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fourwood posted:I’m currently feeling the exact opposite. I spend all day getting distracted by my wife and my cats and some very obnoxious construction right across the street. 100% same In the before-times my WFH days were on days where my kid was at school and then his grandparents house and our home was quiet and I could be productive. Now, my house is louder and more distracting than my office. I probably won't be in-office 100% of the time but I'm definitely going back.
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May 3, 2021 13:34
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My old office had an open office plan with brutal acoustics and optional WFH a few days a week. There were a couple of social butterflies who would complain about how the office felt so empty when everyone was working from home. They were nice people but we were working from home because their constant loud conversations made it impossible to focus. Open office plans are so loving stupid.
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May 3, 2021 15:58
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How about when there's 5 sales people in the open floorplan office who love to use speakerphone all at the same time somehow (true story)
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May 3, 2021 19:43
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I'm fine with open office plans in a limited sense (Like, team rooms where everyone on a feature team is in the same room), so long as everyone, including higher-ups, also has to do it. IMO it makes it approachable for me to talk to others in a team room to have a quick chat about an issue. And if I need to concentrate, we have quiet rooms when I can do work or calls there.
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May 3, 2021 19:54
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I've worked in open offices where everyone is a designer or developer and nobody has a "talking job" and that's much better but it still means you need to put headphones on if you need to concentrate. I don't want to wear headphones all day.
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May 3, 2021 19:59
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Drastic Actions posted:I'm fine with open office plans in a limited sense (Like, team rooms where everyone on a feature team is in the same room), so long as everyone, including higher-ups, also has to do it. IMO it makes it approachable for me to talk to others in a team room to have a quick chat about an issue. And if I need to concentrate, we have quiet rooms when I can do work or calls there. Ridiculous, they just want cheaper office space, not to have to PARTICIPATE in what they make the peasants do!
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May 3, 2021 20:03
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prom candy posted:I've worked in open offices where everyone is a designer or developer and nobody has a "talking job" and that's much better but it still means you need to put headphones on if you need to concentrate. I don't want to wear headphones all day. I absolutely hate that “wear headphones” is the answer to focusing in open offices. Headphones make me constantly worried someone is standing behind me, and I can’t use them, even at home alone, unless my back is to a wall.
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May 3, 2021 20:03
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I'm going to be going back to the office when the time comes, but definitely not every day of the week. I think overall my company is going for office presence being flexible and optional since there is a variety of preferences among the company. A couple of our devs are gung-ho about 100% WFH from here on out, others (like me) want some home/office separation. I like the idea of WFH whenever though, and not having to approve/plan it beforehand and poo poo. Today is a good example of why I'd like that - over the weekend I burned the poo poo out of my foot in a bacon grease accident and now can't wear shoes that aren't loose house slippers. Also it is raining. In the before times at my old job, requesting WFH because of a mobility-impairing injury proooobably would have been granted, but very, very grudgingly and only after questioning about the exact state and severity of my injury and was I sure I didn't have shoes that I could comfortably walk in? Speaking of my old job, Gildiss posted:Except we were recently forced back ...thanks for flashbacks. The team lead at my old job was hired by the CTO with zero input from the rest of the dev team and while he was highly technically competent and would have been an excellent IC, he was awful as team lead. To add insult to injury, this guy replaced a really great team lead who left because the company was unwilling to grant him flex hours and as-needed WFH to accommodate some abrupt life changes. He wasn't totally drunk on the startup culture KoolAid like your guy, but still implicitly promoted a miserable work culture within the dev team by setting the tone by doing poo poo like working through company happy hour and being hyper-obsessed with process and JIRA metrics. Like at retros, spent almost as much time discussing team velocity/productivity KPIs (with graphs and everything) as the poo poo we were working on. We had two-week sprints which were bad enough. I can't imagine doing all that overhead poo poo every single week. Also if he picked out the food it would be lovely cheese pizza and Mountain Dew. And did an after hours mandatory hackathon thing that sucked and didn't even provide alcohol, just Mountain Dew and more gross pizza. I definitely got startup culture cargo-culting vibes from my old company, but not too much from the team lead (who came from enterprise). CTO was a chill, aloof dude so whenever he tried to pull company loyalty/startup hustle crap on me it felt really awkward and contrived. He just didn't have any managerial aptitude or desire, which I think is why he ended up hiring an awful team lead after letting a really good one get away, and was then really surprised at how miserable the dev culture was making me during my exit interview. CEO was a super cool dude, but much more into the sales and schmoozing