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How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

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Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#91

Post by timalmond »

galoisscobi wrote: post #54
ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

> Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. How do people deal with this? I'm expected to take on more and more meetings and my time to do deep work diminishes as I go on. I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well.

Mostly, I refuse and explain why I am refusing. I write replies like:-

"I have nothing to contribute to this, so I see no value in attending this meeting."

"I see that point 3 on the agenda is relevant to me, can you bring me into the meeting at that point"?

These are professional answers. You are telling whoever has invited you that you think your time is better spent, on behalf of the company, doing something else. If they then insist despite your protests, you have to accept it. Although you might at some point realise that the person you are working for is an idiot.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#92

Post by watwut »

onion2k wrote: post #90
watwut wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant refuse to go to planning meetings, standups and retrospective. Those are core of agile and already take massive massive amount of time. Some of their parts are useful, but they also contain hours of nothingness. The other meetings are small in number and comparatively more useful per minute.

I cant refuse to go to planning meetings, standups and retrospective. Yes you can. Just send a note saying why you won't be there and what you'd have said if you had been. Agile ceremony meetings are practically the definition of meetings that could be emails.

Sight. I cant refuse agile ceremony while working employment in that company. I can leave the job for non-agile one or make myself fired. However, the combination of "being in one of those majorities of companies that believes in agile" and "not being in these meetings" is not available.

If your point is "then put up your resignation", then yes it is available. I am not a serf. That is not however what the "I cant do it" sentence in English refers to.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#94

Post by tonyedgecombe »

watwut wrote: post #92
onion2k wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant refuse to go to planning meetings, standups and retrospective. Yes you can. Just send a note saying why you won't be there and what you'd have said if you had been. Agile ceremony meetings are practically the definition of meetings that could be emails.

Sight. I cant refuse agile ceremony while working employment in that company. I can leave the job for non-agile one or make myself fired. However, the combination of "being in one of those majorities of companies that believes in agile" and "not being in these meetings" is not available. If your point is "then put up your resignation", then yes it is available. I am not a serf. That is not however what the "I cant do…

It would be interesting to try it, if you had another job lined up.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#95

Post by tome »

ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

I'm generally puzzled by the HN conventional wisdom against meetings, and I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings.

Am I really in such a small minority, or has HN turned into an echo chamber on this issue, where no one with a countervailing opinion dares to get a word in?

Having a meeting interrupt my work ranges from slightly irritating (if it comes during flow, but I can always easily get back into the groove later) to a welcome break from the intellectual stress of solo development work. I get to interact with my colleagues, learn about what they've been doing, and understand more about what the team needs and what our customers need.

Have I forgotten that I sold my soul to the devil to obtain a unique ability to focus, and regain focus after interruption? Or are there a double digit percentage of HN inhabitants who are just like me but not speaking up in this thread?

I don't know how I would understand my team mates as people, understand what they need from me and understand what other parts of the business need from me without meetings. Am I missing something here?

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#96

Post by freedom2099 »

twblalock wrote: post #89
ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

Being in meetings means you get to be in the room when decisions are made. Even if you aren't an active participant, you get to at least listen in. Almost all problems are really people problems, and people problems can only be solved by communicating with other people. Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed. To succeed you…

True… but I can’t have 5h of meetings a day and be expected to produce much…

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#97

Post by bennysomething »

twblalock wrote: post #89
ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

Being in meetings means you get to be in the room when decisions are made. Even if you aren't an active participant, you get to at least listen in. Almost all problems are really people problems, and people problems can only be solved by communicating with other people. Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed. To succeed you…

I think the idea of deep work has a place too. I haven't read the book but I think it touch's Linus locking himself away at a critical point in Linux's development. Bill gates did something similar (not sure what he was working on at that time).

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#98

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jayde2767 wrote: post #68
ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

I view the daily standup as a way to communicate status to a Product Owner/Project Manager/SCRUM Master who may have to communicate status to a larger "Standup of Standups", if you will. I agree that a high quality team communicates with each other often and status amongst them should not be necessary, or require a daily scheduled time.

>I view the daily standup as a way to communicate status to a Product Owner/Project Manager/SCRUM Master who may have to communicate status to a larger "Standup of Standups", if you will.

What's wrong with an email?

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#99

Post by Nursie »

tome wrote: post #95
ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

I'm generally puzzled by the HN conventional wisdom against meetings, and I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings. Am I really in such a small minority, or has HN turned into an echo chamber on this issue, where no one with a countervailing opinion dares to get a word in? Having a meeting interrupt my work ranges from slight…

I don't mind the morning meeting, they can be useful to catch up with where the team is and who needs help, and who's working on a problem someone else solved last week/month/year.

The problem I have with them in practice is that they are usually (in my experience) turned into a management progress meeting where developers are made to answer for their progress on specific items, rather a round-robin "Here's what I'm doing". At that point collaboration and team communication is out of the window.

Re: How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

#100

Post by mightyRodri »

tome wrote: post #95
ipaddr wrote: post #44

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't…

I'm generally puzzled by the HN conventional wisdom against meetings, and I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings. Am I really in such a small minority, or has HN turned into an echo chamber on this issue, where no one with a countervailing opinion dares to get a word in? Having a meeting interrupt my work ranges from slight…

I feel the same, the dayli meetings are super important for fast iteration. Sayinf you dont need those is implying there is no outside input that yould improve your work. Wich is only true when your task is so sepperated from everyone that you could effectively get your own one man team.
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