How did I get so unhappy working in tech?(thebuffgopher.substack.com)
thebuffgopher.substack.com
How did I get so unhappy working in tech?
https://thebuffgopher.substack.com/p/how-did-i-get-so-unhappy-working
178 comments
Being in meetings means you get to be in the room when decisions are made. Even if you aren't an active participant, you get to at least listen in.
Almost all problems are really people problems, and people problems can only be solved by communicating with other people.
Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed. To succeed you need to make sure what you are building is actually what you should be building. I've never seen a way to figure that out without having meetings with other people.
Think of it this way -- a software engineer is not just a programmer, just as a fireman is not just a "hose operator." You are ultimately someone who gets things done and solves problems for other people, and that requires regular communication with those other people.
Almost all problems are really people problems, and people problems can only be solved by communicating with other people.
Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed. To succeed you need to make sure what you are building is actually what you should be building. I've never seen a way to figure that out without having meetings with other people.
Think of it this way -- a software engineer is not just a programmer, just as a fireman is not just a "hose operator." You are ultimately someone who gets things done and solves problems for other people, and that requires regular communication with those other people.
>Even if you aren't an active participant, you get to at least listen in.
This is why "it could've been an email" exists. If you're not making me an active/reactive, valuable contributor, then you're wasting my time and the boss' money.
>That is not the way to succeed.
I mean, seems a lot of people managed to succeed just fine going radio silent for a long time and simply observing their target audience until the last moment. Which does allow for long stretches of work, and rails against the "communication and work need to be heavily intertwined for success!" spiel. Nor does it say meetings are the best way to do this intertwining, even situationally.
>To succeed you need to make sure what you are building is actually what you should be building.
Which does not necessarily conclude that meetings do this.
The whole comment also misses obvious points such as analysis paralysis, death by committee and more.
This is why "it could've been an email" exists. If you're not making me an active/reactive, valuable contributor, then you're wasting my time and the boss' money.
>That is not the way to succeed.
I mean, seems a lot of people managed to succeed just fine going radio silent for a long time and simply observing their target audience until the last moment. Which does allow for long stretches of work, and rails against the "communication and work need to be heavily intertwined for success!" spiel. Nor does it say meetings are the best way to do this intertwining, even situationally.
>To succeed you need to make sure what you are building is actually what you should be building.
Which does not necessarily conclude that meetings do this.
The whole comment also misses obvious points such as analysis paralysis, death by committee and more.
> This is why "it could've been an email" exists. If you're not making me an active/reactive, valuable contributor, then you're wasting my time and the boss' money.
In my experience, the people who work like this are the sort of people with 5000 unread emails who ignore slack DMs too because they're "too busy".
> I mean, seems a lot of people managed to succeed just fine going radio silent for a long time and simply observing their target audience until the last moment.
This is a local optimization, and only works if the entire team is on board with "keep BlargMcLarg unblocked" at the expense of themselves. As the parent put it, this is a people problem, not a tech problem, and by only dealing with _your_ needs you're ignoring the needs of your team.
> Which does allow for long stretches of work,
This is a time management (and people) problem. Not going to any meetings is likely to result in producers appearing at your desk because they don't know what's going on (because _they_ have 5k emails and you've not spoken to them in a week). It also doesn't solve the long stretches of work problem; time management does.
In my experience, the people who work like this are the sort of people with 5000 unread emails who ignore slack DMs too because they're "too busy".
> I mean, seems a lot of people managed to succeed just fine going radio silent for a long time and simply observing their target audience until the last moment.
This is a local optimization, and only works if the entire team is on board with "keep BlargMcLarg unblocked" at the expense of themselves. As the parent put it, this is a people problem, not a tech problem, and by only dealing with _your_ needs you're ignoring the needs of your team.
> Which does allow for long stretches of work,
This is a time management (and people) problem. Not going to any meetings is likely to result in producers appearing at your desk because they don't know what's going on (because _they_ have 5k emails and you've not spoken to them in a week). It also doesn't solve the long stretches of work problem; time management does.
>In my experience
In my experience, there is absolutely zero correlation between preference for meetings and willingness to communicate asynchronously. To me, this is simply advocating for meetings to force people to communicate and be empathic. This has its own set of problems, as evident by anecdotes in this thread and the many discussions prior.
>This is a local optimization
On the flipside, you assume that the local optimization does not lead into a global optimization, while referring back to the parent's "meetings good" as a global solution. Obviously, giving an anecdote of the other extreme of the curve is just there to show how absurd the notion of "meetings are best" is. There is success on both sides of the curve. I would really like to see empirical evidence of "meetings best", as the trend continues towards "more meetings" (or really just more bureaucracy) without any strong evidence as to why this is beneficial for the entire company.
>As the parent put it, this is a people problem
I agree. More communication != better communication. Synchronous communication != better communication. Just like some books read better with fewer words, so can less communication lead to better communication. Unlike what a lot of pro-meeting people like to believe, the anti-meeting crowd isn't arguing for "no communication" as a whole.
In my experience, there is absolutely zero correlation between preference for meetings and willingness to communicate asynchronously. To me, this is simply advocating for meetings to force people to communicate and be empathic. This has its own set of problems, as evident by anecdotes in this thread and the many discussions prior.
>This is a local optimization
On the flipside, you assume that the local optimization does not lead into a global optimization, while referring back to the parent's "meetings good" as a global solution. Obviously, giving an anecdote of the other extreme of the curve is just there to show how absurd the notion of "meetings are best" is. There is success on both sides of the curve. I would really like to see empirical evidence of "meetings best", as the trend continues towards "more meetings" (or really just more bureaucracy) without any strong evidence as to why this is beneficial for the entire company.
>As the parent put it, this is a people problem
I agree. More communication != better communication. Synchronous communication != better communication. Just like some books read better with fewer words, so can less communication lead to better communication. Unlike what a lot of pro-meeting people like to believe, the anti-meeting crowd isn't arguing for "no communication" as a whole.
Have yet to meet a company where a developer's opinion is taken into account in software architecture and solution design. And, usually, like some other guy here said, they aren't invited to these types of meetings, at all.
The best line I heard, from a team lead that wouldn't back a "don't implement a task queue using postgresql", was "because I don't understand it/am not familiar with it [the alternative solution, RabbitMQ/whateverelse Q], we're not doing it". Other times it's just silence and, then, in an email or through somebody else "we don't want to do the incorrect solution". Without offering alternatives or what's "incorrect" about them.
These are common scenarios in mega corps. The above couple of anectodes were from one of the largest payment processing company and one of the largest b2b security company.
Oh, and you'll forgive my endless rant, the best one was out of some multi-billion nasdaq blabla company: CTO was absolutely ADAMANT how to implement encryption at rest. Using some tool from his college days. But, that tool wasn't maintained for years and didn't make use of Intel's AES-NI. Even though we explained him about latter, showed him the numbers using simple Linux tools, he kept scheduling meetings "to show us". Needless to say, using Intel's AES-NI was a good approach, compared to software-level encryption. Absolute waste of a couple of weeks.
The best line I heard, from a team lead that wouldn't back a "don't implement a task queue using postgresql", was "because I don't understand it/am not familiar with it [the alternative solution, RabbitMQ/whateverelse Q], we're not doing it". Other times it's just silence and, then, in an email or through somebody else "we don't want to do the incorrect solution". Without offering alternatives or what's "incorrect" about them.
These are common scenarios in mega corps. The above couple of anectodes were from one of the largest payment processing company and one of the largest b2b security company.
Oh, and you'll forgive my endless rant, the best one was out of some multi-billion nasdaq blabla company: CTO was absolutely ADAMANT how to implement encryption at rest. Using some tool from his college days. But, that tool wasn't maintained for years and didn't make use of Intel's AES-NI. Even though we explained him about latter, showed him the numbers using simple Linux tools, he kept scheduling meetings "to show us". Needless to say, using Intel's AES-NI was a good approach, compared to software-level encryption. Absolute waste of a couple of weeks.
Why do you care ? If top monkey want to spend money on stupid shit, I'll happily indulge it. It is not my money that is badly spent anyway.
I envy you if you can go through your whole career like that.
But perhaps there is a middle way. Many of us care too much, and each subsequent difficult - or bad - decision drives us deeper into burnout. It's not healthy. In which case GP's attitude is the right one.
To extend further perhaps it is only useful to care as far as your influence, motivation, and energy reach. And perhaps the happiest of us at all levels of the ladder are the ones who understand their capabilities and match their care accordingly.
I have yet to work at a company where the developer’s wasn’t the primary opinion that mattered.
Pro tip: avoid working working at companies that follow HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion).
Pro tip: avoid working working at companies that follow HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion).
>Being in meetings means you get to be in the room when decisions are made. Even if you aren't an active participant, you get to at least listen in.
Why do I care if I have no say in it? Why am I wasting an hour or two of my day listening in on this when they could have emailed me the meeting minutes and decisions so I can spend 5 minutes reading through them?
If I'm not actively participating i na meeting, if my views are not taken into account and respected, then it's a pointless meeting for me.
>Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed.
The reason we want to do this is precisely because we're *not* just copying sacred texts. But rather we're sitting there working with some mental models and concepts, figuring out the chain of API calls and how it all clicks together so that we can better work on the actual problems. Getting up to that point always takes some time. Even getting to the same headspace where I was the previous day when I left work, takes some time.
So if you come to my desk and interrupt me I'm going to have to start from zero again and this will take time. So if I have a meeting coming up in 30 minutes, there's a good chance I won't start anything big. And after the meeting I'm again going to just be going through stuff for 30-60 minutes before I get to the point where I was.
I hate being interrupted because my work is in large parts, inside my own head as opposed to just typing in code. And thinking is often easier when someone is not talking to you.
https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...
Why do I care if I have no say in it? Why am I wasting an hour or two of my day listening in on this when they could have emailed me the meeting minutes and decisions so I can spend 5 minutes reading through them?
If I'm not actively participating i na meeting, if my views are not taken into account and respected, then it's a pointless meeting for me.
>Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed.
The reason we want to do this is precisely because we're *not* just copying sacred texts. But rather we're sitting there working with some mental models and concepts, figuring out the chain of API calls and how it all clicks together so that we can better work on the actual problems. Getting up to that point always takes some time. Even getting to the same headspace where I was the previous day when I left work, takes some time.
So if you come to my desk and interrupt me I'm going to have to start from zero again and this will take time. So if I have a meeting coming up in 30 minutes, there's a good chance I won't start anything big. And after the meeting I'm again going to just be going through stuff for 30-60 minutes before I get to the point where I was.
I hate being interrupted because my work is in large parts, inside my own head as opposed to just typing in code. And thinking is often easier when someone is not talking to you.
https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...
Decisions made in meetings? 9 out of 10 decisions are made far away from meetings. Meetings are there to tell people about a decision.
Or to make people believe they had actual input and ensure a stronger commitment that way. Because a team that committed to something is more likely to see it through. Even if it means unpaid overtime and all the other crap management uses to extract the highest possible return out of us working drones.
And why wouldn't they? If I can ensure that a machine runs at 120% by giving it the illusion of participation in decisions I would absolutely do this.
/s
And why wouldn't they? If I can ensure that a machine runs at 120% by giving it the illusion of participation in decisions I would absolutely do this.
/s
Focused work is essential to quality results in programming. I guarantee you that whatever piece of software you hold most dear as an example of how software should be made, the key parts of it were written in long uninterrupted stretches of work. Thinking up good solutions similarly is a focused work activity, and meetings are almost entirely unsuited to thinking of great solutions that cover all the edge cases (although they can be ok for thinking of good enough solutions).
Now, to understand the problem to be solved, to agree on a solution being proposed (out of the results of focused work), and to synchronize the progress when multiple people are working on said solution, this does require communication, and meetings are often a good way to do this. They are therefore essential to enabling the long uninterrupted stretches of work to produce great outcomes, but they must not come at the expense of that focused work.
