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The Enterprise Experience

churchofturing.github.io

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Re: The Enterprise Experience

#21

Post by kimixa »

9dev wrote: post #19
i_love_retros wrote: post #8

Also if your preferred method of non urgent communication is message based such as slack, good luck in an enterprise. Sure you'll get messages, but every one will be "quick call?"

I do this in a startup. Mostly when we have an ongoing conversation and it gets too tedious to explain something elaborate in text, when we could just talk it over and maybe share the screen or look at something together. I get the text-based communication preference, but I’ll stand by calls being far more efficient sometimes.

I generally like text even if it might take slightly longer to communicate, as it can then be referred back to later easily, and often the mental effort and time required to put it into words in the first place often means you have a clearer mental model of what you're trying to convey in the first place.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#22

Post by time0ut »

It hurt to read this. I have seen all of this and more.

  - Teams that produce negative output for years with no consequence
  - Six figure monthly AWS bills on unused resources
  - Technical people who can't use a computer
  - Constant re-orgs and turn over
Wait until this guy experiences the wrath of big consultants...

It is hell, but it pays. I get my fulfillment building my own things outside of work and dream of the day I can escape.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#23

Post by BrenBarn »

Always worth keeping in mind Remy's Law of Enterprise Software (https://thedailywtf.com/articles/graceful-depredations): if a piece of software is in any way described as being “enterprise”, it’s a piece of garbage.

Joking aside, I was intrigued by the list of good things at the end of the post. Some I could understand, but some seemed to fall into that strange category of things that people say are good but really seem only to lead to more of the things they say are bad. In this list we have:

> There are actual opportunities for career development.

Does "career development" just mean "more money"? If so, why not just say "there are opportunities to make more money"? If not, what is "career development" that is not just becoming more deeply buried in an organization with the various dysfunctions described in the rest of the post?

> It's satisfying to write software used by millions of people.

Is it still satisfying if that software is bad, or harms many of those people?

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#24

Post by time0ut »

i_love_retros wrote: post #8

Also if your preferred method of non urgent communication is message based such as slack, good luck in an enterprise. Sure you'll get messages, but every one will be "quick call?"

If it is a higher up, someone I am actively working with, or someone I know well, then I take the "quick call". Otherwise, I push back and ask them to write out their question somehow.

This ends up a few outcomes, usually positive:

  - They give up (pretty common)
  - Writing it down helps them to answer the question themselves
  - I can directly answer with a response or link to the relevant docs
  - We have an actual agenda for the meeting they want to have

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#26

Post by or_am_i »

i_love_retros wrote: post #8

Also if your preferred method of non urgent communication is message based such as slack, good luck in an enterprise. Sure you'll get messages, but every one will be "quick call?"

It sucks when your communication preferences are overridden! To be fair though, many valid reasons to prefer a quick call over a message (a potentially infinite sequence of messages, really). Even on the receiving end of a request: perhaps I want to poke around the context behind their non-urgent ask, like what they are _actually_ trying to achieve, why not do X instead etc. -- often easier to call and solve all the follow-up questions interactively on the spot.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#27

Post by Trasmatta »

gherkinnn wrote: post #9

I can't handle such organisations. I simply cannot. I don't care if they pay 3x, they break me within a few months.

Sometimes I consider optimizing for money, and getting a much higher paying job at $ENTERPRISE, then peacing out once I have enough saved for an extended sabbatical. But just the thought of going through the interviewing hazing ritual takes the wind out of my sails immediately.

I'm currently at $MIDSIZENOLONGERSTARTUP, which incidentally has its own slew of insane and draining things that are breaking me in its own way.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#28

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

Missing

- new leadership will push out the old guard and replace them with friends

- groups get renamed for the Nth time in N years. People continue to do the same job, but now the department has an additional "Innovation", "Discovery", or "Leadership" inserted into the title

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#29

Post by beering »

BrenBarn wrote: post #23

Always worth keeping in mind Remy's Law of Enterprise Software ( https://thedailywtf.com/articles/graceful-depredations ): if a piece of software is in any way described as being “enterprise”, it’s a piece of garbage. Joking aside, I was intrigued by the list of good things at the end of the post. Some I could understand, but some seemed to fall into that strange category of things that people say are good but really…

> Does "career development" just mean "more money"?

Big companies means more opportunities to lead bugger project. At a big company, it’s not uncommon to in-house what would’ve been an entire startup’s product. And depending on the environment, you may work on several of those project over the course of a few years. Or if you want to try your hand at leading bigger teams, that’s usually easier to find in a big company.

> Is it still satisfying if that software is bad, or harms many of those people?

There’s nothing inherently good about startups and small companies. The good or bad is case-by-case.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#30

Post by al_borland »

time0ut wrote: post #22

It hurt to read this. I have seen all of this and more. - Teams that produce negative output for years with no consequence - Six figure monthly AWS bills on unused resources - Technical people who can't use a computer - Constant re-orgs and turn over Wait until this guy experiences the wrath of big consultants... It is hell, but it pays. I get my fulfillment building my own things outside of work and dream of the day…

I don’t have the energy to build anything outside of work. I spend all of my free time trying to mentally recover. I’m left drained after work. If I’m going to do extra “work”, I always think I should do more work stuff, to attempt to get ahead on some project and reduce the stress of things than have been hanging over my head.

The only time this shifts is when I have a couple weeks off. During that period I will inevitably start some kind of project, but I have to keep it small, because I know it will die as soon as I start back to work again.

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