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I still love writing software, but that is really not the same thing as loving being a professional software developer.
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Jun 28, 2023 21:20
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yeah, 4th toucher at a company is much closer to that than 2,616th toucher at a company
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Jun 28, 2023 21:23
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computer touching at bigco sucks but not really any more than any other office job (in fact, a lot less than most), and most other office jobs don't pay a quarter+ mil a year. goes a really long way toward financial independence in relatively short order. i'm not some pauperish FIRE dweeb, but financial independence is freedom. i do still like working with code and solving problems and mentoring and leading younger devs, that's not the part of the job that is burnout inducing. but staff/tech lead means i have to chew on bigger more ambiguous problems and deal with project management garbage and coordinate across ever-shifting business priorities and reorgs and navigate years of tech debt and bad decision making at the org level and all that other poo poo. that's where the burnout and frustration comes from, but i dunno i just have a certain zen about how perpetually hosed it all is. some day soon-ish i'd like to find something small again, but not some venture-backed startup shitshow. until then i'm riding out these golden handcuffs a bit longer and stacking fu money until the right opportunity presents itself or i get laid off
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Jun 29, 2023 06:01
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As far as office jobs go, it's one of the best honestly.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:39
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I enjoy most of the practical parts of software development, including talking and coordinating with other people across different projects. The lovely parts are when management starts making up deadlines based on what they wish, rather than on anything realistic, and instead of taking responsibility, try to make it your fault when that doesn't work.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:47
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:For sure, the idea of trying to make a living off of, say, woodworking, is also distressing. These days I'm mostly just very tired. Pretty sure you have to go through computer touching to get into woodworking these days.
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Jun 29, 2023 11:21
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Xarn posted:The lovely parts are when management starts making up deadlines based on what they wish, rather than on anything realistic, and instead of taking responsibility, try to make it your fault when that doesn't work.
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Jun 29, 2023 12:47
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It's really funny when people's solution to a deadline is being tight is "let's have some meetings about it" or "let's pull more people into this"
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Jun 29, 2023 12:50
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It's an excellent way to distribute blame if you already know you will fail to reach the deadline. That's the only thing my previous boss taught me.
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Jun 29, 2023 13:27
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I like bigco because there's usually plenty of opportunity to move around and there's always at least a few pockets that aren't dysfunctional.Xarn posted:The lovely parts are when management starts making up deadlines based on what they wish, rather than on anything realistic, and instead of taking responsibility, try to make it your fault when that doesn't work. I've found that having a visual timeline with estimates helps keep them honest. "Oh you want to do this new work? Show me on the timeline where you're taking the resources from." Emphasis on "helps", because I don't think they can help themselves from trying to eat their cake and have it too.
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Jun 29, 2023 13:31
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luchadornado posted:I like bigco because there's usually plenty of opportunity to move around and there's always at least a few pockets that aren't dysfunctional. Ahhh sorry friendo, we noticed that you aren’t pulling 100% during our Troubles of the ‘20s, so we’re gonna have to put you on an improvement plan. Oh by the way you can’t change teams. Sorry!
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Jun 29, 2023 13:40
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prom candy posted:It's really funny when people's solution to a deadline is being tight is "let's have some meetings about it" or "let's pull more people into this" "Management is having so many meetings, I'm surprised the project isn't already done!" The best is when I estimate a project as 6 months, then 2 months later the project starts and they hold me to the original timeline so I have 4 months.
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Jun 29, 2023 14:46
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StumblyWumbly posted:The best is when I estimate a project as 6 months, then 2 months later the project starts and they hold me to the original timeline so I have 4 months.
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Jun 29, 2023 14:49
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Love Stole the Day posted:Are you me? Are you currently dying in a meeting about bushing materials, a subject you actively refuse to learn about because it has no bearing (I think that's a joke? idk) on your actual job.
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Jun 29, 2023 15:01
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prom candy posted:It's really funny when people's solution to a deadline is being tight is "let's have some meetings about it" or "let's pull more people into this" I offer to purchase The Mythical Man-Month for anyone above or across me and have been doing so for the better part of twenty years. Don't think it's worked one god drat time but I've gotten some interesting books in return so 
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Jun 29, 2023 16:39
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books are 10 bucks, peeps time is 50-25000 per hour so...
