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Developers, Being Treated Poorly? You Are Not Alone

• askyourmother 11y ago
  The takeaway is that work is a lot to do with working with other people, not just waiting for github to come back online, or waiting for the 5gb download to compile stuff on OSX. People are far complicated than code, so we should take the time and make the effort to build and maintain relationships with our colleagues (professional relationships - shame it often needs spelling out!). Treat others as you would be treated is a good start. We can't always choose our colleagues, but we can choose to make the best of each and every situation. It is complicated enough where the team decided to build the project upon the sinking sands of npm dependencies - at least make sure you are fighting together, not each other!
• de_Selby 11y ago
  I'm really struggling to see what the big deal is with a lot of these stories. It seems like either a) We're only getting half the story. b) There are clues that poor communication was the issue. c) There is no story to begin with, just some perceived slight in the authors head.
  • jacobush 11y ago
    Nicely put. I upvoted this story so I could see what you guys think in the comments. I read it and, and yeah, any combination of a) b) c). One clue that poor communication might have been an issue, is that you and I are left here standing feeling like we are missing out on something in the story. That is not good storytelling, AKA it is poor communication. Wu, more details! Maybe the "need to get a drink guy" was really ill and could barely stand up? For instance.
    • LukeB_UK 11y ago
      There are many reasons why the "need to get a drink guy" could have done what what he did, for example poor social skills (not his fault) or being socially drained (as somewhat of an introvert, I experience this)
      • gwbas1c 11y ago
        Or the "need to get a drink" really meant that he didn't like working with Fred.
        • Shengbo 11y ago
          Or he needed to get a drink.
  • catmanjan 11y ago
    Yep, a few of them just sound like interactions with people who are having a bad day...
  • fredwu 11y ago
    Hi, Author here. Sorry you (and many others) felt that way... I was trying to put together these moments without rambling on too much. To offer my perspective on the things you mentioned: a) I absolutely agree, there's always two sides of a coin. I can only describe how I felt at the time. b) Again, I agree, and communication is a two way art. Having said that, some of those moments I feel there were very little I could do in my end to turn them around. c) I did not claim those to be stories either, my intention was to share these things that have happened to me in the past and made me felt uneasy at the time, and perhaps make more people (including myself) to be more aware of their surroundings...
  • crispyambulance 11y ago
    I think the OP would feel better writing a blog post of gratitude: the same number of vignettes, except that they're stories were coworkers were extraordinarily kind or generous. The way other people behave is often a reaction to how they perceive they're being treated. Perhaps the OP should introspect on how he appears to other?
    • fredwu 11y ago
      Thank you, that inspired me to think about writing another "moments" piece for the kind ones. :) In recent years I have started gathering feedback for myself from my peers, direct reports and managers. The issue I find is that only certain type of people are willing to be completely honest, for the rest it really depends on how much rapport you were able to build with them. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I try, but it's hard. :P
      • jacobush 11y ago
        So most people are normal. :). Some are thick skinned, or confident, or just socially oblivious and will just tell their mind. Complete honesty is a dangerous thing. It's like walking nude.
• stormbuilder 11y ago
  1) Find me a profession where people don't have grievances 2) Considering that so many companies slavishly build their whole culture on servicing engineers, color me skeptical.
  • atemerev 11y ago
    The world is not limited to Bay Area.
  • acdha 11y ago
    > 2) Considering that so many companies slavishly build their whole culture on servicing engineers, color me skeptical. Look deeper at the respect, and its most common proxies – money and hours: some places do seriously try to tackle developer productivity but there are quite a few where e.g. the average mid-level manager makes more than the most senior developer or the free food / foosball table is expected to make up for routine 60+ hour weeks or inability to fix long-term structural problems. This is particularly of interest for younger developers: look at what happens to the older people at your company – do their careers mysteriously stall after their mid-30s, do they start getting flack for leaving on time to pick up their kids or actually using vacation/sick leave, etc. Most places say they value a good working environment but some of them are banking on you not taking them up on it.
  • lucasnemeth 11y ago
    You need to learn more about companies outside of the US/Europe.
• LukeB_UK 11y ago
  A number of these are simply poor communication and some of them are actually the fault of the author.
  • jacobush 11y ago
    Possibly. You never know with any story at all, but these stories are not even compelling and engaging when taken at face value.
• lukeholder 11y ago
  To be honest, most of these seem like half the story.
  • repomies691 11y ago
    Yep, very light on details...
• mooreds 11y ago
  That is crazy. I have been in the industry for over 15 years and only can think of two episodes that would even compare to anything on the list. And they were both far milder than what OP encountered. Most places I have worked there has been a recognition that software is hard and that developers need to be respected. (Not worshipped but respected.). I am a white male, so maybe that plays a role? I don't know. Not sure where the OP works (SV?) but wow. Hope he finds his way to a less toxic environment. I certainly would have considered leaving the industry after such experiences.
