How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one • Hacker News Board

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#121

Post by mellavora » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

throwaway823882 wrote: post #15

I have been one of the toxic persons in a workplace. I was young and immature and an ungrateful arrogant prick. Not saying I'm totally reformed now (I still have my moments!). But every so often I see a little former-me running around. After a certain point I stop them and ask them to please calm the fuck down, because they are acting fucking nuts. That can sometimes result in a 180-degree behavior change (especially…

Hey, thank you so much for having the self-reflection to be aware of this, and even more thanks for the courage to bring it out publicly like this.

We all have "our moments".

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#122

Post by lmilcin » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #112

lmilcin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this happen to me. Walked out after 2 months before completing 3 month trial period. I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it. He caused major outage when the code he developed and brought to the company as an asset failed. The code was to exchange SMS messages with an SMS gateway for Ukrainian operator. The messages were sent using mails. That was 15 years ago and not his fault,…

> - when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish). As an immigrant in Sweden, this is one of the instances where I'd love a name-and-shame (but it's just wishful thinking, I don't expect or really want you public shaming companies). Simply because I've heard this happening to other c…

I worked there on site for a 6 month (minus one day) contract as a developer with already couple of years of experience. But just before the end of my contract I have learned from couple of guys from support line that I am basically earning less than they earn manning the phone with no education, experience or technical knowledge.

So when the end of the contract came I met with my boss who also had ability to make sole decision and sign the contract. He explained that they would like to keep me and they will even give me raise.

But when I said the raise basically puts me on level with the phone desk and I suspect engineers earn a lot more he said that this is as much as I am going to get and I should be happy because as a Pole I am not going to get anything more than that. Those were his words.

I have not met any other form of discrimination from anybody in the company, peer or manager. It was fun working there and I befriended a lot of people, spent a lot of time being invited to parties, etc. But this one statement sealed it for me and I knew that I would never be happy there.

Now, I don't have time to make a shit storm out of this and I am too busy to have any publicity around me at the moment. So I am not going to name the company.

I am lucky to be a developer and basically be able to choose where and for whom I work, so this did not cost me a lot. But I understand most people are not so lucky and this amounts to exploitation.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#123

Post by lmilcin » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

Bayart wrote: post #113

lmilcin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this happen to me. Walked out after 2 months before completing 3 month trial period. I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it. He caused major outage when the code he developed and brought to the company as an asset failed. The code was to exchange SMS messages with an SMS gateway for Ukrainian operator. The messages were sent using mails. That was 15 years ago and not his fault,…

>- when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish). Were you living in Poland or Sweden ? I kinda get that they'd want to pay less if you were living in Poland, considering the cost of living, but in Sweden that'd be scummy as shit.

I moved to Stockholm for the duration of the contract.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#124

Post by JackPoach » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #119

JackPoach wrote: post #84

I haven't worked at many companies (only 4 during my 20+ years from late 90s until now) and while work at two was stressful (TV journalism and IT) with 'pushy' bosses, I've NEVER encountered any where the environment is truly toxic. And that includes working in different countries, private and public sector (University of California, for instance). I didn't hear too many horror stories either. However people keep tal…

> I haven't worked at many companies (only 4 during my 20+ years from late 90s until now) You admit to this and then asks how you didn't see or hear more about it? I worked for 8 companies in the past 16 years, across 2 different countries. From these 8 I'll exclude 2 of them that were very early-stage startups I joined to help some former colleagues or friends (the experience was great nonetheless but not representa…

That's very interesting, because some of your examples do seem toxic or borderline toxic, but some do not. Let's take verbal and physical abuse. Can you tell me specifically what was said? Same with physical abuse. There's no excuse for getting physical, unless there's a reason why force had to be used. For instance, at one corporate party one of co-workers got really drunk and pushed another co-worker (a woman) during dancing. The push looked mostly accidental, but the other person nearly fell down, so a bunch of guys had to physically restrict the drunk guy. We forced him into a taxi and took him to a hotel. Next day the guy sobered up and apologized for his behavior and left company/got fired (not sure) soon after. I've seen the entire with my own eyes, but I wouldn't say this is an example of 'toxic workplace', because the company is great and when you have hundreds of people attending a Christmas party, some guys and gals will get drunk and do stupid things. And when drunk people do stupid dangerous things, you have to apply physical force and/or call the police. Also, I've seen two teams working on the same problem exactly for the reason you describe - see who does it better and faster. And the winning team then takes the entire project over. I don't see how it's toxic in any way. Same with other example you have. I absolutely hate micromanagement and has experienced it before multiple times. I think it's stupid and counterproductive but I've never seen it become toxic. Office politics? Happens in every large organization and is inevitalble. Not necessarily toxic, unless you consider that any city hall or local government politics is toxic by default.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#125

Post by robjan » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:35 AM UTC

MrFoof wrote: post #4

Imagine going into an environment suffering some serious performance issues adversely affecting the day-to-day operations of the business. From initial conversations it seems great. You're asked about how you'd handle, "difficult personalities" a fair bit, but aside from that, seems like you can add a ton of value. In your first days, you exhaustively quantitatively measure the entire operating environment, prioritiz…

This happens when a high performer enters an environment of low performers. They know there was a reason for you being hired and feel threatened.

