81–90 of 237 posts
As someone with a small tech company I need to work with bigger tech companies to connect with their API or vice versa, I always notice how little these guys often care about just anything. Everything takes ages and costs enormous amounts of money and they seem to botch up even the simplest things. From not being able to craft proper HTTP headers to messing up UTF8 encoding. When we asked one of them to help one of o…
I held out for a little over 30 years, but ultimately reached a similar point. I just lost patience with the various ways I was forced to keep a part of my brain devoted to work at all times, with the focus on "move fast" over quality, with the dizzying array of bad choices in languages, idioms, and configuration/deployment methods, with the endless ego wars, etc. Note that none of these had much to do with the work…
"I'm the kind of person who takes the most important unclaimed tasks - which are often unclaimed because they're unpleasant." I feel you. I've always been one to fill the gaps on the team. You need someone to learn this new tech/process/etc - sure, I'll do it. It's hurt my career. Now I'm 9 years in and I'm not an expert in anything (anything that matters - they outsourced the tech/system I was an expert at), just av…
In the middle of the rant on burnout, he says: > I'm sick of everyone being on Adderall. Is that really a thing? ie What proportion of software folks are using it?
it’s a lot higher than you might expect but i don’t think it’s endemic to software at this point. there’s a bit of a cultural shift around mental disorders and the old stigma attached. i’ve seen a lot of people i know, from preschool teachers to principal scientists, get an ADD or ADHD diagnosis in their later years. the acknowledgment of a disability is much easier now. all of that said, the use of adderal, vyvanse,…
Are you saying a significant part of human kind has been disabled for the past couple of thousand years and we are only now acknowledging this?
I am old enough to remember ADD/ADHD did not exist. We were outside a lot.
I decided it wasn't really working and that they were probably going to figure out that my way of thinking wasn't a good fit for their context and we'd part ways on good terms. Instead of just waiting around for this, I decided I would try to use my remaining time and 'rope' to try to learn as much as I could about why my previously successful patterns didn't work in this context. So, I essentially stopped trying to do what I was 'supposed' to do and instead looked at the organization's objectives behind my tasking - and try to actually help deliver what they really wanted. Technically, this could be considered insubordination but I tried to be as subtle about it as I could while still being effective. I figured I might get myself fired faster but instead, I was actually partially successful in getting "good things" happening. So, I doubled down on this approach and escalated. I got reprimanded by my direct manager (a very senior exec) for not following specific orders but no one was too upset because it was clear I was trying to act in the best interests of the company. Those of you with relevant experience can probably guess what happened next. I got promoted because leadership decided I was just "difficult but getting stuff done". This led to nearly a decade of my constantly escalating my efforts to "do the right thing", even if it wasn't exactly in the order or approach I was instructed to take. I managed to continuing to deliver enough success (along with some failures in-between) to not get sacked. Eventually, I escalated my "do the right thing" so far, we did end up parting ways but it was mutual and they were very nice about it (by this time I'd pretty much told everyone around me what my approach was). I'm happy I stayed and did it this way. In the end, I worked my ass off, delivered good value for the company, made really good money and when we parted ways both the leadership and I felt the net of my service at the company had been a success.
In short, I think the OP could have possibly stayed around to figure out the "meta" game of that BigCo. Maybe a good mentor would have helped. Alternatively, maybe it was just a lousy company or a 'broken' group within the company.
As someone with a small tech company I need to work with bigger tech companies to connect with their API or vice versa, I always notice how little these guys often care about just anything. Everything takes ages and costs enormous amounts of money and they seem to botch up even the simplest things. From not being able to craft proper HTTP headers to messing up UTF8 encoding. When we asked one of them to help one of o…
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I'm the kind of person who takes the most important unclaimed tasks - which are often unclaimed because they're unpleasant." I feel you. I've always been one to fill the gaps on the team. You need someone to learn this new tech/process/etc - sure, I'll do it. It's hurt my career. Now I'm 9 years in and I'm not an expert in anything (anything that matters - they outsourced the tech/system I was an expert at), just av…
Sometimes it significantly helped my career, when the New Thing that I learned became important and interesting and a gateway to new experiences like giving talks or traveling to other countries. But other times it left me toiling in the shadows while others had all the fun. Like anything, I guess, it's a mix.
For example, I learnt the basics of Blue Prism, as I was asked to. It's really just an automation stop-gap until the underlying system can be updated or replaced to handle the target scenario. Then I was told we wouldn't even be using it, so I learnt it for nothing.
This really resonates with me. I'm becoming jaded as well. My most hated thing about the industry: the amount of people who do not give a shit. These people try to do the least amount of work possible. They actively try to stretch a day's worth of work into a month. They do not want to learn anything, even on the company's dime. They have zero passion and pride. Often they are vicious; they will act so kind and diplo…
Is Your Boss Narcissistic? [Signs of Narcissism at Work] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P-5q0C31m4
(the video also talks a bit about coworkers)
Dr Ramani is a PHD psychologist specializing in narcissism, she has great yt videos. I also recommend educating yourself about gaslighting, manipulation, invalidation etc. Don't take everything you hear at face value.
Signs of gaslighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FISZshe9L3s
(My hypothesis is that large companies turn to crap largely because they eventually end up recruiting toxic but charismatic people, not really because of their size.)
Well said. I'm rotting from the inside out. The only problem I have with the post is that they have the luxury of quitting. People like myself are trapped in the job. They're likely making 5x many people's salary if they are a principle engineer at a large tech firm. I dream of quitting everyday, but I know I have to deal with this job for the next 2 decades at least (about 9 years in). I'm miserable and know I'm was…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Oh, by the way, it's December, so we need you to watch that 45 minute security training video again so you don't accept USB flash drives from strangers in the parking lot. The ability to mute a tab and have it run in the background is at times a beautiful thing.
Unless you work at Amazon where the training pauses if the tab isn’t actively focused. I’m convinced that it’s a form of torture.