I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

This is sadly a lot more common than people think. I have a similar story from a prior employer, a system administrator who was often asked to fix problems usually caused by bad managerial decisions of which he always flagged initially as being problematic but nobody listened to him, even after it turned out he was right from the start, he was one of those guys who knew their shit. He was a really nice, quiet and reserved guy but I noticed over the space of 3 or so months his attitude towards work and the manager at the time started changing.

Not many people knew of his Twitter account, but I did. He would post crude remarks about the manager not listening to him and how he should be the manager, often using the initials of the manager when he insulted him to be careful and not be accused of slander I guess. I would often hear him in the office talking to himself, swearing under his breath and mashing his keyboard. You could tell it was getting to him. He was on-call 24/7 but apparently wasn't adequately paid the amount he should have been for someone who was expected to fix something at the drop of a hat.

One day he came in and sat at his desk refusing to do any work. He just sat there and then the manager confronted him and asked why he wasn't addressing his list of high priority tickets that he had and then the guy lost it. He didn't get violent, but he started yelling at the guy and the manager was a well-built guy (sorted of sounded and looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger) who I wouldn't even dare cross. After yelling he just walked out and never came back.

Of course my manager reported the incident to some higher-ups and then it was revealed a couple of days later he was in a mental hospital as he had a complete breakdown (he apparently drove himself there). I didn't know him that well, but I went and visited him after finding out where he was. He told me that it all built up; he was being blamed when things went wrong and weren't done on time and not being praised when things went right and were delivered within unrealistic time-frames. His girlfriend had also left him the day prior to the meltdown, he said she was unhappy because he was never home and when he was, he was always fixing something remotely or had to come in to fix something.

I have a feeling this kind of thing is a lot more common than we can imagine.

This is my biggest fear for myself.

Secret I ofund out myself is do not mix what you like to do with what you are paid to do. If you like your job fine, but remember you are paid the same. Many many companies will not reward that extra mile and many performance reviews are completely insulting as everybody gets the same % in so many companies and the variation between poor peope and good is probably an extra .5% pay rise.

So unless you are working for yourself, then work to rule will keep you sane. Use your hindsight to plan holidays, if managment don't listern in a timely manner about a potentual problem then just plan that week off down the line and let them suffer - sadly it is the only way you can stay sane and they can pay for there mistakes. Its hard out there, don't make it harder on yourself.

Employers, even the good ones, will put as much work on your plate as you can handle and then keep going. Systematically a workplace just isn't set up to help an employee handle stress, or even pay attention to an employee's stress level. They'll ask you to work overtime even if it is obviously killing you because that's just how the typical work environment is structured. Even moving higher up in the food chain, to be a producer or manager, doesn't change this.

You need only observe how many workplaces will let employees who are obviously sick with a cold/flu come in and work to understand how poorly most workplaces respond to an employee in trouble: They will not send someone home who is actively exposing coworkers to infectious diseases, so do you think they're going to notice if you're risking your health with stress? Sadly not.

So, as an employee, it's up to you: Pay attention to your stress level. If you aren't sleeping well, do something about it. If the stress is making you gain weight, do something about it. If you're having serious, serious problems, do something about it. You can't count on your employer to support you if shit hits the fan - even if it's their fault - because 99% of them won't. You have to be proactive.

You won't get promotions or raises for managing your own stress level and working reasonable hours, but you won't get promotions or raises for literally killing yourself either. So play it safe.

I can't make out what he was paid for "rushing things out." If it's the same as other programmers, then that reflects badly on the managers.

I've seen managers citing low profits for low salaries, but never want to give out the lion's share when the company turns huge profits. Then, programmers become cheap commodities who can be replaced. Cost is always the bare minimum you can get away with, regardless of the profits.

This is more prevalent more in the local corporate companies of my country than start ups.

I can't stress the importance of how some corporate managers hardly know anything about the technicalities, and end up agreeing to outrageous changes in the requirements. This is the problem in IT companies that engage purely in "pricing wars." And the thing is, most of these mangers don't even have the necessary communication skills, for that's all they have to do, right?