In my experience, the best approach isn't to attempt to change the world immediately but to head straight for the most important decision maker and point out the problems with concrete solutions. If it doesn't work, resign. Eventually they will get the picture but a high performing new hire shouldn't have to suffer.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#126

Post by __exit__ » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:45 AM UTC

genezeta wrote: post #116

MrFoof wrote: post #4

Imagine going into an environment suffering some serious performance issues adversely affecting the day-to-day operations of the business. From initial conversations it seems great. You're asked about how you'd handle, "difficult personalities" a fair bit, but aside from that, seems like you can add a ton of value. In your first days, you exhaustively quantitatively measure the entire operating environment, prioritiz…

I walked into a weird job environment not long ago. First couple days were not that bad. Not particularly good, but nothing too bad. Like people weren't too friendly but neither too hostile. There was, though, some casual heated discussion here and there. As I met some people more closely I began to see a trend: Everybody hated almost everybody else. One developer openly told me in our first conversation something li…

Wow, 1.5 years of bearing such daily situations, that is something I find impressive given the anecdotes you described. I would probably not have lasted than long in such an environment.

Good for you to leave that place at last. Hope you found a much more better environment!

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#127

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC

qftw wrote: post #101

imperialdrive wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continued: (Was on-site earlier and didn't have time to type the rest as, crazy enough, this was just the beginning of what turned into years of encounters) Before I could react to the printer landing at feet (I was frozen) he yelled almost exactly "Don't you ever fucking walk into my office like that again, G T F O" so I slowly stepped out and shut the door. As I said, it (door) was cracked open, and the entire fron…

Why don't we mandate Huxley's Soma for everyone so all anger is suppressed at all times? Really, this obsessive hunting for displays of anger and ruining people's lives over it and the Schadenfreude makes me wonder who the actual psychopaths are.

[deleted]

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#128

Post by whywhywhywhy » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

goatinaboat wrote: post #63

diragon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've seen a grown man, extremely well educated, data scientist make a fellow data scientist cry. I've. Seen. Things. Data scientists seem to be on a level of their own when it comes to disrespecting colleagues. I've been surprised by this recently.

Data scientists seem to be on a level of their own when it comes to disrespecting colleagues. I've been surprised by this recently. Pretty much every developer, when brought in as a replacement, will bad-mouth their predecessor, say their code is junk and needs to be totally rewritten, etc. Managers love it and encourage it, to them it's a divide and conquer tactic. Data scientists just take it to the next level, tha…

I call it The Eternal Refactor. Gets completely absurd if you're at the same company over 5 years or so and have seen 3 or more groups of devs blame all the issues of the software on the previous tech choices and their preference will solve all the issues and a rewrite is the only way forward yet every time when the rewrite is done and the thing is maybe 10% better at best but has new issues from the rewrite the team begins to cycle out and the process begins again.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#129

Post by dijksterhuis » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:58 AM UTC

pbourke wrote: post #94

imperialdrive wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first day of work many many years ago I did the usual (for me at least) and stopped by each office (before open floorplans were widespread) to introduce myself. The very first office the door was cracked so I knocked and slowly opened it a bit more to give a friendly "hello" and the guy immediately grabbed his desktop inkjet printer (one of those old half dome Epsons) and hurled it at me, crashing at my feet due t…

Earlier in my career: Some dude got up, smashed his keyboard on the side of his desktop causing a spray of key caps across the open plan office. Picked up his stuff and left. He was back the next day like nothing had happened.

This dude is my hero.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#130

Post by one2three4 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:16 AM UTC

MrFoof wrote: post #4

Imagine going into an environment suffering some serious performance issues adversely affecting the day-to-day operations of the business. From initial conversations it seems great. You're asked about how you'd handle, "difficult personalities" a fair bit, but aside from that, seems like you can add a ton of value. In your first days, you exhaustively quantitatively measure the entire operating environment, prioritiz…

I'm sorry but I don't share your sentiment here. You were asked a fair bit about difficult personalities. That is you were warned as much as HR could warn you. And then you jump into the role totally oblivious to that aspect and you go about focusing only on engineering. I mean, and it's typical for engineers, there are _always_ way more moving parts in businesses than machines. But you always focus there and take pride of it. Yet, the most difficult challenges are people - not machines. So, you did effectively nothing to detect where the people problem lied and prepare the ground to deal with that as well. And when that blew in your face you just left and say the story like there was nothing you could do about it.