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My Time Working at Stripe

jondlm.github.io

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Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#91

Post by shpx »

4hg4ufxhy wrote: post #52
soneca wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. That seems pretty far from “being forced into group therapy” in my perception. It was the author and colleagues that decided to overstate, and seemingly did not regret. Groups of humans sometimes have connections like these, whatever the environment they are in. I am sure other similar meeting with the same prompt only generated people saying they have two cats,…

What does 10% even mean? My food delivery order forgot the fries and it was upsetting? I'm pretty sure this is not what they are expecting.

It means whatever you feel like it means given how you feel in the moment/situation. It's not a task you can fail.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#92

Post by wkjagt »

There's a lot of comments on the "10% more vulnerable" part of the post in here that amount to "I just owe the company work hours, and they owe me money", and a strong aversion to showing anything resembling human connection going slightly further than "how are you", "fine". One commented even called the question by the manager "abuse", and suggested the manager should be fired.

But if on most days we're spending most of our time with these people, what do we gain from automatically disqualifying them from human connection just because they work at the same place as us?

And let's not pretend that the manager in this story forced anyone to do anything.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#93

Post by mywacaday »

DeathArrow wrote: post #31

>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple year…

I work in manufacturing and we have a weekly safety slide that normally presents a safety based work scenario or learning, this week's one was based on how to be safe while out trick or treating and one of the guys said he didn't appreciate being told in how to behave outside of work hours. I have have to admit that his attitude caught me off guard but I understand where he is coming from even if the intention comes from a good place finding the line between work and home can be a grey area. Saying that I don't thinkmi would appreciate being ambushed with being asked to provide a personal anecdote

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#94

Post by tegling »

DeathArrow wrote: post #31

>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple year…

I'm thinking maybe this is rather to present an opportunity for the team to put forward their expectations, pain points and desires. Being 'vulnerable' for me in a workplace setting means perhaps admitting that I really don't appreciate people bikeshedding over items I'm submitting for review (rather than being actually constructive) or that I feel the git work flow don't attribute fairly (hiding my contributions). Maybe others feel the same and we could do something about it? And those were only on individualistic side. To evolve the team and team play I'd think this a good time to bring up that I'm actually hating responding to support inquiries and rather have Pete doing more of that. And that I think Sue is doing amazing work with Figma and I'd really like to learn from her. Wouldn't this type of 'vulnerable' make sense in a team?

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#95

Post by nvarsj »

DeathArrow wrote: post #31

>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple year…

It sounds like something straight out of Silicon Valley.

I get they are trying to create a sense of psychological safety for people, but this is a bit much.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#96

Post by nvarsj »

A lot of this post reminds me of my own experience in big tech.

I think it's really brutal to those inclined to the highly sensitive person archetype (overly sensitive to external stimuli). Every little thing you do is analysed and the perf process is intense.

It can also be illogical - despite attempts to not be - as subjectivity in the perf process is almost unavoidable. Just take this author, who had a successful project, but got below expectations simply because their manager or a senior lead got a bad impression from probably a handful of interactions with them.

At these companies you _have_ to learn to not get emotionally or mentally invested in this process, or it can wreck you. Therapy can help a lot here.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#97

Post by porter »

DeathArrow wrote: post #31

>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple year…

Paraphrasing Seth Godin: do you want your heart surgeon greeting you before surgery by authentically telling you about the big fight he just had with his wife this morning?

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#98

Post by ryanackley »

runarberg wrote: post #75
wtfparanoid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what kind of dystopian workplace do you go to where people are looking to use things against you? The jobs I stick with are the ones where colleagues have got each others back. All this zero-sum game playing toxicity is what ruins work for the collaborative pro-social people. Find a work place that doesn't reward that kind of behaviour.

I don’t know whether you are American or not, but I find it ironic that on a forum who’s demographic skews American, this sentiment of anti-individualism at the workplace is so widely shared. America is supposed to be this super-freedom, super-individualistic place. Except when you are a worker at a workplace. Then you are supposed to spend at least 40 hours a week (except you are supposed to want to spend more time…

First of all, you should be aware that Stripe was founded by two guys from Ireland and it's based in San Francisco. This is the epicenter of the American political left. This is the side of American politics that cares about worker's rights, treatment, etc.

Ignoring that, your characterization isn't accurate at all for American software companies in my experience. I'm an American and I've worked overseas in Australia. In addition, most of the current technical team that I am currently on is based in the UK.

If anything, I've found other western cultures to be more discouraging of openly challenging management decisions. However, the differences are very very small. Working for a UK/Australia/German company is exactly the same as working for an American company. The day-to-day culture depends a lot on the people who run the company rather than their nationality. Trust me, there are jerks everywhere in the world.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#99

Post by 9dev »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #70
9dev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if that’s sustainable. We’re all stuck with this work-thing being one third of our life for the foreseeable time, so spending 33% of like, everything I’ll ever experience on something I don’t give a fuck about seems like both a lot of dull time and a bad decision overall.

"We're all stuck with this..." I think you are rationalizing your choices by thinking everything does the same. It is not true, some are not stuck anywhere, some choose to live a simpler life that needs less money, fewer compromises, etc. etc. the world is a big place.

Sure. I was specifically talking to people browsing hacker news, which have a high probability of working a job in the capitalist economy. Of course there are other ways of life, but the predominant part of humanity does not choose those. So I still think it’s appropriate to talk about ”all of us“ in this case.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#100

Post by fragmede »

Tainnor wrote: post #44
soneca wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. That seems pretty far from “being forced into group therapy” in my perception. It was the author and colleagues that decided to overstate, and seemingly did not regret. Groups of humans sometimes have connections like these, whatever the environment they are in. I am sure other similar meeting with the same prompt only generated people saying they have two cats,…

> Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. And they have absolutely no right to do that. "Being vulnerable" is not part of any job description.

You are not your code, but putting my code up to be torn apart in a PR definitely feels like being vulnerable to me. It's a good thing for it to be torn apart and scrutinized, so as to make the product better, which is what we're all after, but it still touches a nerve when the reviewer is an ass about it.
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