Academia is the dirtiest industry I ever eorked in. Fuck them!
Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
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Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#32“Industry” is much larger and diverse than academia. Abuse exists but is usually easier to escape from.
That said, managers embarrassing and ignoring employees could be described as widespread. Not necessarily high in distribution nor intensity, but common enough that engineer culture usually is lukewarm at best regarding pointy hair bosses, sales people, project managers and so on.
Then, Hanlon’s razor to the rescue, that’s mostly out of ignorance than malice.
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#33Are you are unhappy because of your school debt loans?
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#34I'd say that the issues in your first paragraph also occur in industry, albeit with plausible deniability and not directly. Further annoyances in industry: - Teams can suck you dry, you begin to lose your identity and get mediocre (since that is the safest and most valued option). - Managers take the credit for your work. - Managers can be entirely unrealistic, often demanding things that are not possible from a CS p…
I understand why people can dislike meetings — after all, they are a distraction from their "actual work", which they consider to be coding — but I really hate the siloing, the incongruity and the wasted effort that happens when teams do not coordinate within themselves or with other teams.
As for managers being entirely unrealistic and demanding things that you as a developer consider to be computationally impossible, I think it's important to push back. This is what meetings should help to do. Surface the problems early rather than struggle with the problems long and quiet and then fail to solve them anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#35I believe that abuse is more common in academia.
A relationship between a supervisor and his direct reports, both in academia and industry, is impacted by the power that the supervisor can exert. The relationship between a supervisor and his PhD students is not the same as a manager and his direct reports in industry because:
- The students are invested and committed into their PhDs for several years. It is much harder to change path or mentor compared to just change jobs. The energy and resources that the student needs to invest to apply a change are significantly higher, often involving moving to a different city.
- The reward of a job is, for the most part, the monthly paycheck. A PhD is a long-term investment that must be completed in order to have value. An employee that quits a job after one year is not an issue, and it is considered "experience", but quitting a PhD half way through can be perceived as a failure.
- Professors in academia have almost unlimited decision power in how they manage their budget and their reports. It can almost feels like an absolute monarchy.
- This may be anecdotal, but I feel like the role of professor in academia can attract people with larger egos and smaller empathy, especially in scientific subjects.
All of these points, combined with a bad supervisor, are fantastic fuel for anxiety and unhappiness. There is no worse thing that, after so much work, feeling that you have no control over your situation and you have no margin to improve it, without significant additional sacrifices.
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#36I'd say that the issues in your first paragraph also occur in industry, albeit with plausible deniability and not directly. Further annoyances in industry: - Teams can suck you dry, you begin to lose your identity and get mediocre (since that is the safest and most valued option). - Managers take the credit for your work. - Managers can be entirely unrealistic, often demanding things that are not possible from a CS p…
In this market is an important caveat. Most people here have no recollections of what a bad market is, but it'll really make you wish you were in academia.
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#37My experience, in both domains, is that Academia is the worst system for abuse. It is setup to protect professors and not students. I'm glad in the US that graduate students, in some states, have unionized. Hopefully, this will begin to tip the balance.
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#38In industry, if my boss started abusing me I would quit and get a job elsewhere. I'm free to leave at any time with no consequences. There's such high demand for developers that I have no reason not to- I'll have another job in 3 weeks.
Because of this, my company has gone to pretty incredible lengths to ensure managers who abuse employees are identified and removed. It's cheaper to remove abusive bosses than it is to constantly hire new developers.
Academia has none of those problems. It's hard to fire an abuser with tenure. PhD students are not hard to replace (it's hard to get into academia!). No one is financially obligated to prevent this kind of abuse. Ethically, morally, yes definitely. But not financially.
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#39I'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week with…
Is 1-2 hours per week really that much? I suppose they also spend additional time reading what you've written, along with revisions, etc?
Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In software engineering, in general, companies take extremely good care of their workforce because labor is very scarce and expensive. Not that I've seen. I experienced a lot of "abuse" like OP mentioned in the last few years at my last job, and it was a common complaint from my peers at other companies around the country. It sounds to me like you're really lucky.
Never ever ever stay where someone treats you badly. There are great leaders out there, go work for them. I ask questions in my interviews to get at what kind of leader I'll be working for and that's the #1 consideration for me. I want to work with people who care. By the same token, I try to take excellent care of my teammates and coworkers who report to me. The primary way I do this is by reporting to them as well.
It didn't start out that way. I worked in the same place for a lot of years, but it started deteriorating rapidly when new management came in, they tried to push "Agile", etc. I don't work there any more. Even when it was good for me, I would still here stories from friends and colleagues in other places about terrible management.