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Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

chadfowler.com

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

#61

Post by MrFoof »

dominostars wrote: post #52
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 b…

>Just remember that you are a more desired candidate if you are actively employed

This doesn't apply in all industries.

>and that other available jobs might be just as bad or worse than your current one

This also only applies if you aren't the one in control. I could get a substantially better job, and I knew it, not fearful if I could get any job at all.

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

#62

Post by sudont »

edw519 wrote: post #20
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…

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. Great point. Perceived value of a programmer at a start-up: Quality & quantity of software built and shipped. Perceived value of a programmer in a legacy enterprise IT de…

I think we need a new name for these type of jobs, then. They're not actual programming positions, since development tends to be about solving problems.

Maintenance and production are two lexicographic options that somewhat relay the scope of the position: higher than data-entry, lower than engineering. Much in the same way that a front-end is not necessarily a web developer.

Maintenance is what the current discussion is about, but production should be considered as well: it's about interfacing with the existing tools to extend without fixing any of the serious architecture issues. As in a web producer. Or, someone who produces plugins for a given architecture, requiring extensive knowledge of the system but with no access to improve or modify said system.

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

#63

Post by pchristensen »

va_coder wrote: post #24
encoderer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space. Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out. Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers. About 9 months ago, if you look throug…

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?

Coderific.com

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

#64

Post by pavel_lishin »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #58
kenjackson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A little weird, but getting good feedback on your performance sounds like it would be pretty nice to me. I mean, it might not feel great, but at least you'd know what needs improvement.

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

#65

Post by pchristensen »

parfe wrote: post #37

I'm in the process of cleaning up my resume to send out today. * My responsibilities as a programmer have constantly been increasing. Every year I become the maintainer of more projects as others quit. * We fired a sys admin and now I'm outright doing his job in addition to my own. Management was slow to get a job posting up and has not brought people in to interview. I feel like my breadth of abilities are being abu…

Send me your resume and portfolio. I'm recruiting for my company outside of HR because we need more awesome people with initiative. The month since I started at Groupon has been the best month of my career.

Mtn View or Chicago, your pick.

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

#66

Post by kirubakaran »

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.

You always learn a lot in your first job, whatever it is.

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

#67

Post by matwood »

encoderer wrote: post #7
edw519 wrote: post #2

I once worked at a company that managed to pull off all four conditions with one brilliant but devious hack: The warehouse uniform was a t-shirt imprinted with, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Perceived Threat This implied that problems were the workers' fault, not the boss's. Subtle, but effective. Small Kindness Believe it or not, many people were actually glad to be given their own t-shirt by t…

Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space. Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out. Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers. About 9 months ago, if you look throug…

Protecting turf is standard big company BS. By posting that you were hiring you threatened HRs turf. Most programmers by nature are pretty pragmatic so we don't see turf wars and often only see efficient solutions. Other people don't operate that way.

I see this type of thing all the time in the bigco I work for in my day job. I hate it because all it does in get in the way of solving problems while people jockey for control and credit. I recently had to take 'HR' out of the title of an application I wrote last year that did a bunch of HR functions. The reason? HR didn't like that 'HR' was in the title because they didn't control the application. Talk about wasted cycles that could be used for something actually productive.

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

#68

Post by hysterix »

I remember working at a very large, technically oriented company.

After it was discovered I had actual development skills, I was asked to work on a project in my off time without any extra compensation for it.

They pretty much wanted me to go home after a full days work, and put in more work to develop a system for them, totally unpaid.

Later that month I gave my two weeks.

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

#69

Post by Volscio »

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.

Get rich or die tryin'.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieber...

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

#70

Post by ben1040 »

rdrimmie wrote: post #11
dev_jim wrote: post #8

I don't know why anyone would put up with this nonsense. The market for tech is amazing right now and has been for years. It's inexcusable that anyone worth their salt should feel trapped in a dead-end job.

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.

I had no idea "impostor syndrome" had a name. Every day, I go into work thinking I'm just waiting to be fired for incompetence, just as soon as they discover it. Meanwhile people continue to point out how productive I am, but I don't seem to believe a word of it.
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