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Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

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Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#351

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

asidiali wrote: post #336
kryogen1c wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mental overheard of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours this is very ignorant. the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.

> the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. This is very ignorant. There are many outside factors that go into if an employee needs to focus on work after hours, such as accessibility to the working environment, cultural practices at the company, etc. Who said anything about haunting? If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can i…

The sucker who's working at 11pm?

More seriously, if this is you, find an employer/manager who's not gratuitously invading your non work time.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#352

Post by mattnewton »

kryogen1c wrote: post #325
asidiali wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This - the mental overhead of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours - especially with a pushy employer or coworkers with no work life balance themselves. You can’t cut steel at home after dinner no matter how hard you try if you don’t have the tools. Conversely, I’m sure you have a computer, can you just login to GitHub for two seconds to review this PR I submitted at 9pm...

> the mental overheard of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours this is very ignorant. the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.

I couldn’t disagree more. I am thinking about hard problems in the back of my mind pretty much all the time, or am not making progress on them. Software engineering can be like pipe fitting, where there is a blueprint; but it can also be a much more creative search for solutions like looking for a math proof, writing a screenplay, or trying to phrase a legal argument that churns up your background cycles.

Without those periods I would never be able to do the best work I’ve done. There is a lot of pipe fitting in the business - and it’s fine to do only that. But it’s not some personality defect to have work thoughts kicking around in the back of your head, it’s a necessary trait in my experience for the more difficult software jobs.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#353

Post by CydeWeys »

sergiosgc wrote: post #175
madeofpalk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, I will never do this. I havent done this since I was very very young at my first job and i didn't know better. I couldn't think of anything sader or more depressing that giving away my own personal time for someone else. I'm not going to work on the weekend. I've got much better things to do, like play video games or literall…

Let me give you the perspective from the other side of the trench: I never ask my employees for overtime, never control their work hours. The typical work week that organically arises out of this is about 35 hours. I would absolutely fire anyone who would close the laptop for the weekend and left a critical operation pending on Friday. It's about work ethics and personal responsibility of the outcome of personal work…

I'm on an oncall rotation. I get paid 1/3rd my normal salaried rate for all the time outside of normal working hours that I'm expected to be available to respond to critical issues. Note that I get paid this regardless of whether there actually are critical issues.

Do you have this kind of system set up? If not, do you make it clear when you're hiring people that you're expecting them to occasionally do what is effectively uncompensated oncall on nights/weekends? That's the kind of thing you have to know going in in order to be able to compare like-for-like in competing offers.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#354

Post by navbaker »

This mention of "yoga at 11am" seems to be rubbing some folks the wrong way, but what if it was "lunch for an hour at 11am"? In all the jobs I've held (including now) where working hours are not dictated by external forces, such as customer service expectations, our teams make sure we get in our hours and are more or less available during a reasonable window, say 8am-5/6pm. It is pretty much understood that there will be 45-60 minutes of (unpaid/unbillable) downtime, which most people will use for lunch, but others will use for a workout, then eat lunch at their desk. I've never seen anyone actually work less hours because they went to yoga or for a run, they just use the time they would ordinarily be using for lunch and still hit their full workday, while gaining the benefit of de-stressing mid-day.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#355

Post by slibhb »

srndsnd wrote: post #339
slibhb wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this legalistic perspective horrifying. It's as if you think every aspect of the relationship between you and your employer has to be written down as part of a contract and endlessly scrutinized. For me, and I expect for most humans, the ideal employer-employee relationship is much more tacit. It's like being part of a sports team. There are bounds of duty and privilege that are mutual, acceptable to all parti…

I think that's an exaggeration of what OP is saying. It's fuzzy, but there's a definitive distinction between "every aspect of your relationship" and benefits that impact someone's bottom line like free food. OP did not say, and I wouldn't either, that every aspect of a employer-employee relationship should be documented and tracked like a PnL. But no one should pretend that it's not a debate over "unwritten compensa…

I extended the previous poster's argument. He said food should be priced in, my point is that work is only tolerable because we stop pricing things in at a certain point. I agree with you: that line is fuzzy, but we have to place it somewhere (and amenities should not be priced in).

