Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#341

Post by nindalf » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #334

hamiltont wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrasting point - I dislike the thought that folks who've "got it good" should just stay quiet and never complain because they are much better off than others. To me, this is immoral and ineffective. Everyone in a shitty position has a right to speak up. You're absolutely right that some people cannot exercise that right - they can't risk losing what they have. That is unfair to every single person in that situatio…

> Contrasting point - I dislike the thought that folks who've "got it good" should just stay quiet and never complain because they are much better off than others. To me, this is immoral and ineffective. I like to say "Just because other people have it worse doesn't mean my problems aren't problems." I think the argument of "other people have it worse" is very dehumanizing. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find…

Agree with what you're saying but it's quite easy for this thread to become an unironic mirror of Silicon Valley. A bunch of folks complaining that the free food at work isn't vegan or that they aren't making humanity better with their CRUD app.

I don't see how a thread around that helps. We already know that more than most other professions, software engineers have options when moving jobs. If you want to be fired, let your boss know.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#342

Post by throwaway010718 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

rjplatte wrote: post #100

I'm the sole developer working on my current project, which is overhauling a massive DOS era application, as well as overhauling an early 2000s era CRM/business management tool, that almost all of our work happens through. Did I mention that the DOS application is a HIPAA billing application that must meet all HIPAA guidelines as well as write EDI X12 billing files? I'm very junior, been coding for ~5 years, 3 profes…

Before quitting, try your best to make changes that will reduce stress and improve the project's manageablity with or without permission. Your work sounds so mission critical you could probably do whatever you want with no chance of getting fired.

Just be able to justify your action and communicate your decisions clearly. You'll start earning respect and that alone will reduce your stress levels. Standing up for yourself is hard to do at any age and "learned helplessness" is a concern if you don't push yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#343

Post by kdmccormick » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

seizethecheese wrote: post #326

hamiltont wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrasting point - I dislike the thought that folks who've "got it good" should just stay quiet and never complain because they are much better off than others. To me, this is immoral and ineffective. Everyone in a shitty position has a right to speak up. You're absolutely right that some people cannot exercise that right - they can't risk losing what they have. That is unfair to every single person in that situatio…

I don't believe developers have no right to complain. I only hope these types of threads don't become a habit. It promotes a mentality of negativity, in my opinion. It's not constructive for the industry, I don't think.

This is the first thread of this type I've seen on the front page. I don't see any reason it'll be a "habit".

Yes, software engineers are generally well-off, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people in our field who work in toxic environments, or have an over-demanding manager, or feel like they have no potential to grow in their current role, or have mental health issues that are exacerbated by stressful and isolating working conditons, to name a few possible issues. And I'm sure many of those people are hesitant to try to change this situation because they are well-compensated and work in a nice office building. So if a thread like this could nudge them to take that first step, then I'm all for it.

The number of upvotes and comments is an indicator that enough people feel or have felt this way for this thread to be worthwhile.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#344

Post by toop43 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

throwawatwo2222 wrote: post #60

throwaway76576 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Have been thinking about taking a 6-month sabbatical from all things tech, but then worried I might just become so obsolete and out of touch that I'd rather suck it up.

As someone who experienced the same thing and started their sabbatical 3 months ago, I highly recommend/encourage it. I regret not having started my sabbatical earlier.

The elephant in the room whenever anyone talks about taking a sabbatical is MONEY...

What are you guys doing for money? Just burning savings?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#345

Post by tfehring » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:17 AM UTC

Oh boy. Not even gonna bother with a throwaway, draw your own inferences about whether I'm taking the thread title too literally. My current responsibilities:

(1) Architect for significant updates to one of our financial projection models. The requested timeline for results from these changes has been changed (directly by C-suite) from mid-November to late October to ASAFP over the course of the last week. Said model was built by non-programmers using a 20-year-old modeling platform; the lead architect was a new grad with a CS minor. Ever tried debugging a runtime error in a >1000-line C++ function, with no error messages, using nothing but cout? Try it sometime, if you've got a good therapist.

(2) PM for an internal application that executes the projection model in (1) on our in-house grid computing platform. The developers and tester for this are great, which helps. But none of them had seen the codebase until a month ago, since the previous developers and tester all moved to different teams since the last time we worked on this application. They also don't fully understand what the application is doing (I haven't had time to get them totally up to speed, though I'm working on it!), which means I get to build a lot of the testing tools myself, the highlight of which has been writing a FoxPro DBF parser in R (long story).

(3) Reviewer for the twisted hellscape of Excel workbooks that makes up one of my old (~2 years ago) team's processes, since the guy who was supposed to be reviewing them quit out of the blue (can't say I blame him) and my old team apparently couldn't find anyone else to do it. The old team usually gives me a heads up when they make substantial changes to parts of the process while I'm reviewing them, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I should mention that I'm ostensibly a data scientist, but sometimes management seems to take the idea that data scientists should be generalists a little too literally.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#346

Post by huntie » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:18 AM UTC

I work in a factory and I see all of the problems my older coworkers have. Along with that I think the company wants to move the whole plant to Mexico so there is no long-term job security. I've learned programming in my spare time but when I've tried applying for jobs I didn't get a response, which I assume is because I don't have a degree. I've been trying to get back into university but I'm not sure that it will happen anytime soon. We've been working a lot of weekends too so programming time is limited. I'd quit but this is the best paying job I've been able to get.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#347

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

throwaway58129 wrote: post #64

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…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#348

Post by kdmccormick » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #341

godelski wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contrasting point - I dislike the thought that folks who've "got it good" should just stay quiet and never complain because they are much better off than others. To me, this is immoral and ineffective. I like to say "Just because other people have it worse doesn't mean my problems aren't problems." I think the argument of "other people have it worse" is very dehumanizing. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find…

Agree with what you're saying but it's quite easy for this thread to become an unironic mirror of Silicon Valley. A bunch of folks complaining that the free food at work isn't vegan or that they aren't making humanity better with their CRUD app. I don't see how a thread around that helps. We already know that more than most other professions, software engineers have options when moving jobs. If you want to be fired,…

> or that they aren't making humanity better with their CRUD app.

Feeling like your work isn't positively impacting the world is a very common, completely valid complaint, and isn't specific to "Silicon Valley" at all.

What's your problem with people talking about whether their work feels worthwhile? Why is that any less important of a conversation to have than all the other chatter that goes on here?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#349

Post by dash2 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

woutr_be wrote: post #287

seizethecheese wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. And there are better jobs than software engineer. However, I do believe it's possible to stack rank jobs, and Software Engineer must be in the top quintile in terms of quality of work-life.

Because it's a cozy job in the US? Software Engineers face horrible working conditions in a lot of parts of Asia, far worse than your line cook example.

Got evidence?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#350

Post by dehrmann » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #95

eternalban wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I perpetually have a few competitive alternatives. But I don't want to have a conversation that way. I shouldn't have to.

> I don't want to have a conversation that way. I shouldn't have to.

I've been though this after a comp review. Despite good review, my raise wasn't impressive. Once I had a competing offer in-hand, suddenly a lot more money was available. Had I wanted to keep the job more, I would have pressed the issue during the comp review, but to your comment, I shouldn't have to.