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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

#111

Post by shortstuffsushi »

sopooneo wrote: post #40
kyleblarson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me think of the Silicon Valley scene where the guys are just sitting on the roof "resting and vesting". "Lunch? Arby's on El Camino I'll drive. Nah let's walk it'll take longer."

My question for that situation is: why even show up? Is there some token importance to you coming through the front door every morning where failing to do so will get you fired thus eliminating your stock options?

At least in the case of the scene from the show, it's likely just for the sake of having people to spend this "dead" time with rather than being alone. Possibly also the latter as well, though.

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

#112

Post by SoftTalker »

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…

> Repeatedly, I pour my heart and soul into a project that I believe in, only for ownership to trash the project for superficial reasons.

This has happened to me over and over and I've seen it happen to others. It's not always obvious but sometimes business changes. Markets change, customer demands change, regulations change, competitors change. Strategies that made sense suddenly don't anymore. All the work that has been done is a sunk cost. You can't get it back, and if nobody wants the product anymore or it's not going to provide value, you just cut it off.

It sucks, but think about it, if you've been with the company 10 years and presumably they have been in business longer than that, they can't be complete idiots. Most small tech companies don't make it 10 years, or even close. Maybe the owners are assholes, but they are doing something right.

One thing that has helped is that I don't put my "heart and soul" into work projects anymore. I come in, work on the project in a professional, high-quality fashion, and go home at the end of the day. I get paid, and we're even. I've tried to make my relationship with work emotionless. It's a job. If you treat it like something deeply personal it's much more likely that you're going to end up angry or offended or taking business decisions by the owners as personal attacks.

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

#113

Post by hparadiz »

VLM wrote: post #102
hparadiz wrote: post #75

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"

The actual root of the problem is the employee's own thinking. They don't have the self respect to exit a bad situation. They are paralyzed by low self esteem, fear of the unknown, and seem to be content being in a bad situation. The reasons are readily unclear to the person experiencing this and so they continue to go through this. A therapist will simply ask pointed questions like "how do you feel about [topic]?" And "why do you think think you deserve [topic]?" The point is to get you to take action by making you gain perspective and depth of self emotional understanding. Sometimes firing someone is the best thing you can do for someone. Op is so used to authority that the prospect of quiting paralyzes them with fear. Meanwhile the person that job hopped for the past 10 years shrugs and moves on with life. I've quit toxic jobs with nothing new lined up and my ability to do so was entirely from my own self respect and confidence. Without that you may never even find your potential. Imagine the work experience this person never attained because they are stuck in a toxic environment. There are life time friends I never would have met if I stuck around that shitty job all those years ago.

It's no different than staying with an abuser.

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

#115

Post by didgetmaster »

itsoktocry wrote: post #10

Thanks for sharing. > Just doing nothing sounds awesome. It's not. It's crap. Yeah, this is something people don't realize until they're it in. It's not fun. Humans long to be needed. > but I didn't have the courage to jump This is one of those things I personally have trouble wrapping my head around, but I know it happens. Kudos for getting it done.

I am at the end of my career (already stopped working for someone else, just working on my own projects now) and as I look back at the various jobs I had; the ones that were engaging were also the most rewarding.

I had two short stints with government jobs (one working part-time while in college and once for a major defense contractor) and they were terrible. Strict rules prevented anyone from doing things that were fun and productive. At the end of the year, we once ran out of 'funded projects' and we were forced to work on trivial matters while tracking our time in 30 minute increments. It was painful to find a way to clean your desk for 2 hours. We would have a long meeting where nothing was really discussed just to have a few hours to charge to some check box item. This went on for several weeks.

The best jobs were the ones I had freedom to build what I though the customer wanted. I would sometimes work until 10pm not realizing that quitting time occurred hours earlier (I was still single at the time otherwise my wife would have interrupted).

Startups can be some of the best places to let your creative juices flow. They are not the most stable for guaranteed income, but they can be very rewarding in other ways.

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

#116

Post by JackFr »

sopooneo wrote: post #40
kyleblarson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me think of the Silicon Valley scene where the guys are just sitting on the roof "resting and vesting". "Lunch? Arby's on El Camino I'll drive. Nah let's walk it'll take longer."

My question for that situation is: why even show up? Is there some token importance to you coming through the front door every morning where failing to do so will get you fired thus eliminating your stock options?

I knew the head of a trading desk at a Wall St. bank. The bank wanted to fire him but didn’t want to pay his deferred compensation. He was not interested in “negotiating” - the money was his and they had no cause for termination. (The ultimate reason was that a new divisional head had come in and the two of them hated each other.) He had no trading authority, had his direct reports taken away from him and he was forbidden to speak to customers. He was the most cheerful guy in the world. He’d read the newspaper and then play video golf on his computer. My boss asked him why he bothered still coming in. He said his lawyer advised him to continue to come in, do everything asked (within reasonable constraints of his job title) and not to be disruptive. After about six weeks, they caved and paid him out.

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

#117

Post by j33zusjuice »

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…

The act of planning will make you feel better. Once you start believing that you have options, the stress reduces tremendously.

There’s a site called interviewing.io or something like that (I have no articulation, I stumbled on it a couple weeks ago), and you can pay $100 or something to have an hour and a half interview with some FAANG engineer on whatever topics you want.

The point is that there are resources all over the place to help get you out of your rut, even if you don’t have a good support system. And if a site like interviewing exists, there have got to be other resources that help with your specific issues. But at some point, you must take action.

It’s hard as hell, I know. I’ve tried to kill myself five times (turns out I’m horrible at suicide!), and a lot of my issues stemmed from a fucked up relationship with work and money, and that had a massive impact on my view of self. I grew up in a household where I felt I had to perform exceptionally well to be lovable (I was worthless beyond my output; if this resonates with anyone, look into “performance based love”), and I took that into work with me, and tech is awfully hard to be perfect in, and it’s impossible to be the “best” at it, so now I’m never good enough.

Eventually the walls start closing in on me, and I feel like I need to escape, but I’m terrible, so there’s no way out. I have to live in this confined and uncomfortable space because that’s what worthless people like me do. Every time I get to this point, I find the same solution: look for doors instead of focusing on the walls. Very hard to do, and even harder to keep on doing when you’ve been rejected a dozen times, but eventually a door will open, and you’ll be better off.

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

#118

Post by heywherelogingo »

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…

Ten years? If you can stick it out in that environment for that long then you have the backbone to handle all sorts of things - move on! When I'm in a horrid environment I dig deep to last just two years. I ran from my last place after one year, and lasting that long took some serious effort.

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

#119

Post by adra »

jeppine wrote: post #109
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 decid…

I mean, I don't blame the owner entirely. Maybe they're perfectly happy with what they have. If someone really knows their business well, maybe it isn't worth putting effort behind a brand new thing that customers couldn't give two flips for. If you aren't seeking new customers, there isn't a strong business appetite to innovate unless customers are complaining. If you're too eager for customers, you're probably putting too much emphasis on thin product feature checklists to sell sell sell! Somewhere in the middle is where I think the sweet spot is, and org that isn't comfortable with its market share but unwilling to throw caution to the wind in order to make every sale. That isn't exciting? Great, then find a company that better fits what you want in your career. Job/employment isn't always a good fit for what you're looking to fulfill in your career, and those are perfect opportunities to leave.
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