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What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

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Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#181

Post by esmi »

Judgmentality wrote: post #82
dieterrams2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you play poker, you know that, for any given hand, you can make the right play but still lose. But you’ll come out net positive by repeatedly making the right play. You don’t get to play as many hands in your career as you do in a session of poker, so if you’re optimizing for income, generally speaking you should go for a job that gives you the highest guaranteed income rather than work for startups with, say, 1%…

I agree with you - you're optimizing for the most likely scenario. My point is even if you play your cards right, you still might lose. In other words, it's better to be lucky than good.

OTOH, if you’re bad, it’s much more unlikely luck can save you.

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#183

Post by silvat »

kamaal wrote: post #174
ggm wrote: post #21

Have the courage to stand up for what you believe in, even if it terminates your employment status. I'm only unkeen to have my name on this, because I haven't done it, and I wish several times in the past, I had. I respect the person who did this early in his career in one ISP immensely: it was stunning to watch somebody say "you're full of shit" to the new CEO, and walk out. (he was btw, full of shit)

>>Have the courage to stand up for what you believe in, even if it terminates your employment status. This is very bad advice purely career wise. In fact being in the good books of the cartel managers is something you should proactively do. Also stop believing in this myth of finding a boss who is powerful, just, fair and does the right things all the time. Humans are irrational species because we have to often arriv…

It bothers me that your comment is written well because it lends credibility to a comment that essentially amounts to 'don't stand up for what you believe, it won't work! Be a weasel instead!' I strongly disagree, I think this approach is worse off for pretty much everyone in the long run. I can also tell you that unless you are really good at hiding your opinions/intentions, for some(me for example), your attitude is a repellant and you will be labeled a weasel. There are a number of such types in my office and I really do wonder if they realise how transparent their behavior is. To some people this behavior will be effective, some will tolerate, but for others you will be on a blacklist, prevented from going further because they effectively see you as the type of person who won't say anything that doesn't further your own cause. They just won't trust you and it's really uncomfortable for some people to try to gel with this.

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#184

Post by truculent »

mdorazio wrote: post #71

Article comments and comments in this thread seem to miss the point of the title entirely. Here's some actual advice I don't want my name on, but seems pretty effective based on working at a lot of different Big Cos: - Always go for prestige over purpose. Have a choice between a shiny project with very little actual impact to the company and a behind the scenes project that will actually make lives better for employe…

If everything smells like shit, maybe you should check your shoe?

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#185

Post by truculent »

jansan wrote: post #77
mdorazio wrote: post #71

Article comments and comments in this thread seem to miss the point of the title entirely. Here's some actual advice I don't want my name on, but seems pretty effective based on working at a lot of different Big Cos: - Always go for prestige over purpose. Have a choice between a shiny project with very little actual impact to the company and a behind the scenes project that will actually make lives better for employe…

I will print this out for my teenage sons and make them learn this.

Or just advise them not to work at a Big Co with shitty culture?

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#186

Post by reureu »

adrianpike wrote: post #29

"HR does not operate with your interests at heart, do not talk to them." -- Anonymous

But the legal system expects that you go to HR and that they act appropriately when you report certain things. So, I'm not sure the "do not talk to them" is always correct.

Scenario A: your job sucks, and you don't see a future there. Your boss constantly undermines you, doesn't give you credit, gives you a workload harder than any reasonable employee could work.

Scenario B: your company is doing something illegal, and you pointed that out to your manager. Your manager started undermining you, not giving you credit, uninviting you to meetings about your work. Now your job sucks and you don't see a future there.

In Scenario A, you should just leave. HR isn't going to fix the problem, they're just going to throw their hands up, tell you to work through it with your manager, and then quietly label you as a difficult employee. You're probably on a track to be laid off or PIP'd in the next cycle, so might as well either learn to shut up and take it, or get out.

Scenario B, you should absolutely tell HR. HR won't do anything, or they'll make your life worse. But that's exactly what you need to have happen to build a case. Depending on the severity of the situation (i.e., how pervasive and illegal the activities are), HR's inactions could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to you.

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#188

Post by s3nnyy »

Most programmers invest a lot of time in coding and related activities (learn the newest framework) but this thread is again a proof that most neglect all other aspects of their career (e.g., regular salary negotiations).

I worked as a programmer for several years and now I run a tech recruitment consultancy (coderfit.com). Programmers come to me daily with various problems. I am writing up all the individual solutions that lead to more money in a book. It covers career growth, interviewing, job search, and salary negotiation; please have a look here: “Coderfit: Make more money as a programmer”: https://gumroad.com/l/cdrft

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#189

Post by blub »

croh wrote: post #161
throwaway6890 wrote: post #152

Consider your choice of field carefully. I loved programming and yet doing it for a living and climbing the ladder made me start hating it. IMHO the tech field is overrun with young, bright, energetic people, most of whom are dreamers with their own private techno-utopian fantasies who secretly harbor the belief they'll be multi-millionaires or billionaires in a few short years. Dreamers are mostly innocent but there…

So true. Actually early days of programming are good when you enjoy it. But once you decide to work for money, it becomes shit. This applies for everything. Real problem is money. Programmer makes lifestyle-changing-money in early days which keep them in constant fear to lose. As long as you're disconnected from money and doing your shit without bothering about others, everything works well. This is the reason I keep…

The quantity of money plays a decisive role in an industry's transformation into a cutthroat, toxic environment.

SWE is now already there, but it used to be much more relaxed when there weren't so many billions floating around. Start-ups and the out of control VC money are one of the worst things that happened to this industry.

Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

#190

Post by collyw »

JackFr wrote: post #118
mdorazio wrote: post #71

Article comments and comments in this thread seem to miss the point of the title entirely. Here's some actual advice I don't want my name on, but seems pretty effective based on working at a lot of different Big Cos: - Always go for prestige over purpose. Have a choice between a shiny project with very little actual impact to the company and a behind the scenes project that will actually make lives better for employe…

> - Loyalty is for chumps. That's simply not true, but ... - Be loyal to people not things. - Loyalty is earned, not given out freely.

I assumed he was talking about loyalty to the company - in which case I agree with him.
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