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Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

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Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#761

Post by zdragnar »

lacampbell wrote: post #269
zdragnar wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good friend of mine worked for a small company whose CEO also tried hard to convince him that introducing version control was wrong. Of course, this same CEO also didn't see any problem with the fact that the password field in the login form was never checked against the database, because who would know someone else's login name?

Why is a CEO even getting involved in an issue on that low a level? Unless these are 'CEOs' of 3 people tech companies, I guess.

Small company, maybe a dozen people total, only tech-adjacent, not a strictly tech company. The CEO (which, for a company this size, probably also meant owner and perhaps sole board member) and maybe a fee other people at most had built the site in question.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#762

Post by zdragnar »

ludston wrote: post #272
zdragnar wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good friend of mine worked for a small company whose CEO also tried hard to convince him that introducing version control was wrong. Of course, this same CEO also didn't see any problem with the fact that the password field in the login form was never checked against the database, because who would know someone else's login name?

Why a developer would be asking a CEO for advice or opinions on either of these things?

It was a small (tech-adjacent, not strictly tech) company, and if memory serves right the owner built some of the site in question himself. I dont know that my friend reported directly to anyone inbetween, at least not when it came to technical matters anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#763

Post by geekbird »

padraic7a wrote: post #528
virgilp wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sad story; but PIP is really the pink slip; you take it as an advance notice that you're going to be fired, and start looking for jobs. I've heard stories of people completing PIP programs successfully, but quite honestly, I don't get it. Once you got to that point, you're not a good fit to the team and/or they don't appreciate you. Makes no sense to stay. I could understand staying with the company & switchin…

Well it could be that you've reached a certain age and aren't confident that you'll be an attractive hire to anyone else. It's just an anecdote but I remember chatting to someone who worked for Microsoft in Ireland and was going through a performance review / PIP like process. He was in his early fifties and said that it inevitably seemed to happen to people once they reached a certain age / salary point.

Age discrimination in hiring and retention is a real thing. This seems like a systematic way to cover over it to make it look like something else. Smarmy, at best.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#764

Post by zubairq »

dpc_pw wrote: post #720
jkoudys wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how much overlap there is between jobs where they treat you poorly, and where they don't pay you enough. You'd think it would be the opposite, but it's all part of them not valuing you.

Poor pay is often a result of a downward spiral of dysfunctional/failing organization. Your manager gets paid poorly, your coworkers, other teams. Best people leave first and new good people don't want to join. Demotivated teams lacking any talent produce bad product. Poor product looses customers, which forces management into freezing/cutting salaries. Everything compounds. After certain threshold there is no way ba…

I wish I could +1000 this... so true that poor pay is a result of a downward spiral!

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#765

Post by cwkoss »

GonzaloQuero wrote: post #597
mcv wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A spite email sounds like a bad idea, but this manager sounds very harmful to the company, and the boss/ceo/investors might want to be aware of that.

And why would he care anymore about it? The company failed him, so why would he be helpful for them anymore? He did his job, he moved on, whatever happens there should not be expected to be his problem anymore.

That manager is toxic and should be reprimanded and/or fired. The employee certainly has no ethical obligation to do them any favors, but it could prevent that manager from abusing current and future workers in this way.

This is a situation where the interests of the workers aligns with the business's ability to succeed. Why not leverage that to try to improve working conditions there? Seems like a win-win for everyone but the toxic manager.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#766

Post by magic_beans »

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…

Now THIS is the Great American Novel.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#767

Post by damontal »

snapetom wrote: post #391

My last day at work is Friday. I was hired three years ago to write web apps for a major children's hospital, but given no web servers to run the apps. That hasn't changed much. Let me repeat that. My job is to write web apps. I have no servers. The first "servers" I was given were three old RedHat boxes that were used in a share environment by researchers. Ports to the box weren't open and basically everyone was roo…

CHOP?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#768

Post by jkoudys »

dpc_pw wrote: post #720
jkoudys wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how much overlap there is between jobs where they treat you poorly, and where they don't pay you enough. You'd think it would be the opposite, but it's all part of them not valuing you.

Poor pay is often a result of a downward spiral of dysfunctional/failing organization. Your manager gets paid poorly, your coworkers, other teams. Best people leave first and new good people don't want to join. Demotivated teams lacking any talent produce bad product. Poor product looses customers, which forces management into freezing/cutting salaries. Everything compounds. After certain threshold there is no way ba…

Interesting how it's easier to have talented people eat microwave ramen for a year while you're energized building something new. Once the salaries go up, then drop, you start to spiral down the drain.

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#769

Post by Lutger »

jacquesm wrote: post #576
mcv wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The daily stand-up is entirely reasonable and productive if you do it right. The problem is people who insist on doing it wrong. Upper management has no business deciding when a team has their stand-up. Agile means "people over process", after all.

Sure. But the real reason management loves the 'morning standup meeting' is because it enforces morning attendance of all employees. So much for those flexible work hours. Oh, you do get to go home late to finish your work of course.

Management shouldn't even be at standups. Its for syncing with your peers, not an instrument of control. But I guess this is what you're saying, right?

Re: Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

#770

Post by [deleted] »

dheera wrote: post #758
mcv wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just awful. I'm glad you got out and got something better. When someone tells you to do something that's both impossible and utterly unreasonable, just stick to telling them it's impossible. If he tells you you're incapable, tell him he needs to use a realistic planning for these things, and if he can't do that, then he's incapable. There's no angle from which this is even remotely acceptable. Even more so be…

This. Also separately I really wish there were better legal courses for situations like that. Forcing someone to forgo their personal plans on a Friday night and suddenly work on moment's notice should be considered unethical and inhumane, and wrecks society, peoples' mental health, childrens' well-being, and much more. The need for overtime work should be communicated in advance, or there should be an explicit, volu…

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