5 ms·

I never expected employers to provide snacks and beverages but it is demoralizing when executives take away such perks but continue to fly first-class for the s

by snorkel 17y ago

I never expected employers to provide snacks and beverages but it is demoralizing when executives take away such perks but continue to fly first-class for the same cost as buying a month of snacks for everyone.

iuytgfghjmk 17y ago
So for you there is a different breaking point. Like when you have to clock in and out at lunch time, but work unpaid overtime and weekends. Or when you lose admin rights on your own PC Or you have to start wearing a tie. For me it was when we had to start signing in and out with a time. Supposedly this was for fire safety, but never seemed to apply to VPs. We worked on banking systems and often had to work all nighters while the bank was offline. The time tracking system couldn't cope with the concept of being on shift for >24hours - the HR people treated us like it was our fault. Their solution was that we all went out at 23:59 and signed back in at 00:01 and that would solve the problem WE had created.
- gridspy 17y ago
  For me it was : Generally working unpaid overtime for a long time and then during a quiet patch coming in early and leaving early (5-10 minutes early). I got personally told off by the team lead. Having a virus checker on my machine that I could not remove on pain of huge financial penalties. It scanned every input, intermediate and output of my compiler and turned the computer into a sloth. Didn't help that the final output was 230mb in size (and had a translation step into another 230mb executable). I tried in vain to get exceptions added but to no avail. These little things slowly chip away at you and you later realise that you left for the wrong reasons - but it is too late.
  - iron_ball 17y ago
    Those sound like great reasons to me, as long as you have another job waiting. What was the rest of the story?
    - gridspy 17y ago
      It forced me to confront my unquestioning love for creating computer games and made me realise that making games can be fun, but can also be as much as a drag and grind as programming anything else. There is always plenty of meat for the grinder (read shiny-eyed students) coming into the industry to justify low wages and many of my co-workers were burnt out. So I listened to my wife and moved backed home to New Zealand. I worked in a variety of other positions and decided that I'm not going to be satisfied in any particular 9-5 job for long. The next chapter is being written right now as I continue in my current 9-5 while spending all my free time working on Gridspy (http://gridspy.co.nz http://gridspy.co.nz) which is the startup that will eventually set me free. When I say free, I mean it will still be a lot of work, but I will be in control of my destiny. I'll decide what features to work on when, which technology to use and if we will have free lunches and soda. Hopefully I'll manage to democratise the process enough that everyone can enjoy themselves just as much as we grow.
      - netcan 17y ago
        I'm getting a malware warning with Chrome. The website at www.gridspy.co.nz contains elements from the site uimserv-net.dell.com.examiner-com.simpleworldhouse.ru, which appears to host malwar
        staunch 17y ago
        So, his previous employer was well justified in forcing him to have an anti-virus program installed on his machine!
        anthonyb 17y ago
        Seems like a false positive to me. I can't see any mention of uimserv or .ru in the source of his page.
        netcan 17y ago
        Maybe. Obviously, still not good for the site.
keeptrying 17y ago
Yeah I think the taking away is worse than not providing them in the first place. Humans tend to weigh loss more any other emotion.

by snorkel 17y ago

iuytgfghjmk 17y ago

So for you there is a different breaking point. Like when you have to clock in and out at lunch time, but work unpaid overtime and weekends. Or when you lose admin rights on your own PC Or you have to start wearing a tie. For me it was when we had to start signing in and out with a time. Supposedly this was for fire safety, but never seemed to apply to VPs. We worked on banking systems and often had to work all nighters while the bank was offline. The time tracking system couldn't cope with the concept of being on shift for >24hours - the HR people treated us like it was our fault. Their solution was that we all went out at 23:59 and signed back in at 00:01 and that would solve the problem WE had created.

gridspy 17y ago
For me it was : Generally working unpaid overtime for a long time and then during a quiet patch coming in early and leaving early (5-10 minutes early). I got personally told off by the team lead. Having a virus checker on my machine that I could not remove on pain of huge financial penalties. It scanned every input, intermediate and output of my compiler and turned the computer into a sloth. Didn't help that the final output was 230mb in size (and had a translation step into another 230mb executable). I tried in vain to get exceptions added but to no avail. These little things slowly chip away at you and you later realise that you left for the wrong reasons - but it is too late.
- iron_ball 17y ago
  Those sound like great reasons to me, as long as you have another job waiting. What was the rest of the story?
  - gridspy 17y ago
    It forced me to confront my unquestioning love for creating computer games and made me realise that making games can be fun, but can also be as much as a drag and grind as programming anything else. There is always plenty of meat for the grinder (read shiny-eyed students) coming into the industry to justify low wages and many of my co-workers were burnt out. So I listened to my wife and moved backed home to New Zealand. I worked in a variety of other positions and decided that I'm not going to be satisfied in any particular 9-5 job for long. The next chapter is being written right now as I continue in my current 9-5 while spending all my free time working on Gridspy (http://gridspy.co.nz http://gridspy.co.nz) which is the startup that will eventually set me free. When I say free, I mean it will still be a lot of work, but I will be in control of my destiny. I'll decide what features to work on when, which technology to use and if we will have free lunches and soda. Hopefully I'll manage to democratise the process enough that everyone can enjoy themselves just as much as we grow.
    - netcan 17y ago
      I'm getting a malware warning with Chrome. The website at www.gridspy.co.nz contains elements from the site uimserv-net.dell.com.examiner-com.simpleworldhouse.ru, which appears to host malwar
      - staunch 17y ago
        So, his previous employer was well justified in forcing him to have an anti-virus program installed on his machine!
        anthonyb 17y ago
        Seems like a false positive to me. I can't see any mention of uimserv or .ru in the source of his page.
        netcan 17y ago
        Maybe. Obviously, still not good for the site.

keeptrying 17y ago

Yeah I think the taking away is worse than not providing them in the first place. Humans tend to weigh loss more any other emotion.