  • engi_nerd 11y ago
    Funny, his post seems like a barely toxic environment to me. But then, here are things that have happened to me in the defense industry across several different jobs... * Being asked to bill to one project while working on another; both projects were for the US government. Mischarging on contracts is illegal, immoral, and unethical, and I refused to do it. Later that day my boss pulled me into the office and gave me the old "Well we don't want to fire you but we might have to if your attitude doesn't improve" speech. I asked if this speech was related to my refusal to mischarge labor. The answer: "Yes, absolutely." * During the Fall 2013 US government shutdown, I was on travel. The contractor I was working for told me to keep working. Everyone else at the home facility was furloughed. I kept working and kept getting paid. The company gave all employees a $2500 Christmas bonus for "staying loyal" to the company. Except those of us on travel, because we had not had to lose any salary. Okay, fine. But later on the company did return the leave that people took during the furlough. So, effectively, everyone else got a paid vacation from work PLUS a $2500 bonus and I got neither. * Regularly cursed at by aircraft crew chiefs when I ask for access to perform inspections. I have been told, "Fuck you, we don't need your shit to fly, get the fuck out of here." Funny, the flight clearances say my system has to work! * Yelled at by a very senior manager because I did not make a significant engineering change based on a poorly worded post-it note. I had asked the note's author for email clarification and formal documentation of the change. The author refused. I notified my managers -- including the manager who yelled at me -- of the situation. They promised to take action but did nothing. Uncertain of how to proceed, I kept raising the issue at status meetings but was ignored. The failure to take action on this almost cost us a launch opportunity. And I have many more stories of similar things. But I think I have it good compared to huge numbers of people. I don't think the OP, or many of the posters on this board, realize just how good you have it.
• repomies691 11y ago
  I'm not sure if I understand some of these: "It was near the end of the working day, around 5pm, as the person coordinating the developer recruitment in our area I ping’ed our Slack channel to encourage our developers to start reviewing some code tests from job candidates. One person replied: “My end of day activity is doing the stuff I should have been doing all day instead of the other things that came up.”" What was the treated poorly part? Someone priorized some other work over his assignment, or something? I personally think overtime should be avoided, but often people do it voluntarily. "A senior software architect who I used to respect walked close by in a meetup. We worked for the same company a while back so I smiled, said hi and was about to start a conversation, he quickly cut me off with “I need to get a drink” without looking at me and wondered off." Seriously? Everyone has a bad day now and then. This is of course not nice behaviour, but I wouldn't consider it worth remembering or mentioning as "being treated poorly". "The general manager who is non-technical, asked me to investigate options to uplift our ageing bespoke ecommerce solution. Upon delivering my findings, I was told that “your findings are biased.”" What would be the proper way to communicate this? If the manager thinks that the findings are biased, would it be better not to say that, or communicate it in some other way?
  • fredwu 11y ago
    Hi, Author here, I can see why you have these questions. I tried to keep the moments short so left out some details. For the first one, it was the passive aggressive tone and the fact that it was posted in a public channel. This person in one other occasion, stormed out of a meeting room whilst another colleague was trying to explain something. For the second one, later on through mutual colleagues I realised that he essentially thought very little of me because at the time I was a junior developer so I made lots of mistakes in my code base. In my defence though, I was on my own and I had to learn Rails myself. For the third one, I put the "non-technical" part in to indicate that my manager does not have the technical capability to determine whether my findings were biased. It was more so that he had his agenda and just wanted me to confirm his approach from the technical perspective. Hope that clears things up a little bit. :)
    • ownagefool 11y ago
• mikekchar 11y ago
  At the risk of a tremendous backlash, I have to say that with the vast majority of these I was left looking for the punchline. There were clearly some very upsetting situations, but in nearly every case I could potentially see both sides of the equation. It was hard for me to consider these examples of poor treatment. Rather sometimes just examples of poor judgement (also from the developer's side -- for example not leaving the premises after being dismissed). This stuff is hard. In my experience you have to cut people some slack and be understanding of difficult situations. If you are able to succeed at that, you should find opportunities to help. This will, in turn, make you more valuable to your employers and also make you much happier. Of course, it's hard to give good advice from the other end of a comment box. I wish you the best of luck in your current endeavours!
  • koolba 11y ago
    > There were clearly some very upsetting situations, but in nearly every case I could potentially see both sides of the equation. Nearly, sure but not all. From the article (emphasis mine): "A new big shot executive joined the company as our new CTO. He had no agile background and our company was transforming and pushing for a lot of agile principles at the time. Two weeks into his new appointment, the new CTO published an internal document titled “Controlled Chaos”. After reading the document everyone immediately realised that he was describing waterfall. The document was shared as a Google Doc and was open for comments, so people started asking hard questions. Weeks later, many of us who were vocal about his document were let go." Asking for feedback and shooting the messenger(s) is pretty up there on the "How to make sure you never get honest feedback again and screw things over the long term" scale.
    • chasing 11y ago
      Or you could interpret it as: The development team at the company was a hot mess. The company brought in a CTO who stumbled a bit out of the gate, and a few developers made it very clear that they were uninterested in working with him or following his lead. Because the company felt it needed to go in a new direction with the development team, they had to let most of those developers -- who were clearly a bad fit at this point -- go. Because there's almost no detail in that story.
• igl 11y ago
  We had a talented CS-student intern once. They seated her in the marketing office away from the developers. FML for developers?
  • cm3 11y ago
    Isn't this more discrimination than anything else?
• catmanjan 11y ago
  Alright, I've re-read all of them and I still can't find one that stands on its own as a legitimate complaint.