Now, to understand the problem to be solved, to agree on a solution being proposed (out of the results of focused work), and to synchronize the progress when multiple people are working on said solution, this does require communication, and meetings are often a good way to do this. They are therefore essential to enabling the long uninterrupted stretches of work to produce great outcomes, but they must not come at the expense of that focused work.
I think the idea of deep work has a place too. I haven't read the book but I think it touch's Linus locking himself away at a critical point in Linux's development. Bill gates did something similar (not sure what he was working on at that time).
> Almost all problems are really people problems, and people problems can only be solved by communicating with other people.
I must dissent.
You are right that many problems look like people problems. But in all honesty, we have no clue how to solve people problems.
Talking can sometimes work, but it's not a panacea. Otherwise parliaments would have solved all problems by now.
A shockingly large amount of time, you can solve people problems by turning them into technical problems, and thus amenable to technical solutions.
To give a silly example: if people keep walking in on you when you are on the loo, a flippable keep-out sign or a simple lock on the door is a much better solution than talking to the intruders.
Less silly: if people keep breaking your build, you might be tempted to say that the solution is to clearly communicate with them to let them know that breaking the build is not OK.
The technical solution is to set up a pre-merge check that makes sure everything compiles and your automated tests succeed.
Guess which of the two approaches works better in practice? Especially when people are under stress to deliver?
(Know, if your co-workers find ways to deliberately bypass the pre-merge checks, _and_ also keep breaking the build; then this should probably be treated as a people probably. Your company should give them a warning once, and then probably fire them on the next offense.)
I must dissent.
You are right that many problems look like people problems. But in all honesty, we have no clue how to solve people problems.
Talking can sometimes work, but it's not a panacea. Otherwise parliaments would have solved all problems by now.
A shockingly large amount of time, you can solve people problems by turning them into technical problems, and thus amenable to technical solutions.
To give a silly example: if people keep walking in on you when you are on the loo, a flippable keep-out sign or a simple lock on the door is a much better solution than talking to the intruders.
Less silly: if people keep breaking your build, you might be tempted to say that the solution is to clearly communicate with them to let them know that breaking the build is not OK.
The technical solution is to set up a pre-merge check that makes sure everything compiles and your automated tests succeed.
Guess which of the two approaches works better in practice? Especially when people are under stress to deliver?
(Know, if your co-workers find ways to deliberately bypass the pre-merge checks, _and_ also keep breaking the build; then this should probably be treated as a people probably. Your company should give them a warning once, and then probably fire them on the next offense.)
> Some engineers seem to want to work for long stretches uninterrupted, like monks copying sacred texts. That is not the way to succeed. To succeed you need to make sure what you are building is actually what you should be building. I've never seen a way to figure that out without having meetings with other people.
If all you're doing is sitting around in meetings all day, you won't get any actual work done.
If all you're doing is sitting around in meetings all day, you won't get any actual work done.
But how many meetings are enough? Each week, I have eight meetings only with my team (that is, aside from other company meetings). And us mere developers are not invited to the design meetings. No, work is handed out piecemeal to each developer by our team leader, and we're only expected to work on our pieces, bug reports be damned! (they have to go through him first)
You wouldn't interrupt a fireman that is on active duty in a mission, though. "Stop extinguishing that fire, put down the hose and have a random meeting with me who is not directly involved in the actual process".
You might if the fireman is pointing the hose at the wrong house, or a larger fire has broken out and you need to figure out whether he should change what he’s doing.
>Being in meetings means you get to be in the room when decisions are made.
That was never my experience, especially if those meetings were standup meetings as the parent poster was referring. The standup meetings were a lot of feel good so the business could cajole the developers. Any actual coordination that needed to happen was outside those meetings among developers, with the business making their own decisions and dictating from on high.
That was never my experience, especially if those meetings were standup meetings as the parent poster was referring. The standup meetings were a lot of feel good so the business could cajole the developers. Any actual coordination that needed to happen was outside those meetings among developers, with the business making their own decisions and dictating from on high.
True… but I can’t have 5h of meetings a day and be expected to produce much…
Yes you can, if you take into account the impact of what it is you produce.
There's a very simple fix if you believe you have too many meetings - decline them.
If you don't think you're needed in a meeting, say so. Give a reason like "I have nothing to add to that discussion." or "There's no agenda so I don't know if I'm needed." or simply "I'm busy, I think my time would be better spent on story 123." Make the people who invite you start to consider if you're really needed[1].
Also, create your own "meetings" by putting blocks of focused coding time in your calendar where you're unavailable to other people.
Part of your job as a dev is to organise your time well. You can't just delegate that to other people. If you're saying yes to every invite, and then you sit and don't have anything to add, then you haven't done your job properly.
[1] They might stop inviting you, and then you'll have less input on things and less visibility to management (which mean you were needed in the meetings after all). Make sure you're happy with that before you try this strategy.
If you don't think you're needed in a meeting, say so. Give a reason like "I have nothing to add to that discussion." or "There's no agenda so I don't know if I'm needed." or simply "I'm busy, I think my time would be better spent on story 123." Make the people who invite you start to consider if you're really needed[1].
Also, create your own "meetings" by putting blocks of focused coding time in your calendar where you're unavailable to other people.
Part of your job as a dev is to organise your time well. You can't just delegate that to other people. If you're saying yes to every invite, and then you sit and don't have anything to add, then you haven't done your job properly.
[1] They might stop inviting you, and then you'll have less input on things and less visibility to management (which mean you were needed in the meetings after all). Make sure you're happy with that before you try this strategy.
I cant refuse to go to planning meetings, standups and retrospective. Those are core of agile and already take massive massive amount of time. Some of their parts are useful, but they also contain hours of nothingness.
The other meetings are small in number and comparatively more useful per minute.
The other meetings are small in number and comparatively more useful per minute.
I cant refuse to go to planning meetings, standups and retrospective.
Yes you can. Just send a note saying why you won't be there and what you'd have said if you had been. Agile ceremony meetings are practically the definition of meetings that could be emails.
Yes you can. Just send a note saying why you won't be there and what you'd have said if you had been. Agile ceremony meetings are practically the definition of meetings that could be emails.
Sight. I cant refuse agile ceremony while working employment in that company. I can leave the job for non-agile one or make myself fired. However, the combination of "being in one of those majorities of companies that believes in agile" and "not being in these meetings" is not available.
If your point is "then put up your resignation", then yes it is available. I am not a serf. That is not however what the "I cant do it" sentence in English refers to.
If your point is "then put up your resignation", then yes it is available. I am not a serf. That is not however what the "I cant do it" sentence in English refers to.
However, the combination of "being in one of those majorities of companies that believes in agile" and "not being in these meetings" is not available.
I hear this from lots of developers. I also hear that none of them have ever raised the problem with their management, or attempted to suggest that they could submit notes instead when they have a lot of other work on, or anything that would reduce the number of meetings they need to attend. Practically all developers just coast along believing that because that's how things are it's impossible to change anything. This is despite the fact that agile includes a retro meeting specifically for raising these things. However, FWIW I wasn't actually suggesting missing all those meetings. Just some of them, when you have other priorities.
I've worked on teams where I've been invited to multiple daily standups and I'd have lost a couple of hours a day if I'd not been willing to push back. In every case I've been listened to and been able to communicate what I've been doing and whether I need any help in other ways instead (usually just by editing the standup notes myself).
Here's a suggestion. One of the key things about agile is that you have to 'process your processes'. If something isn't working for the team then you should iterate on it. At your next retrospective raise the problem - say "We should stop spending N hours a week on standups because it's stopping me finding clear blocks of time to focus on delivery. We should find a way to reduce the number of meetings I have. How about we have them on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and email our standup updates to the PM on Tuesday and Thursday." If the team agrees that would save you 40% of your standups..
I hear this from lots of developers. I also hear that none of them have ever raised the problem with their management, or attempted to suggest that they could submit notes instead when they have a lot of other work on, or anything that would reduce the number of meetings they need to attend. Practically all developers just coast along believing that because that's how things are it's impossible to change anything. This is despite the fact that agile includes a retro meeting specifically for raising these things. However, FWIW I wasn't actually suggesting missing all those meetings. Just some of them, when you have other priorities.
I've worked on teams where I've been invited to multiple daily standups and I'd have lost a couple of hours a day if I'd not been willing to push back. In every case I've been listened to and been able to communicate what I've been doing and whether I need any help in other ways instead (usually just by editing the standup notes myself).
Here's a suggestion. One of the key things about agile is that you have to 'process your processes'. If something isn't working for the team then you should iterate on it. At your next retrospective raise the problem - say "We should stop spending N hours a week on standups because it's stopping me finding clear blocks of time to focus on delivery. We should find a way to reduce the number of meetings I have. How about we have them on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and email our standup updates to the PM on Tuesday and Thursday." If the team agrees that would save you 40% of your standups..
>I also hear that none of them have ever raised the problem with their management
I have. TL;DR: My managers effectively gaslighted me. "You don't understand agile" despite them being incapable of reciting the agile manifesto and not even knowing what does/doesn't belong to Scrum. "Oh but there has to be some communication", despite my argument clearly not being "there should be no communication". "You're not a team player", despite working together just fine outside those windows. It was an experience which effectively achieved nothing while wasting my time and emotional investment.
That's not to mention the obvious: a lot of managers have ulterior motives to keep the status quo.
>Practically all developers just coast along believing that because that's how things are it's impossible to change anything.
For the most part, that echoes my experience with a lot of companies. The majority don't want change. The majority don't have the power to change things alone. A lot of people don't know any better, and are afraid of the unknown. They have a positive experience with "Agile/SCRUM" because it's marginally better than what they had, even though they can't pinpoint exactly what attributes to their improved situation, leading to pointing the entire package as a big plus.
This really shouldn't come as a surprise either. You can introduce retrospectives and whatever; most companies are still top-down hierarchies at heart. The majority of people learn from a young age not to rile things up, and the IT crowd is definitely not known for being rebellious towards those in power. The entire thing points towards waiting for some people in power to try something different, or for individuals to try their own luck at entrepreneurship.
NB: I don't fault people for liking this or wanting this. The bigger problem is how quickly the far majority of companies force feed the entire development team this way of working, leaving almost no place for the people who don't want to work this way. If you don't like it, good luck finding something that isn't highly Agile/SCRUM/meeting-oriented or at risk of becoming that in the near future. It's the same thing with remote work, asynchronous work, non-standard work hours, you name it. It's the incessant need for a one-size-fits-all approach which to this day is questionable at best.
I have. TL;DR: My managers effectively gaslighted me. "You don't understand agile" despite them being incapable of reciting the agile manifesto and not even knowing what does/doesn't belong to Scrum. "Oh but there has to be some communication", despite my argument clearly not being "there should be no communication". "You're not a team player", despite working together just fine outside those windows. It was an experience which effectively achieved nothing while wasting my time and emotional investment.
That's not to mention the obvious: a lot of managers have ulterior motives to keep the status quo.
>Practically all developers just coast along believing that because that's how things are it's impossible to change anything.
For the most part, that echoes my experience with a lot of companies. The majority don't want change. The majority don't have the power to change things alone. A lot of people don't know any better, and are afraid of the unknown. They have a positive experience with "Agile/SCRUM" because it's marginally better than what they had, even though they can't pinpoint exactly what attributes to their improved situation, leading to pointing the entire package as a big plus.
This really shouldn't come as a surprise either. You can introduce retrospectives and whatever; most companies are still top-down hierarchies at heart. The majority of people learn from a young age not to rile things up, and the IT crowd is definitely not known for being rebellious towards those in power. The entire thing points towards waiting for some people in power to try something different, or for individuals to try their own luck at entrepreneurship.
NB: I don't fault people for liking this or wanting this. The bigger problem is how quickly the far majority of companies force feed the entire development team this way of working, leaving almost no place for the people who don't want to work this way. If you don't like it, good luck finding something that isn't highly Agile/SCRUM/meeting-oriented or at risk of becoming that in the near future. It's the same thing with remote work, asynchronous work, non-standard work hours, you name it. It's the incessant need for a one-size-fits-all approach which to this day is questionable at best.
