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My Personal Creed of Employment

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Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#41

Post by jl2718 »

codingdave wrote: post #3

> Cultivate a professional mindset. You are above the company, descending to help them. Do the work required, do honest work, help them achieve their goals, but don’t become mentally trapped. This is the most important one to me - I do my job for exactly that reason - it is a job. A business transaction where I get a specific amount of money in exchange for putting time and energy towards their goals. It is amazing h…

Sure, but this is a trap. You’re just trading time for dollars, and you are not growing your personal value.

One thing that distinguishes a professional is the focus of what they work on. If somebody tells you what to do, and it’s not in that narrow range, you are not a professional anymore; you’re a stand-in for a professional, and you’ll get treated poorly.

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#42

Post by adxl »

These kind of posts always make me think how crappy being a just a coder is and how unsatisfying for many the career actually is. After five or ten years it’s probably downhill and you will have more and more trouble getting new gigs.

Someone earlier wrote they are a “Wolf” but more likely they are the code monkey. That’s usually the gist of the problem, software coders end up being a tool that gets used by the people that actually do the thinking in the organization. If this is you I suggest trying to find a position where you are also the user of your code. To continue with the animal analogy you eat your own dog food.

This, I’ve found is the most satisfying experience one can have writing code. For example, if you own a Tesla, get a job writing code or developing hardware for an electric car startup. Or if you are in finance get a job working on a crypto exchange so you can trade on the code you wrote. If you do your own taxes get a job at Intuit. Etc.

Then maybe you won’t feel so disconnected from the work you do and it will become more satisfying.

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#43

Post by Aeolun »

arvinsim wrote: post #33

> Don’t half-work just to put in the hours. It’s better to give full effort half the day and then be done. Cultivating an ass-in-seat mentality is harmful to myself. When needed, give full effort all day, exceed expectations and demand compensation. Unfortunately, for salaried employees, early delivery is usually rewarded with more work, often with no compensation.

Or worse, it’s not. You’ll just be sitting there taking calls and listening to Teams (because Slack is not allowed) pings all day long.

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#44

Post by Aeolun »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #31

> you can’t become worse off than when you started. Well, having experienced ageism in software engineering the last three plus years I entirely guarantee you this point #1 is totally untrue. I am at my best, at leadership, management, architecture, security, compliance, SRE, testing... And my salary is worse than 12 years ago (and way worse than a few years ago) and my workload way higher. So, I stopped reading.

How did you get there though? Your previous job laid you off and then suddenly nobody wanted to hire you for the same salary any more?

Asking for a friend, so he can be prepared.

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#45

Post by BugsBunny1991 »

An honest, rational, and intelligent way to approach our working lives and it runs counter to much of the advice you'd get elsewhere.

I think it's possible to be disillusioned with work and yet still do a good job and find satisfaction in it. Maybe it's just a matter of finding the proper distance between you and your work.

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#46

Post by BugsBunny1991 »

adxl wrote: post #42

These kind of posts always make me think how crappy being a just a coder is and how unsatisfying for many the career actually is. After five or ten years it’s probably downhill and you will have more and more trouble getting new gigs. Someone earlier wrote they are a “Wolf” but more likely they are the code monkey. That’s usually the gist of the problem, software coders end up being a tool that gets used by the peopl…

Can you name other careers that are deeply satisfying and pay just as well?

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#47

Post by [deleted] »

adxl wrote: post #42

These kind of posts always make me think how crappy being a just a coder is and how unsatisfying for many the career actually is. After five or ten years it’s probably downhill and you will have more and more trouble getting new gigs. Someone earlier wrote they are a “Wolf” but more likely they are the code monkey. That’s usually the gist of the problem, software coders end up being a tool that gets used by the peopl…

[deleted]

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#48

Post by Buttons840 »

getlawgdon wrote: post #38
getlawgdon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought precisely the same thing and I think the author's disposition is deeply ethically for this reason. Other convictions expressed in the piece are similarly flawed. For me, many of the views expressed are anathema to how to be a good professional.

cannot edit my comment above but left out the key word: deeply ethically FLAWED.

Is a sports team unethical when they talk about being the best? Seems pretty unethical to think your better than the other team, right?

No, it's just a thing they tell themselves to hype themselves up and avoid the depressing truth most teams face, "we're far from the best and probably never will be the best, and there's a good chance we're going to lose this game".

Well, in work the depressing truth is "my boss is my boss, I have to do what they says so I can eat". A little chant to remind yourself that work should, ideally, be mutually beneficial and based on mutual respect, and that you're not a slave to the company and its politics is all this is.

Re: My Personal Creed of Employment

#49

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

w0de0 wrote: post #21
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #10

In my experiences, this all coincide flawlessly with how the "game" is played. On top of that, it embodies the gervais principle. Always talk positive, don't be afraid to give others credit and be viewed as a team player, quit thinking just about yourself. All of which aren't specifically because someone wants to do that thing like a dumb office game, but because it's a litmus test for others to view you. The better…

When people talk of playing a “game” in regard to any social obligation - especially when they admit that the playing of the game is largely indistinguishable from earnest ethical behavior - they are telling on themselves, not their environment. They are saying they view their obligations and the attitude of their interlocutors as artifice and sincerity as idiocy. They expect constant, low-level deception from their…

I mean I hate to break it to you, but there is an undercurrent of mentality among everyone that is: people will sell you out if it means their job is on the line. No amount of friendship, interaction, or skill level of yours will come into play. When it's either them or you, they side with themselves (or the majority) every time.

I stopped playing being the good employee and just started viewing everything as a means to an end. Talking? Figure out what makes them tick. Milk everything for what its worth. Engage positively out of purely Machiavellian instinct. You shouldn't do good because it's good, you should do good because you believe there is a reward somewhere. Is it evil? Well it could be considered that way, but when you work with a varying degree of people who have different dark triad traits, you need to evaluate how much of it on your end you're willing to engage with in order to get ahead. In my life, I've found that if you don't do this, people will notice and walk all over you.

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