  • hathym 11y ago
    "My manager, who was the general manager, wanted to fire two of my developers. His tactic for firing the senior developer was to make the senior developer role redundant and offering the dev a junior developer role instead." I didn't read it all, but I think this one can be described as poor treatment against the author's coworker
    • repomies691 11y ago
      Difficult to comment on with these light details, but is firing also poor treatment? Sometimes companies need to fire, for whatever reasons. I think it is good if some other role is offered instead. "His tactic for firing the senior developer was to make the senior developer role redundant" How do you make a role redundant? Usually it is about what the business needs, the people inside the company don't make roles needed or redundant, but the business and how it develops defines the needs for varying roles. For example, if customers suddenly stop buying and decide to go ellewhere, everyone inside the company can be considered redundant.
      • spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        Um no in theory its the role that is redundant not the person it helps avoid accusations of unfairness in the redundancy process - yes i know that this can and is abused.
      • hathym 11y ago
        putting an employee in a closet in a hope to destroy its moral and force him to quit on his own? poor treatment is a light description IMHO.
        • jschwartzi 11y ago
• zeemonkee3 11y ago
  These sound extremely mild compared to some other jobs. Try being a high school teacher, waiter or call center worker for a day.
• riotdash 11y ago
  "The head of HR who is female and a big advocate for workplace diversity walked into my exit interview. The opening line was “Ordinarily I only do exit interviews with female employees…“ " Another feminist pig...sigh
  • dang 11y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly posting uncivil, unsubstantive comments to Hacker News, despite our request to stop.
• rdez6173 11y ago
  These anecdotes seem a little light on detail, so it's hard to really see how Fred was treated poorly. Through the course of my career there have been personality conflicts. I think this is natural and common. In the world of startups it can be even more dramatic. The bottom line is that you should be confident in your skills, but not be an asshole (and you should expect the same from your colleagues). And, unless you have an equity stake, you can always move on. It sound like Fred did this - he dealt with some standard workplace BS, then moved on when it was untenable. Good on him. I just wish the examples were a bit more detailed and illustrative of the post's title.
• morgante 11y ago
  If these are the worst experiences someone has had as a developer, they've had a great career. Most of these aren't even bad and many are in fact totally what you'd expect. > As the team lead, I was told by one of my team members that they had gotten a pay rise. Depending on the company structure, "team lead" might not make you their manager. Of course you won't know their pay if you're not their manager. > "Ordinarily I only do exit interviews with female employees…" It makes sense that the HR head would generally not personally engage in exit interviews, but would do so when it's directly related to an initiative they're personally pursuing (diversity).
• dccoolgai 11y ago
  The thing that bugs me the most aren't incidents like these (which honestly don't seem all that bad) but general "patterns". One I've seen pop up again and again is "ask me about something > I give you my professional advice > ignore it > come to me after you screwed things up by ignoring my advice > now I have to fix it". Have seen this at every one of my jobs as a developer/manager.
• greenspot 11y ago
  > Being Treated Poorly? Everyone, every employee, contractor, founder, just anyone could exactly say this sentence at some point. All of us experienced unfair, grueling situations in the past and it's tempting to tell this everyone. But not everybody would tell that they have been treated poorly or write a blog post about it. They know that there're every day people around you who make mistakes. Mistakes which make their life harder and sometimes these mistakes are not mistakes anymore when looking from both sides, maybe they are just misunderstandings and maybe too many in a short time. It's the easiest to blame others when facing difficulties but some of us don't do this, they learn, develop empathy and just move on because they know: blaming, complaining and negativity won't solve anything. It makes you just feel even worse. I don't want to judge about your situation in any way but I just like to express that the most difficult thing career-wise is dealing with people and it's the easiest to blame people when things don't go the way you expected. This is what I did for too many years—blaming others—until I realized that I am the sole person who can be made responsible for my situation.
• jordache 11y ago
  none of these stories had proper context... difficult to feel empathy for the anonymous authors behind these anecdotal snippets
  • jsnider3 11y ago
    > anonymous authors There's only one author and his name is Fred Wu. Agreed that there's not enough context.
• lujim 11y ago
  This is more of a collection of hurt feelings. I didn't read them all but most of them seemed to result in a bruised ego.
• cm3 11y ago
  How much of this is due to non-existent organization (not necessarily unions)?
• krzrak 11y ago
  Interesting read, but some of the entries are... weird. For example, what's wrong with requiring doctor's note for whole-week absence? Some of them seem to be submitted by someone who may be considered a little bit to much entitled.
  • LesZedCB 11y ago
    Maybe they had to take the whole week off because they were required to come in instead of rest on that first day. Maybe it would've only been two days otherwise.
• meapix 11y ago
  The author must be keeping record somewhere of those things. You can't just remember that stuff over the years. If that's the case, maybe the problem is with you. I had couple of those things but can't really tell the details. You're not happy, just let go and move on, don't even need to send notice, just don't show up the next day.
