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Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
41–50 of 85 posts
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#42This article kinda feels like an elaborate excuse for not leaving your current employer, partner etc.
I mean seriously - why take shit when there's a 90% chance you're working on another elaborate CMS/CRUD-looking system? There's millions of them out there, you don't need to subject yourself to terrible experiences. Just go someplace else.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#43There’s really no good reason to stick your neck out at a dysfunctional place. It’s like that for a reason. You might get grit from the experience, but more likely you’ll just become a bitter cynical husk. I know, I worked at Oracle.
> There’s really no good reason to stick your neck out at a dysfunctional place
I'm reading "The Pentagon Wars" [0], about how US Military used to develop weapon systems in the 70s and 80s; here's an anecdote from the book:
> General Gavin recounted how he had to bury fifty young men near the village of Gela, Sicily, in 1943.1 The men had pieces of their own bazookas ground into their bodies by the German tanks they had been trying to stop. Their new bazookas had failed to stop the tanks. General Gavin condemned the Ordnance Corps for not testing the bazookas against German tanks that had been captured in North Africa. There had been considerable controversy back in the States over the development of the bazookas. At least one prominent scientist on the project had resigned because of his conviction that the warhead was too small to stop a tank. Sadly, he was proved correct. General Gavin was angry that the Ordnance Corps bureaucracy had given his troops an untested weapon.
The book is great for a number of reasons one of which is describing how defense contractors were compensated on delivery not the quality. The bulk of the book deals with Bradley fighting vehicle development that was a death trap. James Burton, the author, ends up being pushed out of the military for raising a lot stink about the Bradley but not before making a huge difference in the design of the vehicle, that ends up saving a lot of lives.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#44Yeah, you could also work somewhere not as developed. It's dysfunctional alright, and the pay can be shit. But if the company seriously considers your ideas, you'll be seen as some sort of prophet. Many ideas and systems that you take for granted simply don't exist in developing countries. And they really need them.
Unfortunately, the prophet is often also the first person the others come after with pitchforks when the crops fail to grow.
No post body was provided.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#45There’s really no good reason to stick your neck out at a dysfunctional place. It’s like that for a reason. You might get grit from the experience, but more likely you’ll just become a bitter cynical husk. I know, I worked at Oracle.
> There’s really no good reason to stick your neck out at a dysfunctional place I'm reading "The Pentagon Wars" [0], about how US Military used to develop weapon systems in the 70s and 80s; here's an anecdote from the book: > General Gavin recounted how he had to bury fifty young men near the village of Gela, Sicily, in 1943.1 The men had pieces of their own bazookas ground into their bodies by the German tanks they…
I greatly enjoyed the movie. They actually played it for us when I was in the military attending a course on space operations and we got to the subject of acquisitions.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#46I think a better title is, "What to do if you find yourself working at a dysfunctional company."
You may have started at a wonderful company that is acquired or for some other reason becomes dysfunctional. The place isn't dangerous, and the pay covers the bills, but you are losing market value (skills are dated, less relevant). Changing jobs is a pain, it could be bad timing for some reason, and perhaps you lack the experience or training (certs) you want at the next place. You may be jumping out of one pot into another, or worse, into the fire itself. In this case, this approach makes sense to me.
However, I have to agree with the majority of the comments, avoid getting into one in the first place. Don't seek them out, and if you arrive and it's bad, get out quick.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#47I wonder how much of this article is survivorship bias.
The risk of a dysfunctional workplace is the negative feelings that start consuming you, crawling into your personal life, impacting you emotionally, and causing burn out.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#48> The rewards are great if you can survive… Part of what makes a place dysfunctional is that the rewards have no correlation with performance or impact. Then there is stuff like this: > People who want to study earthquakes need to go where there are fault lines. People who want to solve hard problems need to go where those problems live. Sure, if you want to learn about dysfunctional places, go into them. Learning ab…
People who study earthquakes also get paid peanuts.
Yeah, but learning about earthquakes is a high priority to them.
Learning about dysfunctional organization can be high priority to administrators, not to technical careers. It's basically useless knowledge for technical careers.
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#49> The rewards are great if you can survive… Part of what makes a place dysfunctional is that the rewards have no correlation with performance or impact. Then there is stuff like this: > People who want to study earthquakes need to go where there are fault lines. People who want to solve hard problems need to go where those problems live. Sure, if you want to learn about dysfunctional places, go into them. Learning ab…
People who study earthquakes also get paid peanuts.
Sometimes they even get sent to jail:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/23/jailing-italia...
Re: Work Somewhere Dysfunctional
#50> People who want to study earthquakes need to go where there are fault lines. People who want to solve hard problems need to go where those problems live. People who want to study earthquakes don't get paid by the earthquakes. Author works for a defense contractor. I'd need a ton of evidence that this particular defense contractor has the goal of doing something inherently safe with AI before I'd read the author's a…
People who want to study earthquakes will keep a distance and model and measure remotely.
The idea that seismologists actually want to experience massive destruction personally is bizarre, and completely wrong.