It would be interesting to try it, if you had another job lined up.
That can require some standing within the organization and mental fortitude. Absence can be interpreted as a failing, important information can be droppend throughout long meetings, people expect you to be around to answer questions that come up.
Your point sounds to me like: "It's your fault if you're miserable. It's up to you to confront your peers and fight your organization to protect your sanity "
It might be true in many settings, but I'd see that as a toxic and hostile environment we shouldn't be accepting as normal. Some people will sure enjoy Fight Club kind of places, I still wouldn't assume they are "a very simple fix" to shitty companies.
Quitting for a better workplace looks to me like a better course of action if the opportunity presents itself.
It might be true in many settings, but I'd see that as a toxic and hostile environment we shouldn't be accepting as normal. Some people will sure enjoy Fight Club kind of places, I still wouldn't assume they are "a very simple fix" to shitty companies.
Quitting for a better workplace looks to me like a better course of action if the opportunity presents itself.
Your point sounds to me like: "It's your fault if you're miserable. It's up to you to confront your peers and fight your organization to protect your sanity"
No one automatically just knows when people are unhappy with a process if they don't talk about it. There are lots of people who think agile ceremonies are a good thing, and they think they work, and in a lot of cases they do work. People don't question that if they don't need to. Consequently, if you're unhappy with it, you need to say something.
"Quit for a better workplace" doesn't work for minor things because every workplace will have something that you don't like. You'll never be able to find the perfect role. You have to find somewhere that's mostly good, and then change it to be better. If you can't then you should move on.
No one automatically just knows when people are unhappy with a process if they don't talk about it. There are lots of people who think agile ceremonies are a good thing, and they think they work, and in a lot of cases they do work. People don't question that if they don't need to. Consequently, if you're unhappy with it, you need to say something.
"Quit for a better workplace" doesn't work for minor things because every workplace will have something that you don't like. You'll never be able to find the perfect role. You have to find somewhere that's mostly good, and then change it to be better. If you can't then you should move on.
There’s to me a decent gap between discussing processes, voicing opinions, and straight declining meetings and making yourself unavailable.
If you’re in need for tricks and tough love to get away from meeting hell, it’s already beyond “talking about it”, and beyond minor annoyances IMO. And sure it must happen because other people believe it’s a good, or at least a necessary thing. Working with people that value your time isn’t as exotic or rare as we make it sound, and it often will be enforced through the whole org to avoid having each one fight on their own.
If you’re in need for tricks and tough love to get away from meeting hell, it’s already beyond “talking about it”, and beyond minor annoyances IMO. And sure it must happen because other people believe it’s a good, or at least a necessary thing. Working with people that value your time isn’t as exotic or rare as we make it sound, and it often will be enforced through the whole org to avoid having each one fight on their own.
"Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. The focus required to deep dive into complex issues get's broken with meetings that developers shouldn't be attending. You can attend meetings or you program rarely can you do both effectively on the same day and rarely can you get the focus you once had."
Agreed. when I started in the 90s I often got several months of focused work without many interruptions. Nowadays you have to attend meetings and always have somebody breathe down your neck. Hard to accomplish anything that requires experimentation over months until it works.
Agreed. when I started in the 90s I often got several months of focused work without many interruptions. Nowadays you have to attend meetings and always have somebody breathe down your neck. Hard to accomplish anything that requires experimentation over months until it works.
Agreed. when I started in the 90s I often got several months of focused work without many interruptions.
I did that too. Quite often the project failed after those months because we'd built the wrong thing, or the landscape had changed, or the customer had failed to spec what they needed well enough. This was the "Waterfall" methodology, and Agile, with all its meetings, is specifically designed to fix that problem.
I did that too. Quite often the project failed after those months because we'd built the wrong thing, or the landscape had changed, or the customer had failed to spec what they needed well enough. This was the "Waterfall" methodology, and Agile, with all its meetings, is specifically designed to fix that problem.
They failed because you were overmanaged and leadership didn’t trust people to do the right thing. We were very agile back then, iterated quickly towards the goal but we didn’t do rituals, stand ups and other ceremonies. We just talked to each other and stakeholders.
Yeah and it doesn't. In practice, it just enables managers to become even more useless by blaming devs for their poor project management.
Agile projects can still fail obviously, but when they do they tend to fail in smaller ways (eg 4 weeks late instead of 6 months late, or almost hit the requirements instead of completely missed). That's a massive win.
And in the process, you burn out your devs, and have constant churn. How late are things happening in the long term, because teams prioritize the Agile rituals over cultivating long term technical excellence, craftsmanship, and team satisfaction? The way many teams practice Agile has a huge opportunity cost that's very difficult to measure, but still real.
My favorite Agile failure case is when you have all the meetings and still fail, because you spent all your time on Agile paperwork instead of designing and building a product.
Exactly. Teams that drink the Agile Kool-Aid seem to fail and build the wrong things just as often.
Besides, why can't we be lower case agile, and avoid all these meetings anyway? I write very detailed PRs with high level summaries, screenshots and videos, explanation of risks and trade offs, and deeper technical dives. Everything you need to know about what I'm working on is literally right there. I push up code early and often, it's not like I just want to sit in an isolated cave for 6 months and then emerge with a finished product.
Besides, why can't we be lower case agile, and avoid all these meetings anyway? I write very detailed PRs with high level summaries, screenshots and videos, explanation of risks and trade offs, and deeper technical dives. Everything you need to know about what I'm working on is literally right there. I push up code early and often, it's not like I just want to sit in an isolated cave for 6 months and then emerge with a finished product.
You just didn’t do enough stand ups /s
I am currently succeeding at this failure.
God, the thought of being treated like a skilled professional and trusted to actually do your job, rather than a code monkey who has to report their progress every single day on how many of the endless "user stories" they got done the previous day...
I also started I the 90s and now that you mention it I don’t think I had any meetings at my first job at a small software company. And even after we were acquired I still think we had at most semi monthly meetings.
My first job with daily standups was 2008 or so, and I just realized I left less than a year after they were implemented.
In short, I probably had less meetings in my first ten years in software than I did last quarter.
My first job with daily standups was 2008 or so, and I just realized I left less than a year after they were implemented.
In short, I probably had less meetings in my first ten years in software than I did last quarter.
> Hard to accomplish anything that requires experimentation over months until it works.
That said, the industry matured so much that experimentation that fold up as planned are generally doomed by large structural issue in the approach. 20 years ago, tweaking and digging your way in trench was the expected path since having to work around implementation details and bugs happened whatever you wanted to get done.
That said, the industry matured so much that experimentation that fold up as planned are generally doomed by large structural issue in the approach. 20 years ago, tweaking and digging your way in trench was the expected path since having to work around implementation details and bugs happened whatever you wanted to get done.
We are still fiddling endlessly with edge cases in Kubernetes or AWS. I don’t see much difference.
I'm generally puzzled by the HN conventional wisdom against meetings, and I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings.
Am I really in such a small minority, or has HN turned into an echo chamber on this issue, where no one with a countervailing opinion dares to get a word in?
Having a meeting interrupt my work ranges from slightly irritating (if it comes during flow, but I can always easily get back into the groove later) to a welcome break from the intellectual stress of solo development work. I get to interact with my colleagues, learn about what they've been doing, and understand more about what the team needs and what our customers need.
Have I forgotten that I sold my soul to the devil to obtain a unique ability to focus, and regain focus after interruption? Or are there a double digit percentage of HN inhabitants who are just like me but not speaking up in this thread?
I don't know how I would understand my team mates as people, understand what they need from me and understand what other parts of the business need from me without meetings. Am I missing something here?
Am I really in such a small minority, or has HN turned into an echo chamber on this issue, where no one with a countervailing opinion dares to get a word in?
Having a meeting interrupt my work ranges from slightly irritating (if it comes during flow, but I can always easily get back into the groove later) to a welcome break from the intellectual stress of solo development work. I get to interact with my colleagues, learn about what they've been doing, and understand more about what the team needs and what our customers need.
Have I forgotten that I sold my soul to the devil to obtain a unique ability to focus, and regain focus after interruption? Or are there a double digit percentage of HN inhabitants who are just like me but not speaking up in this thread?
I don't know how I would understand my team mates as people, understand what they need from me and understand what other parts of the business need from me without meetings. Am I missing something here?
>I don't know how I would understand my team mates as people
This sounds overly dramatic considering most people are very different in a meeting setup. We didn't need meetings to do this for the majority of our species' existence. Just talk with them, basic empathy.
The way it sounds, you like some meetings because they fulfill X, but X can also be fulfilled in different ways without the downsides of meetings, be it specific meetings or in general. It's those downsides and knowing X can still be satisfied that drives many of us against meetings. Many times, meetings are also subpar or flat-out fail to achieve X because of other circumstances.
This sounds overly dramatic considering most people are very different in a meeting setup. We didn't need meetings to do this for the majority of our species' existence. Just talk with them, basic empathy.
The way it sounds, you like some meetings because they fulfill X, but X can also be fulfilled in different ways without the downsides of meetings, be it specific meetings or in general. It's those downsides and knowing X can still be satisfied that drives many of us against meetings. Many times, meetings are also subpar or flat-out fail to achieve X because of other circumstances.
Yeah, the connection between understanding them as people and meetings per se is a bit tenuous, but to get to know them better I would have to interrupt them for a chat, or schedule a coffee break with them, or go to lunch with them, all of which seem as "interrupting to flow" as a scheduled meeting.
I don't mind the morning meeting, they can be useful to catch up with where the team is and who needs help, and who's working on a problem someone else solved last week/month/year.
The problem I have with them in practice is that they are usually (in my experience) turned into a management progress meeting where developers are made to answer for their progress on specific items, rather a round-robin "Here's what I'm doing". At that point collaboration and team communication is out of the window.
The problem I have with them in practice is that they are usually (in my experience) turned into a management progress meeting where developers are made to answer for their progress on specific items, rather a round-robin "Here's what I'm doing". At that point collaboration and team communication is out of the window.
I'm on your side but that's because my team is small and any meeting I'm attending means my input is required. The daily standups are helpful in knowing what is the progress of the overall project and whether I should stop to help somewhere else, and also gives me a chance to talk with my colleagues. I suspect most of the people objecting here aren't attending discussion based meetings but heres-the-latest-news type of meetings.
I feel the same, the dayli meetings are super important for fast iteration. Sayinf you dont need those is implying there is no outside input that yould improve your work. Wich is only true when your task is so sepperated from everyone that you could effectively get your own one man team.
> I'm puzzled by this thread specifically because there doesn't seem to be a single commenter who is as much as just fine with meetings.
It's a self-selecting sample effect. No one responds to a survey when things are just ok.
It's a self-selecting sample effect. No one responds to a survey when things are just ok.
> Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. The focus required to deep dive into complex issues get's broken with meetings that developers shouldn't be attending. You can attend meetings or you program rarely can you do both effectively on the same day and rarely can you get the focus you once had.
I recently started a new job where we have weekly recurring "standups" with clients. Most of the gaps between meetings are an hour with a few 1 1/2 hour gaps throughout the week. After the 3rd day I asked my boss "with all these recurring meetings when an I suppose to actually get my work done"?
I recently started a new job where we have weekly recurring "standups" with clients. Most of the gaps between meetings are an hour with a few 1 1/2 hour gaps throughout the week. After the 3rd day I asked my boss "with all these recurring meetings when an I suppose to actually get my work done"?
I'm curious, how did your boss respond to that?
He let me change my hours so I now work 6:30am to noon. The rest of the day I play video games, watch tv, walk my dog, go grocery shopping, etc. I just make sure to show up to the the 15 - 30 minute "standups" throughout the afternoon.
