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The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

pratik.is

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Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#71

Post by trey-jones »

windex wrote: post #5

I personally think all organizations want to be cults with unthinking followers. I read every inbound piece from "management" like they are propaganda leaflets with an implied threat of violence. It helps.

I have worked for a small software development company in a small town for a small salary for over 10 years now. We are very chill. We are not venture funded. I think most participants in HN could also do this if they can tolerate making much less money than you would make in the city (with much lower cost of living), and if the other things that come with city life are not that important to you.

There are some opportunities that I think are only available in the FANGs. If your passion is in that domain, then you may have to stick it out. This is the only reason that I can see for doing the corporate grind. I don't have an addiction to money. There is no stuff that I could buy with more money that would be worth the corporate grind.

Software development skills are important enough that you will be in demand no matter where you go. Especially if you're feeling like the author of this article (over it), consider what's really important to you. You may have more options than you think.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#72

Post by NeoTar »

llimos wrote: post #21
fullshark wrote: post #4

Don't know if this person worked at FB, but FB literally has its walls covered in propaganda posters, designed to "inspire" but I find them to be disturbing. https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-propaganda-posters...

Interesting that 'favours' uses the British spelling, but 'focused' and 'prioritization' the American one.

I suspect they all could be British English, since the variations are less pronounced that one might think:

re: Focused - to quote Wiktionary:

"The spelling focused is much more common in the US but also more common in the UK and Australia. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the spelling focussed as irregular."

Speaking a native British English speaker, I'd agree. I focused looks OK, but focussed looks weird to me.

Prioritization:

The 's' versus 'z' debate is perhaps a little more complicated than often presented. There are some words which always were historically spelt with a 'z', but since the interpretation that 'z' is American have started to be spelt with an 's' in English.

In particular the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) tends to favour 'z' spellings for a number of words over the 's' spellings - I think 'nationalization' is a particular example.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#73

Post by digitalsushi »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #39

It isn't just programming. It is all of us. Self inflicted. Each of us is part of the system. MOLOCH. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

I have the fantasy of working in the software industry but that we're ants: there's a single correct goal that we all share. What would it be like to work in this industry where our goals aligned and our communication flawless?

What would we have built in the same time, with the same piles of sand?

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#74

Post by nine_zeros »

digitalsushi wrote: post #70
throwaway2203 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. We're always getting mixed signals... "if you need to delay, delay. you're the best judge of that." And "we have commitments we have to hit at the end of the quarter."

Half of us can discern corporate messaging and half of us cannot (let us say). The cynic, the street smart corporate bilinguist hears those two messages and understands plainly that only the latter is true. The person who takes things at face value is perplexed: They have been told not to hurt themselves, but also told that if they hurt themselves the company will be pleased. How bizarre, to be told opposing requirem…

> The cynic, the street smart corporate bilinguist hears those two messages and understands plainly that only the latter is true.

It is true that the only message you need to follow is the one said by your own manager (and their manager). But remember, if you follow the manager's message and something fails, this manager will throw YOU under the bus.

The real street smart corporate bilinguist recognizes that blindly following your management makes you vulnerable to become the sucker, fall-guy, doesn't-really-need-promotion-guy.

If your management is dishonest, the only real game out there is a game of dishonesty.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#75

Post by tristor »

Damogran6 wrote: post #6

I've been in security longer than most job applications ask for. Every security solution is just the same Black Box with a one-trick-pony in it. After the 40th one, they all kinda blur together after awhile. They all have accounts and permissions and reporting and maintenance and update processes and a way to store the data they create...and a single line on a single tab on a single webpage that 'does the trick'. I'm…

> Every security solution is just the same Black Box with a one-trick-pony in it.

This is a cultural problem in the information security space and one reason why I've left that space. I call this "checkbox compliance" culture. Most customers want a box they can rack, check the box on a compliance audit, and move on. Very few companies actually give a shit about security as a practice or philosophy, and don't actually do any of the work to build security into their products and systems.

The epitome of this is that many companies operate devices at their border that strip encryption via using a company-provided CA to man-in-the-middle all traffic across their network to do DPI, and then re-encrypt (hopefully) to the ultimate target. From the perspective of the employee, the primary attacker on the network is the company's own infosec team, because the policies and compliance checkboxes are achieved in the worst possible iteration of how you might meet compliance without any regard to /security/.