• philbarr 11y ago
  Don't seem that bad. Try: - I was once asked to go to meet a customer with our sales manager and wasn't told why beyond, "we just need a techie there." The sales manager did his pitch and when it came to questions someone said, "you haven't shown us the proposed architecture," and the sales manager points to me and says, "that's why Phil's here." I had to invent one on the spot using a whiteboard and with a bunch of very knowledgeable people firing questions at me. - One developer I knew was tasked with using a font that cost a lot of money. He was explicitly told by the directors to use the font anyway without paying for it, which he did. Later when the company was sold this came up in disclosure, and the directors blamed the developer saying they had no knowledge. - Another developer, during their personal review, was told that they weren't getting a pay rise but that, "it's not because you're black." She was in tears.
  • LesZedCB 11y ago
    Wow, those are terrible. Maybe it would be fair to say that affronts against programmer workers are varied in severity, but they exist, nonetheless.
  • kdamken 11y ago
    Whattttttttttttttttttttt Now these are some legitimate complaints. You should write a post about real issues. Did she end up suing? I feel like you can't say something like that and not end up getting sued.
  • xigency 11y ago
    While these are almost certainly bad, they are not all specifically related to being a developer. Mainly just poor treatment of an employee. The article had instances where a developer: - lost essential computer access privileges - was forced to re-invent technology - was denied chances to advance his/her careers through academia - felt group shaming - was expected to spend most of the day picking up pieces - was fired without review The last one is more general but these at least have a technological slant to them, and they do seem to be related to some kind of passive, cultural bias. And each of the stories might have some weak points but the point is that some developers feel they are being treated poorly, which is a big deal. This crowd is very analytical but a dismissive response is not really the appropriate way to address these claims. (Not saying you're being dismissive, just the general attitude of comments.) Your comment also hints on another pattern which is, every time there are small problems, there are going to be bigger problems underneath.
• chasing 11y ago
  Most of these I read and am, like: "I wonder how the other person would've described the situation?" For example: > One of our servers needed to be rebuilt, so trying to be a team player and help, I started installing some basic packages. The senior dev on the team turned to me, straight faced and enunciated in a deep and cold voice: “don’t touch anything on it, this is my server!“ Is this because you're a junior-junior developer with an established history of fucking things up? Who has something else they should be working on? Then stay away from the guy's server. Anyway, let me join the chorus of wondering what, exactly, is so terrible about most of these little stories. Especially when they're so vague as to be nearly useless... I've been a developer for twenty years. I can tell you some actual stories of developers being treated poorly. They're generally a little deeper than, "Someone said something uncouth in my general direction."
  • fredwu 11y ago
    Hi, Author here. Indeed I was the junior dev at the time. I now regret not making a lot of the points clearer. In this case, I know I would definitely NOT treat my junior devs this way. In my view, using either aggressive tones, or public shaming, is not the right way to resolve things. I wish that senior dev at the time would've talked to me in a way that did not make me feel like I was worthless and intentionally fuck things up - at the end of day, most people try to do good things for their organisation, right? :)
    • shimon 11y ago
      Of course. There are some general lessons about communication that you can learn from these examples. But nobody will do the right thing in every social situation 100% of the time. It's not that you don't have valid complaints here. It's that you've taken a huge number of examples that range from the simply ungraceful to outright exploitative, and combined them in one huge file that makes it look like you're seeking reasons for your grudges. A good workplace isn't one that avoids mistakes and conflict. It's one where the team feels invested and supported in working through that conflict in pursuit of their bigger goal. That goal doesn't have to be some world-changing potential; it can just be doing good work, getting paid, and taking care of yourselves.
• beerbajay 11y ago
  > access was revoked so I had to log into the hosting dashboard to reset the root password You should have asked your coworkers why your access was revoked. Of course, they probably should have communicated the reason in advance.
• contingencies 11y ago
  The thing that gets me in medium sized organizations is mixed messages from different sides of management. I feel like poor communication tends to be the rule here rather than the exception. This includes cases where I have been hired as a firefighter. The thing that gets me in large companies is backstabbing psychopaths that ritually abuse the common assumption that everyone is working together, in order to elbow their way ... somewhere. If you work with a group of smart people who are able to selflessly say "Hey I don't know about this" or "Maybe I made a mistake there, how can as a team change the process for these decisions so that we prevent making this kind of mistake in future?" ... treasure it.
• nxzero 11y ago
  Reminds me of Rashōmon, a short story: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashōmon_(short_story) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashōmon_(short_story) Which is to say, this strikes me as a very first world problem, one sided, etc.
• FLGMwt 11y ago
  I'd like to take a moment to comment on the general theme of responses in this thread. Rhetoric such as "chin up" and "it could be so much worse" and "relax" are very commonly seen in response to those suffering from severe depression and anxiety. Often, that approach to empathy amounts to observers summing up the situation, projecting that they themselves wouldn't have been hurt in that situation, and then patting the author on the head and telling them to sit back down. While many of us may not objectively take away "he was treated poorly" from the author's brief stories, it is a fact that the author felt emotionally affected by these experiences enough to share them. I think he aim to create a forum for people in the industry who themselves feel slighted by something that happened to them. Something something, intersectionality. Hey Fred, thanks for sharing.
  • osweiller 11y ago
    We -- humanity in general -- judge and react to our own lot and situation by what we think everyone else endures: What we think is "normal", and then we take offense by what we think is abnormal (which we assume must be poor treatment or disrespect). Hearing the common sentiment might be useful. Sympathizing with the author simply because they claim aggrievement to what seems like completely banal situations is unlikely to be useful to anyone, most certainly the author.
