Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

chadfowler.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 130 posts

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#51

Post by kongqiu »

cake wrote: post #32
rdrimmie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think imposter syndrome ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome ) contributes, and a grim view of prospects combined with lack of knowledge on how to find jobs. If all you're doing is reading monster.com postings or whatever then the majority of jobs postings that are out there are terribly written and deeply discouraging.

Any advice on what could be better than reading monster.com ? (genuinely interested)

Improve your skills Take on something new (even as a side project or hobby) Network Search indeed.com instead of monster.com!

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#52

Post by dominostars »

MrFoof wrote: post #9

I've been mindful of this since my teenage years, which is why I swore to myself a few things before I had even turned 16: * If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it. * Fear of failure is a great motivator. When you quit without having another opportunity already lined up, you have a lot of obvious motivation to find a new job since your incom…

"* Fear of failure is a great motivator. When you quit without having another opportunity already lined up, you have a lot of obvious motivation to find a new job since your income is $0. I've found it easier than lulling myself into complacency by continuing to get my income from the source I hate"

Just remember that you are a more desired candidate if you are actively employed, and that other available jobs might be just as bad or worse than your current one. Also, if you don't absolutely loathe your job, you can use job offers as leverage in your current role.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#54

Post by patio11 »

SandB0x wrote: post #12

Dead end jobs destroy transferable technical skills. I've witnessed miserable scenes. Many people are stuck maintaining large pieces of poorly written software. They forget how to actually program because their work involves very little development, and becomes all about knowing how the specific piece of software works (and the company's admin procedures) so that they can fight fires and make minor changes. Escape in…

I did three years of maintenance programming on a proprietary enterprise Java Big Feaking Web App framework, fighting fires and making minor changes. I learned more about engineering in those years than in college, first job, and building two software businesses from scratch. Possibly combined. YMMV.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#55

Post by artmageddon »

GrooveStomp wrote: post #49
artmageddon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your post, I feel like you're me, except I haven't worked at startups. Addressing your first two points: * If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it. I feel conflicted with this one. While what you say is true I can't help but feel, when I try to apply to certain situations in life, like I'm quitting... or that I'd beat myself up for "b…

I understand your point, but I think it might not always be possible to improve the work situation enough to justify staying there. I think it's always worthwhile to give it a try and see how much change you can effect, but there is a practical limit. As far as unemployment - I only know of one friend who is currently unemployed, and that's by choice! Not that this is indicative of North America as a whole; but it do…

Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I talked about the potential payoff. I certainly have skills and a decent resume, but have had trouble getting interviews my way.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#56

Post by SteveC »

donaq wrote: post #22

If you work for BigCo, you learn to do things The BigCo way. Apologies for going off on a tangent, but this sort of jumped out at me. Is this consistent? Shouldn't it be either a) ... do things the BigCo way. or b) ... do things The BigCo Way. Native is not my English tongue, so I just want to make sure. :p

It depends if the name of the company name is "The BigCo" or just "BigCo", but as he referred to it as BigCo just before then it would seem to be a mistake.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#57

Post by artmageddon »

tsbaron wrote: post #28
Volscio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also tough for people who are actually not in much debt, aren't underwater, aren't in financial stress. Because they can only make do with a few months unemployed. That's a small margin for failure/experimentation/following your "passion".

Whatever happened to the American Dream? These scenarios certainly don't sound like it. A lot of Americans (if not a majority) are in a similar situation.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it." -George Carlin

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#58

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

kenjackson wrote: post #31
va_coder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the post. Anybody know if there is a good place on the Web where people can be honest about what it's like to work at specific companies?

glassdoor.com is probably the most popular I know of. There's also vault.com.

Glassdoor weirds me out a bit from the other side.

It's a little unsettling going there the day after a round of interviews and basically reading a description of what it was like to be interviewed by me. No names, but I can definitely identify myself and some other co-workers by the questions we asked candidates.

Re: Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

#59

Post by SandB0x »

patio11 wrote: post #54
SandB0x wrote: post #12

Dead end jobs destroy transferable technical skills. I've witnessed miserable scenes. Many people are stuck maintaining large pieces of poorly written software. They forget how to actually program because their work involves very little development, and becomes all about knowing how the specific piece of software works (and the company's admin procedures) so that they can fight fires and make minor changes. Escape in…

I did three years of maintenance programming on a proprietary enterprise Java Big Feaking Web App framework, fighting fires and making minor changes. I learned more about engineering in those years than in college, first job, and building two software businesses from scratch. Possibly combined. YMMV.

I learned a lot in the six months or so (of the job I have in mind), but it very quickly plateaued and from then on it was all very much self-directed learning, automating as much of my work as possible and writing tools to make my life easier and to learn new technologies. But there's only so much of that you can do without sufficient external challenges.

Most colleagues did nothing of the sort and were roughly as productive without developing any broader skills, as far as any performance evaluations showed. It's spending an hour performing repetitive manual changes to some code, or spending 55 minutes doing it programatically in Vim and gaining some precious Vim-fu in the process. The output is the same at the end but the programmer isn't.

When there is no further scope to learn from my work (apart from pipe dream re-write projects that never materialise) and I am not doing any significant critical or analytical thinking, I leave. It sounds like your place had a lot more to teach you.

Post reply on HN