41–50 of 69 posts
"I think it was a shock to my son to see how I was regarded at work. Of course, that didn’t mean he started respecting me at home but, hey, a man can dream." Ouch. Not sure this sort of public comment would help matters any.
with this: "It’s Sunday night as I publish this. That means it’s a working night for most managers at Apple. Even more so for Director-level personnel like I was."
I used to be a sysadmin, and I loved it. After a few years working lots of hours in a high-pressure role for financial traders, I was, like Don, just done. I had nothing left for that. In retrospect, that was burnout.
After reading so many "I'm leaving company X because try all suck" posts, this was such a nice read. The author didn't leave because he hated everyone, or because he felt very the business model was evil, or because he was tired of being worked like a dog, he left because e did his part and was done. While I know it internally, it's always nice to read someone saying, "I did my part, I did it well, and I'm leaving on…
I get why people do that, though. Sometimes they love something and want to fight for it. Sometimes they have to keep working if they want their kids to keep eating. Sometimes they just don't notice that moment where they crossed the line.
So kudos to him for knowing when to quit.
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Closure — that's actually a very good way to put it. I didn't feel burned out. Just tired and complete. But I was very fortunate to have the means to retire. Many who experience burnout don't have that choice. Which is another reason there's such churn in this business. As a manager, one thing I always watched for were the signs of burnout. I always said I spent way more time coaching people to pace themselves than t…
Don. How big was your team?
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Not reflecting on Don who I don't know but I've always wondered if people who go out of their way in trying to appear to be humble are reacting to the disgust that they feel when others aren't appearing humble. Stuff like this: "I think it was a shock to my son to see how I was regarded at work. Of course, that didn’t mean he started respecting me at home but, hey, a man can dream." and this: "At my core, I’m just a…
Personally, I'd say just take them at their word: this is how they actually feel. Not everyone is trying to win some kind of popularity contents with every sentence they write. While he may have been trying to temper his 1st sentence, as you say, I'm going to just believe he is being genuine here and means exactly what he says. I don't think he is really going out of his way here.
The line about my son was partly to annoy him since he, unlike my wife, reads my blog. And we punk each other like that all the time.
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I didn't work for Don, but as an engineer in another part of the company. I too was able to retire (at age 49). It makes me sad that the stock options that made my retirement possible won't be available to the next generation of engineers because of bad tax law (Sarbanes-Oxley).
How does that follow exactly ? Aren't RSU's an option (like at Google) to reward employees with stocks (but not stock options ) ?
> I refer to myself here as a “recovering programmer.” That simply means I no longer pursue engineering as a primary activity. And that I’m self aware enough to know that I’ll occasionally fall off the wagon and start coding again. Slightly off topic: Is there such a thing as an ex-programmer? Do you know any previously dedicated programmer that went cold turkey on any programming whatsoever?