aspect of growing the company and was unaware of how bad the dev situation had gotten. Oh yeah, there was also a lovely sexist dev in all this, but you can peruse my past posts in this thread to learn about that. I have no idea what it would have been like being on that team in the pandemic but I'm glad I didn't have to find out. Team lead at my current job is amazing and even though I work under him I got to participate in interviewing him. He's eager to head back into the office and currently goes in once a week or so (to get away from home distractions) but does not expect us to come back before we're ready (if at all). quote:I was this close to forging a super awesome dev team but the CEO didn't like that I did not make our new junior hire REPORT TO THE OFFICE EVERYDAY despite the fact that we were all forced into WFH due to out of control virus spread during that time. He seriously wanted him to commute on public transport everyday to an empty office simply because he was junior, as if anyone would be there to watch him. That's some petty hierarchical power-tripping bullshit right there wtf. rt4 posted:How about when there's 5 sales people in the open floorplan office who love to use speakerphone all at the same time somehow (true story) Dear lord I couldn't even imagine. At my old job it was one room and I sat next to one of the sales guys but he had one of those wonderful soothing radio voices and never used speakerphone so I didn't mind the sales calls. But five of them all on speakerphone? Screw that. At my current company, it is open office but across several rooms, and the dev team has a dedicated large room and it's a very small team so it's fine. We also have a separate quiet workroom if you wanted to go be by yourself. And once the pandemic is over, there will be the WFH whenever option.
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May 3, 2021 20:08
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chglcu posted:I absolutely hate that “wear headphones” is the answer to focusing in open offices. Headphones make me constantly worried someone is standing behind me, and I can’t use them, even at home alone, unless my back is to a wall. And I can't listen to music while I'm focusing because I find it distracting, so for me it would be literally listening to a white noise generator. If you think about it like that, wearing headphones is a lovely solution to the root cause of the environment being too noisy.
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May 3, 2021 21:00
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I've listened to a white noise generator at work in an open office before, it sucks. The funny thing is that these offices are supposed to bring people together but they just made me hate people that I otherwise liked working because they were loud talkers or cleared their throat a lot or whatever. God I hated that loving office.
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May 4, 2021 00:35
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My manager either quit or was fired, so now his manager (director) is going to act as my manager until he hires a replacement. He doesn't plan on having any engineers interview the candidates, just the middle/upper management. He said having engineers interview candidates for the engineer manager would be 'awkward', which I find weird because I think it's pretty normal. I'm pretty sure it's because he's afraid we're going to scare away all the candidates. I don't think any of my coworkers like working here. I have a 1:1 scheduled with the director this week and I haven't built any rapport with this person. So I'm not comfortable talking about how much sadness I feel working here. I'm not really sure what to say during this 1:1. Any ideas on the do's/don'ts of what to say or talk about? If I felt comfortable being honest, I'd say that working here sucks and every day, I feel jealous of the coworkers that have already resigned to work better jobs at better companies.
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May 4, 2021 01:02
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I would just bullshit that everything is fine while you plan your exit.
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May 4, 2021 04:19
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prom candy posted:I would just bullshit that everything is fine while you plan your exit. Yeah, this. Only an exit plan or financial independence allow for honesty in the workplace.
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May 4, 2021 05:15
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Hey now, depression-based nihilism can do it too!
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May 4, 2021 07:23
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CPColin posted:Hey now, depression-based nihilism can do it too! I like to combine depression-based nihilism with financial independence.
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May 4, 2021 09:13
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Prob should pursue a new job if it's bumming you out that badly but for 1:1 advice: Maybe to warm up, ask semi personal questions. Where they worked before, favorite city, etc. I often check people's linkedin before meeting to know if maybe we have things in common I can ask about. For more topical areas: Ask them their goals for the team or department. What's the biggest challenge to getting there? Ask what they want from the new eng manager. Usually you can tell if someone is full of poo poo or disconnected from reality from the answers to questions like that. You might find some opportunities to throw in your own suggestions. If they seem interested that's good, if not then another data point about their pov.
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May 4, 2021 15:18
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prom candy posted:I've listened to a white noise generator at work in an open office before, it sucks. The funny thing is that these offices are supposed to bring people together but they just made me hate people that I otherwise liked working because they were loud talkers or cleared their throat a lot or whatever. God I hated that loving office. This is comically incorrect. The intent of open offices is to save money on office costs.
