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How I survived being a $220k/year intern

matt.sh

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Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#121

Post by zaksoup »

> That’s okay though, just hand off the company to your bloated, slovenly, zero-posture assistant whose name literally means “I’m going to rip you off.”

This is where I got lost. I worked at Pivotal from 2014 to 2017. There's a lot I can say about Rob Mee but this is just a bizarre and wrong attack given that he 1) Founded Pivotal labs and lead it through the EMC Acquisition, 2) Was responsible for creating a first-tier services company with a name to rival Thoughtworks and a reputation that to this day bumps my resume to the top of many recruiters' lists by virtue of just seeing "Pivotal" on it.

Edit: Quote from one of the prior posts in this "series".

> Future employers judge you on your past employment. Having any extended tenure at Pivotal on your CV is a negative mark against you.

I have absolutely not had this experience. None of my former coworkers have had this experience.

On the other hand, people who write blog posts like these... might have this experience.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#123

Post by [deleted] »

aprdm wrote: post #93
HarryHirsch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rachel had something about fixing corporate culture recently (hint: you can't), and sometimes really you can't leave. Some are shackled to their jobs through their visa, others because of healthcare needs (their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member), and others because of the nature of the industry (university faculty comes to mind, especially post-2008). The fact that you…

The concept of fixing corporate culture seems like a weird one, if you remove corporate and go for the generic term, can you "fix culture"? I think what you can do is influence the culture of a company and reap the rewards, having done the devops transformation in two difference companies that were deemed unfixable (both more than 4 offices and 3k people) I feel it is very doable! It just takes time and it is not an…

[deleted]

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#124

Post by qznc »

mamcx wrote: post #52

If anyone is tired of getting $220k/year, i could take it!. --- I think sometimes developers have drink so hard the kool aid of changing the world and all that, and if is not happening, then get sad. But why? Maybe because I have a long time in this industry, but this is what I do: If see an opportunity to improve things (without need to convince others) I do. If need to convince others, and succeed, great. If not, b…

Doing meaningful work and getting respect for it are important aspects of job satisfaction. The author seems to be offended for not getting that.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#125

Post by 76543210 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #60
tracerbulletx wrote: post #11

I don't understand people who write things like this. If you're unhappy leave, if you think the corporate culture is wrong, either participate in fixing it, or get out. I honestly can't stand people who self righteously sound the alarm about how they can see all of the things wrong with everybody else. It sounds especially childish when you are making so much money.

Rachel had something about fixing corporate culture recently (hint: you can't), and sometimes really you can't leave. Some are shackled to their jobs through their visa, others because of healthcare needs (their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member), and others because of the nature of the industry (university faculty comes to mind, especially post-2008). The fact that you…

>their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member

At 200k per year, you can buy Obamacare which is 6k per year and for an individual 6k max out of pocket.

So many people are fooled into thinking their companies health insurance is worth something beyond 12k/yr. And that 12k is firefighters union tier.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#127

Post by robocat »

_bxg1 wrote: post #114
meowface wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read it as bitterness over his personal situation. Clearly it was pretty comfortable for him. It seemed to me more like bewilderment and amusement over the whole Kafkaesque abomination. If I were in his position, I would've kept taking the paycheck without complaints, but once I was no longer there, I'd definitely consider writing something like this.

The fact that he turned down $50k to write this post makes me think it's more than just out of amusement

If he had another job lined up, the $50k was $0. He wrote about the other conditions which you are ignoring.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#128

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

traitsnspecs wrote: post #106

The interesting thing to me is that they had an open-source support business getting requests to buy their services, which the salesmen dropped because it wasn't the most lucrative deal they could be doing. But presumably there's a viable business in that particular type of support.

In my experience, those kinds of support contracts are mostly valuable (and mostly intended to be valuable) as a way to shove your foot in the door at large companies. Often they're not valued at all, and exist just as a legacy from when the company was younger and any sale was a good sale. It's not surprising to me that an incoming lead whose first question is "what are your prices" would be considered a waste of time.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#129

Post by jchmbrln »

GuiA wrote: post #73
kaiabwpdjqn wrote: post #10

I find this post to be relatively unimpressive. He spends a great amount of time complaining about how the company was shit in a way that implies he was personally offended, but the title says he got a generous salary for little expected work. It’s not clear to me why he is bitter about anything. I have no doubt that the company was genuinely poorly run. His observations about problems in the sales culture are likely…

The author is experiencing cognitive dissonance because he was expecting professional life to push him to his limits, in an environment designed for maximal productivity and innovation, working with people who care about doing the best work of their life. A lot of overachievers in school have that outlook. There are some jobs that are like this, but they are very few and far between. There are far more companies that…

Thank you for saying this. It’s much-needed food for thought in my current situation.
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