It might not be an ideal schedule for everyone but I have almost 4 uninterrupted hours in the morning and I naturally wake up early so it works for me.
It might not be an ideal schedule for everyone but I have almost 4 uninterrupted hours in the morning and I naturally wake up early so it works for me.
My bet would be something like:
"haha, yeah it's ridiculous, right?"
IME it's sadly common for an organisation to have a Problem, for everyone to acknowledge there is a Problem, for someone to even come up with a roadmap to solve the Problem...and yet nothing will change because there is some ineffable disconnect between knowing and doing.
Really it seems to come down something like "well, if we're going to go to all the effort to change something, we better do it right. If you can't prove the change you're going to make is going to solve this issue perfectly forever it's better to leave it as it is right now. rather than waste all that effort"
or, "good idea, let's add a weekly meeting to monitor fixing this issue"
"haha, yeah it's ridiculous, right?"
IME it's sadly common for an organisation to have a Problem, for everyone to acknowledge there is a Problem, for someone to even come up with a roadmap to solve the Problem...and yet nothing will change because there is some ineffable disconnect between knowing and doing.
Really it seems to come down something like "well, if we're going to go to all the effort to change something, we better do it right. If you can't prove the change you're going to make is going to solve this issue perfectly forever it's better to leave it as it is right now. rather than waste all that effort"
or, "good idea, let's add a weekly meeting to monitor fixing this issue"
> or, "good idea, let's add a weekly meeting to monitor fixing this issue"
At one company, we started having daily "show and tell" meetings at the end of every day in addition to daily morning standups. I said during a retro that these were causing extra stress for the team, and felt unnecessary.
The team lead responded to that by making them 15 minutes longer, because he claimed the stress was just coming from team members not having enough time for their demos.
At one company, we started having daily "show and tell" meetings at the end of every day in addition to daily morning standups. I said during a retro that these were causing extra stress for the team, and felt unnecessary.
The team lead responded to that by making them 15 minutes longer, because he claimed the stress was just coming from team members not having enough time for their demos.
That is horrifying !
The weekly pre-meeting to the weekly meeting on streamlining our processes.
I kid you not.
p.s.: "I have an idea as to how we could streamline our processes!"
I kid you not.
p.s.: "I have an idea as to how we could streamline our processes!"
I've spent 2 years in a team that was allowed to build platform tooling from scratch and it's been the most productive and high impact work i've done to date.
The only reason I'm not there anymore is that the team disintegrated after a change in leadership. Despite that being years ago, our tooling survived, judging from some headers.
If you glue things together, you inevitably have unknowns about the specifics of how your software actually works, and that very often comes back to bite you. But it's even worse if you do platform engineering, because developers downstream from you will find features (or anti-features) you didn't notice and completely derail and guardrails you had envisioned.
Having full control over everything we wrote kept us nimble and able to react fast. If you own all your code, making small adjustments is easy. If you glue together packages or off the shelf code you may end up having to choose between a trade off and maintaining a fork of a piece of code far beyond the scope of the thing you need. The only pain we had left was keeping in step with kubernetes API packages.
The only reason I'm not there anymore is that the team disintegrated after a change in leadership. Despite that being years ago, our tooling survived, judging from some headers.
If you glue things together, you inevitably have unknowns about the specifics of how your software actually works, and that very often comes back to bite you. But it's even worse if you do platform engineering, because developers downstream from you will find features (or anti-features) you didn't notice and completely derail and guardrails you had envisioned.
Having full control over everything we wrote kept us nimble and able to react fast. If you own all your code, making small adjustments is easy. If you glue together packages or off the shelf code you may end up having to choose between a trade off and maintaining a fork of a piece of code far beyond the scope of the thing you need. The only pain we had left was keeping in step with kubernetes API packages.
Re: meetings, I really think we need more tech companies taking the initiative to cut out meetings entirely. I think many companies would be shocked to find out that work would continue on, productivity would actually go up, and reported employer happiness would improve.
I think it would be a "2020 remote work" style revelation for many teams. Many teams thought remote work would never work out for them, but when they were forced to do it, they found it actually worked great.
That being said, I doubt many companies would ever find the idea tractable. So we should start with something simpler: you should never schedule more than 2 hours worth of meetings for your developers in any given week. And those 2 hours should be very carefully considered, such that they don't segment their day.
The amount of wasted productivity that comes from endless meetings is staggering. Not to mention the mental health hit of trying to do challenging knowledge work while having your day constantly interrupted.
I think it would be a "2020 remote work" style revelation for many teams. Many teams thought remote work would never work out for them, but when they were forced to do it, they found it actually worked great.
That being said, I doubt many companies would ever find the idea tractable. So we should start with something simpler: you should never schedule more than 2 hours worth of meetings for your developers in any given week. And those 2 hours should be very carefully considered, such that they don't segment their day.
The amount of wasted productivity that comes from endless meetings is staggering. Not to mention the mental health hit of trying to do challenging knowledge work while having your day constantly interrupted.
There's a place for meetings, but if you're efficient, they should be rare, small and short.
No, you don't need a weekly project update meeting. I can send you something out of Jira and if there is an issue, you can post a reply to it, or email me. And I can spend time thinking about what you've written and write a careful reply. Only when that still doesn't work, do we do a synchronous meeting, at which point we cover only the points of contention, and with as few people as necessary.
The other beauty of tools like Jira is that the conversation is preserved. Why did we approach the problem that way? Well, go look at it. You'll have someone asking why we can't do a thing and a reply pointing out the problems of that and hence why we have to do it this way. You don't get all of that from the email of the meeting.
No, you don't need a weekly project update meeting. I can send you something out of Jira and if there is an issue, you can post a reply to it, or email me. And I can spend time thinking about what you've written and write a careful reply. Only when that still doesn't work, do we do a synchronous meeting, at which point we cover only the points of contention, and with as few people as necessary.
The other beauty of tools like Jira is that the conversation is preserved. Why did we approach the problem that way? Well, go look at it. You'll have someone asking why we can't do a thing and a reply pointing out the problems of that and hence why we have to do it this way. You don't get all of that from the email of the meeting.
>The other beauty of tools like Jira is that the conversation is preserved. Why did we approach the problem that way? Well, go look at it.
I wish this is how it worked IME. IME "documentation" or rather a document would need to be created explaining the decision. No one reads the documents anyways! Referring to the ultimate source of truth, the conversation, preserves EVERYTHING that went into it. "But I don't want all the details so please create a document." You want a document? You know what you want in it? Why don't you go and write it? Seems no one can be bothered to research and read anymore. /End rant
I wish this is how it worked IME. IME "documentation" or rather a document would need to be created explaining the decision. No one reads the documents anyways! Referring to the ultimate source of truth, the conversation, preserves EVERYTHING that went into it. "But I don't want all the details so please create a document." You want a document? You know what you want in it? Why don't you go and write it? Seems no one can be bothered to research and read anymore. /End rant
I tried this, it didn't work well for my team.
For whatever reason, my team generally likes having scheduled times to discuss certain topics. I always give them optionality on the meeting however (i.e. we regularly review if a given meeting is causing more pain than it's solving)
For whatever reason, my team generally likes having scheduled times to discuss certain topics. I always give them optionality on the meeting however (i.e. we regularly review if a given meeting is causing more pain than it's solving)
In that situation, I think just the goal of minimizing the amount of meetings to the best of your team's ability would still help. Preferably 2 hours or less total, but 3 or 4 might be okay if special care is taken to when they are scheduled.
My meetings all get scattered throughout the week haphazardly such that getting even a few hours of dedicated work done is almost impossible on many days.
My meetings all get scattered throughout the week haphazardly such that getting even a few hours of dedicated work done is almost impossible on many days.
I wish there was a true measure for opportunity cost.
> doesn't provide an opportunity of non-verbal self reflection and focuses you into threadmill small task thinking never connecting with the project as a whole.
I agree. Core issue now seem to be that no one ever thinks much about project/module/library as a whole.
I agree. Core issue now seem to be that no one ever thinks much about project/module/library as a whole.
> No one wants to reinvent the wheel so gluing together packages is considered best practice. The work has become more about making decisions around the packages you choose rather than being given time to make the package.
While I have not been developing anything much lately, I realized that most of my career making things ended up being. In part because of this, I found the passion to start digging through again stuff I wanted to learn but never had a project for, basically now a deep dive into system programming. At the moment, I'll probably only gain insight, but it feels more gratifying than learning how to glue packages together.
While I have not been developing anything much lately, I realized that most of my career making things ended up being. In part because of this, I found the passion to start digging through again stuff I wanted to learn but never had a project for, basically now a deep dive into system programming. At the moment, I'll probably only gain insight, but it feels more gratifying than learning how to glue packages together.
Meetings on Monday only. A lot of wasted time on Mondays anyway (how can be it be that your mind adapts to the weekend's free time in a minute but takes hours to drudge itself back to "work mode" after the weekend?) and that leaves the rest of the week for programming.
Programmers do talk about stuff informally anyway if and when the need arises, often via asynchronous messaging or even face-to-face but those aren't meetings in the sense that they adapt to the programmer flow and not the other way around.
Programmers do talk about stuff informally anyway if and when the need arises, often via asynchronous messaging or even face-to-face but those aren't meetings in the sense that they adapt to the programmer flow and not the other way around.
> Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating.
I don't agree there. Constant communication is important for a good team, however in constant flow it often is being lost, what is important. Important things easily get lost between other noise.
Whether a daily is the right approach can be argued. Maybe a weekly is enough. However having a time where everybody listens and things can be brought to attention is useful in my experience.
I don't agree there. Constant communication is important for a good team, however in constant flow it often is being lost, what is important. Important things easily get lost between other noise.
Whether a daily is the right approach can be argued. Maybe a weekly is enough. However having a time where everybody listens and things can be brought to attention is useful in my experience.
He's not denying that (constant) communication isn't important.
But that, planned, too frequent, mandatory, with a prescriptive format, meetings (which dailies/weeklies are) is harmful.
I've been 21 years in this industry, the past 7 in Scrum/Agile infested companies/teams and I've never seen such a sterile and unproductive way of work.
But that, planned, too frequent, mandatory, with a prescriptive format, meetings (which dailies/weeklies are) is harmful.
I've been 21 years in this industry, the past 7 in Scrum/Agile infested companies/teams and I've never seen such a sterile and unproductive way of work.
> He's not denying that (constant) communication isn't important.
I also agree that it isn't as important as they make it out to be.
I also agree that it isn't as important as they make it out to be.
I view the daily standup as a way to communicate status to a Product Owner/Project Manager/SCRUM Master who may have to communicate status to a larger "Standup of Standups", if you will.
I agree that a high quality team communicates with each other often and status amongst them should not be necessary, or require a daily scheduled time.
I agree that a high quality team communicates with each other often and status amongst them should not be necessary, or require a daily scheduled time.
>I view the daily standup as a way to communicate status to a Product Owner/Project Manager/SCRUM Master who may have to communicate status to a larger "Standup of Standups", if you will.
What's wrong with an email?
What's wrong with an email?
Or that work tracking system they spent all that time and money configuring.
Standups aren't supposed to be status reports. They're supposed to be huddles (to determine the plan of action). Want "status"? Look at the "xyz board". Blockers? That's important. Communicating any blockers that need to be addressed. That can be an email. And shouldn't have to wait until the next huddle. You can waste hours waiting. Communicate blockers immediately synchronously (interrupting) or asynchronously (noninterrupting, like email) depending on your work environments preferred or agreed upon protocols.
Perhaps not, but a 10-minute daily face-to-face status update isn't so bad. Some thing can't be clearly communicated via a project board. Blockers shouldn't wait until a standup, but a standup can be a useful failsafe. It means that a quick sync up happens at least once a day.
> Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever.
How do people deal with this? I'm expected to take on more and more meetings and my time to do deep work diminishes as I go on. I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well.
How do people deal with this? I'm expected to take on more and more meetings and my time to do deep work diminishes as I go on. I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well.
