The title should be "I Knew a Programmer that was manipulated by his management into frustration until his confidence broke."
I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
71–80 of 336 posts
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#72Is it an american thing that workers do free overtime? I live in Sweden and I know NO ONE that stays late without being compensated either with money or shorter days later in the month.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#73There are at least 3 posts from hellbanned users there, defending sanity of that programmer.
Stigmatisation at work. :-(
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly it is more common than people even think. Oddly enough it is always the ones that are most productive and I know from personal experience you can clear 200 tickets in a week and somebody doing the same job and paid more gets thru that in a year and you are the one being shafted as you spend your time doing the work instead of office politics.
Perhaps, instead of seeing your job as "what the job description says", you should see it as "whatever actually gets me rewarded." Which is to say, at some companies, playing office politics is your real job. "Work" is just a signal you can emit to show that you are willing to submit enough to not get fired.
Accusing politics of being the downfall of some enterprise is a highly purist position. Politics is usually meant as "things that aren't coding that I don't like". Even political virtuosos still accuse blame politics when convenient.
I have seen politics kill someone's work and I have seen a project launch by doing nothing but working away and submitting their end product to flabbergasted responses. But it's rarely so simple.
If you don't understand what's going on and blame politics, you are living in a foreign land and don't understand the language. If you understand and don't try to ensure your voice is heard and respected, you don't understand the customs. If you don't understand the language and customs, you're at the nations mercy.
But fundamentally if you view it as opposed to work you'll rarely succeed in the best outcome even if you do strike a balance.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> let them suffer I agree to that. If management doesn't feel pain of its mistakes it does not have an incentive to improve.
This is going to sound insulting and I don't mean it that way, but does anyone ever wonder about the fact that managers are frequently considerably less intelligent than the people they manage? I think that's what drives the frustration a lot of the time. The thing is, just because they're less intelligent doesn't mean they're not good managers, but it think it certainly makes it a lot harder for programmers, who are…
The fact of the matter is that a lot of technical people who are geniuses technically do not have the qualities necessary to be good managers. Good managing requires ability to communicate up, down, and across the corporate hierarchy and the political minefield that comes with it.
Good managers will balance out good technical people in terms of skillset, and help their team to do their job, while also coaching them in the areas where they are weak (and if the manager is weak technically, then obviously technical coaching is not in scope). Good managers will filter what reaches inside their team from the outside and protect their team from crap while captaining the ship forward. They know their weaknesses and also know that good leadership requires hiring people who are smarter than you are, and then helping to facilitate the magic that can happen when good people get together.
Having managers who are strong both technically and in a business sense is rare. There are only so many Elon Musks in the world. But when you work with one, your work becomes very enjoyable.
At the end of the day, team members don't have visibility as to what managers do every day. This blog is great for understanding this stuff: http://randsinrepose.com
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#76This is sad, but it's also plain old human psychology. If you help someone out, you put yourself in an inferior position. If you're always the one sacrificing yourself, people around you will feel more and more superior to you. At some point, they will start expecting that you sacrifice yourself whenever shit hits the fan. This doesn't mean it's bad to help out, or to sacrifice yourself once in a while. But in order…
> If you help someone out, you put yourself in an inferior position. What? This doesn't make sense. When you help someone out, you are putting that person in an inferior position. Does a beggar feel superior to you because you tossed him a quarter?
Who is getting their work done, with least effort?
They are. They are using your experience to complete one of their objectives, with less effort for themselves.
What about your objectives? Well, if you are measured on helping other people complete their objectives, then it's neutral, you both meet objectives. But if you are not, if you have your own piece of work that needs to advance, then you're pushing back the completion of your objectives.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#77Has anyone read The Bug (http://www.amazon.com/The-Bug-Ellen-Ullman/dp/B000HWYPSE/ref...)? After reading it and experiencing all kinds of work environments, I can see how a person's sanity is tested.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#78This 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 res…
Waaaaaay before all this you should find another place to work...
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#79(Generalisation Warning) This is the dark side of the (otherwise desirable) trait of "getting things done" as employee. I you don't actively manage your working hours and hold yourself back , somebody else will suck you out until you have nothing left. At the end, you will be very unsatisfied for some obscure reason: You did everything you was asked for, yet somehow noone appreciates you and you still earn entry-leve…
For developers who are good at "getting things done" - they should really look forward to building a career as independent developers. Some people just don't care to manage other people and deal with their peculiarities (I 'm one of them) . The few developers that i knew who were really good at getting things done, they still do the bulk of the work in the same companies. Despite being given "senior" titles, i wouldn't like to be in their position. You are supposed to use your work to learn, then move on.
Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> let them suffer I agree to that. If management doesn't feel pain of its mistakes it does not have an incentive to improve.
This is going to sound insulting and I don't mean it that way, but does anyone ever wonder about the fact that managers are frequently considerably less intelligent than the people they manage? I think that's what drives the frustration a lot of the time. The thing is, just because they're less intelligent doesn't mean they're not good managers, but it think it certainly makes it a lot harder for programmers, who are…
It's a popular saying around these parts (as in the startup community) that you should hire people smarter than you. It seems like having managers less intelligent than their direct reports would be a sign that the company is applyig that rule well...