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Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

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Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#101

Post by maerF0x0 »

justin_oaks wrote: post #88
maerF0x0 wrote: post #57

> having to be "present" with nothing to actually do but make some some BS stuff to appear busy. In the past I've used these kinds of situations for personal development. Linkedin learning, oreily, certifications, youtube tech talks etc. No one has complained about it yet. /shrug

I would like to use the time for open source development. I get to learn and make things that would actually help people. That said, I don't think I'd do it because of the risk of producing software that may be company property since it was done on company time and on company hardware.

I agree that's a risk. However you likely can do soft forms of development on company time such as reading documentation and code, pruning / responding to issues...

Additionally it's going to be hard to argue against(or sue) if you're improving a FOSS that your company depends on and benefits from a feature you add.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#102

Post by VLM »

hparadiz wrote: post #75
cpsns wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

This entire thread is a cry for help and yet the thing that would probably actually treat the problem is being dismissed. Just say you don't wanna do the work and stop making excuses. It's like complaining that going running could cause you to sprain your ankle when a doctor tells you to run for the health of your heart. Until you try it you have no idea what's gonna happen. Instead you do nothing paralyzed by inacti…

Treat the symptom, technically.

The problem is a toxic working environment.

The meta problem is handwaving away too many toxic working environments with "the root cause of the problem is solved because the victims can get therapy"

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#103

Post by gallerdude »

29athrowaway wrote: post #15
tfrutuoso wrote: post #6

I'm there now. The endless cycle of staring at the bedroom ceiling trying to muster the will to get out of bed, the anger at the existencial inertia, the tiny voice inside my head that says "jump" while staring at the abyss. Glad to see you made it out, guess there's still hope out there.

[flagged]

I hate that this became an insult. Therapy can be a really useful thing for a lot of people. I don’t know why some people need to punch down at people who are already hurt.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#104

Post by gaoshan »

I get what OP is saying with something like "... having to be "present" with nothing to actually do but make some some BS stuff to appear busy." and once was in a similar situation for a brief period. What I ended up doing was completely focusing on my own development. Using my time to explore technologies, tools and ideas that I was interested in. It really boosted my skillset and I was able to leverage that to improve my career. Once I was in the correct mindset it was liberating... I was being reasonably well paid to explore and teach myself whatever I liked.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#105

Post by siliconsorcerer »

proee wrote: post #25

If you are in a large company and don't have a good relationship with your boss or department, one good option is to network with other people/departments in the company and find a cool project to work on. It's super easy for HR to approve internal transfers since you are already past all the new hire paperwork. When I was an intern at a large company, I rotated through a TON of departments until I found what I liked…

+1 for rotating within large companies. finding the right team at a large company can make all the difference, at least it did for me.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#106

Post by Dr_ReD »

I discovered that, in real life, it doesn't pay to be too agreeable. Sometimes enough is enough and dwelling too much on it will just hurt you. So you're right: though you admittedly ended up in a good place, you've lost opportunities by biding too long.

Congrats for the new career. Enjoy, and the take hard the lesson with you. :) You paid for it, after all.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#107

Post by no_butterscotch »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #51

Thank you for sharing. I can relate. This is my first “real” full time job, and I’ve now been there 10 years with little to show for it, and not for lack of trying. Software engineer for a small company, report directly to the owners. Repeatedly, I pour my heart and soul into a project that I believe in, only for ownership to trash the project for superficial reasons. I’ll do small things and get overly patronizing p…

> My self esteem is terrible and I haven’t left for fear that I won’t be able to “make it” anywhere else, paralyzed by the fear of ending up unemployed.

> I’m angry that I have a 10 year career full of ambition that went absolutely nowhere, I want to leave, but it’s scary.

> Your story gave me a great boost of encouragement to start seriously planning my exit.

I worked for a shit software company in the midwest for a few years after graduating. I also felt scared I wouldn't be able to make it. I eventually landed a job in SF and learned my value as an engineer.

But I suspect a lot of people have similar stories to this.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#108

Post by steveBK123 »

Having nothing to do at work is its own form of torture. If you have to be available and connected, or much worse - physically in the office, for the full normal work day, it is torture. Once you've gone through the ceremony of getting ready for work, commuting, and being the building.. you might as well have something to do.

Another a second form of torture in this category is being treated like your app/role is being dead-ended, but also everything you are working on is super urgent permanent fire drill mode. Usually this is some flavor of an app being deemed "legacy" and most of the staff being moved to "the new thing" which is perpetually 5 years behind schedule. Someone once remarked that "legacy" is often better known as "production". So while you are told all about how your team/app is going away, there's nowhere for the users to go, so you are fielding the brunt of overnight pages, mid-day fire drills, etc.

Lastly, I can relate to "Recovery will take time but at least I know I wont get verbally berated every time something isn't perfect." I had two bosses like this in my career, and the behavior it encourages is for everyone to keep their head down and have sloppy shoulders. Don't be proactive, only do the immediate task requested of you because it minimizes the amount of things that could get you screamed at.

These guys are harder to screen for than you'd imagine, as both of them could turn it on & off, and appear as the nicest guys in the room, especially at the pub.

For me, all three are a form of feeling helpless and having lost agency.. which is what drives the most anxiety for me. Changing jobs every 4-5 years allows one to minimize their time in these situations as they occur.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#109

Post by jeppine »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #51

Thank you for sharing. I can relate. This is my first “real” full time job, and I’ve now been there 10 years with little to show for it, and not for lack of trying. Software engineer for a small company, report directly to the owners. Repeatedly, I pour my heart and soul into a project that I believe in, only for ownership to trash the project for superficial reasons. I’ll do small things and get overly patronizing p…

Unfortunately, I feel that this is quite common in small businesses. I put in the same 10 years that you did, and would constantly propose large improvements to the owners. They were almost always shot down, and just result in me having to deal with the same problems.

Most of the time, I feel that it is just the owner’s fear of losing control of some part of their business. Sometimes it’s just fear of change.

I decided to go into a different career path entirely and am working for myself now. It has helped my mental state incredibly.

I know it is scary, but sometimes you just have to take the leap.

Best of luck with your plans.

Re: Tell HN: Sometimes you don't realise how bad something is until you leave

#110

Post by scroot »

> Just doing nothing sounds awesome. It's not. It's crap. Imagine having to sit at a workstation for months and years, having to be "present" with nothing to actually do but make some some BS stuff to appear busy. Even doing training courses and such becomes boring after a while. It was a kind of mental prison and my boss truly didn't give a flying you-know-what. Imagine having nothing in your week to justify the normal desire to do something useful. I even wrote scripts to make life better but my boss wouldn't consider them because I wrote them.

Paging the soul of David Graeber. Graeber: we've got another data point.

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