Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

wqtz.bearblog.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 229 posts

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#121

Post by jollyllama »

throw4847285 wrote: post #108
alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

I've worked with many people like you, and I can say from experience that they are never as competent as they think they are. Often they are quite competent, and yet somehow they still overestimate their own skills and make life harder for everybody. The type of person in question can be understood as somebody who equates technical skill with "not needing help." It's implicit in your post. Your mythical rock stars ar…

Indeed. Completely absent from the calculus are those who are glaringly ignorant as to their lack of knowledge or skill yet nevertheless supremely confident, and unchecked, will happily blaze a trail of carnage as far as they can travel.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#122

Post by gopher2000 »

barbazoo wrote: post #80
alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

> The stress comes from people who are bad at what they do and are trying to make it someone else's problem. They don't have vision for how they will accomplish what is asked of them. In their imagination, there is not a clear set of steps that can be burned down over the coming days and weeks to arrive at something of value. In their minds it is all chaos and uncertainty and they are desperate for the assurance of s…

Everyone: "Other people are so bad at what they do. Not me though"

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#123

Post by dpe82 »

This reminds me of a research study Google conducted on itself some years ago asking the question: “What makes a team effective at Google?”. They found the most important to be psychological safety.

https://rework.withgoogle.com/en/guides/understanding-team-e... https://archive.is/fFEgI

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#124

Post by o_m »

gopher2000 wrote: post #122
barbazoo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stress comes from people who are bad at what they do and are trying to make it someone else's problem. They don't have vision for how they will accomplish what is asked of them. In their imagination, there is not a clear set of steps that can be burned down over the coming days and weeks to arrive at something of value. In their minds it is all chaos and uncertainty and they are desperate for the assurance of s…

Everyone: "Other people are so bad at what they do. Not me though"

Being/staying motivated is like half the battle. Once more than half of the team has stopped caring the project is essentially dead. You should get away as soon as possible. In my experience as long as you care about the stuff are doing you are better than the bottom half of developers.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#125

Post by [deleted] »

Magmalgebra wrote: post #45
kentrado wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying it is better if the candidate lies. Otherwise you will be forced to reject him because there might be a possibility that the problem was him. Seems like you are hiring the best liars. Or at least the best at playing an arbitrary game of saying and not saying the correct things that won't trigger a rejection. At this point, are you even needed? Maybe we could replace the interview process with a lott…

> So you are saying it is better if the candidate lies. This is a toxic framing of an essential test. Constructing polite fictions is an essential skill for collaboration - no less essential than coding. Saying you're leaving in part because "your vision for the product has drfted from leadership's" tells me you probably think they were a pack of moronic baboons and that if you feel that way about some of your future…

[deleted]

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#126

Post by hobs »

lolinder wrote: post #49
hobs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and toxic positivity obliterates morale - being unable to acknowledge the negative outcomes of decisions means that you are just working towards some idiot's dream until you go play the roulette wheel again to figure out what the next people are not telling you about this place. This is what literally makes tech workers go dream about farming.

I have never had a work environment ruined by toxic positivity—the normal healthy human reaction to that kind of environment is gallows humor, which hits the sweet spot between acknowledging the problem and showing a willingness to be there with your team. I'm sure there are people out there who do have a toxic positivity problem, but my own anecdotal experience leads me to prefer to err on the side of rejecting unne…

Well you are insanely lucky, its the default in most startups and many companies that I have seen consulting, working directly with, or otherwise. Leadership has no strategy, the business is growing or shrinking regardless of their decisions, the rank and file are restless because its obvious they are led by folks who have no idea what's going on, and nobody is allowed to talk about it.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#127

Post by hobs »

mikepurvis wrote: post #42
kentrado wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying it is better if the candidate lies. Otherwise you will be forced to reject him because there might be a possibility that the problem was him. Seems like you are hiring the best liars. Or at least the best at playing an arbitrary game of saying and not saying the correct things that won't trigger a rejection. At this point, are you even needed? Maybe we could replace the interview process with a lott…

> the best liars Maybe, but I think there's a piece where you can be genuinely demonstrating in the interview context that you know how to reflect positively on an experience which obviously wasn't that all great or why would you have left it. As an interviewer I'm not looking for IT WAS THE BEST WOO but rather "these were the elements I most appreciated, these were where I had opportunities to grow and push myself a…

Of course, but many of the interviewers are looking for you to be a fresh faced young pup whose had nothing but love and kisses from every previous position, hell I had my new job ask if they could call my last boss and talk with them in an interview like format - its wild.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#128

Post by alphazard »

throw4847285 wrote: post #108
alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

I've worked with many people like you, and I can say from experience that they are never as competent as they think they are. Often they are quite competent, and yet somehow they still overestimate their own skills and make life harder for everybody. The type of person in question can be understood as somebody who equates technical skill with "not needing help." It's implicit in your post. Your mythical rock stars ar…

The most competent software engineers (which I referred to as rock stars) don't know how to do everything. It can appear that way to someone unfamiliar with software. The best have a keen self-awareness of their abilities. They understand how much time it would take them to figure something out, and their likely success rate. When they give good estimates and have accurate confidence in their abilities, they create predictability for others around them. That makes them a net sink for stress.

Professional competence is literally the set of the things you can do without needing help. That doesn't mean you never ask for help. It just means there is an expectation that you can accomplish some things on your own. If you need help with everything forever, then you are fundamentally not useful and not coachable (which is worse). When needing help is anticipated and transient, that's a non-event. When your job is mostly things that you are expected to do yourself, but you need help with all of them, that creates stress for your peers and subordinates.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#130

Post by pydry »

pm90 wrote: post #98
pydry wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The culture is unhealthy but unless you are in a position of power you have to play along.

Disagree. Change can start with anyone. Often its inspiring to see someone buckle the trend and “be real”.

There's that culture of positivity and can-do attitude rearing its head again.
Post reply on HN