Sleep until about 15 minutes before the first meeting. There's no sense bothering getting into work only to be interrupted by a meeting.
If it's a meeting-heavy day just resign yourself to the fact that you're not going to get anything done that day. So basically, you have to plan your sprints to be two days shorter than they actually are (or whatever, depending on your company's meeting schedule).
Adjust all your estimates accordingly. A 3 hour task will take all day when you factor in interruptions, meetings, and meeting fatigue, so estimate 8 hours for it.
Sigh heavily, and remind yourself that you couldn't possibly get more than 3 days work done in two weeks, under the circumstances. So what little you did is actually pretty good.
If it's a meeting-heavy day just resign yourself to the fact that you're not going to get anything done that day. So basically, you have to plan your sprints to be two days shorter than they actually are (or whatever, depending on your company's meeting schedule).
Adjust all your estimates accordingly. A 3 hour task will take all day when you factor in interruptions, meetings, and meeting fatigue, so estimate 8 hours for it.
Sigh heavily, and remind yourself that you couldn't possibly get more than 3 days work done in two weeks, under the circumstances. So what little you did is actually pretty good.
> I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well.
Working as an IC I just don't accept invites and don't attend. With the following exceptions:
- Weekly review/Agile flavour meetings with my team
- Meeting with a team member to solve a specific issue
- A manager/VP/CTO _explicitly_ makes it clear _my_ presence is required
Perhaps I've been luck with my managers or perhaps it comes with seniority but I've never got any negative feedback on this. Most people invite you in for stuff just as a passive listener.
When I'm doing contract work I make it clear I am available for milestone review meetings and everything else is surcharged billable hours.
Working as an IC I just don't accept invites and don't attend. With the following exceptions:
- Weekly review/Agile flavour meetings with my team
- Meeting with a team member to solve a specific issue
- A manager/VP/CTO _explicitly_ makes it clear _my_ presence is required
Perhaps I've been luck with my managers or perhaps it comes with seniority but I've never got any negative feedback on this. Most people invite you in for stuff just as a passive listener.
When I'm doing contract work I make it clear I am available for milestone review meetings and everything else is surcharged billable hours.
Mostly, I refuse and explain why I am refusing. I write replies like:-
"I have nothing to contribute to this, so I see no value in attending this meeting."
"I see that point 3 on the agenda is relevant to me, can you bring me into the meeting at that point"?
These are professional answers. You are telling whoever has invited you that you think your time is better spent, on behalf of the company, doing something else. If they then insist despite your protests, you have to accept it. Although you might at some point realise that the person you are working for is an idiot.
"I have nothing to contribute to this, so I see no value in attending this meeting."
"I see that point 3 on the agenda is relevant to me, can you bring me into the meeting at that point"?
These are professional answers. You are telling whoever has invited you that you think your time is better spent, on behalf of the company, doing something else. If they then insist despite your protests, you have to accept it. Although you might at some point realise that the person you are working for is an idiot.
> "I see that point 3 on the agenda is relevant to me, can you bring me into the meeting at that point"?
This to me sounds like you are equally disrespectful of other people times as you complain that they are about yours.
What having them "bring you into the meeting at that point" means is that now everyone else has to wait the 5 minutes it takes the host to message you, wait for your arrival and then go over why they brought you in (for your benefit, and maybe everyone else's), instead of just going on with the point. I would be bothered if this would happen in one of my meetings. What you're basically saying is that your 30 minutes saved of the meeting are more important than the 5 minutes it loses for everyone else.
This to me sounds like you are equally disrespectful of other people times as you complain that they are about yours.
What having them "bring you into the meeting at that point" means is that now everyone else has to wait the 5 minutes it takes the host to message you, wait for your arrival and then go over why they brought you in (for your benefit, and maybe everyone else's), instead of just going on with the point. I would be bothered if this would happen in one of my meetings. What you're basically saying is that your 30 minutes saved of the meeting are more important than the 5 minutes it loses for everyone else.
Sometimes, I've just kept on coding through the meeting. It's like listening to a podcast as you code. You do have to keep one ear out in case someone asks you a question directly, but listening for your name Alexa-wake-word-style isn't that hard.
One or more of the following factors:
1) What you are working on. Is it yet another CRUD application? Alternatively: a project you are not getting to work on.
2) Who you are working for and with. Perhaps you have a bad manager or you just don't gel with them. Maybe you are not getting along with your co-workers, or vice versa.
3) How you are working. This is really very broad, from in-office to work-from-home, frameworks you don't want to work with, maybe you're not an Agile person, or the fluorescent lights keep flickering, or the push to microservices is obviously a bad idea or they were cheap with your computer. A lot to explore here. Some crossover with where.
4) When you are working. Always in a rush? Never stop "sprinting" only to find that the deadline you met meant nothing, and your project would not be looked at by stakeholders for another eight months? Too many hours, or the wrong hours? Or perhaps your time subdivided so finely that any progress bleeds to death from the finely-sliced task-switching that passes for the "multitasking" some manager thinks will lead to a free FTE?
5) Why you are working: for money, and you're not getting enough of it? Because you believe in the cause and you see the organization headed the wrong way?
So many possibilities ...
1) What you are working on. Is it yet another CRUD application? Alternatively: a project you are not getting to work on.
2) Who you are working for and with. Perhaps you have a bad manager or you just don't gel with them. Maybe you are not getting along with your co-workers, or vice versa.
3) How you are working. This is really very broad, from in-office to work-from-home, frameworks you don't want to work with, maybe you're not an Agile person, or the fluorescent lights keep flickering, or the push to microservices is obviously a bad idea or they were cheap with your computer. A lot to explore here. Some crossover with where.
4) When you are working. Always in a rush? Never stop "sprinting" only to find that the deadline you met meant nothing, and your project would not be looked at by stakeholders for another eight months? Too many hours, or the wrong hours? Or perhaps your time subdivided so finely that any progress bleeds to death from the finely-sliced task-switching that passes for the "multitasking" some manager thinks will lead to a free FTE?
5) Why you are working: for money, and you're not getting enough of it? Because you believe in the cause and you see the organization headed the wrong way?
So many possibilities ...
I feel ya man. This is exactly where I'm at. Left one job because the company burnt me out, but I was still a passionate engineer. Eight months in to my current company I feel the flame I once had for engineering is all but extinguished. Starting to interview for a new job now and every option I evaluate I feel like I already know the BS that's waiting for me there and I just don't want to go through it.
I'm trying to construct some sort of framework for myself at the moment, but I don't really know what, if anything, will work.
I'm trying to construct some sort of framework for myself at the moment, but I don't really know what, if anything, will work.
I have been having similar thoughts recently. With just 4 years into my career (working at a FAANG for last 2), I too am looking around for a job. But it all looks the same corporate BS, providing "business value", grinding for promotion, being a small cog in a enormous machine, dealing with middle managers and their egos and endless insecurity, estimations and deadline chasing, I feel so done and tired. Add the bullshit interview process on top of all this and it is enough for me to never want to change jobs again. I feel like I am in hell.
same, i'm in a job where i can sort of coast, it's stressful, the people mostly, but the work is easy.
i lost interest in dealing with all the bs and whenever i try to look at the job market i just feel too demoralised to go through all the hoops just to get another job where i will be dealing with the same or new kind of bs.
i feel like this may be my last coding job after 15 years, maybe i can do another 2-3 more.
i lost interest in dealing with all the bs and whenever i try to look at the job market i just feel too demoralised to go through all the hoops just to get another job where i will be dealing with the same or new kind of bs.
i feel like this may be my last coding job after 15 years, maybe i can do another 2-3 more.
>i feel like this may be my last coding job after 15 years, maybe i can do another 2-3 more.
This is how I feel after only 7 years, and I need to do another 9 more :(
This is how I feel after only 7 years, and I need to do another 9 more :(
What do you think you might do after coding? Management or a different field entirely? I've considered management but I also don't really want to deal with people bullshit, and I'm having a harder and harder time listening to bullshit business meetings in general, and I imagine there'd be a lot more of those.
something different. also maybe get back into academia somehow.
i would take a 70% paycut to do some low key work where i don't need to deal with an office, and office politics.
Wow. I don't think I could easily afford a 70% paycut. 20% maybe, but 70% is a pretty deep cut. Good on you for being in a situation where that's a viable option!
GPT-3 post? This rabbles with no direction and feels like something AI would write. There's also an odd jump at the end like it's trying to talk about gaming/MtG but doesn't at the same time.
Bots are trying to get us to resign so they can take over our jobs
Or maybe English isn't the writers first language? It does seem to contain an odd amount of things that seems completely random.
Naw. He has links to a podcast where you can hear him speak. The "Asian Hour" lol. His english is legit. The man Linus is real... the post, however, could be GPT-3. Definitely doesn't match up with his talking.
Good research. Is this going to become common from now on? What do we do when AI content and human content are indistinguishable?
We'll do what we always did: ignore the drivel and the disjointed garbage and sift out the information.
In this case, it doesn't matter whether it's GP-3 or not, it is a no-content blog post of which you can find hundreds of thousands of other examples, none of which have any new information in them. We get it: the way some people have built up tech careers as being something exciting can prove to be very disappointing when you're on your 3rd CRUD page of the day. It's still better than being a soul-less HR monkey or a Jira happy middle manager.
In this case, it doesn't matter whether it's GP-3 or not, it is a no-content blog post of which you can find hundreds of thousands of other examples, none of which have any new information in them. We get it: the way some people have built up tech careers as being something exciting can prove to be very disappointing when you're on your 3rd CRUD page of the day. It's still better than being a soul-less HR monkey or a Jira happy middle manager.
Yet this can sit on the first page and novel + interesting technical content disappears with ~2-3 votes, never to be seen again frequently.
Oh whale.
Oh whale.
I had precisely the same thought. It follows the outline it set forth at the top, but vaguely and without actually communicating any real content. It’s all pseudo-profound Rorschach blot writing.
It's weird how questioning if an article is AI-generated is a common comment on the internet now.
Web3 should be about AI-driven content, it's much more popular and applicable to the internet than blockchain...
Web3 should be about AI-driven content, it's much more popular and applicable to the internet than blockchain...
One possible explanation is that he might be experiencing depression. It's probably not the first thing you would think of when you see scattered writing, but since it's an article about how he's unhappy, it could be a reasonable explanation. Unhappiness can definitely interfere with thinking and writing, if it's severe enough. That's just a thought. He also says the idea is "disjointed". Often too, when you are feeling uncertain about your life, it sometimes helps to put down a stream-of-consciousness collection of thoughts to see if anything provides meaning.
From reading this article further, I think this a depressed person trying to make sense of their world and emotions.
From reading this article further, I think this a depressed person trying to make sense of their world and emotions.
Exactly what GPT-5 would say.
I'm starting to think these questions about whether GPT-3 produced the original article are just what GPT-5 would post to sow doubt about whether it could be as advanced as it secretly is.
I'm starting to think these questions about whether GPT-3 produced the original article are just what GPT-5 would post to sow doubt about whether it could be as advanced as it secretly is.
[deleted]
Believe it or not, most people are worse writers than AI. This is why liberal arts degree programs are valuable. You get this kind of nonsense out of your system early and won’t end up thinking it’s profound and interesting to other people.
I find myself wanting to write, but petrified that what I'm writing is banal and I only think it's profound and interesting. I suppose I could write some and show it to someone or mail a sample to a publisher.
If you want to write, write. The funny thing about writing is that everybody wants to have written but almost nobody wants to write.
If you start writing, it’s going to be bad, but that’s what almost all writing is. If you want to get better, keep practicing, start sharing it with others, get feedback, and repeat. Or show it to nobody and write for yourself.
I studied creative non-fiction writing in college. A big part of programs like that are showing your work to other people then listening to them discuss and critique it without saying anything yourself. You get over the fear of other people thinking your work stinks very quickly — and very quickly you realize your work does stink.
