply a coincidence that my brain sees as a pattern, but for the moment I’m convinced it’s at the very least correlated.
This has been the model for my largely solo IT consultancy for the last several years. I offer ultimate accountability, I take ownership of every project, and I demonstrate fierce loyalty to my clients and their interests. It’s not the easiest way to make money, but I am proud of everything I do, I hardly ever lose a client, and when I do it’s generally without any bad blood or acrimony.
I didn't realize how rare (and precious) a commodity giving a shit is. I expected it to be the default state, but it's not. I remember calling a customer to apologize for a bug and having them console me with something like, "all my apps have bugs and irritations, but you're the only one who seems to care enough to call me and fix it promptly."
The corollary here is that giving a shit doesn't scale.<p>The furniture makers that inspired this article can afford to give a shit because 1) they're expert at what they do and 2) they charge a lot of money.<p>These are constraints on both ends: on the supply of labour and on the demand for it. This is also why most people can't afford to give a shit -- they're not good enough to charge enough for that rare commodity.
Previously discussed here as well: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071349">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071349</a><p>Also maybe add 2022 to the title.
It’s the same on every level. Past some entry bar, the difference between employees, spouses, etc that are happy and succeed vs miserable and fail is that attitude.
Jason Lemkin's advice for startup SaaS businesses is to heavily invest in customer success: you need to give a shit. Otherwise your customer churn numbers are going to be high, and it makes failure increasingly likely.<p>When I was being courted by a startup for an IC position, the best question I asked was "What does your churn look like?". It was really low, and despite some other reservations I ended up taking the job, and we had an awesome exit. Because our customers really loved us, and we worked hard to make them successful.
I guess it's good for small businesses trying to distinguish themselves. But it seems like giving a shit doesn't really scale.<p>It seems like at some point in growth all companies attract a critical number who don't really care. Maybe it's just hard for people to care when the numbers are big. Maybe that caring is hard to maintain as things get more institutionalized
I remember this article from here, a while back.<p>I enjoy it, but am keenly aware that "giving a shit" often gets severely punished, these days.
Watch "Gary Vaynerchuk: Rails Conference Keynote | 2010" on YouTube<p><a href="https://youtu.be/ZIaLTuaK1-k?si=rkic-7X67KrZvwmf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/ZIaLTuaK1-k?si=rkic-7X67KrZvwmf</a><p>Saw it some years ago. IIRC, somewhere in the video, he yells, almost groans, "give a fuck" (about things you do), meaning the same as "giving a shit", the title of this HN thread. The overall talk is a bit funny to watch, including him strutting around the stage.
At least for me, 'giving a shit' (GaS) is not a static feature. I have great respect for people who GaS and they inspire me to want to GaS too. Most days I take pride in my work and so try very hard to GaS. However there are days when my workload has exceeded my capacity and the priority is simply to get things 'out the door', in which case the degree to which I can GaS begins to vary.
> Was it because they charged a lot of money? No.<p>I'm sure that plays into it, yes.<p>In most cases, the more money you give the more they will "give a shit."
GaSaaS would be a great product for a large majority of Fortune 500. Oh wait that already exists, it’s called “consulting firms”. And they are useless most of the time.<p>Unfortunately for this to work, ALL parties need to “give a shit”. Sure this might work for a small “boutique” firm working with another small “boutique”. But at the end of the day, big firms are probably farming the work down to a low level employee or contractor (think VP -> Executive VP of Acquisitions -> Managing Director -> Director -> Manager -> Lead Project Manager -> Project Manager -> some person working with project manager) with a set of requirements.<p>Initially it was to be completed in 4 weeks. But in order to impress their boss, one or more of these people kept reducing the deadline and suddenly it’s a project that’s wanted to be completed over the weekend.<p>Low level person doesn’t give a shit. As long as it meets min spec, it’s Gucci. The further questions asked by the 5th vendor will probably get ignored.<p>Upon completion, everyone is “happy” it’s delivered before their anticipated deadline.<p>Except upon delivery the product is “half assed”. Nobody is really happy but they keep their mouth shut and accept it anyways so they can pump their numbers.
"See, I met a man who told me once, 'Sincerity's the key. And once you learn to fake it son, you're gonna be home free!'"<p>-Dennis DeYoung, Styx, "Fallen Angel" (Anecdotally, may have been referring to a quote by comedian George Burns)
I glanced over the title and for a moment I thought this was going to be an article about the SaaS-ification of sites like <a href="https://www.shitexpress.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.shitexpress.com/</a>
In my experience caring too much is often perceived as a negative, especially if the other party does not care that much but just wants to get the job done. Asking questions and god forbid, pushing back just makes you a difficult person.
“it depends on X and Y” and “here are things you should care about” is the most annoying thing ever IF you actually need to make a decision and IF the service provider doesn’t give you a path forward. It’s fine if you’re just gathering information, but not when there is a business impact to delaying.<p>This goes for people in a consulting capacity in internal roles, too. There are way too many “SMEs” who will show up to your meetings, tell you it’s “complicated”, and then leave, thinking they’ve made a contribution. If you raise issues but don’t help your customer navigate this complexity, you are adding negative value.
Not negating the sentiment that giving a shit helps, but table making is an old business and most of the challenges have been encountered over the centuries. So result and cost comes down to having an experienced craftsman. And I assume that someone making a living from it for let's say the 10,000 hours can make a table any way you want and be pretty accurate in estimating effort and material expense.<p>Giving a shit makes for a more happy customer, but cutting a board oval shaped is what they do in a workshop for breakfast.
“Giving a shit”
I love the American language because of things like this.<p>“Fucking shit”
Sex with poop.<p>Bukowski and the Cohen brothers made those words art
People praise professionals who give a shit but nobody seems to value them. When you care, it is soul destroying to watch people who don't give the slightest shit make metric fucking tons more money than you. It's sociopathic and it's extremely common.<p>When I was a teenager I actually quit professional programming as a career because I felt that I would be miserable in this field. I felt that way because every single developer I met at the time simply did not give a shit about stuff, they just wanted their paycheck at the end of the month. Well I wanted to give a shit and so I turned it into my hobby.<p>It's not without its problems, of course. Giving too much of a shit turns you into an obsessive perfectionist which can be paralyzing. Can spend days thinking about the best way to do something instead of just doing it. Thankfully I have no deadlines.