Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#341

Post by darkwizard42 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #301

> we began onboarding people with the wrong state of mind - seeing Waze as a stepping stone and not as a calling. > There are people who are great for a stage of the company and later, do not have the right skills as the company grows. It is not their fault, it is reality. But not being able to replace them with people that do have the right skills means that people are constantly trying to “offload” an employee on a…

Your point is spot on... and Google might be one of the places where I have heard they will do just nearly anything to keep you at the company.

Internal mobility is exceptional, perks and compensation are exceptional (regardless of if you are single, young, married, old, disabled, male, female, gay, straight, etc. there are GREAT perks available to you), scope of impact is huge (billions of users use your work), and a high bar of employment (though some lament the bar has been lowered) means you work with people who are generally quite smart/on your level

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#342

Post by scrollaway » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #321

scrollaway wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, I agree with the sentiment of not wanting to work for free, but > I couldn't think of anything sader or more depressing that giving away my own personal time for someone else. You just described a job. Whether you're giving your time away or getting paid for giving it up makes no difference to the fact you are parting with it in order to produce for someone else.

Giving away pretty clearly means the objection is to the free nature. Getting paid makes a big difference - you now obtain tangible value from the interaction that you can turn into things like food or housing.

There's no concrete difference from the side of the gifter, between giving away time directly, giving away money earned from time spent, or giving away a tangible gift purchased with money earned from time spent. It's just more indirections.

So when someone says there's "nothing sadder", I think they should remember that the time is being given up either way. Doing so for free amounts to gifting the time. Or, flipped on its head, not chasing after the money.

People have their own reasons for making gifts. Feeling good about themselves, making someone else feel good, …. You can have your own reasons for not caring that there is no financial benefit to working extra hours on something. Maybe you enjoy the work. Maybe you are learning something. Maybe you take pride in your work and going the extra mile is rewarding in and of itself.

Unlike GP, I don't judge people who sometimes work for "free", as long as they don't have to and are aware they don't have to.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#343

Post by freeone3000 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #327

freeone3000 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is the big one mentioned, and it does not allow for any further economies of scale than already exist. Rent rises based on the prevailing salary of the area -- house prices as well, since they represent the years of rental income. It's not even necessarily a supply issue, since Seattle has more empty houses than it has homeless people! Prices simply rise to whatever the market can bear. So under the current s…

Housing is a normal economic market that is responsive to changes on both the demand and supply side. The major problem with housing in this country is that restrictive policies have put a damper on housing supply so that it is not able to keep up with demand. Seattle has a normal amount of vacancies in it. It could have 2X the housing (and thus have a lot more people living in Seattle paying lower rents) and still h…

A "normal number" of housing vacancies would only make sense if everyone was housed. Housing isn't a voluntary good, where you'll expect some unsold stock and you'll expect not everyone to buy one -- everyone needs a place to live, and will spend as much as they have to in order to get housing of minimal quality. The entire concept of a "normal" number of vacancies doesn't make sense here.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#344

Post by asidiali » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #328

asidiali wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This - the mental overhead of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours - especially with a pushy employer or coworkers with no work life balance themselves. You can’t cut steel at home after dinner no matter how hard you try if you don’t have the tools. Conversely, I’m sure you have a computer, can you just login to GitHub for two seconds to review this PR I submitted at 9pm...

This is where you ignore the email until the morning. The only place where working offhours has a use is in early startups where money is tight, deadlines are short, and products are loosely defined. If you're working at a well managed company managers will nip it in the bud. Either way I'm not in college and I'm getting my 6-8 hours of sleep. If I work late I arrive late and expect no argument over it. I've only eve…

Copying part of my reply to another comment:

If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can ignore him or her.

Then I come in the next day, they already did the thing they asked for themselves because [insert business reason], and says “never mind”.

Next time it happens, they go to the other dev who is happy to do it at 11pm.

Guess who gets the promotion?

Even if it’s unfair and shouldn’t happen that way - company culture is not something controlled by an contributing engineer.

But I agree with your other points - a well run company will nip this in the bud! That’s exactly the point. It’s not in control of the engineer. It’s company culture. You’re right that I’d say this probably happens much more at startups vs larger companies due to the loose and fast nature.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#345

Post by asidiali » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

jolux wrote: post #329

kryogen1c wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mental overheard of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours this is very ignorant. the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.

> software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers. There's definitely a difference between white collar/knowledge work and manual labor or highly people-focused work, though. I've worked retail and food service before and the mental overhead is absolutely different. It took me a long time (years) to learn how to turn off my brain at 5pm and stop programming when I go…

Agreed! Is it black and white? No of course not. You can and need to learn how to properly transition between work and home. It takes time. Totally agree with you.