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May 4, 2021 15:49
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Pollyanna posted:This is comically incorrect. The intent of open offices is to save money on office costs. Well to be fair, people are sometimes told bullshit like that about open offices. Probably isn't true, but that's just how it gets sold sometimes.
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May 4, 2021 15:56
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Protocol7 posted:Well to be fair, people are sometimes told bullshit like that about open offices. Probably isn't true, but that's just how it gets sold sometimes. Yeah it’s not prom candy’s fault or anything, but it’s definitely weasel words on the part of management.
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May 4, 2021 16:02
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Pollyanna posted:This is comically incorrect. The intent of open offices is to save money on office costs. I know that this is why they were really invented but I really think the company I was working for bought into the cargo cult bullshit. I'm still good friends with the former owners, they are good guys who honestly were trying to build a good place to work. They just got hung up on "cool, hip, collaboration" and not enough on "most of us need to be doing heads down solo work 80% of the time for this company to make money"
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May 4, 2021 16:10
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Faith For Two posted:I'm not really sure what to say during this 1:1. Any ideas on the do's/don'ts of what to say or talk about? In my experience a 1:1 is supposed to be a "check-in" to make sure you both know what you're working on, what's coming next, and any context you need around it. Since they're new, they're probably just trying to figure out what your role is, what you're responsible for, and how busy you are. This could be an opportunity to find out what they're able to do to make your job suck less. But if you don't trust them to do that, I would just try to focus on making sure you both have the same understanding of your role and maybe what would be helpful with a new manager.
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May 4, 2021 16:13
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Pollyanna posted:This is comically incorrect. The intent of open offices is to save money on office costs. The intent of open offices is to sell office furniture. Anything else is marketing.
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May 4, 2021 17:49
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I’m sure cubicles and independent offices cost more than that.
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May 4, 2021 18:51
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Pollyanna posted:I’m sure cubicles and independent offices cost more than that. Yes but you already brought all your cubicles. I still need to make my quarterly numbers. Why don't you buy some new office furniture? It'll save rent and make people communicate more!
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May 4, 2021 20:57
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My wife used to work in commercial design. 100% do the furniture vendors push open offices. When she left they had just started pushing "no more open offices"
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May 4, 2021 21:00
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it's just like pants. baggy, slim, baggy, slim, baggy, slim. the important thing is you better keep buying new pants.
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May 4, 2021 21:11
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I'm hoping to get some insight from more Sr devs. For the past year I've been stuck in limb I have been working on a Tableau style project for our location. Since then I've built a front end for another location that will feed into the tableau project. However since this is still "experimental" I haven't been given new title or pay. When I ask about it, they I get the run-around. Because they don't know if this project will be permanent. How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait and see?
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May 5, 2021 01:58
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joebuddah posted:I'm hoping to get some insight from more Sr devs. Prep your resume, get an offer at the level you're looking for, and walk out
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May 5, 2021 02:21
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joebuddah posted:I'm hoping to get some insight from more Sr devs. They will never promote you. This is how you know.
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May 5, 2021 02:26
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Only Trust Your Resume, Your Boss Will Never Promote You
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May 5, 2021 02:46
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Thanks. On the past few pages I noticed a lot of talk about burnout and how this wfh is affecting them mentally. As a person with an autoimmune disorder (type 1 nf), I haven't left the house much. I found card group breaks to be a way to relax and have some social interaction. It's 20min to an hour where they only thing you don't have to think about anything. Though I will warn you, it could be habit forming. If you have an addictive personality, please don't. Generally they are sports cards, but there are also nonsports as well. I personally like the following historical products Anything by Historic Autographs They recently had a Civil War set, with the chase cards being Civil War era Political and military figures autographs. And POTUS the first 36, where you could get part of a document written by one of the first 36 presidents or their autographs. joebuddah fucked around with this message at 04:30 on May 5, 2021 |
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May 5, 2021 04:06
