I am living the startup to big corpo movement. Goddamn, how amateurs people with a huge amount of money can be.
Toxic management? YES, a lot :)
Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
601–610 of 862 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#602On my last job, a new manager called me for a meeting on Friday 4PM. I spent the whole month on an extremely stressful project. The meeting was about an app that integrates credit card payments, billets and bank account on a terminal that is going to be available to the general public. The deadline? 11PM of the same day. Final version. From 0 to 100% in 6 hours. I said that it was impossible. He said that I was incap…
I'm so happy to hear you found a better path forward.
If anyone is feeling burnout for doing impossible or hero work, please remember your job is _not_ your life. You can escape the toxic situation.
Do not be some other man's squirrel.
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#603I just walked from a job after a week and a half. Applied and interviewed for a junior full stack java/angular developer position. Really excited for it. Got and accepted an offer just to show up day one to a weird point & click/drag & drop visual programming thing called BluePrism. Tried to make myself like it, but couldn't stick it out. Moved 800 miles for that job too, just to get bait & switched.
There are so many of these companies. Lil' mini-SAPs running around, deploying high touch sales teams to large companies and get foisted on whoever's unlucky enough to do work for them...
A place I contract for did this, and then they bought something again 5 years later - still Lego development, but it doesn't do much to hide that it's a thin layer over ASP.NET WebForms so we're getting a bit closer to 2007 anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#604On my last job, a new manager called me for a meeting on Friday 4PM. I spent the whole month on an extremely stressful project. The meeting was about an app that integrates credit card payments, billets and bank account on a terminal that is going to be available to the general public. The deadline? 11PM of the same day. Final version. From 0 to 100% in 6 hours. I said that it was impossible. He said that I was incap…
This is one of the reason I hate about PIP( performance improvement program). They set ridiculous goals for you in very short amount of time that nobody can possibly complete, then fire you on grounds of incompetence. A friend of mine who works in Facebook told me that an employee committed suicide due to the pressure of PIP. I suspect that guy was put into PIP due to poor rating (meet most), then was given a ridicul…
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd disagree that a PIP is a blanket pink slip. At my current employer, I've personally seen (and mentored!) people on a PIP who've been given reasonably concrete feedback on how to improve their performance in terms of the parameters set by the organisation . (The last part is key!). People who've responded positively to this have seen reasonably good upward trajectory, and those who've responded negatively have bee…
so, what are some of those parameters set by the organization?
At one job I was working late in office and no one could see it. I wasn’t good about my weekly activity report.
No pip, but I fixed those issues and wow - I worked less and org was happier
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
A spite email sounds like a bad idea, but this manager sounds very harmful to the company, and the boss/ceo/investors might want to be aware of that.
And why would he care anymore about it? The company failed him, so why would he be helpful for them anymore? He did his job, he moved on, whatever happens there should not be expected to be his problem anymore.
To help other people who end up at said manager/job.
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#607I didn't know this format was a thing and am so very excited to discover it. I hope you folks enjoy reading horror stories. I got a job as a Software Engineer in my current company 4.5 years ago; friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. The company had an apparently disastrous piece of software that was their main LOB. They had gone through pretty much every local consulting agency - at least once, on a few occasions they h…
> Now I could talk about any of those monstrosities at length, but this is already shaping up to be a wall so I'll skip that.
lol
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#608So many ideas in my head that I really want to be working on, and I can’t seem to separate myself from the mental model of having a set position in a heirarchy, taking confused and/or hostile direction from seemingly arbitrary sources of authority. Some kind of fear, not even financial, more like the idea of getting lost, losing touch, never finding my way back, being abandoned and undesirable, dying alone. And beyon…
I love writing software, but I think there's something about the psychology of it that is really unnatural. Not long ago we were just hominids hanging out in small bands, and our psychological sense of worth and reward were tied to our capacity to find and kill something big enough for everyone to eat. Or perhaps to turn that mammoth into shoes and clothes to survive the winter. I wonder if this system fires the same…
I think lumping all coding together isn't fair either. When I'm designing and implementing new features, I definitely get a sense of satisfaction. It feels good to solve a difficult problem and the sense of accomplishment is definitely there (at least for me). When I'm dealing with a bug ticket or doing a lot of plumbing with a story, I definitely get far more burned out and don't have the same sense of satisfaction.
There's a ton of diversity in humans. I do honestly believe that software can be just as fulfilling to some people as hunting, gathering, farming, etc that are more "natural" to humans. With that said, I definitely don't think it's for everyone. I can certainly see how people could get very little satisfaction out of programming as a career. To each their own, but I personally wouldn't trade my career in software for anything outside of a "dream" job like being a writer or standup comedian. I'm sure there's people that wouldn't trade their job programming for anything.
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies want to look 'Agile' so they will treat it as though it is a religion. The daily stand-up bullshit gets taken to such an extreme that it becomes counter productive. If you work at such a place, simply get out. There is nothing that spells long term disaster more than rigid adherence to voodoo process.
Eh, the first place I worked didn't claim to be agile or anything. The daily meeting wasn't a stand-up (we sat and usually ate breakfast at a cafe or chatted in the lobby). It was still a really useful meeting.
I sit during my teams standup, it’s a standup because it’s a daily sync not because of literal standing.
Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?
#610I do! I work at a failing startup. I find the direction and strategy of the company lacking. My advice is often ignored or they wait years and then claim it as their own. Sluggish sales. Sluggish revenue. Haven't been profitable in the 5 years I've been there. I'm looking for a job but I rather just be laid off and collect unemployment for a while. I've been working for 17 years with no employment gaps. I'm tired.
I've been working far less than that, but I always take some time between jobs. Currently at the beginning of month 3, and am doing interviews since last week. Take some time and get some sleep dude.
How did you know I am suffering from insomnia lately?