I would tend towards guessing 5. It is easy to blind yourself to management stupidity at first as you focus on the work. But eventually that management stupidity starts directly impacting you. I'm trying to figure out how to escape from my current job for exactly this reason. Everything seemed great at first, small company, little management, the president had a good vision for where the company needed to go and how technology was going to get it there. Then 2 years in the president is micromanaging web design saying "I know how easy this is, just add some 1 pixel spacer gifs" as he demands that elements from one page line up with elements from another page but can't grasp that having a scrollbar or not changes the width of his browser window. The web designer quit (obviously) and now I get to try to work with some sketchy web dev shop where every task assigned to me in jira looks like "these ids are not valid you have to change the ids!!!!!". That is more venting than telling you about my experiences, but I think I needed to so thanks for the invitation.
Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
91–100 of 261 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#92What changed towards the end of each of those 2 year periods? Was it that management started screwing up more or that you had become integrated enough to recognize screw ups they were making the whole time?
Maybe you need a change of perspective. As some of the others here have suggested, you can become a contractor, but even as an employee you can think like a contractor. You can still be bought into the project and still be a good team member while thinking about it as "you" working for "them," rather than everything being "we" and "us." If they make bad decisions and ask you to do something that doesn't make sense, you can have a less negative outlook than if we make bad decisions.
So my suggestions are: start out as highly skeptical and assume that management decisions are crap from the start because they probably are and don't internalize the team's failures or poor decisions when you had nothing to do with them.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#93I don't think you;ll find one true answer to these questions.
First, honeymoon periods seem to be a general thing: romances, friendships, jobs, etc. People are more 'polite' when you first meet them. You are probably more tolerant when you first meet people. You haven't had time to develop negative repertoire's or patterns. You're not bored with anything yet.
Your expectations also shift over time. You feel like you deserve respect or status or money or whatnot once you feel like a full member of that group. Instead of being delighted to get it, you're neutral when you do and angry when you don't.
Also, a lot of negative stuff takes time to see. The pathologies manifesting over and over and reveals ng themselves.
It sounds like you're pretty emotionally involved with the success of the business too (closing deals, pivoting, etc.). That can be emotionally taxing and you're on a shorter fuse when you're tired.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#94For many of us, it comes down to -- as Dan Pink describes: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Very few companies are good at enabling even ONE of these, let alone all three. Startups are among the worst for fostering this kind of motivation.
Without a well-balanced three-legged stool of motivation, a few years is all you are going to be content. Or, like many of us, you will gradually learn to lower your expectations, eventually settling - tolerating lesser situations - for a longer time.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#95> 5/ Just a normal bullshit intolerant guy
I assume this. The problem with bullshit is that big companies get away with it for years (decades, even) while in a startup, this leads to very short-term consequences.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Boston, I've found loyalty and reputation are very important qualities people look for and strive for. People stick with jobs through the muck and the mud. Like we do the winters. In California, people switch jobs at the drop of a hat, and a long chain of startup gigs of 1 or 2 years each is super common and even seen as great experience. Despite being California born and raised, I much prefer Boston's work ethic…
Wake up! Don't be loyal because a company will never be loyal to you when the time comes. Do your best, be proud of your work, but do it only for yourself, not for any company. At the end of the day, you're a number on a balance sheet.
As someone who has been an employee and employer, this is false. Sure most companies are not loyal to employees but there are those companies that are. I've worked for 2 in the last 16 years and 8 companies. One I was at for 6 and half years and only let because the economic situation demanded it. The other I currently work at and have been there for a year. There are great companies out there run by good people, it just takes time to find the right ones and sometimes you need to compromise in that it might not be the latest startup or maybe it's a boring manufacturing company job but there are people who run companies that actually care about their employees.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#97Every new company goes through a period where the immaturity starts to hurt badly.
One common cause is that people who are good at starting companies are usually not very good at managing them internally, and especially bad at managing people. And they don't realize it because they are too busy being entrepreneurs in the hectic early phase of a company.
The good news is that sooner or later this changes, often by hiring experienced managers, because otherwise the company won't survive.
The bad news is that if often takes big incidents, painful confrontations and some of the best and most dedicated people walking out before the founders realize they suck at management.
Companies for whom this growth is a smooth ride are rare. But if you believe in company, believe in the integrity of the people leading it, it can be worth sticking it out.
The issues you bring up are normal for the stage the company is in. The problem is the way they are being managed internally, or rather mismanaged. The "bullshit" is just a misguided attempt at keeping up appearances. The focus of the bosses is on the business, not the company as a living organisation.
The only way to make it easier on yourself (besides completely avoiding start-ups and start working for mature companies) is to take control of the situation. Just put your foot down and tell your bosses "we're going to fix this now, and here's how".
Unless they have an ego the size of a planet or are extremely insecure (the two are often the same btw), your bosses will love you for taking part of the responsibility off their hands. When it comes to internal stuff, if you are confident enough to make them believe you know what you're doing (and hey, unlike them you've at least thought about it, and have some experience of how not to), they will even take orders from you.
Most start-up founders are utterly clueless about managing a company. Bitching about it won't help, and if you're not part of the solution but still want to work for start-ups, you're just as much part of the problem as they are.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#98You are none of the above. If you've got a few years of development experience in companies like that, I recommend you "find a boss [you] respect" by becoming your own boss. Start with consulting. These engagements are different than employment because often times they're not full-time and you can stagger a couple of contracts together at the same time. This is to your advantage because you now have two "bosses" (cli…
On the first day of my first consulting gig, as I was getting set up, an argument ensued over which server I should be doing my work on. In my old job I would have got caught up in the nonsense. This time I could just say: "OK, you guys figure it out, I'll just wait over here". Sitting and reading while you count the dollars someone else is burning through can be rather therapeutic.
As a fellow consultant, I found this comment quite liberating. Thank-you.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#99Personally, I'd say some combination of 2, 4 and 5. No company is perfect, even if you're the sole owner & employee. "Inability to close deals" is extremely vague, so I don't want to jump to conclusions, but deals fall through all the time. It could be a sub-par sales team, it could be market conditions, it could be a million things, but that's just a part of business in general. Short-sighted decisions are also tric…
There aren't many perfect jobs out there. This. After jumping between five jobs (plus some consulting work) over seven or eight years, I've been with the same company for almost eight years now. It is hardly perfect. We screw up process, which in turn leads to buggy products. Product management often doesn't understand the technical limitations of our platforms. Sometimes the projects just plain suck. But the culture…
That is so true. Company culture would play a big part for retaining its workforce even if the some of the work is not that engaging. That for me is almost 75% of why I would want to work at a company. However, having said that, the company culture must also match the personality. It is like a marriage.
Re: Ask HN: Is it me or ...?
#100I felt the same way at a company called RealNetworks, hence quit early and thereby missed out on substantial stock option wealth.
For a startup to find a paying niche isn't easy. Managers promise this, promise that, in order to keep the game going. To thrive in that arena you just have to grow a thick skin and decide to enjoy being a jerk sometimes. Remember that startups aren't about pursuing a fun hobby project, although they can begin that way, but about realizing a big financial score. Even if some founders still talk like it's their hobby, that just isn't the way it works in a business which actually becomes a business.