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Eggnogium posted:I’m burned out from working too little. Did okay when the pandemic started but have found myself less and less able to focus to the point where I’m only getting like 4 hours of work done a week. But I spend the other 36 hours medium-grade anxious about falling behind and being outed as a giant slacker so I’m not actually able to use it to get anything done in my home life either, just doom scroll and lie in bed. This is me as well. I started a new job shortly after the pandemic started, and it has been the least motivated I've been in ages. The onboarding process sucked super hard and I was basically not given any work for 3 months, with only the occasional pairing with one of the two senior devs (which I was also hired on as). I was told to "read the code and wiki" for that entire time. Now, the documentation was non-existent or completely outdated (in either code comments, architecture diagrams, or a usable wiki) and the project itself made absolutely no sense with how it was coded. After the first month I was made to help onboard the next new hire, which did not help at all since I told him to look at the wiki page I updated for setting up his local environment and then shrugging at all of his other questions since nobody told me anything. The team/management has not adjusted at all to WFH since it was started. Nobody can use Slack decently for chatting, it always boils down to phone calls and shaming people for not turning on the webcams. It has only gotten marginally better since then. I've had to onboard another 3 or 4 devs and none of them know anything either. My bosses ignore me until I want to leave for the day and call me to pair. I can almost run the project locally with the code paths to make it work around 80% of the time and they shovel badly worded stories on other badly coded applications my way to work on with no freedom to make it better. I spend 90% of the day reading manga and trolling reddit and the forums and about 10% of the day working. I've literally ignored any of the stories on our board for weeks on end and instead worked on improving our code/test/deploy infrastructure, since that was almost non-existent and people would never run our test suite before pushing because A) it took 20 minutes or more to run and B) there were always test failures anyways so why bother running them. My team seems to be extremely extroverted and want to head back to the office ASAP. I never want to see them in person because I dislike talking to most of them. I certainly do not want to make the commute daily. I will be looking for another job when my contract is nearing it's end and I hope that I get motivation back by actually doing something for once. Sigh, the things we do for a significant raise.
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May 5, 2021 04:45
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I worked at a place like that once, very similar setup. Code was equally awful and the other engineers were also uncommunicative and unhelpful. Got let go less than two weeks in because I simply couldn’t make significant progress. When I got the news, I tried to press for details and got almost no good information back, so my internal thought process was less of a freak-out and more of an annoyed “well gently caress this anyway”. That place turned me off of remote work for a very long time, until it was enforced by COVID. Company folded not long after. Can’t imagine why. 
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:09 on May 5, 2021 |
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May 5, 2021 17:06
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joebuddah posted:I'm hoping to get some insight from more Sr devs. In addition to all of the other "they're just loving with you" posters, it also depends on whether this is common for other projects there too. "We won't promote you until you show us you can do the work at that level" is how it works in my company. Projects are occasionally scrapped 3m to 3y after start there, but you can still use the evidence of having been able to work at that level as proof that you're ready for promotion. Holding the promotion contingent on the project completing makes me wonder if they're used to employees only putting up with the bullshit until they get that new title then pretty quickly bounce. Definitely don't put up with this for a year, either way.
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May 5, 2021 18:37
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Volmarias posted:In addition to all of the other "they're just loving with you" posters, it also depends on whether this is common for other projects there too. "We won't promote you until you show us you can do the work at that level" is how it works in my company. Projects are occasionally scrapped 3m to 3y after start there, but you can still use the evidence of having been able to work at that level as proof that you're ready for promotion. Holding the promotion contingent on the project completing makes me wonder if they're used to employees only putting up with the bullshit until they get that new title then pretty quickly bounce. Hold the carrot out and they'll stay till the project is finished. Realize that they're never getting a promotion and they'll leave early putting management in a bind.
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May 5, 2021 19:57
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God of Mischief posted:This is me as well. I started a new job shortly after the pandemic started, and it has been the least motivated I've been in ages. The onboarding process sucked super hard and I was basically not given any work for 3 months, with only the occasional pairing with one of the two senior devs (which I was also hired on as). I was told to "read the code and wiki" for that entire time. Now, the documentation was non-existent or completely outdated (in either code comments, architecture diagrams, or a usable wiki) and the project itself made absolutely no sense with how it was coded. After the first month I was made to help onboard the next new hire, which did not help at all since I told him to look at the wiki page I updated for setting up his local environment and then shrugging at all of his other questions since nobody told me anything. The team/management has not adjusted at all to WFH since it was started. Nobody can use Slack decently for chatting, it always boils down to phone calls and shaming people for not turning on the webcams. The bolded parts are pretty big red flags. Maybe they've never had enough or a strong enough team of devs. That could suggest even red flags regarding team and company support and project/product management.
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May 6, 2021 01:47
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https://twitter.com/ShitUserStory/status/1391034818985594880
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May 8, 2021 16:05
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Context: Opinion: As a CEO, I worry about the erosion of office culture with more remote work
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May 8, 2021 19:01
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Is there any point in reading that or is it just going to make me dumber?
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May 8, 2021 19:11
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ultrafilter posted:Is there any point in reading that or is it just going to make me dumber?
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