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Even your boss wants to quit

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Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#61

Post by eftychis »

I don't buy it. Somewhere between the janitor and the head, someone has responsibility. (To make the reference.)

a) Tree communication graphs are known and proven to not provide reliable message transmission against an adversary. As a boss you (should) know and live that but most prefer to hear the flattery and see the grass as green until it's too late.

b) You have stressful knowledge as a boss that you decide to not share with your underlings -- usually because you don't trust them. Some companies have been known for their openness on every topic. We are talking about software engineering here not factory mindless work. If you don't share and bottle things you are doom ing yourself.

c) I am sorry but if as a boss you are unable to downgrade yourself -- tells me either you don't know you can hire another boss to be the CEO/..., you are inept and can't do anything useful in the company besides "bossing," or you live in an illusion.

Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO people stop working for their next meal. And few CEOs care more about employees future than their life's work.

P.S. That said being a middle manager in a growing or cash cow company means making sure the status quo remains. Thinking otherwise is the illusion I think a lot of people becoming middle managers have for too long a time.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#62

Post by sokoloff »

mikkergp wrote: post #24
cs137 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a factor too, and I think that as Millennials and Xers realize that the BoomerJobs--the jobs in which you actually have some choice in what you work on, where you write your own performance review because the boss sees you as a friend rather than an exploitable resource--aren't going to be allocated to them, but written out of existence, we will see an acceleration of the discouragement and "presenteeism" that…

> BoomerJobs--the jobs in which you actually have some choice in what you work on, where you write your own performance review Yes, boomers had better pay where a middle class blue collar job could afford you a nice house and kids in the suburbs, but this idea you quote, I'd need much more data on because the entire culture of being a boomer is much more top down, listen to your boss, do what your told then the moder…

Is that true for Boomers, or was that mostly true for the Silent Generation (those born 1928 to 1945)?

My experience of Boomers (my parents and their friends are early Boomers) is that most of them were working as two-income families, whereas my granparents' generation (late Greatest and early Silent), it was much more common for there to be only one outside income coming into the household.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#63

Post by civilized »

WJW wrote: post #60
civilized wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're at the top. Why can't you choose to do things differently? Who or what else are you waiting on?

Even a CEO has tons of constraints, they don't have infinite power. Just some examples: - the labor market dictates how many people you can hire. - Speaking of budgets: they are not unlimited; - Often what you can build depends on the levels of tech and organizational debt you have built up. A small startup simply doesn't have the organizational set-up and know-how to become a hospital and vice versa. This limits how…

> It is extremely common for an executive to come in and start off with bold plans to improve things, then slowly discover why things are the way they are.

The same is true of a new IC coming into a new code base.

The things you mention are not great excuses for not being able to make any change. If those things overwhelm an exec, that exec should probably step aside and let someone else try.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#64

Post by Jistern »

cs137 wrote: post #5
johnwheeler wrote: post #3

I’ve been wondering how the great resignation narrative will fare with the looming recession.

"Great resignation" is mostly that, a narrative. Workers aren't actually becoming powerful. They're just slightly less powerless, and everyone knows it's transient--barring an overthrow of corporate capitalism, but I think we all know that such things are unpredictable--which is why people are itchy to move now before things go back to how they were and everyone is stuck in place for a while. It's good for cappie PR…

No post body was provided.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#65

Post by schnevets »

johnwheeler wrote: post #3

I’ve been wondering how the great resignation narrative will fare with the looming recession.

I have been thinking the same thing. I'm just returning to a job that I like after a 3-month parental leave of absence. A lot of co-workers have left our niche boutique consultancy with a decent work-life balance to join... other niche boutique consultancies who advertise a decent work-life balance (with some weirdos going to the big guys... good luck with that).

From my perspective, I'm seeing the last 6-or-so months of the Great Resignation as a zeitgeist of irrational optimism. Money was cheap, "post-COVID repairs" were a goldmine of opportunity, and companies were thriving regardless of their actual performance. If the burnout is catching up to people, it is probably because "returning to normal" no longer seems so palatable. So why not try a new normal in a fresh environment?

