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KoRMaK posted:Um.... It seems to be pretty widely viewed as the way pollyanna presented it. You have a weird axe to grind it seems. I haven't heard about people at GE complaining about it, none of the people at Netflix feel they're discouraged from it that I've talked to. People here who used to be at Grubhub don't have that impression. What are the companies that meet the criteria of "Been around for 5+ years and have an unlimited vacation policy" also discourage people from using it? Yes I may have a weird axe to grind but it's been around Pollyanna's posts in these last few weeks. Like this one, like "Disagree with a single word of a boss: That's a firing!" from last week. None of those views are held at any healthy company that is going to last longer than 3 years or so. And it should not be normalized.
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Jan 17, 2018 18:49
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ratbert90 posted:What does your heart tell you?
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Jan 17, 2018 18:52
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Hughlander posted:I haven't heard about people at GE complaining about it, none of the people at Netflix feel they're discouraged from it that I've talked to. People here who used to be at Grubhub don't have that impression. What are the companies that meet the criteria of "Been around for 5+ years and have an unlimited vacation policy" also discourage people from using it? Oh ok I kind of see now. Thing is, there's a lot of garbage out there that treat developers crappy. I don't know if pollyanna is normalizing it though, just reflecting it. The companies you mentioned are all big popular companies that may have just implemented it well. Rocko Bonaparte posted:I don't want to do that, because now I'm assuming you're a lady too and they were telling you to smile.
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Jan 17, 2018 18:59
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I don't want to do that, because now I'm assuming you're a lady too and they were telling you to smile. Not a lady, but they told me I dont smile enough and therefor I am not approachable and therefore I didnt communicate enough.
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Jan 17, 2018 19:01
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My previous reply about bad implemtation of what could be good ideas reminded me of this video about open offices https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/10/4/16414808/open-offices-history
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Jan 17, 2018 19:04
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KoRMaK posted:Um.... It seems to be pretty widely viewed as the way pollyanna presented it. You have a weird axe to grind it seems. I worked at an unlimited vacation place and took 4 weeks off in a year, and worked from home most of the time otherwise.
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Jan 17, 2018 19:24
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KoRMaK posted:Oh ok I kind of see now. Thing is, there's a lot of garbage out there that treat developers crappy. I don't know if pollyanna is normalizing it though, just reflecting it. The companies you mentioned are all big popular companies that may have just implemented it well. Pollyanna often extrapolates wildly from her meager experience and then proceeds to tell people how things are in the Newbie thread while at the same time whining about how every decision she makes turns to ash here and in the Oldie thread. The real irony is that despite coming a long way in only 3 years, she still sees herself as a victim and it's unfair how all developers are treated everywhere, simply because she hasn't become Worlds Best Developer in a week. Punkbob posted:I worked at an unlimited vacation place and took 4 weeks off in a year, and worked from home most of the time otherwise. INSTAFIRED!
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Jan 17, 2018 19:30
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KoRMaK posted:I don't know if pollyanna is normalizing it though, just reflecting it. The companies you mentioned are all big popular companies that may have just implemented it well. Back at Intel during crunch time near the end of 5-year projects, vacation requests had to go up through the program manager, maybe a VP if it was late enough? Even with a standardized number of weeks per year, that had quite a chilling effect. But it was also expected that everyone on the pre-Si teams took a month off right after takeout.
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Jan 17, 2018 19:58
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Punkbob posted:I worked at an unlimited vacation place and took 4 weeks off in a year, and worked from home most of the time otherwise. Hmm ok, point taken. Skandranon posted:Pollyanna often extrapolates wildly from her meager experience and then proceeds to tell people how things are in the Newbie thread while at the same time whining about how every decision she makes turns to ash here and in the Oldie thread. The real irony is that despite coming a long way in only 3 years, she still sees herself as a victim and it's unfair how all developers are treated everywhere, simply because she hasn't become Worlds Best Developer in a week. On a side note, one thing that your post made me aware of is 1) pollyanna's gender and 2) how that might be affecting their experience in this field (and even maybe on these forums)
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Jan 17, 2018 20:11
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Skandranon posted:Pollyanna often extrapolates wildly from her meager experience and then proceeds to tell people how things are in the Newbie thread while at the same time whining about how every decision she makes turns to ash here and in the Oldie thread. The real irony is that despite coming a long way in only 3 years, she still sees herself as a victim and it's unfair how all developers are treated everywhere, simply because she hasn't become Worlds Best Developer in a week. Yes, and the real old people shut up and wait. 15 years ago I was like this, it all turned out fine and I ended up in IT. Who knows where pollyanna might end up? Only time can tell us.
