The only interesting thought I've had while reading this pretty mundane post is "man am I happy to not be working with that dude".
Right. A guy who'd give up fifty grand just so he was free to write a rant.
How I survived being a $220k/year intern
81–90 of 197 posts
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#82I find this post to be relatively unimpressive. He spends a great amount of time complaining about how the company was shit in a way that implies he was personally offended, but the title says he got a generous salary for little expected work. It’s not clear to me why he is bitter about anything. I have no doubt that the company was genuinely poorly run. His observations about problems in the sales culture are likely…
While I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, this idea that people should (or can) just leave employment, needs to stop. This is not the way most of the world works and many people are "stuck" in very shitty situations that don't have many opportunities, out.
But with regard to the rest of your comment, absolutely. This guy is a knob.
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#83It was hard to get at the main bullet points from the rant. I found that what he did - his job description as he put 'Matt as a service' - to be reasonable. Support, bug fixes, documentation, and development. It would be nice to see more companies have someone completely own a small piece. Often when I contact developer support, I talk to someone who clearly does not know anything about the product I'm talking about.…
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Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#84> At the other end, you have employees who create your products being treated like unwanted interns because development and engineering isn’t given recognition for generating revenue. Obviously only sales and executives are money makers. Developers are just an unneeded, low skilled, interchangeable burden reducing your profits because they have non-commission-based salaries. Why not just fire all your developers then sell what they made without fixing or improving anything—wow, infinite profit!
Funnily enough I've worked in a company that did just that, they developed a TV software that puts ads on the streaming of soccer games and the software was 5 or so years old with no software team. They had a person who did support and was there for a long time and would always have 2-3 developers on the payroll who wouldn't stay more than their probation period. I left within 2 weeks but the company owner was very rich and seemed pretty OK with how things were...
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rachel had something about fixing corporate culture recently (hint: you can't), and sometimes really you can't leave. Some are shackled to their jobs through their visa, others because of healthcare needs (their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member), and others because of the nature of the industry (university faculty comes to mind, especially post-2008). The fact that you…
Insider club here? Who is 'Rachel'?
Blogger commonly linked to on HN, domain name is rachelbythebay.com
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#86I don't understand people who write things like this. If you're unhappy leave, if you think the corporate culture is wrong, either participate in fixing it, or get out. I honestly can't stand people who self righteously sound the alarm about how they can see all of the things wrong with everybody else. It sounds especially childish when you are making so much money.
Checking I'm on my throaway.
I followed exactly this practice - immediately left crappy places -> kept strong clients. Took myself from $40K/year to $500K/year (not tech BTW so this is I think a bit harder than in tech).
Here is the kicker - some of the terrible places I left later called and specifically requested me. I literally burnt NO bridges. I would just apologize and say I didn't think I could meet their standards / expectations at that time and wanted to be prompt about letting them know so they could find someone new. And the reality - they are pretty friendly departures if done early - no time for crap to build up.
Quick things I don't recommend off the top of my head
* Having multiple bosses on a project * Having responsibility but no authority * Being asked to deliver stuff with no data / dependent on too many others you don't have control over.
Things I didn't mind.
* Bosses with high standards. If they were willing to pay, I'd be willing to live up to those. Even if I thought they went way too far with it cost / benefit side. I learned a lot from these folks. Some examples.
Me: You could pay someone $20/hr to do this work. Them: We want you to do it. Me: I charge $200. Them: OK.
Me: I'm busy, I can't help. Them: What would it cost to help. Me: 150% my normal rate and I'd have to work weekends only - can you open the office on the weekends and have support staff in on the weekend to help me? Them: Yes.
At the time I thought these folks were nuts, but they both went on to do really really well (and in one case I turned out to be absolutely pivotal in that).
* Working onsite - remote work is hard to see
But the bottom line - some consulting clients are not worth having, just move on. I never ever complained. I would make a few suggestions, give it my best shot, then moved on quickly if needed. In all but one case the tough ones imploded later. One case (that called me back) actually took my suggestions on my way out (you might consider restructuring department X like follows) and got 10x bigger.
Funny thing - govt work is very interesting. You can see how a Shadow IT setup comes into play if you work for govt.
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#87I find this post to be relatively unimpressive. He spends a great amount of time complaining about how the company was shit in a way that implies he was personally offended, but the title says he got a generous salary for little expected work. It’s not clear to me why he is bitter about anything. I have no doubt that the company was genuinely poorly run. His observations about problems in the sales culture are likely…
The author is experiencing cognitive dissonance because he was expecting professional life to push him to his limits, in an environment designed for maximal productivity and innovation, working with people who care about doing the best work of their life. A lot of overachievers in school have that outlook. There are some jobs that are like this, but they are very few and far between. There are far more companies that…
> The reality is that if you care about your craft a tiny bit more than average, you will most likely end up feeling that you are overpaid for trivial work, that you could do so much more for the company, that your coworkers and hierarchy are apathetic to things that do not directly affect them (and will seek to avoid any change as much as possible).
Damn, I've never read a better articulation of how I feel at work haha. I'm in cybersecurity and the box checking "just need to get through the next audit" mentality is RAMPANT.
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rachel had something about fixing corporate culture recently (hint: you can't), and sometimes really you can't leave. Some are shackled to their jobs through their visa, others because of healthcare needs (their health insurance has favourable terms, and they need to care for a family member), and others because of the nature of the industry (university faculty comes to mind, especially post-2008). The fact that you…
Insider club here? Who is 'Rachel'?
[deleted]
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#89> .... shady “customers, but also investors, but also customers.” It’s convenient having combo customer/investors. If quarterly numbers look bad, just ask your customers, who are also investors, to buy more services to prop up their own investment. After all, they wouldn’t want their investment decisions to look bad, right? That's not shady, to me, it is a common practice and does take advantage of the accounting pra…
Just because it is common doesn't mean it's not shady. And depending on what the "pseudo-activist role" entails, that could be a massive conflict of interest. If a person at Company A is steering business toward Company B because they have an investment in Company B, that could easily conflict with their obligations toward Company A.
This
> so I can't make a distinction for this particular practice.
was meant to be a rebuttal to this
> just because it is common doesn't mean it's not shady.
so I think you walked right into it.
> If a person at Company A is steering business toward Company B
and that's company A's problem
Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern
#90Can anyone elaborate on “and proudly brags about his criminal acquaintances in the news”? It’s a bullet point in the section about, presumably, antirez.