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Once they get an alternative system they are going to do away with you.
Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#22Count your blessings - you could've been laid off. Start looking for another job.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#23My sympathies, you've gotten a pretty raw deal. > I have to be always on-call so nothing fails. You have agency in where you set your boundaries with your employer, perhaps quite a lot more than you feel or have been exercising historically. Decide how much you on-call you are willing to do and don't do any more for free. E.g. if you're paid to work 40 hours per week, don't volunteer to donate another 20 hours of wor…
This is bad advice.. no point being macho here. OP unfortunately has no leverage.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#24My sympathies, you've gotten a pretty raw deal. > I have to be always on-call so nothing fails. You have agency in where you set your boundaries with your employer, perhaps quite a lot more than you feel or have been exercising historically. Decide how much you on-call you are willing to do and don't do any more for free. E.g. if you're paid to work 40 hours per week, don't volunteer to donate another 20 hours of wor…
This is bad advice.. no point being macho here. OP unfortunately has no leverage.
Don't they, though? They're the sole person who's been retained to maintain this product. Seems like management have worked themselves into a single point of failure, which in my experience has meant leverage for the individual.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#25Don't derive your self-worth from your job.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe in “stupid-job” land, your reputation doesn’t matter and it’s normal to light it on fire for a quick buck. After 5 years working in a very successful product line, core to the company This makes me think that what they do isn’t some “stupid job”. Not every subfield is massive with tons of nameless bosses and employers; sometimes people are really specialized. Word about shitty behavior spreads. Kinda like how w…
Remember when your parents and teachers and pastor told you about your "permanent record?" You can stop worrying about that now, it's a lie. Criminal record, yes. Credit record yes. What you did in school or at the last job... no. Most employers don't even check references. There's no equivalent of a job FICO score, no "blacklist" to get on. Sure, if you do something illegal or outrageous maybe you'll create problems…
I hate to say it but I wholeheartedly agree, haha.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe in “stupid-job” land, your reputation doesn’t matter and it’s normal to light it on fire for a quick buck. After 5 years working in a very successful product line, core to the company This makes me think that what they do isn’t some “stupid job”. Not every subfield is massive with tons of nameless bosses and employers; sometimes people are really specialized. Word about shitty behavior spreads. Kinda like how w…
Remember when your parents and teachers and pastor told you about your "permanent record?" You can stop worrying about that now, it's a lie. Criminal record, yes. Credit record yes. What you did in school or at the last job... no. Most employers don't even check references. There's no equivalent of a job FICO score, no "blacklist" to get on. Sure, if you do something illegal or outrageous maybe you'll create problems…
This person knows what they are talking about. This is what makes HN worth it.
After doom scrolling seeing some people pretending to be smart, you find a gem like this one.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Get over Worthlessness Feeling After Restructuring?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember when your parents and teachers and pastor told you about your "permanent record?" You can stop worrying about that now, it's a lie. Criminal record, yes. Credit record yes. What you did in school or at the last job... no. Most employers don't even check references. There's no equivalent of a job FICO score, no "blacklist" to get on. Sure, if you do something illegal or outrageous maybe you'll create problems…
> There's nothing immoral or wrong with quitting a job and offering your services to your former employer at a better rate. I don’t disagree with that. No one does. > Even massive frauds and failures like Adam Neumann and SBF get way more chances than they deserve, when everyone knows what they did. Are those supposed to be examples of people whose behavior we should emulate? Would you feel good about cheating and ly…
I don't read blackmail into that. I took it literally: quit the job and if/when they call tell them you're charging $500/hr. That's a high but not crazy high consulting rate.
If someone quitting their job, or just getting sick, means critical systems will fail, that says the management didn't bother planning to mitigate that risk -- they didn't manage, in other words. If business continuity depends on one or a few key employees never leaving that business needs more competent management.
As for Adam Neumann and SBF, I intended to make the point that despite a well-known history of fraud and behavior worse than quitting and charging $500/hr they got multiple chances. I could name many other examples of serial failures and scammers in the tech industry. I don't condone that behavior or propose we emulate it. I gave those examples to counter the argument that quitting and contracting back to an employer would somehow tarnish a reputation, or that our professional reputations even exist anywhere except our own imaginations, or that anyone will bother to check work history.
You specifically mentioned getting blacklisted. Who maintains that blacklist? Can you explain in an intellectually honest way what you mean by that?