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Jan 17, 2018 20:52
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Discussion about my youth aside...I admit that I have only worked at one place with an unlimited/no vacation policy, but the vibe I got was that unlimited didnt mean whenever you want, however you want and felt like there were less protections around taking time off and more stigma against it. That might just be me projecting, I dont know, but I feel more comfortable taking a vacation at a place that allotted time for it than at a place that didnt have anything or had unlimited. Im just very suspicious of it.
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Jan 17, 2018 21:43
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I think I'd need to know how the vacation policy works in practice, talking to employees, etc. before determining if it's a scam or not.
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Jan 17, 2018 22:36
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ratbert90 posted:Also ask the interviewer how their work life balance is. I would ask them for examples of how the company promotes work life balance and how theyve taken advantage of it themselves. Basically take that approach to everything important to you. Can you give me specific examples of foo? How have you personally experienced foo while at bar co? A nice side benefit of that approach is that the interviewers tend to see you as more personable and engaged, which translates into liking you, and can influence an offer. metztli fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jan 18, 2018 |
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Jan 18, 2018 00:25
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metztli posted:If a place offers unlimited vacation time, ask them if they have a mandatory minimum amount of time off per year. Also ask the interviewer how their work life balance is.
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Jan 18, 2018 00:30
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Hughlander posted:I haven't heard about people at GE complaining about it, none of the people at Netflix feel they're discouraged from it that I've talked to. People here who used to be at Grubhub don't have that impression. What are the companies that meet the criteria of "Been around for 5+ years and have an unlimited vacation policy" also discourage people from using it? There's a lot of lovely companies out there. For every good, successful company, there are dozens that are total garbage and treat employees like crap for however many years it takes the company to go under. The first tech company I worked for didn't pay anyone more than $15 an hour, except (presumably) the owner and his relatives. Just as you said, they've got high turnover, but it's been more than half a decade since I quit and they're still around. Of the numerous shitholes I worked in over the years before I finally landed a job that wasn't completely awful, one of the many things they all had in common was that they didn't have a vacation policy. You just asked the owner for time off and hoped he was feeling generous. It was "unlimited" in the sense that there was no limit, but at the same time, the lack of any policy and the fact that the owners were shitheads tended to limit your willingness to make use of it.
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Jan 18, 2018 00:43
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metztli posted:I would ask them for examples of how the company promotes work life balance and how theyve taken advantage of it themselves. I usually ask in an interview about the various policies of the place, including vacation days and so on. One time, one interviewr told me that they offer 10 days per year vacation (minimum mandatory in Canada) and that sick days count towards your vacation days. Say what? Hahaha, good bye. It didn't help that during the interview he let it slip that they have reinvented hibernate internally. Phew, dodged that one.
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Jan 18, 2018 01:36
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Pollyanna posted:That might just be me projecting "extrapolating" more than "projecting" maybe? quote:Im just very suspicious of it. And based solely on your experience that's understandable, but what you keep doing in these threads is taking your personal experiences and promulgating them like universal truths...and that just isn't the case. There are only a couple of universal truths to working in development, the main ones being that all code is terrible and that computers were a mistake. I'll throw in my anecdote: a couple of jobs ago my company went to an unlimited vacation policy. My management chain were good people and made sure employees knew that they were cool with people leveraging the policy as they personally felt appropriate. Most of my coworkers were professional about it and didn't take off a ton of time with no notice, and still met their commitments for a given release cycle. It was really nice. Going from that situation to a limited PTO bank and a manager who is quite strict about asses-in-chairs for 40 hours a week sucked a lot.
