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In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

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

#141

Post by Arainach »

svnt wrote: post #113
lolinder wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Toxic positivity in startups means the people not looking at the real issues role play startup while everything crumbles around them. Maybe it works out in big orgs but if it infects the team of a small org your work environment will be ruined when you are all laid off after months or years of overworking to make a blind optimist happy. Unemployment coincident with burnout is worse than some negative feedback during…

What you're describing as toxic positivity is refusing to criticize things as they're happening. That's very different from not badmouthing people and teams behind their backs when they're not around to respond.

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

#142

Post by BeetleB »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #60
jon-wood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a degree to which this is true, I wouldn't walk into an interview and immediately start slagging off my old employer, but if you're interviewing me and get all worked up when I say bad things about them in answer to the question "why are you leaving your current job" that's on you and I won't regret not getting the job.

That's your choice. It's not a bad idea to answer "why are you leaving your current job" with "i'm looking for greater opportunities to [the opposite of why you are leaving your job]" and people can read between the lines AND have less of the concerns they would if you went guns blazing on the bridges behind you

I don't work for people who want me to read between the lines.

And bosses who read between my lines? Terrible.

Read some communications book. Reading between the lines and using tact are the (literal) textbook cases of poor communicators.

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

#143

Post by [deleted] »

dpe82 wrote: post #123

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

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by 90s_dev »

EGreg wrote: post #136
jbverschoor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree and is exhausting. The stress is just not that apparent in environments where projects tend to fail anyway, or environments that provide lots of job stability. You basically get paid for being present instead of actually produce something useful. I don’t understand why one would want to work in such an environment, except when you’re soft-retiring / soft-quitting

Oh man I wish I knew I was being paid to be present and available In my last full time job I worked for a tech consulting company that rented us out to teams at financial instutions that managed insane amounts of money. This was in 2021 before AI was common. I worked remotely, and the first month didn’t do anything — just waited for the corporate laptop to arrive etc. Then I worked 2 hours a day. But I had to put 8 h…

Thomas More would be proud.

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

#145

Post by CGMthrowaway »

Wonnk13 wrote: post #139
aianus wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to goblin mode in dating you should 100% be yourself but only if you already have money and don't particularly need a given job. This works best when you already have a job. You want the shitty PHB megacorps to reject you so you don't win to lose by getting a job you are going to hate.

I'm not sure I actually want to know, but what the hell is "goblin mode"?

Goblin mode as a consultant is charging whatever high price will make you want to work on a project, not doing sales, only answering the phone when and for whom you want, and letting your work speak for itself.

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

#147

Post by vladgur »

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…

Am I the only one that finds nothing positive about the term “rock star” in when applied to people you work with?

I want to work with smart and accommodating individuals who are team players.

None of these qualities are what we expect of rock stars. When I hear “rock star” - I fear a cult of one.

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

#148

Post by ngangaga »

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…

Reality is always more nuanced. That's kind of reality's deal.

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

#149

Post by lazystar »

vladgur wrote: post #147
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…

Am I the only one that finds nothing positive about the term “rock star” in when applied to people you work with? I want to work with smart and accommodating individuals who are team players. None of these qualities are what we expect of rock stars. When I hear “rock star” - I fear a cult of one.

thats a management problem. if management treats someone like a rock star, the team takes notice and reacts accordingly.

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

#150

Post by jbverschoor »

EGreg wrote: post #136
jbverschoor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree and is exhausting. The stress is just not that apparent in environments where projects tend to fail anyway, or environments that provide lots of job stability. You basically get paid for being present instead of actually produce something useful. I don’t understand why one would want to work in such an environment, except when you’re soft-retiring / soft-quitting

Oh man I wish I knew I was being paid to be present and available In my last full time job I worked for a tech consulting company that rented us out to teams at financial instutions that managed insane amounts of money. This was in 2021 before AI was common. I worked remotely, and the first month didn’t do anything — just waited for the corporate laptop to arrive etc. Then I worked 2 hours a day. But I had to put 8 h…

Yep. I totally feel you. And then you see people just fill in 8hrs every day for the same stuff.

They don’t care about reality. They care about accountability. As long as the numbers are right, everybody’s happy. And if you’re out of budget. Hooray, one difficult meeting and everybody, the consulting agency, the champion inside, a few manager, get a nice increase in their budget and team size.

Unfortunately it’s not about the product, impact, quality, etc.. it’s just a game, and everybody’s just taking from the corporation/their customers (ultimately consumers).

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