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How I survived being a $220k/year intern

matt.sh

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Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#91

Post by thisiszilff »

gist wrote: post #78
HarryHirsch wrote: post #60

Earlier 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'?

For your enjoyment: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#92

Post by gist »

_2d30 wrote: post #29

Blog posts like this are usually best interpreted as the bitter ranting of an ex-employee who was let go. The author himself was semi-notorious (possibly still so?) in the Redis community for being a bit of a self-serving demagogue (to put it nicely). Generally speaking, if an individual was a remote, WFH, IC employee whose manager didn't even talk to them for a year, they probably don't have the working knowledge to…

> The entitlement is strong with this one.

And stupidity. He is already behind $50,000 for refusing to sign off his rights to tell his 'story'. Maybe he feels there is a market for his skills (and to your point, um, attitude) for his take on things. (There isn't)

And the idea that there is no potential blowback from the company because of free speech means he is simply not aware of what a willing and able (financially) adversary can do to you if they want (using legal or other means). Company could decide to go after him just to send a message even if no chance of actually winning or collecting or other tangible benefit.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#93

Post by aprdm »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #60
tracerbulletx wrote: post #11

I 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.

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…

The concept of fixing corporate culture seems like a weird one, if you remove corporate and go for the generic term, can you "fix culture"?

I think what you can do is influence the culture of a company and reap the rewards, having done the devops transformation in two difference companies that were deemed unfixable (both more than 4 offices and 3k people) I feel it is very doable! It just takes time and it is not an algorithm you can learn and apply blindly.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#94

Post by gist »

GuiA wrote: post #85
gist wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insider club here? Who is 'Rachel'?

Blogger commonly linked to on HN, domain name is rachelbythebay.com

I guessed that is who it was but I you know she is not exactly 'PG'. And her name isn't unique enough like 'Elon'.

I read comments on another blog whereby one commenter thinks he is a guy who can use his girlfriend's name as if everyone should know that is who he is talking about like he is on a first name basis with the crowd.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#95

Post by liquid153 »

noncoml wrote: post #33
kaiabwpdjqn wrote: post #10

I 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…

It’s a symptom of our dysfunctional industry. We are stuck in that old Annie Hall joke: “A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs”

Stupid joke. Don’t quit your day job

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#96

Post by jay_wild »

thoraway1010 wrote: post #86
tracerbulletx wrote: post #11

I 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 stan…

What was the time frame on your $40k -> $500k jump, if you don't mind my asking?

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#97

Post by robertlagrant »

betadreamer wrote: post #57

No interns make that high of a salary. That means they value his work/skill. It’s clearly a management problem but this is a hard problem. In fact it’s different for everyone. Some people like well structured management and others don’t. On top of that he was remote, which makes it even harder. His rants are mostly in sales. Engineer ranting about sales is like Sales people saying Engineers are pointless. (Btw both a…

Interns also don't read articles properly.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#98

Post by quadrifoliate »

dehrmann wrote: post #66
omerbensaadon wrote: post #18

I work for the "Labs" (Services) portion of Pivotal and I've seen this guy's stuff on HN before... Can't comment on what non-services teams are like at Pivotal but the services organization is pretty spectacular. Pivotal's got problems just like every other organization does, but this guy seems to be mad as hell and blowing things a _bit_ out of proportion.

> but the services organization is pretty spectacular. Overall, the org looks decent on Glassdoor.

Separately from this specific case, Glassdoor is a very imperfect way to evaluate an org. Companies will encourage employees to juice the reviews (https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/01/22/companies-gaming-glas...).

Anecdotally, Glassdoor will often remove negative reviews for paying employers by giving flimsy excuses like "They are against the 'Community Guidelines'" (something that's so broad it's impossible to hold them to specifics). The "features" they advertise for paying employers are all above-the-board though.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#99

Post by watwut »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #11

I 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.

If people are not allowed to talk and read about what they found to be wrong, they will never figure out how to fix it. And they will never figure out what real problems are and what is fluff.

First step toward being able to participate in fixing anything is being able to reflect on what is going on and being able to learn from what others in similar situation did or did not do.

Re: How I survived being a $220k/year intern

#100

Post by btmiller »

_2d30 wrote: post #29

Blog posts like this are usually best interpreted as the bitter ranting of an ex-employee who was let go. The author himself was semi-notorious (possibly still so?) in the Redis community for being a bit of a self-serving demagogue (to put it nicely). Generally speaking, if an individual was a remote, WFH, IC employee whose manager didn't even talk to them for a year, they probably don't have the working knowledge to…

Yes, this is self-sabotage, I would never hire him and I would leave a company if they were to hire him. Yikes.

Edit: and I didn't catch the audio clip at the end until just now! Wow. What is this guy thinking??

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