If we see a 2001-level decline, I can only hope that a desire for the good old days helps people get their priorities straight and figure out a way to balance happiness, dignity, and success that doesn't involve LinkedIn recruiters.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#66

Post by hn_version_0023 »

andsoitis wrote: post #51
mikkergp wrote: post #27

There was some other comment about how objectively good things are right now and how good the future looks for most of the world(humans, not environment) and it makes me wonder if somehow the better things are the worse things get since wealth is still so unevenly distributed. With all the talk about work-life balance and the great resignation and worker power, I have to imagine that maybe 50 years ago if you were po…

The more senior you are, the more responsibility you have. Responsibility doesn’t keep office hours. The CEO and other senior executives cannot say to shareholders that they had a bad day, were sick, wanted to spend more time with their family and expect that shareholders won’t look for someone who they perceive can work harder for them.

You've articulated the problem well: placing shareholder value above all else is at the root of what ails corporate America.

Other values need a seat at the table, not just scraps from the shareholders.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#67

Post by [deleted] »

andsoitis wrote: post #51
mikkergp wrote: post #27

There was some other comment about how objectively good things are right now and how good the future looks for most of the world(humans, not environment) and it makes me wonder if somehow the better things are the worse things get since wealth is still so unevenly distributed. With all the talk about work-life balance and the great resignation and worker power, I have to imagine that maybe 50 years ago if you were po…

The more senior you are, the more responsibility you have. Responsibility doesn’t keep office hours. The CEO and other senior executives cannot say to shareholders that they had a bad day, were sick, wanted to spend more time with their family and expect that shareholders won’t look for someone who they perceive can work harder for them.

[deleted]

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#68

Post by at-fates-hands »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #39
jayroh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how fast and profoundly "perspective" will hit you. When I was a young programmer I always dreamed of that promotion and comp adjustment. Constantly looking for that next step. That's not inherently bad, per se, but once you reach a particular place you come to find out what the commensurate responsibility looks like. Sometimes -- dare I say, often? -- it's just not fun. That's what they pay you for, thoug…

Grass is greener etc. Other peoples situations always seem better/easier. We don’t have enough data and are just too poor at objective evaluation.

>> Grass is greener etc.

This is so true.

After spending a decade in software development, I'm finally staying put where I am. So many times as a developer you hate something about your job. So you go out and interview, build some stuff for show on GitHub, and then finally land that job that's going to take away all your worries and grievances you have with your current employer.

Only to find out all you did was swap one set of problems for another, totally different set of problems which weren't an issue at your former employer.

You either accept this stuff as just something every company has, or you'll go crazy trying to find a perfect company/startup/agency to work at and you'll never get any further in your career.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#69

Post by Tarsul »

airstrike wrote: post #46
mikkergp wrote: post #27

There was some other comment about how objectively good things are right now and how good the future looks for most of the world(humans, not environment) and it makes me wonder if somehow the better things are the worse things get since wealth is still so unevenly distributed. With all the talk about work-life balance and the great resignation and worker power, I have to imagine that maybe 50 years ago if you were po…

Nothing meaningful will trickle down to blue collar / minimum wage jobs from these types of "changes" because capital gains taxes are much lower than income taxes. If you 80-20 the issue of inequality, this is what you should spend most of the time discussing. The fact that many can afford to let money sit in the bank earning virtually risk-free ~7-8% year (~3% for "true" risk free) and pay ~20% on those gains instea…

Thank you for saying this so eloquently. It's a sad state where this elephant in the room isn't talked or acknowledged really. Well, ok, it's politically "unfeasable" but still if we don't even acknowledge it, nothing real will change.

The other elephant in the room that no one talks about is that housing shouldn't be that much of a problem in a country where the population is not growing (but it is because it is used as an asset although it should be for living not for wealth growth, thus having 2nd or 3rd homes should be massively discouraged through taxes).

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#70

Post by Jistern »

jayroh wrote: post #19
willcipriano wrote: post #4

I wouldn't want my bosses job. I don't think it pays all that much more than mine but it requires a lot of days full of meetings and late nights. I may even do better on a hourly basis. I think some people get wrapped up in the headline salary number (XXX,XXX per year, that's a lot of money!) and never break it down into a hourly number to see if it's actually a better deal.

It's funny how fast and profoundly "perspective" will hit you. When I was a young programmer I always dreamed of that promotion and comp adjustment. Constantly looking for that next step. That's not inherently bad, per se, but once you reach a particular place you come to find out what the commensurate responsibility looks like. Sometimes -- dare I say, often? -- it's just not fun. That's what they pay you for, thoug…

Those are wise words.
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