If you start writing, it’s going to be bad, but that’s what almost all writing is. If you want to get better, keep practicing, start sharing it with others, get feedback, and repeat. Or show it to nobody and write for yourself.
I studied creative non-fiction writing in college. A big part of programs like that are showing your work to other people then listening to them discuss and critique it without saying anything yourself. You get over the fear of other people thinking your work stinks very quickly — and very quickly you realize your work does stink.
I'm less concerned with the craft of writing than choosing a boring repetitive topic. And trying to write a nonfiction piece that no one wants to read subject matter wise.
I fully expect the craft to suck, but I got over the fear of rewriting already. I'm just frightened of producing something that I pretend is profound and everyone else thinks is obvious. That's a totally different fear
I fully expect the craft to suck, but I got over the fear of rewriting already. I'm just frightened of producing something that I pretend is profound and everyone else thinks is obvious. That's a totally different fear
>I'm just frightened of producing something that I pretend is profound and everyone else thinks is obvious. That's a totally different fear
Yes and my point is that what you produce won't be profound and people will think it's obvious. Write it anyway. Or don't.
Yes and my point is that what you produce won't be profound and people will think it's obvious. Write it anyway. Or don't.
Thanks for the encouragement. In person people are far more likely to tell me not to bother, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't affect me. I think everyone reacts to their real-life friends' expectations and assumptions.
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not, but this really is meant to encourage you.
Most people will never write anything and even fewer people will write something good. Nobody who doesn’t write will ever write anything good. If you can get yourself into the group of people who have written something, that’s like buying a lottery ticket where the prize is writing something good. Maybe you’ll buy a bunch of tickets and shorten your odds a bit.
Maybe you’ll just have a bunch of losing tickets at the end of the day. But most people won’t even have those and those kinds of people really like to sneer at people who do play the lottery.
Maybe this is an awful analogy. But if you want to write, that’s your reason to write. I hope you have some fun and find some meaning in it.
Most people will never write anything and even fewer people will write something good. Nobody who doesn’t write will ever write anything good. If you can get yourself into the group of people who have written something, that’s like buying a lottery ticket where the prize is writing something good. Maybe you’ll buy a bunch of tickets and shorten your odds a bit.
Maybe you’ll just have a bunch of losing tickets at the end of the day. But most people won’t even have those and those kinds of people really like to sneer at people who do play the lottery.
Maybe this is an awful analogy. But if you want to write, that’s your reason to write. I hope you have some fun and find some meaning in it.
I wasn't being sarcastic.
It's been easy to be encouraged to write about things I am credentialed in, but I want to write about things I'm not. And I hadn't been getting much encouragement in real life that the writing without an appeal to authority would be taken seriously or stand on its own.
It's been easy to be encouraged to write about things I am credentialed in, but I want to write about things I'm not. And I hadn't been getting much encouragement in real life that the writing without an appeal to authority would be taken seriously or stand on its own.
You could just start off writing down your thoughts in order to better understand and explore them.
I consider that very different from writing to communicate to other people though, and a lot of people unfortunately don't make the distinction.
I consider that very different from writing to communicate to other people though, and a lot of people unfortunately don't make the distinction.
This is a great suggestion. There’s a quote that’s something like “If you think without writing, then you just think you’re thinking.”
Here's the GPT-3 continuation when prompted with the first full paragraph:
And now that it has come full circle—when I'm finally able to find a job at an agency and find myself not only at work but at home. It seems crazy that I don't have to figure out how to fix my broken life. There are so many things I need to learn. When I go to work every day, that's when I remember a lot more about how I came to see TechCrunch the other day (or whatever—depending on the topic). Some of the best people in tech know when to talk to people about their favorite business. I have been lucky (and grateful) to have such incredible people around me. I love every minute one of them has, and love to bring
Much less coherent, to me, but you'll get different results every time you try I suppose!
And now that it has come full circle—when I'm finally able to find a job at an agency and find myself not only at work but at home. It seems crazy that I don't have to figure out how to fix my broken life. There are so many things I need to learn. When I go to work every day, that's when I remember a lot more about how I came to see TechCrunch the other day (or whatever—depending on the topic). Some of the best people in tech know when to talk to people about their favorite business. I have been lucky (and grateful) to have such incredible people around me. I love every minute one of them has, and love to bring
Much less coherent, to me, but you'll get different results every time you try I suppose!
> Much less coherent, to me, but you'll get different results every time you try I suppose!
Give the mechanical Turk a few minutes to find your post and tweak the response to that specific prompt ;)
Give the mechanical Turk a few minutes to find your post and tweak the response to that specific prompt ;)
Pretty sure the GPT-3 part starts at "So I started paying attention to myself." -- I put the outline at the top and his first self-written paragraph into the GPT-3 playground and tried four or five times until I got something that was pretty much the same.
> The solution seems to be setting a framework that fits with yourself.
I think this is true.
I tried time off and it only made things worse.
It was only when i started putting a structured framework in place that I started enjoying tech again. Although, I still struggle after a big burnout incident.
I'm one of those people who got burnt out, took 1.5 years off work "for myself" thinking it would help, and then when I went back to work, I hated technology even more than I did before I'd taken the time off.
> I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech. Now, in order to avoid it, I had to learn what made me lose so much of my enthusiasm for the thing I’ve pursued.
I'm still searching for this answer, I think it was just accumulated bitterness over time and giving %150 of my self to jobs and not taking time for my self.
Thats where my 'structured framework' comes in now, holds me accountable to ensure that I'm taking the time for my self.
I think this is true.
I tried time off and it only made things worse.
It was only when i started putting a structured framework in place that I started enjoying tech again. Although, I still struggle after a big burnout incident.
I'm one of those people who got burnt out, took 1.5 years off work "for myself" thinking it would help, and then when I went back to work, I hated technology even more than I did before I'd taken the time off.
> I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech. Now, in order to avoid it, I had to learn what made me lose so much of my enthusiasm for the thing I’ve pursued.
I'm still searching for this answer, I think it was just accumulated bitterness over time and giving %150 of my self to jobs and not taking time for my self.
Thats where my 'structured framework' comes in now, holds me accountable to ensure that I'm taking the time for my self.
Can you expand on this structured framework? I also went through a severe bitterness (and cynical) phase, on top of blindly throwing myself into everything without regard for my sanity. So I fear myself walking down the same path you were on. I quit a few months back and have done zero tech-related work with no intention to come back anytime soon. But I wonder that when I do, nothing will have changed and I'm going to not even want to open and read the text in any arbitrary email, let alone "deliver" anything.
Let's say this is the work of a persons mind - and not a GPT-3 writing prompt generator with a sentimentalizing filter to get social media to talk about brands, (and one which is learning to generate viral propaganda) - what must it be like to have dozens of people sincerely speculate as to whether you are a robot or not? It would be like being invited to participate in a Turing test but as it progresses, you find out you are the computer. Catchpas keep getting harder and harder, but it's probably nothing etc.
If there is a real person who wrote the OP reading this, these comments are evidence you have written provocatively, (don't read your press - weigh it) and that itself is a gift worth refining. However, if I'm offering sympathy to a robot, meh, I've felt it wasted more on better people. :)
If there is a real person who wrote the OP reading this, these comments are evidence you have written provocatively, (don't read your press - weigh it) and that itself is a gift worth refining. However, if I'm offering sympathy to a robot, meh, I've felt it wasted more on better people. :)
One of the best things I ever did in my career was to quit. I had gone a route I thought was “the” route for a career in tech. First developer, then architect/developer then project manager/developer then into actual management leaving development more and more behind without being fully able to because no one could do what I did at the organisation.
It all went very well, I got involved with national task forces and was part of defining the national enterprise architecture for public software in Denmark. A long the road I also started doing conference/network/whatever talks and felt hugely important. Then I had a daughter, went down with stress that turned into depression and eventually found myself with an ADHD diagnosis at almost 40. Turned out my parents hadn’t wanted me to get one when I was a kid and had to see doctors because, well, I had ADHD. Not because my parents sucked or anything, but at the time it wasn’t called ADHD but DAMP (Danish word for steam, as in a thundering steam engine), and they believed such a diagnosis would be a bad stigma. I don’t blame them, but they probably “saved” me into changing my university major 9 times and eventually having to get a lower academy degree while working two jobs (not common in Denmark where we are paid to study for 6 years and have free (as in beer) access to most education).
Anyway, there I was with not enough energy to do the two full time jobs I now had, parenting and work. My former places of work was amazing in all of this, not only did they send and pay for a lot of the help they also let me work part time while being part time sick (in Denmark this gives you full pay, but the sick part of it is paid for by the government). Despite this, and despite being lucky enough to get appointed to one my countries leading psychiatrists for adults with a late ADHD diagnosis, I found myself wondering if I would ever work full time again.
Then I quit, and I don’t be back to developing software at a company that lets you actually build cool things. I started at 30 hours a week, but here half a year later, I’m going back to full time.
If you have the ability to pick and chose, as many of us in tech are fortunate enough to have, then I can only encourage that you use it if your current job makes you unhappy. Of course you’ll probably need it o do some work to figure out what makes you happy, or even if you are currently unhappy or happy.
It all went very well, I got involved with national task forces and was part of defining the national enterprise architecture for public software in Denmark. A long the road I also started doing conference/network/whatever talks and felt hugely important. Then I had a daughter, went down with stress that turned into depression and eventually found myself with an ADHD diagnosis at almost 40. Turned out my parents hadn’t wanted me to get one when I was a kid and had to see doctors because, well, I had ADHD. Not because my parents sucked or anything, but at the time it wasn’t called ADHD but DAMP (Danish word for steam, as in a thundering steam engine), and they believed such a diagnosis would be a bad stigma. I don’t blame them, but they probably “saved” me into changing my university major 9 times and eventually having to get a lower academy degree while working two jobs (not common in Denmark where we are paid to study for 6 years and have free (as in beer) access to most education).
Anyway, there I was with not enough energy to do the two full time jobs I now had, parenting and work. My former places of work was amazing in all of this, not only did they send and pay for a lot of the help they also let me work part time while being part time sick (in Denmark this gives you full pay, but the sick part of it is paid for by the government). Despite this, and despite being lucky enough to get appointed to one my countries leading psychiatrists for adults with a late ADHD diagnosis, I found myself wondering if I would ever work full time again.
Then I quit, and I don’t be back to developing software at a company that lets you actually build cool things. I started at 30 hours a week, but here half a year later, I’m going back to full time.
If you have the ability to pick and chose, as many of us in tech are fortunate enough to have, then I can only encourage that you use it if your current job makes you unhappy. Of course you’ll probably need it o do some work to figure out what makes you happy, or even if you are currently unhappy or happy.
> I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech.
I wonder if the author got into “tech” because it seemed like a lucrative career and, as they say elsewhere, it looks to the outside world like they are doing something useful.
I’ve only been working “in tech” about 40 years and pretty much every day feels exciting to me. That the author feels differently doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them!
It could be burn out or depression.
I wonder if the author got into “tech” because it seemed like a lucrative career and, as they say elsewhere, it looks to the outside world like they are doing something useful.
I’ve only been working “in tech” about 40 years and pretty much every day feels exciting to me. That the author feels differently doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them!
It could be burn out or depression.
I've been working in tech pretty much my entire career (about 20 years at this point) and I haven't had an 'every day is exciting to me' situation in at least 10 years.
There's so much bullshit everywhere nowadays, and despite a red hot tech market I'm having difficulty getting decent job offers outside of healthcare, insurance, b2b, and fintech, which I'm guessing are probably the worst fields for that bullshit (part of that is probably where I live, admittedly, those are the biggest industries here).
Finding some fun again playing around with VR development in my spare time, though. Maybe I'll make the shift to that in a year or so after I build up more experience at it, make a small game or two, and start feeling excitement again.