• vinceguidry 11y ago
  I made this post about a week ago: > Only if your industry is capital rather than labor intensive, in which case you'll have elaborate procedures in place for safeguarding and maintaining your infrastructure. > For everyone else, a certain amount of breakage is expected. When things break, there are generally manual processes that can be put into place to keep business moving. I've been mulling over that for a week now, and these stories have brought to surface the idea that software and technological infrastructure is actually capital and not labor and should be treated as such. Developers are like highly specialized factory machines. Unfortunately, because they are human and not actually machines, they're capable of being repurposed with little more than a whim. Imagine taking a machine designed to sort apples and repurposing it to de-core apples instead. It's going to take more trouble than it's worth; just buy a de-coring machine. I guess I've just been playing too much Factorio.
• Lazare 11y ago
  Eh. About 1/3 of those seem bad, a 1/3 seem totally fine, and another 1/3 I'm just confused by. Example: HR is a function, not just a department. The fact that you don't have a full time HR person doesn't mean that the job they would have done is going to remain unfilled; it just means someone else has to wear the HR hat, probably the CEO. If you're taking a week off and expecting to use sick days rather than vacation time, a doctor's note does seem appropriate, and I have no idea why it's relevant that its a startup with only 10 people. Being asked to go to lunch while sick seems much dodgier, but the story presents the lack of a dedicated HR person as the punchline, when that seems irrelevant. You can't abuse sick leave just because the company is small. Similarly, having your head of network operations not understand the issue with your Cassandra cluster and just check the port responds to packets is...I dunno, I guess it's bad? Kind of? Assuming that his job description includes setting up Cassandra clusters, which it probably wouldn't be in many companies, so... On the other hand, there were enough stories there to make me feel pretty smug about my current job. But overall, the stories feel more like zen koans than actual stories. You read it, you stop, and you puzzle over it. It's bad that the head of HR doesn't normally personally do exit interviews...why? Or is the problem that the head of HR taking an interest in you? Are we meant to be upset she isn't doing more interviews, or that she isn't doing fewer? Or is the issue unrelated to the number of interviews? Are we meant to guess? Or the ones about pay rises for team members; are we meant to assume that this would normally be the author's job? Or is the complaint that it wasn't the author's job, but should have been?
  • hyperpape 11y ago
    He said a day, not a week. And anyone who asks people with fevers to come to work is making a big mistake.* You're not allowed to send kids with fevers to daycare for good reason. * Barring true "all hands on deck, no matter what" scenarios.
    • xigency 11y ago
      "all hands on deck, no matter what" is business as usual at a number of places.
• wobbleblob 11y ago
  Being treated poorly? Ha. Demand for our expertise has, as far as I can tell, always outstripped supply. Compared to most sectors, we are treated like royalty. Funny war stories though, of course I have some. One of the owners of the company I'm working for used to put his agreements with customers and other 3rd party contacts for the week or the month in his agenda for the last day of said week or month. Every week, every single week, on Friday afternoon at 4:55pm he'd call: "Ah, good thing you're still at the office. Hey, I promised <contact> that we'd have <complicated thing> done by the end of this week. Can you take care of it? You're awesome, thanks! Have a great week end" (The company has grown quite a bit, and got more organized, so this no longer happens)
  • AndyNemmity 11y ago
    The all too common, end of week, end of Friday I need x y and z done immediately, and have a great weekend. So infuriating.
    • wobbleblob 11y ago
      More funny than infuriating. Unless there's an actual production issue, at weekend o' clock everyone goes home.
• paulojreis 11y ago
  Yeah, having been dealt a very nice hand career-wise (i.e. being a software developer today) is really making us divas. And I say "divas" refraining myself; there other "names", more derogatory but also more explicit, to apply here.
• 3minus1 11y ago
  Kind of sounds like the OP comes into a job and is really over-eager, trying to be helpful touching other people's servers, emailing 50 new coworkers about an ipad, arguing with a manager in front of everyone, talking in a meeting about a feature he doesn't fully understand. This kind of behavior can piss people off. It's good to be enthusiastic but focus on your own shit first. Answer questions/give help when it's solicited.
• vmateixeira 11y ago
  http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/82/8273ea559a925938b1fefd3ee74441ecae4372428dd206f88355dba99d587acd.jpg http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/82/8273ea559a925938b1fefd3ee7444...
• alistproducer2 11y ago
  Jesus, I can't think of a better example of "1st world problems." Boo hoo.
  • dang 11y ago
    Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments that just put someone else down. I'm sure there's a thoughtful comment lurking in there if you want to take the time to make it; if you don't, that's fine, but then please don't post at all.
• yousaidwhat 11y ago
  Interesting comments here on Fred's experiences. I agree with some commenters that more context is needed, but I think the key point(s) missed. This is about civility,tact,compassion, humility and communication. Civility is not something you innately have,but is learned (or not in some cases) and quite frankly many people do not know what that is. Tact clearly was not used in some instances. Compassion was lacking in the perceived arrogance and defensiveness shown. Humility can go hand in hand with compassion in realizing you are not the "shit". Communication, or the lack thereof, can contribute to the situations that occurred and that too is a learned behavior and not innate. I can empathize with the situations and it is always good to be aware as a way to foster your growth and understanding.