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Jun 29, 2023 16:44
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prom candy posted:It's really funny when people's solution to a deadline is being tight is "let's have some meetings about it" or "let's pull more people into this" Collect the metrics that you can use to help managers help you.  I once had an "emergency" testing report thing that a group of us were working on in a Teams call that we kept open all day. We weren't really talking, since we were all working. Every once in a while, someone would unmute and ask a question to the group. Someone would answer and we'd all re-mute and continue working. Every 30-45 minutes, my skip level manager would come in and ask for a status update like clockwork. Things like "what has been accomplished in the last 30 minutes?" and "what is the current completion percentage?". Perhaps he was making a real-time Excel chart of our progress throughout the day? Who knows.
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Jun 29, 2023 17:35
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I feel like I've been promoted because I learn how to get poo poo done in a company. Every company has bureaucracy; learning to navigate it is valuable. Fortunately for me, I love doing this bs. I do try to help the engineers who want to keep coding to do that. Attempting to address repeated blockers, yell at mgmt that they need to provide true IC career paths, etc.
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Jun 29, 2023 18:12
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downout posted:I feel like I've been promoted because I learn how to get poo poo done in a company. Every company has bureaucracy; learning to navigate it is valuable.
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Jun 29, 2023 18:23
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downout posted:I feel like I've been promoted because I learn how to get poo poo done in a company. Every company has bureaucracy; learning to navigate it is valuable. Tell me how you know a particular situation is worth navigating and when it is better to wash your hands of it and move on.
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Jun 29, 2023 18:26
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Pollyanna posted:Tell me how you know a particular situation is worth navigating and when it is better to wash your hands of it and move on. Seconded. I’ve been having a poo poo time with the navigation lately, though I /had/ considered myself pretty good at it 
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Jun 29, 2023 18:57
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Speaking of organizational poo poo, we had an infra-org meeting where I was specifically asked about my team’s experience working on supporting more switch/router vendors, and then asked what plan we had for further testing of our product in the context of more vendors. The first question was easy: I just went into all the vendor bugs, image discrepancies, and lack of confidence in using VM-based tests to prove hardware correctness. I hope my manager was listening and understands why my progress may seem so loving slow in that vein.  The second question, I ended up holding my tongue a good bit - that exact testing responsibility is one of the biggest pain points and examples of dumping I’ve seen, and my hackles raised as a knee-jerk response. I don’t have the energy to speak intelligently about it nor am I in the right mental state for it. Frankly, I just wanna move on from thinking about this product. Maybe that makes me a bad L4, but man, my brain hurts.
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Jun 29, 2023 19:17
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Startyde posted:I offer to purchase The Mythical Man-Month for anyone above or across me and have been doing so for the better part of twenty years. Don't think it's worked one god drat time but I've gotten some interesting books in return so buy them 2 so they'll read it faster
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Jun 29, 2023 20:59
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minato posted:buy them 2 so they'll read it faster 
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Jun 29, 2023 21:36
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minato posted:buy them 2 so they'll read it faster Would you like one
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Jun 29, 2023 22:04
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Jun 29, 2023 23:02
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I write code. I talk to people. Life is good. Sometimes coworkers disappear. That's capitalism  Edit: Pollyanna in hindsight i think ejecting to another team asap after arriving and smelling the burning garbage might have been optimal. I would try not to beat yourself up about it though. I'm curious, does it seem like Google's turning up the pip pressure generally? Is every company slowly converging on Amazon tier 1 pip factory style? awesomeolion fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jun 29, 2023 |
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Jun 29, 2023 23:13
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downout posted:I feel like I've been promoted because I learn how to get poo poo done in a company. Every company has bureaucracy; learning to navigate it is valuable. I don't love it, but this has also been very useful to me; learning how to read the tea leaves and figure out how to get poo poo done is a very useful skill.
