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Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

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71–80 of 862 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#71
post #23

After 8 hours total interviewing at one company, I kinda feel like I was hired and fired in a single day

WOW! That would very exhausting.. is this norm these days to have full day interview sessions?

My gf interviewed at google from 8am to 2:30pm (after 2 half-hour to hour-long phone screens).

Northrop Grumman had a (wasteful) 8 hour "college day" that was an hour of technical interviews, 4 hours of propaganda, and 2 hours of arbitrary fluff like team building games among the applicants.

The ~5 or so on-sites I've had apart from NG were 2-4 hours.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#72
I don't want to be fired. I absolutely love my job and the people I work with. But I can just smell that we are about to hit a sticking point with how I don't do on call (it was never mentioned in the interviews or part of my contract) and I don't respond to work after 5pm.

If it does come to that sticking point I'm trying to figure out how to be the most assertive and diplomatic. I.e. How do I convey that I badly want to keep this job but those new terms are a non start?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#73

I 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…

This is one of the best things I have ever read on hn.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#74
post #69

Not with the job in particular, just want to take a break from tech especially from being a programmer. Tired of staring at a screen for 80% of my awake time and constant puzzle solving. Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough, that you're not enough no matter how many times you prove yourself in past work.

> Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough, that you're not enough no matter how many times you prove yourself in past work. Dealing with this in the heavy right now. I've built a lot in my 10 years as a programmer. Infinitely, and automatically scaled application server based on load. Hasn't crashed or had a single downtime ever since release. I've built mobile applications 100% myself…

Outsource things you aren't good at. You think Tim Cook knows how to write the code required for iPhone hardware to communicate? No.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#75

I don't want to be fired. I absolutely love my job and the people I work with. But I can just smell that we are about to hit a sticking point with how I don't do on call (it was never mentioned in the interviews or part of my contract) and I don't respond to work after 5pm. If it does come to that sticking point I'm trying to figure out how to be the most assertive and diplomatic. I.e. How do I convey that I badly wa…

> I'm trying to figure out how to be the most assertive and diplomatic.

Having a job offer in hand does wonders for one's communication skills.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same issue and it was completely resolved with Amytriptalene. Until I found the right doctor it felt like my life was over, and they kept giving me useless treatments. Contact Dr Hanno at Stanford; he’s the only competent one I have found.

I assume your doctors have considered it, but have either of you had a vasectomy or undescended testical?

I had a undescended testical when I was younger, and had a surgery when I was 5 or so. Curious to know the link, as I share the same symptoms as OP now that I‘m 30+.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#77

I 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…

Well that was a fun read. I have some background working on an EHR and yes, HIPAA is taken very seriously. Hope the "divine intervention" you mentioned doesn't come from having shared this story.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#78
I won't tell tales about my current employer, but I'll tell the one about my previous one (without naming them).

I left because the code base for their main product was incredibly bad. Brittle, opaque, undocumented, buggy, and virtually unmaintainable.

That alone wouldn't have been a dealbreaker as long as the company saw the problem and we were working to fix the situation. That wasn't what was happening, though, because the Big Boss didn't agree that there was a problem at all, even though literally every dev was telling him so. He saw any effort to improve the code quality as a waste of time and money.

So, I had to leave in part because it was a terrible working condition, and in part because I didn't want my personal professional reputation to be damaged by being associated with that project.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#79
post #78

I won't tell tales about my current employer, but I'll tell the one about my previous one (without naming them). I left because the code base for their main product was incredibly bad. Brittle, opaque, undocumented, buggy, and virtually unmaintainable. That alone wouldn't have been a dealbreaker as long as the company saw the problem and we were working to fix the situation. That wasn't what was happening, though, be…

Always be refactoring - work that shit into the ticket.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#80
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough, that you're not enough no matter how many times you prove yourself in past work. Dealing with this in the heavy right now. I've built a lot in my 10 years as a programmer. Infinitely, and automatically scaled application server based on load. Hasn't crashed or had a single downtime ever since release. I've built mobile applications 100% myself…

Outsource things you aren't good at. You think Tim Cook knows how to write the code required for iPhone hardware to communicate? No.

Well, I'll be sure to tell that to the next guy who sends me an 'online assessment'.
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