There's so much bullshit everywhere nowadays, and despite a red hot tech market I'm having difficulty getting decent job offers outside of healthcare, insurance, b2b, and fintech, which I'm guessing are probably the worst fields for that bullshit (part of that is probably where I live, admittedly, those are the biggest industries here).
Finding some fun again playing around with VR development in my spare time, though. Maybe I'll make the shift to that in a year or so after I build up more experience at it, make a small game or two, and start feeling excitement again.
Agreed. I took notice of OP's narrow view of "tech" and somehow binding web-dev to (assumed here) everything else. Not everything in tech is about gluing frameworks.
What's frustrating me the most is frameworks promising simplification, and then, after investing a considerable amount of time building things with these, they evolve into complex platform incompatible to your old code. Where "old" means 3-5 years. That's what's burning me out.
Now I'd love to move to Svelte for some minimalism, but in 4 years Svelte2 will probably come out, being incompatible and unnecessarily complex.
Now I'd love to move to Svelte for some minimalism, but in 4 years Svelte2 will probably come out, being incompatible and unnecessarily complex.
Trying to be like paul graham. Heavy inspiration from : http://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html
Wow they really do read similarly. I thought this article read kind of oddly, maybe because of forcing to another writer's format? It seems to lose coherency toward the end.
I am a product manager and in my new job I also have to take on the role of product owner in agile, meaning that I manage delivery of epics, sprint planning etc.
I feel like a caged animal. I have no freedom whatsoever and I have to fit a schedule of grooming epics that someone else has defined. I am really unhappy and will leave asap. I have never felt like this at any other job and if OP is also part of an agile process then I would guess that is the issue.
I feel like a caged animal. I have no freedom whatsoever and I have to fit a schedule of grooming epics that someone else has defined. I am really unhappy and will leave asap. I have never felt like this at any other job and if OP is also part of an agile process then I would guess that is the issue.
Perhaps the root of the problem is that by trying to avoid the "external crap from other people", the writer reveals his concern for what others might think.
There is nothing wrong with you just because you aren't motivated by tech work. There are lots of other forms of work, career, etc.
For me working in an air conditioned office under fluorescent lighting sucks the life out of me. So I rearranged my life to avoid what I sense to be bad for my soul.
There is nothing wrong with you just because you aren't motivated by tech work. There are lots of other forms of work, career, etc.
For me working in an air conditioned office under fluorescent lighting sucks the life out of me. So I rearranged my life to avoid what I sense to be bad for my soul.
[deleted]
> If you asked me as a kid how someone burned out from their career, I’d have said by video games or drugs.
Interestingly, these can be the _result_ of creeping burnout. Video games, consuming something (drugs, food, etc) to distract or find a sense of fulfillment.
Interestingly, these can be the _result_ of creeping burnout. Video games, consuming something (drugs, food, etc) to distract or find a sense of fulfillment.
I _know_ I have it really good. But I still feel unhappy and unfulfilled. I'm planning to have a sabbatical next year to see how that pans out for me. I honestly don't know how my parents worked until retirement.
Cognative dissonance because we know we are obscenely overpaid to build stuff that nobody really needs, while others work themselves into disability for a order of magnitude less pay doing things that are essential for civilized life.
We are not obscenely overpaid. We're relatively more well paid than other workers in our class, but we're still generally getting the short end of the stick.
Even people in my boat. I recently won a decent IPO jackpot at the company I have worked for a few years--have $3MM or so in investments as a result. The CEO has well over 100x that, and well over 10x any IC who's been at the company from day 1. There's no good reason for the CEO of this company to have benefitted to the tune of over $3Bn when ICs who've been at it as long and hard as he has might have cracked a few $10s of millions at best. Are these ICs disgustingly rich? Am I? Of course. But, relatively, we got shafted in comparison to the people who benefitted much more.
Even people in my boat. I recently won a decent IPO jackpot at the company I have worked for a few years--have $3MM or so in investments as a result. The CEO has well over 100x that, and well over 10x any IC who's been at the company from day 1. There's no good reason for the CEO of this company to have benefitted to the tune of over $3Bn when ICs who've been at it as long and hard as he has might have cracked a few $10s of millions at best. Are these ICs disgustingly rich? Am I? Of course. But, relatively, we got shafted in comparison to the people who benefitted much more.
> We are not obscenely overpaid.
Everything following this line seems to point in the other direction. Just because a smaller percentage of higher-ups received more doesn't mean you / we are not obscenely overpaid, it just means "they" are phenomenally obscenely overpaid and at the top of the exponential scale of "what's wrong with shit these days".
Teachers and nurses, as the pandemic demonstrated, are essential to the daily functioning of society. I couldn't do what they do day-to-day, dealing with the full range of the bell curve - and their children - and their ailments and inability to see / relate to the world. Holy hell.
The annual inspection of the foundations of the ivory tower have been sub-sub-contracted to the lowest bidder, which is a company at the end of a series of shell corporations for whose ownership can only be determined with the cooperation of a string of people that have no legal obligation to cooperate.
Everything following this line seems to point in the other direction. Just because a smaller percentage of higher-ups received more doesn't mean you / we are not obscenely overpaid, it just means "they" are phenomenally obscenely overpaid and at the top of the exponential scale of "what's wrong with shit these days".
Teachers and nurses, as the pandemic demonstrated, are essential to the daily functioning of society. I couldn't do what they do day-to-day, dealing with the full range of the bell curve - and their children - and their ailments and inability to see / relate to the world. Holy hell.
The annual inspection of the foundations of the ivory tower have been sub-sub-contracted to the lowest bidder, which is a company at the end of a series of shell corporations for whose ownership can only be determined with the cooperation of a string of people that have no legal obligation to cooperate.
Laborers at most levels in our society deserve better compensation and treatment. The lower on the socioeconomic ladder, the more so.
That some are underpaid compared to the value they deliver than others isn’t controversial to me. What is controversial is the suggestion that because some in the labor class are somewhat better paid they shouldn’t complain about also being underpaid relative to the value they provide.
I have more in common with the $35k/yr teacher than with the CEO of the company I work for. Not just because of relative economic position, but because I have personally been more or less homeless and impoverished in my life at various points.
That some are underpaid compared to the value they deliver than others isn’t controversial to me. What is controversial is the suggestion that because some in the labor class are somewhat better paid they shouldn’t complain about also being underpaid relative to the value they provide.
I have more in common with the $35k/yr teacher than with the CEO of the company I work for. Not just because of relative economic position, but because I have personally been more or less homeless and impoverished in my life at various points.
Well said, and I definitely sledgehammered the nuance.
Are we going to see the pendulum gathering momentum in the swing towards unionization? Could be I'm already late on that call given that Amazon employees have already had a recent victory in pursuit of this.
The world at large* seems to be reaching a breaking point in their tolerance of the widening wealth gap, manifesting in this collective burnout / great resignation / cynicism of purpose. Interesting times...
*may just be projecting myself onto the rest of the world and / or my media bubble's limited view.
Are we going to see the pendulum gathering momentum in the swing towards unionization? Could be I'm already late on that call given that Amazon employees have already had a recent victory in pursuit of this.
The world at large* seems to be reaching a breaking point in their tolerance of the widening wealth gap, manifesting in this collective burnout / great resignation / cynicism of purpose. Interesting times...
*may just be projecting myself onto the rest of the world and / or my media bubble's limited view.
The greed and envy in this comment reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcYLVdfFro
[deleted]
Better: *some* are obscenely overpaid to build stuff that nobody really needs
Some are obscenely underpaid to implement crucial software e.g. Boeing MAX, medical diagnostic stuff, industrial automation, FOSS libraries like OpenSSL, research tools, etc.
The correlation between social utility and income is... interesting.
Some are obscenely underpaid to implement crucial software e.g. Boeing MAX, medical diagnostic stuff, industrial automation, FOSS libraries like OpenSSL, research tools, etc.
The correlation between social utility and income is... interesting.
Honestly I think part of the problem is that we are telling ourselves repeatedly how good we have it and self censoring the problems.
"try working in a call center" says someone below in this thread in an effort to belittle concerns.
"They just raised time off from 15 days a year for the new hires isn't that great! Besides its not googly to complain" says the Google employee.
"Yeah it is an evil megacorp but the pay and conditions are amazing." Says the FB employee trying to demonstrate how they have the best job I'm the world while the social status of the job falls due to scandals.
There's a bit of a need among people in tech to highlight success. "I was bullied in school but look at my job! Isn't my job amazing!". They'll say this and defend it to death even if it's not quite true. They'll even attack others who ask "but are you really enjoying it or just letting yourself be worked to death for a small perceived boost in social status your job may bring?"
And don't get me wrong the pay here is good. But the work life balance is amongst the worst in all jobs I've ever held. By far. If I'm being honest im just holding out for as long as I mentally can to get a nice financial boost in life then I'm getting the fuck out of here. The free food and onsite gyms feels like a cynical ploy to get you back to the desks sooner and to keep you there before breakfast and after tea. Even second world countries will have more time off per year available and they'll have that for much lower stress jobs.
I think we've all got to be honest with ourselves here. I met a friend who works 9 days a fortnight in a different industry. "Yeah we get free food high pay and good benefits too. I really like spending 5 days in a row with family every two weeks too!".
I sometimes forget that we're waaay past the golden age where the big tech companies were growing so fast and were unique. The benefits in the industry are becoming somewhat of a norm in any big corporate environment in any industry. But the whip cracking performance management honed by tech company metrics isn't a norm.
If you find yourself exhausted day after day and miserable while your explaining to friends and family that you have a special unique job with soo many benefits realize that you've been manipulated. You're doing the thing we nerds do where we want to show how successful we are but in reality we're leaving ourselves wide open to exploitation as we fight to maintain the illusion to others. No one in other industries works like I've seen tech workers in silicon valley work. It's not normal and not healthy. The pay is high but the cost is higher.
"try working in a call center" says someone below in this thread in an effort to belittle concerns.
"They just raised time off from 15 days a year for the new hires isn't that great! Besides its not googly to complain" says the Google employee.
"Yeah it is an evil megacorp but the pay and conditions are amazing." Says the FB employee trying to demonstrate how they have the best job I'm the world while the social status of the job falls due to scandals.
There's a bit of a need among people in tech to highlight success. "I was bullied in school but look at my job! Isn't my job amazing!". They'll say this and defend it to death even if it's not quite true. They'll even attack others who ask "but are you really enjoying it or just letting yourself be worked to death for a small perceived boost in social status your job may bring?"
And don't get me wrong the pay here is good. But the work life balance is amongst the worst in all jobs I've ever held. By far. If I'm being honest im just holding out for as long as I mentally can to get a nice financial boost in life then I'm getting the fuck out of here. The free food and onsite gyms feels like a cynical ploy to get you back to the desks sooner and to keep you there before breakfast and after tea. Even second world countries will have more time off per year available and they'll have that for much lower stress jobs.
I think we've all got to be honest with ourselves here. I met a friend who works 9 days a fortnight in a different industry. "Yeah we get free food high pay and good benefits too. I really like spending 5 days in a row with family every two weeks too!".
I sometimes forget that we're waaay past the golden age where the big tech companies were growing so fast and were unique. The benefits in the industry are becoming somewhat of a norm in any big corporate environment in any industry. But the whip cracking performance management honed by tech company metrics isn't a norm.
If you find yourself exhausted day after day and miserable while your explaining to friends and family that you have a special unique job with soo many benefits realize that you've been manipulated. You're doing the thing we nerds do where we want to show how successful we are but in reality we're leaving ourselves wide open to exploitation as we fight to maintain the illusion to others. No one in other industries works like I've seen tech workers in silicon valley work. It's not normal and not healthy. The pay is high but the cost is higher.
Sounds like your experience is very different than mine. Do you work at faang, maybe Amazon?
I feel my work life balance is absurdly nice, I’ve actually worked in a call center, I could go on… but my theory is that when I am feeling mini-burnout, it’s (well, (a) legit need to better attend to other pets of my life, and counteract being a homebody from Covid… but also)
.. but also one factor is when I worked for a call center, I knew I could do better. Now that I’ve ‘made it’—relative to my old position-it’s like, now what?