• shade23 11y ago
  On a similar note .A more crowdsourced data website : http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/ PS:These are majorly designers ranting
• yousaidwhat 11y ago
  Interesting comments here on Fred's experiences. I agree with some commenters that more context is needed, but I think the key point(s) missed. This is about civility,tact,compassion, humility and communication. Civility is not something you innately have,but is learned (or not in some cases) and quite frankly many people do not know what that is. Tact clearly was not used in some instances. Compassion was lacking in the perceived arrogance and defensiveness shown. Humility can go hand in hand with compassion in realizing you are not the "shit". Communication, or the lack thereof, can contribute to the situations that occurred and that too is a learned behavior and not innate. I can empathize with the situations and it is always good to be aware as a way to foster your growth and understanding.
• flatline 11y ago
  These left me with an uneasy feeling of someone who is oblivious to their blind spots and has unwittingly placed themselves in difficult situations with little self-awareness. I suspect the fault for many of these incidents - if we are looking to place blame - lies largely with the author. Not getting a pay raise when everyone else on the team gets one? This may raise a red flag about management but it certainly raises a red flag about the employee in question. Going back to a meeting after being fired? Cringeworthy - it's something you may do early in your career before you know better, but this is clearly a senior dev who still lacks some fundamental understanding of workplace conventions and interpersonal communication. I wonder if the author was raised in a very different culture, either because he or his family was of foreign origin, or he was simply brought up with an atypical set of cultural cues and values. These can be very difficult to uproot, and may explain the sense of bumbling through professional situations that the article conveys.
  • greendesk 11y ago
    I am not sure about the part where leaving the office as soon as you are let go is expected. I am not in the States, but when re-structurings were to happen at my previous employers, the employers has to specify if you are expected to leave immediately or if there is some work to be finished. At an earlier point I was changing jobs. I had asked to work a few days longer to finish my task at hand, which was granted. It only seems reasonable thing to me. To me, communication is a very large value. I would not require, or blame, the developer in this circumstance. If the employer did not specify or have processes when letting people go, it is an unprofessional attitude of the employer, not misunderstanding of the developer.
  • brational 11y ago
    > I wonder if the author was raised in a very different culture, either because he or his family was of foreign origin, or he was simply brought up with an atypical set of cultural cues and values. These can be very difficult to uproot, and may explain the sense of bumbling through professional situations that the article conveys. This is what I thought as well. The author's perceptions of reality seem a bit "off" and even naive in some cases.
• eggman 11y ago
  everyone can get their share of being treated poorly; there is enough to go around.
• deeteecee 11y ago
  lots of bad attitude, bad senior devs but without context of a longer chain of events, can't consider its called "being treated poorly" rather than "a lot of assholes work around me"
• gjvc 11y ago
  a lot of this may be summed up in "real power is never given, it is always taken"
• mbostleman 11y ago
  Software developers are at the top end of pay in our current economy. They often have (or easily can have) the flexibility of working remotely. There is a high demand for them and an acute shortage of supply. For the foreseeable future the chance of being unemployed is effectively zero. On top of all this, two thirds of them do not need to invest the capital or the lost opportunity cost in a college education. The remaining third probably doesn't either. In this situation, if employers aren't the ones being treated poorly then something is wrong. And any developer that is complaining needs to have a better understanding of the power that they have and how to use it.
• gwbas1c 11y ago
  Fred, if you're reading this: When I read this article, it's not very flattering towards you. The attitudes expressed by your colleges imply a high amount of frustration.
• projectileboy 11y ago
  I've definitely had some of these moments. But I always try to remember that I am the common factor in all of my bad relationships.
• sirsuki 11y ago
  > …raise the awareness that kinder communication styles might be better received. Hear hear! I've always wondered why commonly the same attitudes and communication styles that developers employ to each other would be considered shocking if they were employed to a significant other to say the least. Communication comes up a lot in relationships but rarely in the work place. It is only recently that psychological safety became a known term thanks to Google.
• dsmithatx 11y ago
  Somehow I don't think the author ever expected this to be number one on HN. Having read the article I'm not going to critique this. I do think it shows many people up vote articles based on the title alone. I love HN and find a lot of news here I can't get anywhere else. However, I do feel it's time to revise the voting system and question why great articles at certain times of the day fall through the cracks while other not so great articles can rise to the top.
• vacri 11y ago
  I've worked a variety of jobs over my life, and I have to say that I find it funny the degree to which software developers whine over how difficult they have it. Software development is one of the cushiest jobs around. Indoor work; no heavy lifting; little to no customer contact; little to no shift work (unless you're in ops); generally intellectually stimulating; easygoing dress code; generally get to be constructive and creative; very well paid; self-trained is an entirely viable way to get that paycheck (not a lot of self-trained lawyers out there...); generally easy office life; generally get the better computing equipment; conferences are frequent perks of the job; you're not on your feet for your whole shift unless you choose to be; occasional option to work from home; skills are in demand... the list goes on and on. Every time I see one of these articles, I wonder if the author ever spent much time working a menial job.
  • ganzolo 11y ago
    I absolutely do not agree, software development can be extremely difficult job (just as like any other ones by the way). It all depend on the environment. Yes, it's not a physical job, but you have to be able to handle the amount of psychological pressures that is put on you which can be way higher than on other more physical jobs.
