291–300 of 840 posts
The question that's more important: is it common, and is it an accepted tradeoff in the company culture.
To those that are expressing disbelief that this happened: even if half of it is made up, its still unacceptable. The reason to not ignore this is that one day, this superteam of arsehole might be in your life.
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Unlike others, I actually find this story fairly believable. When I first joined Apple, straight out of college - a good program, top three in the country - I was abused similarly. I joined a team that was on a project behind schedule. Our manager was a brusque, no-nonsense sort of dude. But he clearly had anger problems. On the team were 2 senior engineers, me, and a junior e…
Some extra tidbits that didn't make it in because the edit timer ran out: - Despite the big release and herculean efforts, both of us were paid a fraction of our target bonus. This was the day I decided to move jobs. - I eventually grew some balls and told Apple to (a) pay me 2.5x during overtime (b) hire SREs for this critical service, or (c) go fuck themselves. They chose (c), which worked alright because our servi…
This. And the intrinsic metric does not necessarily align to the company's until much further down the road or sometimes not at all. Hard lesson for me to learn after a score at the same company and the health insurance stays the same regardless.
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I think they mean that you should document everything, then express your concerns to HR in a non-confrontational way, then quietly bring your documentation to a lawyer if nothing changes. The documentation is your "plan B" which HR doesn't need to know about.
Documenting everything is good advice, but it can give false hope to people in these situations. Hiring a lawyer is never as easy, cheap, or as quick as it sounds from internet comments. It's easy to armchair quarterback these situations and talk about hypothetically lawyering up, but what's the endgame? Suing your company won't suddenly convert a toxic job into a happy job, regardless of the outcome. Settlements, if…
Voting with your feet is usually the best policy, but people with visa issues have an especially hard time with that. Sadly, asking our representatives for visa reforms to avoid putting people in indentured positions doesn't seem to accomplish much.
And some people will choose to demand justice even when it isn't the best move for their career or personal lives. I don't think it's right to admonish that.
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I can only answer with LOL to such offers Yes I've worked for a startup. Yes I did long hours. Yes I learned that's not sustainable and not a good way to make things work. So, no, I won't do it again.
I never understood the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!". That appears to mean that you will work in a small team, putting in unsustainable hours, but not receive the financial reward that a successful startup could provide. I've worked in several startups, and occasional death marches are unavoidable. They don't work month in and month out. But enduring that kind of life for just sa…
I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke."
I must try and understand my bias towards certain tech companies. When somebody says something bad about Facebook I instantly believe, but for some reason I had to really dig into this Apple engineer and it took me longer to believe them. Truth is harder to discern than I had thought.
Maybe because after every paragraph you ask yourself, why didn’t they just fire them? They could have done it at any point.
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- The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do your job, but don't kill yourself over it. Work-life balance is king. This has been my experience as well. Nowadays I work hard only while most of the following are true: - I'm making top dollar (good salary + equity value is high) - Work is interesting (somethin…
Wow, Great List! The last one (juniors calling the shots) really hit home; when I worked in , I was ultimately standing on the shoulder of midgets. The worse part? As a CS grad, I knew how to do better, but: nobody with the power to change things understood how or why what I was suggesting was better(!). I've long thought about this afterward, and concluded it's that 'my world' (which includes a lot of experience, an…
For anyone experiencing workplace harassment, this article is a great example of what not to do. Instead, document everything happening to you with evidence, speak with HR about incidents as they arise, and if they don't take action, seek legal counsel. Doing anything else will paint you in a bad light.
You've clearly never had this happen to you. Go ahead, document everything, it's not going to matter. That's not how this works. If you do that they'll either say, "Ok, I see what you've got there. But that's not what we're here to discuss. We're here to discuss your negative attitude" or they can look at your documentation and say, "So what were you charging the time you were doing all this documentation to?", or, "…
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Unlike others, I actually find this story fairly believable. When I first joined Apple, straight out of college - a good program, top three in the country - I was abused similarly. I joined a team that was on a project behind schedule. Our manager was a brusque, no-nonsense sort of dude. But he clearly had anger problems. On the team were 2 senior engineers, me, and a junior e…
Some extra tidbits that didn't make it in because the edit timer ran out: - Despite the big release and herculean efforts, both of us were paid a fraction of our target bonus. This was the day I decided to move jobs. - I eventually grew some balls and told Apple to (a) pay me 2.5x during overtime (b) hire SREs for this critical service, or (c) go fuck themselves. They chose (c), which worked alright because our servi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got an offer from Apple. The hiring manager told me "You worked at a startup before, you'll have no problem working overtime". I didn't end up taking the offer.
I work at a startup right now and can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Well run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions.
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Sunlight is a disinfectant. With transparency, even the largest most aloof company has to grapple to some degree with poor PR and public shaming. Amazon is well-known for having a toxic work culture even beyond its fulfillment centers, thanks to Amazon employees speaking out. And having a high-profile voice- a Tim Bray, a Susan Fowler, is also invaluable. As of yet, there isn't an equivalent to Apple, probably becaus…
I don't think it has to do purely with visibility outside the company. Visibility within the company is just as, if not more, important. A common theme I've noticed regarding this in stories from Apple is people covering up/scapegoating failing projects by lying to management, creating fake reports, fabricating data, etc. The con seems able to be kept up for a long time because there is only one person you need to fo…