I feel my work life balance is absurdly nice, I’ve actually worked in a call center, I could go on… but my theory is that when I am feeling mini-burnout, it’s (well, (a) legit need to better attend to other pets of my life, and counteract being a homebody from Covid… but also)
.. but also one factor is when I worked for a call center, I knew I could do better. Now that I’ve ‘made it’—relative to my old position-it’s like, now what?
> I _know_ I have it really good.
A big of the problem is the culture that measures everything in terms of money and perks.
It's well proven that a big source of burnout is misalignment between personal goals and your job. Humans crave meaning.
Being paid a ton of money to optimize some algorithm to manipulate people into buying something they don't need is the opposite of meaningful work.
A big of the problem is the culture that measures everything in terms of money and perks.
It's well proven that a big source of burnout is misalignment between personal goals and your job. Humans crave meaning.
Being paid a ton of money to optimize some algorithm to manipulate people into buying something they don't need is the opposite of meaningful work.
I agree but how many people actually get alignment in their jobs?
I’ve been trying to figure out how some people can keep going without that alignment. Some say to just treat it as a job, but that doesn’t seem to be working for me. I guess I’m one of those people who must get an aligning job.
I’ve been trying to figure out how some people can keep going without that alignment. Some say to just treat it as a job, but that doesn’t seem to be working for me. I guess I’m one of those people who must get an aligning job.
I had a lot of trouble understanding what was meant here:
> The world has gotten more complicated: it seems that most dangerous traps now are picking up frameworks that bypass mimic the current meta. And the worst thing is, they're not even fun.
What does he mean by "traps"? And "mimicking the current meta"? I feel like there are some references here I don't have?
> The world has gotten more complicated: it seems that most dangerous traps now are picking up frameworks that bypass mimic the current meta. And the worst thing is, they're not even fun.
What does he mean by "traps"? And "mimicking the current meta"? I feel like there are some references here I don't have?
> mimicking the current meta
Probably "Most Effective Tactic Available. It's basically what works in a game regardless of what you wish would work.", a gaming term.
Imagine a PvP game, there are rock-paper-scissors rules and devs try to balance the game, but inevitably mistakes are made and the game has an imbalance leading to a rock-paper-scissoss-well situation (the well always wins or ties), so people end up mimicking that, gaming the game, otherwise they don't stand a chance, which ruins the game itself. Then devs adjust that by cheesing the weapon or whatever, but may introduce another imbalance. So there's a game atop the game (a meta-game), which is "how to game the game" by finding meta-strategies that are almost guaranteed to work.
Probably "Most Effective Tactic Available. It's basically what works in a game regardless of what you wish would work.", a gaming term.
Imagine a PvP game, there are rock-paper-scissors rules and devs try to balance the game, but inevitably mistakes are made and the game has an imbalance leading to a rock-paper-scissoss-well situation (the well always wins or ties), so people end up mimicking that, gaming the game, otherwise they don't stand a chance, which ruins the game itself. Then devs adjust that by cheesing the weapon or whatever, but may introduce another imbalance. So there's a game atop the game (a meta-game), which is "how to game the game" by finding meta-strategies that are almost guaranteed to work.
I've concluded the web is F'd up for regular CRUD.
https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/r59nzr/i_regret_goi...
I too became highly dissatisfied with technology and the pursuits therein. I knew this was not what God wanted for me so I gave it up and now working a factory job. I never quite made it in tech. But there is more reason for this than simple incompetence. It was never something I was supposed to do.
Quit more. Travel more.
you should work for a month in a 3rd world country call center for minimum wage.
you have it way too good, be grateful
you have it way too good, be grateful
Gratitude is a good thing, but it’s not constructive to minimize someone’s happiness by comparing their situation to that of others. A shit sandwich with amazing bread still tastes like crap.
This comment demonstrates the fallacy of relative privation [1], is unhelpful, and generally detracts from having a meaningful conversation.
All problems can be compared to some other worse problem. It does not almost ever mean the original problem at hand is not worth giving attention.
[1] https://academy4sc.org/video/fallacy-of-relative-privation-a...
All problems can be compared to some other worse problem. It does not almost ever mean the original problem at hand is not worth giving attention.
[1] https://academy4sc.org/video/fallacy-of-relative-privation-a...
I understand your point, but I still defend mine.
I wasnt trying to say you can always find a worse situation than yours. My point was more, that being an engineer who works in a comfortable chair for a great salary, is an amazing situation, if you're not happy with it, maybe switching situations will help, but consider that maybe you need to be more aware of how good you have it and find happiness within yourself
I wasnt trying to say you can always find a worse situation than yours. My point was more, that being an engineer who works in a comfortable chair for a great salary, is an amazing situation, if you're not happy with it, maybe switching situations will help, but consider that maybe you need to be more aware of how good you have it and find happiness within yourself
I mean... At least those minimum wage call center workers have an income, right? They should be happy they get to work in a chair. There are literally kids starving in Africa right now.
Right.
I'm in the highest-paid job of my life, getting a free day off once a month on top of 21 days' leave and public holidays. Free health insurance, learning budget, work from home, equity, share plan. Things are very good. I couldn't want more or design a better job.
Yet the agile ceremonies, working on a team where small PR's are open over a week as people argue about names or something, isn't following someone's arbitrary style preference, which is now a dogmatic team rule in the team styleguide.md file or rules.md file or contributing.md file or the department guidelines.md file. Breaking a deliverable into the most minor task possible in a Jira, so you know each class/function you have to write and then find the original plan is not the reality when coding. Then story pointing the card, even if the task itself is less time to do than the effort spent in Jira and pointing. The religiously pairing and people being afraid to do work on their own. All while the deadline is slipping away, and no real work is getting done as the time is taken up by the process around the work rather than the work. You find yourself burnt out, wanting to quit for a simple life.
We know it's not so bad. On the outside, what more could we want? But it also takes its toll mentally. We've probably done much harder jobs in our youth, in call centres, working retail, labouring in factories for minimum wage 10-12hrs a day 6-7 days a week, juggling school with the rent, yet some of us still feel like this is the hardest it's been mentally.
I'm probably going to leave my position to go to a small ten person company. I find them much more fulfilling, no large processes, people turn up, do their work, may need to do more than their fair share as a small company, but you can see the progress and get a sense of achievement.
I'm in the highest-paid job of my life, getting a free day off once a month on top of 21 days' leave and public holidays. Free health insurance, learning budget, work from home, equity, share plan. Things are very good. I couldn't want more or design a better job.
Yet the agile ceremonies, working on a team where small PR's are open over a week as people argue about names or something, isn't following someone's arbitrary style preference, which is now a dogmatic team rule in the team styleguide.md file or rules.md file or contributing.md file or the department guidelines.md file. Breaking a deliverable into the most minor task possible in a Jira, so you know each class/function you have to write and then find the original plan is not the reality when coding. Then story pointing the card, even if the task itself is less time to do than the effort spent in Jira and pointing. The religiously pairing and people being afraid to do work on their own. All while the deadline is slipping away, and no real work is getting done as the time is taken up by the process around the work rather than the work. You find yourself burnt out, wanting to quit for a simple life.
We know it's not so bad. On the outside, what more could we want? But it also takes its toll mentally. We've probably done much harder jobs in our youth, in call centres, working retail, labouring in factories for minimum wage 10-12hrs a day 6-7 days a week, juggling school with the rent, yet some of us still feel like this is the hardest it's been mentally.
I'm probably going to leave my position to go to a small ten person company. I find them much more fulfilling, no large processes, people turn up, do their work, may need to do more than their fair share as a small company, but you can see the progress and get a sense of achievement.
Leadership and management too fond of dehumanizing makers. Maybe it's from "we pay you well so we want to get our money's worth? IDK. But too often I've heard someone say "team" in an environment that's anything but.
> you’ve already been thoroughly trained that quitting leads to trouble.
How so? Covering expenses ? I.e. Moving on to the next job? It’s not trouble if you don’t need to. Tech pays quite well, especially in terms of ROI of academic expenditures. If you lived / live modestly, you’re better positioned for financial freedom than classic pinnacles of success such as medical school.
I quit, and there’s been zero trouble. Quite the opposite. I’m healthier than ever. I didn’t accumulate tens of millions, but I did walk away with several in less than a decade of FANG. Once you do, you don’t have to live in high cost of living places like NYC or SF. At 4% annual returns on investment, it’s still more than the average American. Enough to even travel a bit, and save money in the long run ( by having the mental bandwidth to optimize a healthier life).
How so? Covering expenses ? I.e. Moving on to the next job? It’s not trouble if you don’t need to. Tech pays quite well, especially in terms of ROI of academic expenditures. If you lived / live modestly, you’re better positioned for financial freedom than classic pinnacles of success such as medical school.
I quit, and there’s been zero trouble. Quite the opposite. I’m healthier than ever. I didn’t accumulate tens of millions, but I did walk away with several in less than a decade of FANG. Once you do, you don’t have to live in high cost of living places like NYC or SF. At 4% annual returns on investment, it’s still more than the average American. Enough to even travel a bit, and save money in the long run ( by having the mental bandwidth to optimize a healthier life).
I'm happy to read something from someone who has achieved my goal. I just joined a FAANG for the first time after 5-8 years as an engineer ... and I'm counting the years until this is me.
Is he just unhappy with tech, or just unhappy?
If you’re unhappy, tech probably won’t make you happy, if unhappy with tech, it’s just do something you’d be happier with or just use it for the money.
If you’re unhappy, tech probably won’t make you happy, if unhappy with tech, it’s just do something you’d be happier with or just use it for the money.
Developers of the world! Unite against the scrum lords!
> Quitting your job and getting a new one seems to just be a stop-gap.
Yeah, well, as it turns out you can construct a career of “stop-gaps”.
I don’t think this is a problem to be solved. It’s a siren screaming in your ear telling you to focus on other matters. There’s more to life than our dumb tech jobs, it’s ok to recognize that and act accordingly.
The stop-gaps help with the fact that you won’t/don’t/can’t really care. When you can’t appropriately keep up the charade, they artificially inflate your interest once again.
Yeah, well, as it turns out you can construct a career of “stop-gaps”.
I don’t think this is a problem to be solved. It’s a siren screaming in your ear telling you to focus on other matters. There’s more to life than our dumb tech jobs, it’s ok to recognize that and act accordingly.
The stop-gaps help with the fact that you won’t/don’t/can’t really care. When you can’t appropriately keep up the charade, they artificially inflate your interest once again.
This has actually been very true for me so far. Whoever killed it probably has never burnt out badly. I mainly feign enthusiasm for the various new tooling things that come out. It largely doesn't matter if ya ain't gettin $$, and sometimes that's all you should care about.
Have intentional gratitude.
In the morning, say 5 things you are grateful for.
Imagine how you can be grateful and happy with what you currently have. Rather than wanting something else. Try to do away with your wants: stop wanting more. Take notice of what you have.
In the morning, say 5 things you are grateful for.
Imagine how you can be grateful and happy with what you currently have. Rather than wanting something else. Try to do away with your wants: stop wanting more. Take notice of what you have.
Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks
Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't provide an opportunity of non-verbal self reflection and focuses you into threadmill small task thinking never connecting with the project as a whole.
Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. The focus required to deep dive into complex issues get's broken with meetings that developers shouldn't be attending. You can attend meetings or you program rarely can you do both effectively on the same day and rarely can you get the focus you once had.
No one wants to reinvent the wheel so gluing together packages is considered best practice. The work has become more about making decisions around the packages you choose rather than being given time to make the package.
Top pay with top companies seem to lead to burnout, lost purpose and this unhappiness. There is something unhealthy when companies get too large, force employees into promotions or unemployment, have an avg employment of under a year or designs interview processes around finding people who optimize for a high paycheck over those with a long history of experience.