  • toast_coder 11y ago
    I agree with a lot of your points here. But lets not give the viewing public the idea that being a programmer is an 'easy' job. First programmers suffer from the same lack of loyalty that permeates most companies these days. They can and will be let go pretty much the moment it is financially convenient to to so. As a software developer, it burns that much more when you were a large factor in the reason the organization was successful. Second, since people can be self trained, and they are, this is a hyper competitive field to work in. Everyone says they can do everything, and resumes are no help in distinguishing candidates. While at same time many people directing the work of software developers have no idea what they are asking for in terms of complexity, while being given business driven time frames. This is a hyper competitive field that inflicts serious mental stress on the people performing at high levels. I have many a day where I long for the simplicity of a'menial job' where only really thing you need to be successful is a positive attitude.
• swalsh 11y ago
  Whatever you feel about the article, Let me recommend this book to ALL engineers. The title is kind of bad, but the book has made me a much better team lead. http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034 http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...
• puppetmaster3 11y ago
  This is normal treatment of developers world wide as developers are viewed by MBA as blue collar workers. What is the best way for me to avoid this?
  • Shengbo 11y ago
    Become one of them.
• abpavel 11y ago
  Network infrastructure mean IP, not "everything I use". Network operations are responsible for the network infrastructure. Cassandra is not network infrastructure, it's just another application, one of tens of thousands that network support. Network infrastructure is IP, and TCP is the highest layer just for the testing purposes, to ensure there is no ACL or load sharing hash issue that would put the packet on a sub performance link.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• progressive_dad 11y ago
  Working on a high profile tech team and project. We had the most brilliant and insufferable devops engineer I've ever met. I don't mean just your standard grump overworked sys admin. This guy was a treasure. 1) Previously all engineers had 20% time and would work on personal projects. We had a ton of extra servers lying around and it was fairly simple to provision some space to work on an idea. His first week he went to the CTO and had 20% time axed and demanded that all provisioning go directly through him and all physical servers be nuked from orbit. 2) They got him a personal secretary. He routinely had her go 5 blocks to get him gummy bears, buy him a waffle iron and make him waffles in the office, and routinely made sexist comments. 3) Op sec. We would have media come by the office once in a while so this guy instituted a policy of "security through shame" If you didn't have 2factor auth on your email he would send you snide comments. If you didn't use full disk encryption you had to go to a mandatory course on personal security. If you left your laptop unlocked at your desk to go the bathroom it was prank emails and screwing with your settings. On the 3rd time he would confiscate your laptop and lock it in a personal safe he had under his desk for the day. 4) This guy would use our internal channels and slack to shame anyone non-technical. One time the personal assistant to a VP in another department accidentally posted a listing asking if anyone had a bed for sale to the channel for asking about restaurants in the area. 24hours of shame where he got the entire tech team to participate emailing everyone in the company if they had any food shaped furniture for sale. Apparently she broke down crying and had to go home for the day. 5) Despite the fact that we had no QA team this guy refused to deploy hotfixes even for critical launches. You got one day a week to launch code. You got one chance. If there was anything wrong it was, "roll back and try next week." Unless of course the issue was you needed a CDN cache clear or there was something wrong with the build. Then you could email him (directly after the deployment) and have him refuse to respond or believe you for about an hour before he would actually do anything. I could go on. this guy was a king turd.
  • tristor 11y ago
    The guy sounds like a jerk, but at least #3 seems to have come from a good place even if it might have been handled better. Security is absolutely essential and the weakest link is the human in most cases. That's why its important to build good security habits. Implementing policies and using software to enforce them only goes so far. His intention there was no doubt to try to instill some sense of personal security in the people involved that they might hold with them in the long term by calling them out and sending them to training. The rest of that sounds like reasons to fire the guy though. Although, having been in ops my whole career, I've never had a secretary, so it seems to me like this guy likely had a hookup with somebody in senior leadership so was probably untouchable/unfireable. I've dealt with the type before where it was somebody important's cousin or son who "knows computers", and suddenly they're running the IT department. On the plus side, at least it sounded like the guy wasn't incompetent.
• Mimu 11y ago
  One of the story in the comments is awesome (from jakob). Dude got unleashed to a client without the necessary knowledge, client got angry and asked for a replacement, a senior came and actually teach the junior. I expected the story to end poorly and it actually was a great happy ending. Would read again.
• joe_momma 11y ago
  I think in general there is a lot of people with very different backgrounds that work in an industry where standards are self defined. Team leaders need to invest into their listening skills and stop thinking they are all Steve Jobs, and that they have to be an asshole just to get anything done.
  • ConfuciusSay02 11y ago
    But Erlich told me I need to be an asshole to get ahead?
• tdkl 11y ago
  Responds here are pretty "interesting" compared to carefully crafted ones in another trending HN thread [1]. They're both daily CS/IT problems, except one is somehow about gender and the other should "man up, because masculine talk". [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11427467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11427467
• codingdave 11y ago
  These sound pretty minor compared to some of the things I've seen. But I'm not sure that a group of devs trying to one-up each on with horror stories is very productive. What matters is how you deal with it when you feel something is wrong. First of all, trying to see both sides of the story is often helpful, as is forgiving people for their tone and listening to what they are actually saying. But ultimately, after you have tried to resolve any differences or conflicts, compromised where appropriate, pushed for change where possible, no job will be perfect. And if the problems resulted in your being let go, then just walk away and move on. Or if you are at a job with problems, you are left with a very simple choice... 1) Accept the problems, and do your job. 2) Do not accept the problems, and leave your job.