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Jun 30, 2023 01:57
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Following on with not having had the best luck navigating weird situations lately, I had a really hosed up interaction with my direct manager today in which:
this went back and forth a few rounds before he abruptly dismissed me from his office and I think was starting to have an emotional breakdown  In four years reporting to this guy (and like eighteen years reporting to lots of other people for that matter) I have never seen this sort of thing and am...at a loss for words. I genuinely have no idea what the gently caress just happened and have no idea how to proceed.Is everybody's leadership just going totally insane lately? edit: my  suspicion is that he was told to get rid of me but can't find a reason to put me on a pip, and my company "doesn't do layoffs," so he's stuck. But that makes no rational sense at all because I work in Kansas and no one has ever needed a reason to fire anybody in this state.
csammis fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jun 30, 2023 |
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Jun 30, 2023 04:49
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It is end of quarter tomorrow. And a Friday. This thread should be very interesting through next week
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Jun 30, 2023 05:05
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Isn't Kansas just a right to work state anyways? Also, he could do all kinds of poo poo to get rid of you. Like, assign something that you both agree to change mid-quarter, then ding you for not finishing it at the end. Or just take any communication where you are disagreeing about something with anybody and just use it as some kind of proof of you being "bad."
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Jun 30, 2023 05:54
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Or just take any communication where you are disagreeing about something with anybody and just use it as some kind of proof of you being "bad." Well god knows he wouldn’t have to dig far to find me involved in a disagreement  And yes Kansas is “right to work” so he could shitcan me instantly for no reason. It’s very rare in my experience with this large-ish company - everyone I personally know who has been fired was properly pipped first for obvious CYA reasons - but hence my paranoia about his heretofore unprecedented behavior. I’ve no idea what to expect next.
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Jun 30, 2023 06:04
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Hadlock posted:It is end of quarter tomorrow. And a Friday. This thread should be very interesting through next week It's a good sign when your CTO is very abruptly fired two days before the end of the quarter and the board member in charge of approving stock grants resigns immediately, right?
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Jun 30, 2023 06:12
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csammis posted:Following on with not having had the best luck navigating weird situations lately, I had a really hosed up interaction with my direct manager today in which: Honestly I wonder if the dude was having a mental breakdown or something, that's bizarre all over.
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Jun 30, 2023 07:06
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Plorkyeran posted:It's a good sign when your CTO is very abruptly fired two days before the end of the quarter and the board member in charge of approving stock grants resigns immediately, right? Yeah those are really good signs, they're opening up a lot of stock so they can issue more RSUs to engineers later on. Classic move very "this company is going places*" behavior *Into bankruptcy
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Jun 30, 2023 07:21
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Falcon2001 posted:Honestly I wonder if the dude was having a mental breakdown or something, that's bizarre all over. I was going to ask next if the manager looked like they were having a stroke or something. That whole "tell me what is wrong with you so I can lord it over you" isn't even a good narcissistic double bind attempt. At least work for it a little!
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Jun 30, 2023 08:59
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csammis posted:Following on with not having had the best luck navigating weird situations lately, I had a really hosed up interaction with my direct manager today in which: He could be struggling with the guilt of having to shitcan a bunch of people, for sure. The company I work for just had Microsoft talk to us for a whole day about how they're going to replace all the people with AI. Everyone at the top is very excited about bringing the "softwareized" company to IT. thotsky fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Jun 30, 2023 |
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Jun 30, 2023 09:27
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csammis posted:Following on with not having had the best luck navigating weird situations lately, I had a really hosed up interaction with my direct manager today in which: 1. It's your managers job to ensure you understand your performance and that nothing surprising happens during review. This means timely feedback on both positive and negative things. His job is to fish for that poo poo for you. You feeding him the good shouldn't ever be a problem. 2. It's likely he's been asked to can some number of his staff. Potentially a large number. Whatever % keeps you below reporting layoffs threshold. 3. Dude is very clearly in the process of a mental breakdown, because every manager should know 1. 4. You've been told directly that now is a good time to start looking for a new job. 5. Most companies have standards for termination from HR that far exceed the needs of local laws. He probably needs documentation to put you on a PIP, set up a PIP, let you go after you fail to meet the PIP. If you are good at your job, the first and third parts of that are difficult; there's less stuff that isn't petty to PIP over, and you'll likely be able to pass any PIP that wouldn't risk a constructive dismissal suit.
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Jun 30, 2023 10:21
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Plorkyeran posted:It's a good sign when your CTO is very abruptly fired two days before the end of the quarter and the board member in charge of approving stock grants resigns immediately, right? It means that the comedy stock is going to the moon
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Jun 30, 2023 13:20
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Xarn posted:It means that the comedy stock is going to the moon Where it can suffocate in the cold void of space.
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Jun 30, 2023 15:09
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