> Why shouldn't employees want to extract the most value they can for their labor, and push back when the terms of that agreement change? If cost cutting or taking a loss necessitated a firing, would that "tacit relationship" prevent someone from being fired? My guess is no. Business is business, not personal.

One conception of employment involves voluntarily adopted shared goals. Another conception is that employees rent themselves in exchange for money.

I suppose I think we need to find the happy medium between those conceptions. Too much of the latter perspective leads to alienation (because you conceive of yourself as a wage slave) whereas the former can lead to exploitation.

The article is arguing that Google is too far into the latter conception. It should towards the former, not all the way, but at least a little.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#356

Post by Balgair »

asidiali wrote: post #299
enraged_camel wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We have it AMAZINGLY WELL being in tech, and we have luxuries that are unique to tech and bewildering to folks in other fields. Yep, even other highly paid fields! Can you imagine a surgeon scheduling their surgeries around yoga classes?

I have news for you buddy... That’s exactly what they do.

There is the old stereotype of a MD canceling appointments because of a Tee-Time conflict, after all.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#357

Post by asidiali »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #351
asidiali wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. This is very ignorant. There are many outside factors that go into if an employee needs to focus on work after hours, such as accessibility to the working environment, cultural practices at the company, etc. Who said anything about haunting? If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can i…

The sucker who's working at 11pm? More seriously, if this is you, find an employer/manager who's not gratuitously invading your non work time.

Very much agreed. You have to do what is in your control as an employee. If it’s a cultural problem, that usually means your best bet is to simply find a team with better culture. Culture is a hard problem to solve if it’s not right.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#358

Post by bagacrap »

treis wrote: post #242
_0o6v wrote: post #2

"You need to be able to answer the "what have you done for our users lately" question with "not much but I got promoted" and be happy with that answer to be successful in Corp-Tech." Good quote. Although you can extend the lawyers theme out to the rest of the bureaucratic corp too.

I think this guy missed the memo that Google bought Waze to put them out to pasture. They were the only real competition to Google Maps and were acquired to ensure Google Maps monopoly. Waze shipping features and winning in the marketplace would be a bad thing. I think a lot of his post stems from missing this.

You must not be a Waze user.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#359

Post by jimbokun »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #239
serverholic wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also part of the argument for basic income. Having a stable source of income allows people to take risks like starting their own business or joining a small startup.

Or just a more lax unemployment policy. I worry that if you give everyone $1000/month: 1) you cannot live on $1000/month so it is an empty gesture 2) rent goes up $1000/month nationwide so it is an even emptier gesture

> 2) rent goes up $1000/month nationwide so it is an even emptier gesture

Do you also expect food, transportation, entertainment, and technology costs to go up $1000/month nationwide?

Rent goes up due to a lack of available apartments or houses in the area. If public policy is geared toward allowing development of sufficient housing for the people wanting to live in a place, that will have a far bigger impact on rents than UBI.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#360

Post by asidiali »

mattnewton wrote: post #352
kryogen1c wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mental overheard of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours this is very ignorant. the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.

I couldn’t disagree more. I am thinking about hard problems in the back of my mind pretty much all the time, or am not making progress on them. Software engineering can be like pipe fitting, where there is a blueprint; but it can also be a much more creative search for solutions like looking for a math proof, writing a screenplay, or trying to phrase a legal argument that churns up your background cycles. Without tho…

Well said, totally agree. Thank you for explaining the more nuanced points here better than I could.

IC-level contracting or consulting gigs are often (not always) much more numb - you’re handed a design, a user spec, maybe some existing APIs or infrastructure, and you essentially color in the lines. Other roles require much more organic composition, aka, Zero to One.

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