• drumttocs8 11y ago
  I'm trying very hard to share your outrage... I am trying... but it really seems most of these are you being annoyed that you annoyed someone.
• ianwalter 11y ago
  Good post Fred. I thought the examples were good and I didn't have trouble understanding the point of the article. It made me think about similar ways that I've been mistreated and ways that I've mistreated others, especially junior devs. Software development is truly an exercise in patience and as an industry we need to put more value on some of the softer skills. I can speak from experience that positive environments lead to better outcomes.
• kelukelugames 11y ago
  People do and say stupid things all of the time. Each of us belongs to that group too. With that said, I'm always surprised when HR or management say stupid things even though it happens all of the time. I still try to sympathize because exit interviews are awkward. I noticed managers take exits personally and receive bruised egos.
• shams93 11y ago
  Crap happens on any job but having been in the industry 25 years i can say that poor tteatment of people is often the norm. Everybody in the startup arena is bing pushed to the wall in terms of hours so you see more negative behavior because youre often dealing with sleep deprived people who are making poir choices based on lack of sleep etc.... The competition in the industry is so vicioys a job can often feel like being a contestant on Game of Thrones. But the bottom line is the way many startups are run leads to poor decision making poor treatment of people and ultimately failure for the business. These arent sucessful activities this kind of abuse you document is really the result if poor structuring. A startup is like a boat if its poorly structured it will fall apart in the most vicious way wjen you start hitting stormy seas.
• kazinator 11y ago
  > Excited to have had my overseas conference talk proposal accepted, I asked the new head of our department who had joined our company for only a month or two for travel approval. Fully expected a pad on the back, I was surprised to have been told that I cannot go, with the reason being “it is just not a good time”. What? "Travel approval" means that you're expensing the travel to the company, and the expense requires approval. For that to make sense, you have to attend the conference as a representative of the company, furthering your company business in some way. Maybe this developer should have asked for a vacation. Failing that, unpaid leave of absence.
• kazinator 11y ago
  > Reluctantly obliged, I came into the office, went out for lunch with colleagues but I was so sick I could not eat anything and can barely sit straight. I then went home, and was sick for the rest of the week… That's just completely stupid; that manager was basically asking to have himself and others infected.
• thr45345 11y ago
  My corporation had 10 people in Ireland and 4 people in India, Teams worked on different products. Entire indian team quit within 10 days for better offer. Their project had strict deadline in 8 months and it was already 4 months behind the schedule. My boss reassigned me to their project, in exchange for work-from-home and some other perks. I put the project back on schedule and released it on time. I did that alone, help was promised but never assigned. At performance review that year my work was "acceptable". My (indian) project was delivered on schedule (haha), but I missed a few key meetings on my Irish project. Latter I had problem with my manager. While I was slaving on Indian project, Irish team was learning new technology. I was expected to know this technology, since I was technicaly part of Irish team while they were learning it. I quit shortly after that. Now I do remote consulting
• happytrails 11y ago
  This seems fairly tame... How about folks yelling at you to finish your project and verbally berating you.
• virtuexru 11y ago
  I want my 5 minutes back please.
• ryanmarsh 11y ago
  This guy wouldn't last a day in a construction site. Assertive speech isn't necessarily hurtful speech.
• kazinator 11y ago
  > One of our servers needed to be rebuilt, so trying to be a team player and help, I started installing some basic packages. The senior dev on the team turned to me, straight faced and enunciated in a deep and cold voice: “don’t touch anything on it, this is my server!“ This could be deadpan humor. The developer didn't realize he was being intimidating to a junior. You can say that to a long-time colleague, especially if you have a history of busting each others' chops that way. Someone who might have once been a very confident, blasé junior doesn't understand what it's like to be an intimidated junior. Not an excuse, of course, but geeks are not always good at reading situations like this, even if they are sociable, with a functioning sense of humor and all. He might have been thinking, "I'm treating this fellow like one of the old timers!" Why I suspect it was just chop busting is that the server isn't really his (even in the sense of being personally assigned: because then why would anyone else notice that it went down and want to fix it?). If you really want a server for your own use, you fire off a virtual machine, or find some box to up under your desk. If that goes down, nobody knows about it; no junior is going to be spontaneously fixing it for you. Also, in general, nobody in their right mind gives a crap about some silly server at work. It's just "I'm putting on theatre, pretending I'm irrationally possessive about this stupid server".
• mpweiher 11y ago
  How about: Boss: You didn't do X. Dev.: I did, here is all the stuff I did. Boss: This is OK, but it's your fault I didn't know about it. Dev.: I sent you daily status e-mails. Here they are. Boss: I see you did, but it's your fault because I don't read my e-mails. Dev.: ? Or: I assign task X to a member of my team before my vacation. Boss pulls that developer from task X without informing or consulting me (I would have been available on E-Mail). When I return, boss dings me for task X not having gotten done. ??