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Jan 18, 2018 04:40
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Volguus posted:I usually ask in an interview about the various policies of the place, including vacation days and so on. One time, one interviewr told me that they offer 10 days per year vacation (minimum mandatory in Canada) and that sick days count towards your vacation days. Say what? Hahaha, good bye. While living in socialist Europe (comrade), I had a job with 20 vacation days which is the local minimum while at the same time the company boasted that every employee worldwide had 20 days and I was supposed to be glad of that. Fortunately, sick days do not count against vacation here so I would call in sick every few months for a few mental health days.
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Jan 18, 2018 06:50
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Pollyanna posted:Discussion about my youth aside...I admit that I have only worked at one place with an unlimited/no vacation policy, but the vibe I got was that unlimited didnt mean whenever you want, however you want and felt like there were less protections around taking time off and more stigma against it. That might just be me projecting, I dont know, but I feel more comfortable taking a vacation at a place that allotted time for it than at a place that didnt have anything or had unlimited. Im just very suspicious of it. I'm working at a "take as much vacation as you want", which comes with only one limitation: You're in trouble if you take less than the legal minimum of 20 days annually. I think I took like 35-40 days last year (the system doesn't even display this number any more) which nobody felt the need to mention during the performance review. It seems to be near the company average, too (nobody really knows what the company average is because nobody looks it up and communicates it). Regarding interviews, I always ask the interviewer what they like the least about their company. That's usually enlightening.
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Jan 18, 2018 10:44
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I don't want to add to the Pollyanna pileup too much, but what has been said reflects my experience with her pretty well in that she tends to come off as "I know best, even though I am barely out of coding bootcamp" while espousing some... questionable opinions. For content, this list of interviewee questions from the 'POS is good: quote:- who do you work with on a daily basis / describe the day to day role ---edit--- Note that it is primarily applicable to larger companies, ie as far as I know we don't have official values and the unofficial ones are something like "make $$$ while doing interesting research", but we are ~5 academics who are trying to move some of our research into real world 
Xarn fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Jan 18, 2018 |
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Jan 18, 2018 14:29
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Main Paineframe posted:There's a lot of lovely companies out there. For every good, successful company, there are dozens that are total garbage and treat employees like crap for however many years it takes the company to go under. The first tech company I worked for didn't pay anyone more than $15 an hour, except (presumably) the owner and his relatives. Just as you said, they've got high turnover, but it's been more than half a decade since I quit and they're still around. That was exactly my point though. Lets look for those companies that are worthwhile and not say that the garbage ones are the only things that are out there. This conversation thats happened in the last page or so was what I wanted to drive for. Maybe its the wrong thread for it and itd be better in the newbie/oldbie than the Anglefall one but here we are.
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Jan 18, 2018 14:44
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I'm technically a consultant, so despite having as much vacation/sick time as I want, I have billability targets to meet if I want my reviews to go well 
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Jan 18, 2018 14:48
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Fine, fine, I get it. I've worked at crappy companies, I don't have much real-world experience, and I have no idea if any one particular company has a good or bad vacation policy or any kind of policy really. I just don't expect the best from companies and fully expect them to be engineered to gently caress their employees over somehow. I am biased and I understand that is not realistic.
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Jan 18, 2018 15:21
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Xarn posted:I don't want to add to the Pollyanna pileup too much, but what has been said reflects my experience with her pretty well in that she tends to come off as "I know best, even though I am barely out of coding bootcamp" while espousing some... questionable opinions. Good list! Another one I like is a variation of, How is the work decided/split Are you tasked from on high? Does someone masturbate over a standup and thats what youre doing for the day? Do you kick out the PO and choose work from a well groomed backlog? I ask this of every individual contributor and look for variations. Also ask about last minute changes or additions. See if they negotiate work or just slop on overtime.
