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Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

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Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#201

Post by momoneyfool »

I'm one of these people. I switched 2 jobs last year.

I work as a public trust system engineer for a SaaS vendor. We served police, fire, ems training systems. The local job was paying $70k. Low, but the job was easy, management was good, people I worked with were pretty awesome. Management actually told us that they were looking at a VC firm. a year before doing it. Never heard of anyone doing that before. Again, the company had very low toxic behaviors. Stability also has a worth.

The company got in bed with a VC. Worst choice ever. Then last year, the ownership was traded like a shiny pokemon card to another VC firm to add to another asset. Company culture flipped in an hour. Was announced on a Tuesday. I started interviewing the end of the week - I wanted to give it a chance to see if it was as bad as my initial gut reaction. And it was.

While I'm looking elsewhere, my pay got cut. Glassdoor shows similar previous acquisition bullshittery. Whatever. I'm done here.

I found a place. Similar role. Pay goes from 70k->120k. Sweet. Job looked interesting. I accept. And holy shit that place was toxic. "That's soo gay" was explained by my direct report as acceptable since he has 2 gay brothers ... on my 3rd day. Retard was casually thrown around, as was a whole lot of other stuff. Lest to say, that aint worth 120k.

So I hang my shingle again. I eventually found a system engineering position that pays 150k (?!?). I quit 0 notice with a lengthy email explaining why (effectively social justice reasons).

I'm now at the new role, and my salary jumped from 70k->150k in a span of a month.

Good work is a balance of total compensation, good co-workers, good managers, and stability (of your position, the team, and the company). When even one of those go bad, that whole calculus gets turned upside down. And combined with no more pensions and companies who don't care too much about people, yea, the best decision I can make is "GTFO". (Yes I'm a millenial)

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#202

Post by kerneloftruth »

Retail is where the greatest churn is happening -- and it makes perfect sense. Between shutdowns, layoffs, having to enforce mask rules on customers, having to deal with customers, smash and grabs,... retail seems like one of the worst job experiences to have, and with shaky job stability.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#203

Post by ericbarrett »

andrewflnr wrote: post #6

I've always guessed this was a major factor, though I still think too-low pay is a factor in a lot of cases, especially industries where pay tends to be anchored to minimum wage. However: (a) This is public social media data, I guess? That seems like a noisy channel. (b) Some of their suggestions are really dumb, and all miss the point in my view. If my boss is an ass, sponsoring a social event and expecting that to…

> (b) Some of their suggestions are really dumb, and all miss the point in my view. If my boss is an ass, sponsoring a social event and expecting that to make things better is insulting.

I thought a lot of it was good (c.f. the parallel discussion about predictability of hours for retail) but I agree this was really cringeworthy. I have actually left a team because of a clueless boss who kept trying to schedule "mandatory fun" like 7pm beers & axe tossing, for a bunch of 30+ engineers with kids.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#204

Post by Nemi »

massysett wrote: post #135
sbarre wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In effect, you threatened them into giving you a raise. And I'll say congrats on getting it, but are you at all concerned about your ongoing relationship with management? Do they think "he's good for a few years at least now" in terms of comp adjustment, and/or do you expect a raise again next year? At my company, I understand (but have not seen first hand) that anyone who tries this (either comes to the table with a…

This is not at all a risky play, because GP was willing to walk. It’s a true negotiation only if you’re willing to walk out. So to negotiate, realistically assess the availability of other options, and whether you’d accept them. If you’re not willing to walk, it’s just a game of chicken. That can indeed be risky, as then you might lose what you have with no fallback and no alternative.

I do agree that it is negotiation, but it IS a risky play. While you are negotiating, you have leverage. But it is time dependent leverage. If you stay, you lose, not all, but a large part of that leverage. If you do stay AND they decide that you are a risk for THEM, they may make moves to make them less dependent on you and at some point may RIF you or move you out in some other way and at that point you may not have a fallback option. While it is true that you are a great employee and someone will scoop you up eventually, when you are looking for a job and are currently not working, you LOSE leverage with your new potential employer. It is human psychology that you appear more attractive to an employer when you currently have a job than if you don’t. This puts you at a disadvantage going forward.

I am not saying don’t negotiate with your current employer for a pay raise, but leveraging another job offer does come with some risks you should be aware of. Some employers can see it as “burning a bridge” (I don’t agree with them, but it happens).

Personally what I do is try to negotiate without a job offer in hand (never threaten to quit) and if they don’t give you a good-faith pay raise then start looking for a new job then. It can take a year or more to find a good job you want. Then quit. They have already shown you that they don’t value you enough to pay you more. Paying you more under duress often does not end well.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#205

Post by tellmemore9 »

momoneyfool wrote: post #201

I'm one of these people. I switched 2 jobs last year. I work as a public trust system engineer for a SaaS vendor. We served police, fire, ems training systems. The local job was paying $70k. Low, but the job was easy, management was good, people I worked with were pretty awesome. Management actually told us that they were looking at a VC firm. a year before doing it. Never heard of anyone doing that before. Again, th…

No post body was provided.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#206

Post by jrockway »

freedom2099 wrote: post #25
skrebbel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

I am with you on this one! I really don’t get it… I love in France (French riviera) and my salary despite being very good for the region is very far from the hundreds of thousands of FAANG companies in the US… and yet I more than once turned down offers from FAANGs because no amount of money can bet all the other benefits I get… 35h work week (no extra Hours), very relaxed corporate environment, 35 days of vacation a…

I think you get all of those things at the FAANG companies. You can set your watch by people arriving at 9 and leaving at 5, and disappearing for an hour to have lunch seemed pretty normal (that's 35h).

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#207

Post by MathYouF »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #153

Perhaps I’ve been unlucky but my experience at big tech has been marred by churn and burn culture - high pressure tactics to get the most work out of employees and discarding them when they inevitably burn out. Average tenure was 1-3 years. Amazon was particularly bad at this. The only modicum of power employees have is in quitting and now that they’re exercising it the employers are acting like their throats have be…

Slightly off topic, but could you go into a bit more detail on this artifact? I thought an artifact was something like a trained model, but you said it was "written" in Scala then Java, which makes me think I don't understand the meaning, and the word on Google has very broad definitions.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#208

Post by goodpoint »

_Wintermute wrote: post #93
Aeolun wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that a very reasonable salary to be buying a home on? Especially at the upper end of that range.

Just as a counter-point, I live and work in London. I can't imagine ever being able to buy a home here unless something drastically changes, house prices are close to 10x my annual salary.

> house prices are close to 10x my annual salary

Plenty of people in the world save for 20 years for a house.

https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/price-gdp-per-cap

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#210

Post by Dracophoenix »

llampx wrote: post #69
cjrp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's considered a starter home? In England (well, the south-east of England), lots of people get started in a 1 or 2-bed flat (~60m²), maybe move up to a small terraced or semi-detached when they have kids.

A starter home in the US would be considered a dream home in many (most?) parts of the world. Garage, front yard, back yard, 3 bedrooms etc, all in a built-up area of around 1500-2000 sq ft (140-185 sq m)

And all of it on at least a quater-acre of land.
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