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In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

wqtz.bearblog.dev

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Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#91

Post by videogreg93 »

mnky9800n wrote: post #76
alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

I think it’s also possible to build relationships with people based on potential. Not every superstar was born that way. Most of them had help along the way.

Not being a rock star but showing potential is great. But there are some people who are allegedly always busy, in over their head, etc. And these are the type of people I agree that should be avoided. I've found that more often than not these people are always wasting time in meetings, chatting it up, only to complain about lack of time 1 hour later.

I'm not saying don't socialize and just work ; you just need to balance the two.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#92

Post by baketnk »

motorest wrote: post #89
alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

> The stress comes from people who are bad at what they do and are trying to make it someone else's problem. There's some irony in the way you try to pin the blame on a third-party, and while trying to denigrate it too. I think it warrants some soul searching. I mean, would you feel stressed if you had to endure a team member who threw blanket accusations at your competence and in the process blamed you for causing g…

you have no idea how luxury this belief is.

having been the guy fixing the third party's bugs at almost every position, i side with the parent.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#93

Post by alphazard »

fads_go wrote: post #79
alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

> And the other is about keeping a polite distance to prevent repeated interactions. or, the other is about providing them the vision and the clear set of steps. Then checking their progress along those steps. (including revising the steps when the original plan diverges from the evolving reality). Training and mentoring the people so they can become rock stars.

This comment and a sibling both brought up the issue of less experienced people and mentorship, which is important to clarify.

Some incompetence is a known quantity, and when it is known it will not produce stress. The junior dev on the team might not know how to do something. The team leadership should already have priced that in, and have a plan to help them if need be. If the junior dev's incompetence is creating stress, the root cause is leadership incompetence.

The kind of incompetence that produces stress is incompetence that is too impolite to mention. It can't be addressed through "mentorship" or "working together" because that would call the legitimacy of the role and the person filling it into question. Engineering managers who don't understand engineering, product managers who don't understand the product, etc. The list is long, and examples are common. The organization is built around the assumption that these people can do things that they are unable to do. That mismatch is the origin of stress.

Investing time in the 1st kind of incompetence is a good investment because you will get a good return on your time invested. The junior dev with potential becomes the rock star. The 2nd kind of incompetence is often "Throwing good money after bad". These situations are not worth your time. There is unlikely to be an improvement, and you risk it backfiring especially if the problem is above you in the org chart.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#97

Post by pm90 »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #60
jon-wood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a degree to which this is true, I wouldn't walk into an interview and immediately start slagging off my old employer, but if you're interviewing me and get all worked up when I say bad things about them in answer to the question "why are you leaving your current job" that's on you and I won't regret not getting the job.

That's your choice. It's not a bad idea to answer "why are you leaving your current job" with "i'm looking for greater opportunities to [the opposite of why you are leaving your job]" and people can read between the lines AND have less of the concerns they would if you went guns blazing on the bridges behind you

You can be honest about why your previous employer wasn’t the right fit without burning bridges. I really dislike all of this “reading between the lines” aren’t Americans supposed to be direct?

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#98

Post by pm90 »

pydry wrote: post #63
watwut wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newsflash, people looking for a job were either fired or unhappy about something. The insistence on hearing only pleasurable falsehoods is not healthy.

The culture is unhealthy but unless you are in a position of power you have to play along.

Disagree. Change can start with anyone. Often its inspiring to see someone buckle the trend and “be real”.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#99

Post by [deleted] »

Magmalgebra wrote: post #45
kentrado wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying it is better if the candidate lies. Otherwise you will be forced to reject him because there might be a possibility that the problem was him. Seems like you are hiring the best liars. Or at least the best at playing an arbitrary game of saying and not saying the correct things that won't trigger a rejection. At this point, are you even needed? Maybe we could replace the interview process with a lott…

> So you are saying it is better if the candidate lies. This is a toxic framing of an essential test. Constructing polite fictions is an essential skill for collaboration - no less essential than coding. Saying you're leaving in part because "your vision for the product has drfted from leadership's" tells me you probably think they were a pack of moronic baboons and that if you feel that way about some of your future…

[deleted]

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#100

Post by toast0 »

alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

In my experience there's several types of work stress in software.

One is people / process stress; related to the steps needed to get work done, including approvals and negotiations to decide what to do.

Another is operational stress; related to keeping a service running; some of that can be people or process stress, but if your service is growing rapidly it might just be organic operational stress.

There's also the stress of getting the work done in a reasonable time.

Some people are better at managing the different kinds of stress.

Anyway, I think the moral of the post is when you rage quit, say "fuck this shit, I quit" rather than "fuck you all, I quit" ... keep the rage pointed at the system rather than the people :P Unless it's just like one person who is really intent on making your job hell. You might be able to get away with singling out one person, rather than doing the Oprah thing and "everybody look under your chair, you get a fuck you" :P

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