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Jan 18, 2018 15:31
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Pollyanna posted:Fine, fine, I get it. I've worked at crappy companies, I don't have much real-world experience, and I have no idea if any one particular company has a good or bad vacation policy or any kind of policy really. I just don't expect the best from companies and fully expect them to be engineered to gently caress their employees over somehow. I am biased and I understand that is not realistic. It's more common at companies where either the devs aren't their bread and butter, or they are and don't want to admit it / don't know it. The more "prestigious" places know that their employees can just decide to up and quit and get a new job in a week if they really piss them off, that hiring is hard, and that it's hard to recover from having "a reputation". This is why they offer perks and treat them better. Every company wants to gently caress over their employees, some of them just won't get away with it and they know it 
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Jan 18, 2018 15:56
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Pollyanna posted:Fine, fine, I get it. I've worked at crappy companies, I don't have much real-world experience, and I have no idea if any one particular company has a good or bad vacation policy or any kind of policy really. I just don't expect the best from companies and fully expect them to be engineered to gently caress their employees over somehow. I am biased and I understand that is not realistic. I think what some of us, in our better moods, are trying to get through to you (or at least me), is that your bias is not just potentially wrong, but is likely playing a role in creating the bad situations you keep finding yourself in.
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Jan 18, 2018 17:04
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Volmarias posted:It's more common at companies where either the devs aren't their bread and butter, or they are and don't want to admit it / don't know it. The more "prestigious" places know that their employees can just decide to up and quit and get a new job in a week if they really piss them off, that hiring is hard, and that it's hard to recover from having "a reputation". This is why they offer perks and treat them better. Every company wants to gently caress over their employees, some of them just won't get away with it and they know it My impression is that you could get a job in another week (probably more like two weeks), but getting a job that is explicitly better than the one you had takes more time sorting through what's available and being selective. I feel like the reality is a bit more complicated than "just get another job", but maybe that's just me... Skandranon posted:I think what some of us, in our better moods, are trying to get through to you (or at least me), is that your bias is not just potentially wrong, but is likely playing a role in creating the bad situations you keep finding yourself in. Then what am I doing wrong, and how do I change that? My attitude stinks, but I've been trying to build a kind of barrier between me and the companies I interview with, and have them prove to me first that they're well-positioned, stable, and have an explicit need for me. Should I be more assertive, more accepting?
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Jan 18, 2018 17:07
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Pollyanna posted:My impression is that you could get a job in another week (probably more like two weeks), but getting a job that is explicitly better than the one you had takes more time sorting through what's available and being selective. I feel like the reality is a bit more complicated than "just get another job", but maybe that's just me... Yes it can take more time to find a good job, but one of the secrets to this is simply start looking earlier. Don't wait until you are on the verge of suicide or are fired to find a new job. Things get a little rocky? Update your resume, send it out. If your Linkedin profile is in good shape, you don't even need to do so much of that. My current job I got passively through Linkedin, and my new one next week was the same. As to the more assertive/more accepting question... that's not an easy one to answer, but you need to be confident enough in your abilities to assert what you want and what you won't tolerate, without becoming a jerk that no one can work with. A lot of this just comes with actual experience, and you need to give yourself some more time to develop it, instead of being so hard on yourself for not having it, or the world for besetting you with problems where you feel could be better handled if you just had it already.
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Jan 18, 2018 17:15
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Pollyanna posted:I just don't expect the best from companies and fully expect them to be engineered to gently caress their employees over somehow This is a good and correct viewpoint
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Jan 18, 2018 17:21
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quote:- when was the last time you took pto / how much did you take / what did you do You've got to be really discerning asking an individual about how much time they take off or what their work life balance is. I wouldn't suggest asking this without also asking about the companies, or better the department that you will be working in looks like on average. I asked this to my primary interviewer who is now my TL and he told me that he only took a week off the previous year, and had a tendency to stay at work for 10 hours a day. This made me very nervous so I asked if that was the norm and what it looked like beyond him - making it very clear that I was not okay with that. He was pretty quick to assure me that he was a bit of a work-a-holic, and that it was really on the individual to protect their own time, but that there was no expectation for working over 40 hours a week or not using PTO when you need it. Flash forward seven months, I have been working on average 35 hours a week, used PTO pretty liberally, and got good feedback on my mid-year review with no mentions about PTO or 40hrs in the seat a week. I think if I would have just run away after the initial response I would have missed out on what has turned out to be a pretty good gig.