It’s nearly impossible to do when your employer is not on that same page with you, or even worse is instead fighting against it.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#346

Post by notaslave » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #175

madeofpalk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, I will never do this. I havent done this since I was very very young at my first job and i didn't know better. I couldn't think of anything sader or more depressing that giving away my own personal time for someone else. I'm not going to work on the weekend. I've got much better things to do, like play video games or literall…

Let me give you the perspective from the other side of the trench: I never ask my employees for overtime, never control their work hours. The typical work week that organically arises out of this is about 35 hours. I would absolutely fire anyone who would close the laptop for the weekend and left a critical operation pending on Friday. It's about work ethics and personal responsibility of the outcome of personal work…

If the company is paying me for 40 hours, why would they expect me to work more? If the 'outcome of my work' is my personal responsibility, I should also be paid based on the outcome-I should also get a cut from whatever profit the company makes with my work.

If the company thinks they have the right to my personal life because they pay me for 40 hours, then its slavery. Also, threatening me with firing because I refuse slavery is threatening my livelihood, and it's mafia mentality. If a manager thinks they have the right my personal time, I should have right to their personal time too. Traffic should go both way in a bridge.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#347

Post by tinyhouse » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

justapassenger wrote: post #309

While he has valid points of how corp life is different from startup, he seems like a horrible, entitled person to work for. General attitude that comes out of it to me, is that your employees growth doesn’t matter, only his vision of product matters. He complains about people being entitled, and at the same time he complains that as CEO of subsidiary of one of the biggest company in the world, he cannot say offensiv…

I think you misinterpreting what he's saying. I didn't get the impression that he claims that employees growth doesn't matter. He's saying that most people optimize for promotion rather than building a better product. That's indeed the wrong thing to optimize for, esp for the company.

Not being able to fire people is indeed a big disadvantage. Bad employees are much worse than just not contributing. They make the people around them worse and have a negative impact on the morale. As a manager you want to be able to get rid of such people as quickly as possible. I'm not saying firing on the spot is a good thing. But it should be reasonable to fire someone within 6 months and it shouldn't come as a surprise to the employee. Good managers communicate to their employees when they are not performing.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#348

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #122

ramraj07 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different way of putting it would be whether an employee takes personal responsibility towards their work. It's not incongruent with a balanced life. To me It just means occasdinally you might stay late at work, once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, and if something breaks you're not able to log off until you fix it. Doesn't mean you cant take Friday's off of or…

Absolutely, 100%. I am hugely against working overtime and work life balance is far more important to me than many other factors. But I have worked 12 hour days and weekends few times in the past, because I felt the personal responsibility to either fix something or make sure a launch goes through smoothly. You know when I absolutely wouldn't do it though? If my manager told me that "they expect a level of sacrifice…

Same. I put in a lot of extra work on the launches of .app and .dev to ensure that they went smoothly (and they did!), because I personally believed in the product we were launching. I did it with no expectation of compensation, though I did end up being compensated for it in the long run anyway with a promotion. I took pride in that work.

But if it hadn't been my idea to do so, if it had just been expected of me to work uncompensated nights/weekends at no personal benefit? Hell no. I'm not a manager but I too would never ask someone to do this either.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#349

Post by the_local_host » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

itg wrote: post #24

Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.

Indeed. I'm struck by the contrast between this complaint from the author...

> It is practically impossible to fire someone for the basic reason that you don't need this role any more

and this other complaint...

> The product is a tool to advance the employees career, not a passion, mission or economic game changer.

The author wants employees who perceive their job as a passion, and a mission, who can be fired as soon as their role is no longer needed? That strikes me as more "entitled" than keeping a Yoga class blocked off in your schedule.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#350

Post by saalweachter » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

andrew_ wrote: post #225

It's astounding in so far as how unique this conversation is to tech. I've worked as a pipefitter, electrician's apprentice, and general construction hand in the past - I could only imagine how it would go telling my former foreman that I'd like to head off to yoga in the morning for an hour. Big jobs that require overtime to complete get folks to work that overtime - even within a union. If it's not you, it's someon…

I've actually had the opposite experience working as summer labor for facilities maintenance.

It was extremely 9-to-5; well, technically, 7-to-3:30. Most people worked most of the time, because it was hourly, but if you needed to arrange to not, it wasn't a big deal, because you were hourly, and moreover, not customer-focused. If (nearly) everyone took the same day off, you just needed a skeleton crew for emergencies and the maintenance just got done a day later.

I don't think the distinction is really "tech versus non-tech" or even "white-color versus blue". I think the real distinction is jobs that have deadlines for one-off projects versus jobs that ... don't, where you just do the same tasks over and over because they keep needing to be done. Building maintenance is a lot like building construction, it uses the same skills to do the same things, but one uses a small number of people to do the work over fifty years that the other does with a large number in one.

The two types of work require different mindsets and different lifestyles. When you have a deadline, one big thing to accomplish before you rest, it makes sense to work long hours and monomaniacally to meet those deadlines. When you are in it for the long haul, you need to pace yourself.