Live data from Hacker News

Even your boss wants to quit

axios.com

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yeah but the reward for "listen to your boss and do what you're told" was often cushy overpaid jobs where you go golfing a couple of times a week with your boss and coworkers because you're all buddies. As long as you brown nosed your boss just enough.

Plus, you only had to brownnose for a couple afternoons. Once they decided they liked you, you just had to be not insufferable.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#92

Funny to see this today - my own boss resigned last month and we've been interviewing for his replacement. I haven't decided whether or not to apply for his position; I don't want all of his responsibilities but I do want to keep the autonomy that I've gained since he left.

I've been in that situation several times.

What instantly becomes glaringly obvious is that the company should comp you better and leave you be, as you quite obviously do not need said boss.

Yet, every single time they will waste money interviewing people, spend more on hiring and onboarding and training, and then this other person is magically in charge of not only you but your comp.

Fuck what businesses have all become.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#93

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.

What people don't realize is the job that pays 30% or so more than your current job requires alot more work and a ton more stress, and for me that is not worth the extra money - which by the way most of which goes to taxes anyway. I really feel like it doesn't "pay" to move up in an org mainly due to the extremely high tax hit along with stress the title comes with.

I'm not a developer but when my last job paid half of what I make now and I have even less responsibility than I did at the previous job.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is everyone just making lateral moves? New job should mean new money, that's the only reason to move jobs, unless you really want to build your resume in an area in order to... make more money in the long run.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#95
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…

I caught this perspective early, and would be very clear in interviews that I didn't ever want to be a manager. I had a lot of interviewers ask, "Don't you have any ambition?" My answer was always that I did, I got to where I wanted to be, and I intend to stay there. I'm a programmer. I program. Ambition realized. And with the money that programmers make, it seems even more ridiculous to suggest that I had no ambitio…

Management and engineering require two completely different skillsets and are two completely separate jobs.

Just because someone is a great engineer doesn't mean they'd be a good manager. I'd be scared to work under a manager that doesn't acknowledge and believe this.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise a good point, but not necessarily the one you intended. "Looming recession" is not an accurate characterization. "Possible recession" is, and frankly, the probability might not be that high. On the one hand we see stories about the great resignation and blaming the government for overheating the economy and causing inflation. On the other we hear claims, based on limited evidence, that we're obviously headi…

A recession is defined as a multi-month long period of declining economic performance. (Another common definition is two quarters in a row of negative growth.) Q1 real GDP growth in the US was negative. It seems quite likely that we're in the start of a recession by either of the definitions above, but we'll know with greater certainty in a little over a month when the advance estimate of the Q2 figure is released.

I'm thinking more in terms of the NBER's definition of a recession. We're definitely seeing evidence of slower growth (which should lessen inflationary pressures) but it's far from clear to me that we're heading into a recession in the NBER sense. Gas prices could drop, supply chain issues could lessen, and we could be back to normal growth by the end of the year.

"The NBER's definition emphasizes that a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months. In our interpretation of this definition, we treat the three criteria—depth, diffusion, and duration—as somewhat interchangeable. That is, while each criterion needs to be met individually to some degree, extreme conditions revealed by one criterion may partially offset weaker indications from another. For example, in the case of the February 2020 peak in economic activity, the committee concluded that the subsequent drop in activity had been so great and so widely diffused throughout the economy that, even if it proved to be quite brief, the downturn should be classified as a recession."

https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#97

> What we found was that the majority [of C-suite executives] want to do something about it, but they just haven't done something about it I literally laughed out loud. This is how it is, this is always how it is. LOL

There are infinite ways to "spin" inaction as cautious analysis or being conservative. It's much more difficult to spin an intentional decision that you are accountable for that went wrong. The higher up you go, the higher the cost of a bad decision becomes, while the value of a correct decision doesn't really increase that much compared to someone lower down making the same call successfully. Basically, you're expected to make the right call more often than not when you are higher up. Amazon literally has a thing in their leadership principles about how good leaders are just "right" more often than bad leaders. All of these incentives lead to many, many situations where it is not in any one executive's best interest to make a decision to move forward on something. So they all just sit on it.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#98

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…

Economic mobility in the US is much lower than it was 50 years ago, and food riots are common elsewhere this year.

Climate change projections say that we're headed to economic collapse.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#99
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grass is never greener, it's just a different shade of brown.

I think if I were homeless, a FAANG SWE job would definitely be greener.

Ah except it doesnt go directly from brown -> (supposed) green in one step :) It is a whole bunch of slightly browner shade transforms. (Missing a few intermediate steps and no dissing on any of the stages) it might be something like:

Homeless -> Volunteer worker -> Govt job -> Non Faang -> Faang -> Enlightened that you missing out on life.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My career trajectory was Dev -> Senior -> Lead -> Director -> Senior. I left a company and purposefully looked for my next job further down the ladder, after having profound burnout that made me question whether I wanted to keep working in the industry at all. I decided I like making software, I just didn't like the amount of stress, anxiety, uncertainty, politics, and bickering I was experiencing. In my experience,…

> My career trajectory was Dev -> Senior -> Lead -> Director -> Senior. I left a company and purposefully looked for my next job further down the ladder, after having profound burnout that made me question whether I wanted to keep working in the industry at all Any chance you had terrible, even substandard leadership where you were Director (assuming that's where you had the profound burnout) and you would absolutely…

the more places I work the more I realize that the standard is bad leadership.
Post reply on HN