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Jan 18, 2018 17:32
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Skandranon posted:Yes it can take more time to find a good job, but one of the secrets to this is simply start looking earlier. Don't wait until you are on the verge of suicide or are fired to find a new job. Things get a little rocky? Update your resume, send it out. If your Linkedin profile is in good shape, you don't even need to do so much of that. My current job I got passively through Linkedin, and my new one next week was the same. Yeah this is where networking comes in handy. I go to meetups, grab lunches with former coworkers, attend tech happy hours, work in coworking spaces etc. A big part of that is keeping up with who works where now, what company is having lots of turnover, what company just got a round of funding, etc. Off the top of my head I can think of 1-2 places who would probably hire me if I applied, and 3-4 more I could look into. I also can think of 2-3 that I would have to be totally desperate to work at because my friends worked there and told me horror stories.
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Jan 18, 2018 18:43
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Portland Sucks posted:You've got to be really discerning asking an individual about how much time they take off or what their work life balance is. I wouldn't suggest asking this without also asking about the companies, or better the department that you will be working in looks like on average. Everything's always amazing "on average" or in aggregate. Everyone's super happy, on average. It's really easy for an interviewer to handwave about these policies with the company line, you ask the person directly sitting in front of you about their individual experience with the policy to cut through that and get one genuine truth out of the process. It doesn't take some mystic skill to discern the right person to ask.
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Jan 18, 2018 18:58
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Xarn posted:For content, this list of interviewee questions from the 'POS is good: The values question is a weird one for a lot of companies, I think. My companys value is turn money into more money but that has very little impact on how much I enjoy my day-to-day job. Portland Sucks posted:You've got to be really discerning asking an individual about how much time they take off or what their work life balance is. I wouldn't suggest asking this without also asking about the companies, or better the department that you will be working in looks like on average. A good variant is whats the coolest thing someone on the team did with PTO.
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Jan 18, 2018 20:49
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We have 5 different values which are repeated often and drilled into every recruitment pack. Plus the annual awards are based around these values. But in the end its still "make more money".
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Jan 18, 2018 22:13
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Do any of you have any experience working at Capita in the UK? Starting there next week, sort of wondering whats the downlow. edit: Specifically AMT Sybex, I guess.
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Jan 18, 2018 22:26
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AskYourself posted:It's hard to act professional when you don't wear pants ? Not true. I strut around the office all the time.
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Jan 19, 2018 02:00
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Volmarias posted:It's more common at companies where either the devs aren't their bread and butter, or they are and don't want to admit it / don't know it. The more "prestigious" places know that their employees can just decide to up and quit and get a new job in a week if they really piss them off, that hiring is hard, and that it's hard to recover from having "a reputation". This is why they offer perks and treat them better. Every company wants to gently caress over their employees, some of them just won't get away with it and they know it It depends a lot on who they hire. Most of the lovely companies I worked at specifically went out of their way to hire people who a) didn't really have a ton of other options, and b) were largely replaceable anyway. Fresh grads with essentially nonexistent resumes, middle-aged guys who'd hurt themselves doing physical work and gone to a coding bootcamp to become a novice coder, and old guys who gave no shits at all and were either waiting out the clock till retirement or quietly working side contracting gigs on company time. That's not a concern for most of us, but if there's one place it should be brought up, it's the newbie thread.
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Jan 19, 2018 03:49
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What the gently caress is the point of corporate values?
redleader fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jan 19, 2018 |
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Jan 19, 2018 06:11
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redleader posted:What the gently caress is the point of corporate values? Marketing/PR.
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Jan 19, 2018 06:56
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Yeah something about corporate culture forces you to make these mission statements because "more money for us, gently caress you" just doesn't seem to motivate people in a knowledge industry or whatever.
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Jan 19, 2018 08:05
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