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Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

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Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#171

Post by peteradio »

malfist wrote: post #165
mindcrime wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine. I mean... I can buy this to a point. But for me personally, there are lines. And there are things I'm just not going to do. Period. I know it's un-trendy to talk about anything being "beneath you", and I'm not sure that's the wording I would use, but there are simply things that I don…

You sure showed them! I bet that advance auto manager thought real hard about asking anybody else to....sweep. I'm glad you realized your hands were too important to be callused by a broom

Quite snarky, heres my story. Worked at a big box home improvement store as a 15 year old kid on checkout. Someone literally shit diarrhea all over the floor, the store manager asked literally everyone in the store to clean it up including me, everyone refused, he ended up cleaning it himself. Some things are not part of the job!!!

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#172

Post by mclightning »

nscalf wrote: post #78

The real problem here is that hiring is a giant pain for both sides. In an ideal world, you would quickly quit that job and hop to another. If you didn't do that, they would quickly hire you and both sides would move on without much stress. But changing jobs/employees is a big deal involved insurance, retirement funds, dozens of hours of interviews over many weeks, etc. My advice for anyone in this spot is to quit qu…

I got a question. I started doing that about a year ago. One thing that worries me is how it looks on the CV, that you quit a job after a month or two.

Even worse, when you have more of those in there.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#173

Post by mooreds »

duxup wrote: post #109
mooreds wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss. Sure, but why? Why wouldn't you have a direct, honest conversation with your manager? I'll tell you why. Because it can be terrifying. You don't know how they will react, whether you'll be forced off interesting projects, put at the top of the layoff list, or similar. You can watch how they handle other situations and get an inkling, but you…

Maybe "communicating with your boss" is a skill folks need to be taught. Uncomfortable, scary, yup, but necessary.

Would love to read an article on this! Do you have any reading to recommend?

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#174

Post by topkai22 »

blululu wrote: post #63
buscoquadnary wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here. I realized long ago I should do whatever I can to the best of my ability. If my superiors want to do something stupid or use my skillet in a suboptimal way my responsibility is to do my best to council with them, share what I see and then do the best job I can at whatever I am assigned to, assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. My job is not my Identity we have an economic a…

You know who is going to be the first one fired and the last one promoted? The SWE who is being asked to do some bogus tasks that aren't even close to what they are capable of. In many cases you are in one way or another obligated to act as you suggest, but it is not always good for you personally and simply pretending that you aren't getting screwed is pretty naive. You often don't really have much of a choice in th…

I have a good friend who runs a smallish (100 person) company with about 30-40 (mechanical) engineers. One of their long-term custodians got ill for a long spell and so engineers were asked to take out their own trash. Some people just refused to do so, to the point it got smelly and affected the org. One of the execs got fed up and took all the smelly trash out herself one night and then started going around and individually directing the engineers in person to take out their trash when she thought it was too full. For the people who didn't take out the trash, it was considered in annual reviews.

Be thoughtful in what you evaluate as a "bogus" task. What is hard or complex isn't always what is important or noticed.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#175

Post by sam0x17 »

blululu wrote: post #63
buscoquadnary wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here. I realized long ago I should do whatever I can to the best of my ability. If my superiors want to do something stupid or use my skillet in a suboptimal way my responsibility is to do my best to council with them, share what I see and then do the best job I can at whatever I am assigned to, assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. My job is not my Identity we have an economic a…

You know who is going to be the first one fired and the last one promoted? The SWE who is being asked to do some bogus tasks that aren't even close to what they are capable of. In many cases you are in one way or another obligated to act as you suggest, but it is not always good for you personally and simply pretending that you aren't getting screwed is pretty naive. You often don't really have much of a choice in th…

If you're cleaning a fridge you're probably not working from home which means you're in the wrong place anyway imo.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#176

Post by vidarh »

jcadam wrote: post #135
bombcar wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will often be a small company/large company divide. If you started at a small company, you'll be used to doing all sorts of things "outside of your job description" (usually below) like restocking toilet paper, etc, simply because there is nobody else to do it. If you started at a large company, you'll likely be used to "you cannot whatsoever move your computer to the other side of your cubicle without contactin…

LOL, once spent a few days on SWE salary (along with a few other guys) physically moving server racks from one facility to another. Yes, small company. As a one-off that sort of stuff is fine.

I was the technical director at a place where I was on one hand responsible for the dev team, and second highest paid person after the managing director. On the other hand I was also the person who'd lug new servers into our racks when needed. Part of the fun is being able to be all over the place and have a hand in every pie. Downside is the times when you don't have a choice because there's nobody else with the right skills.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#177

Post by abrax3141 »

awestroke wrote: post #145
abrax3141 wrote: post #106

This simple equation will change your life: n=((y-1920)-a)/(0.25*a) where y is the current year (e.g., 2022), a is your age in years, and n is the number of careers you have ahead of you. Quit!

So in the year 3000, a 20-year old has over 200 careers ahead of them?

Yes.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#178

Post by malfist »

peteradio wrote: post #171
malfist wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure showed them! I bet that advance auto manager thought real hard about asking anybody else to....sweep. I'm glad you realized your hands were too important to be callused by a broom

Quite snarky, heres my story. Worked at a big box home improvement store as a 15 year old kid on checkout. Someone literally shit diarrhea all over the floor, the store manager asked literally everyone in the store to clean it up including me, everyone refused, he ended up cleaning it himself. Some things are not part of the job!!!

There's a difference between being asked to clean up potential biohazards and being asked to push a broom for a few minutes and up and ripping your shirt off and quitting over it.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#179

Post by ajkjk »

tomtheelder wrote: post #164
ajkjk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know that he was the boss and I'd do my best to accomplish anything he assigned me. Never understood this attitude. I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. He can ask around for other opinions so it's not just coming from me but it's a hard line. Of course this mostly works cause as…

> I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. The reason not to do this is that you're very likely to provoke a defensive response and have the other person dig in their heels. A gentler approach is more likely to get results, less likely to create tension in the relationship, and sets the tone of future decision making as adver…

Well the magnitude of your response should be calibrated to the magnitude of the grievance. A new boss coming in and changing everything in a way nobody signed up for or is on board with is very egregious, and I _will_ quit if they don't back down, so I'm going to tell them that. It's a statement of fact. If they don't stop, and I quit, and I didn't say that ahead of time, then I haven't communicated what I meant to.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#180

Post by mustafabisic1 »

Reminds me of a company I had the most fun working for.

One of the basic principle was you can only be world-class in your natural strengths.

Some of others were: - Try to ask why as less as possible as it's getting your rationalisations and emotional most of the time - Ask what might I do differently instead - Risk, trust, honesty triangle - These need to be equal at all times for teams to be effective - Never judge and never say bad/good. Works/doesn't work are alternatives

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