This is a fixable situation, but it's a hard thing to fix because like most cultural issues, it's ultimately some kind of tragedy of the commons.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#76

Post by rcme »

gitgud wrote: post #57
fullshark wrote: post #4

Don't know if this person worked at FB, but FB literally has its walls covered in propaganda posters, designed to "inspire" but I find them to be disturbing. https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-propaganda-posters...

Not as bad as I imagined, the Theranos wall is worse I think. > ”Do or do not, there is no try” https://makersplace.com/product/yoda-quote-theranos-headquar...

That’s a famous Star Wars quote.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#77

Post by LouisSayers »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #23
lubesGordi wrote: post #10

I left silicon valley because of agile development. Sprinting all the time was the thing that lead to my burnout, and when we finally released our app, the company was pivoting and 'going epic mode'. I quit then. In retrospect it would've been fine if I had taken a more relaxed attitude towards it all. Sprints don't mean you have to literally sprint. Epic mode is just a narrative. Work at your pace and it'll be fine.

>I left silicon valley because of agile development. Sprinting all the time was the thing that lead to my burnout... Hard work doesn't cause burnout. Constantly feeling like you have no control or impact causes burnout.

I don't think you can really have a generic "this is why you're burnt out" or "that's not real burn out => look over here!".

There could be many reasons why someone is in a burnt out state - from lack of control, to being over-worked, being constantly over stimulated, emotional trauma or any number of other reasons.

It's something unique to the individual and is not always obvious.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#78

Post by kneebonian »

jghn wrote: post #7
paxys wrote: post #3

There comes a time in everyone's career when they realize that the "emergency situation" they are in never really ends. There is always a fire to put out. There is always a P0 bug that will sink the entire company if not fixed. There is always a release that absolutely cannot be delayed for any reason, and everyone must work nights and weekends to get it out. The best you can do is learn to tune out management bullsh…

This was an eye opening moment when it happened to me. Almost nothing has the impact it purports to have. Percentage-wise, very few things are the emergency/fire that people make them out to be, at least in the grand scheme of things. I think part of it is that people get too wrapped up in their local world and don't see the big picture. For instance "If we don't get this widget added to the thingamabob in the next 3…

I'm in this stage right now. I'm being moved from an engineering to being trained for an "architect" role, and it sucks. I look at my todo list and most of it involves emailing somebody about something, or preparing a presentation for some council. It feels like I can't actually do anything.

Like when I was an engineer, boom move get things done produce actual results, something would be deployed and value would be delivered, now, if I want to get something done, engage with two or three other teams to do something, talk with their team leads, then the actual engineers, then have a meeting to actually discuss requirements, and what should be a simple program that takes 3 api calls, turns into a 3 month long project.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#79

Post by smitty1e »

NeoTar wrote: post #72
llimos wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that 'favours' uses the British spelling, but 'focused' and 'prioritization' the American one.

I suspect they all could be British English, since the variations are less pronounced that one might think: re: Focused - to quote Wiktionary: "The spelling focused is much more common in the US but also more common in the UK and Australia. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the spelling focussed as irregular." Speaking a native British English speaker, I'd agree. I focused looks OK, but focussed looks weird to…

At least they did not wax Germanic with "focuß".

One can always cheer a bit of optimization like merging 'ss' to 'ß'. In the spirit of the thread, though, stopping at just the one seems odd.

Re: The hustle never ends and I'm so over it

#80

Post by pc86 »

Loughla wrote: post #41
fullshark wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the talk about "diversity" and "diversity of opinions" being cherished is nonsense, they want a hivemind singularly focused on executing leadership's various whims.

I think that really is super dependent on your workplace, and probably your field. In higher education, I can tell you, they do not value diversity of opinion, but they get it in spades. Every decision is questioned, argued, analyzed, and beat to death. Leadership hates it, but I love it. It's one of the closest environments to that 'value diversity of opinion' statement that I've ever been a part of.

Maybe this is why nothing ever gets done in higher ed.
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