5 ms·
Life is too short to work with tyrants.
by mtkd 9y ago
Life is too short to work with tyrants.
- osullivj 9y agoYes! The #1 determining factor of my productivity and contribution across my career has been my boss, and quality of relationship with boss. Don't waste your precious time trying to please assholes.
- jarjoura 9y agoI don't know if that's universally true. Some of my best work has been under tyrants. I think as long as we have shared expectations and the "tyrant" genuinely believes in the success of the project, I do not think you should always avoid working with them. Life priorities always change and obviously you should be careful of burnout, but if you have the bandwidth to work on a project with them in your life, I don't think you should avoid it just because.
- ellius 9y agoI think it’s a question of whether they’re a tyrant for themselves. A lot of people that act like tyrants are clearly just in it for the power trip.
- bitL 9y agoYou might be co-dependent. You see it often with narcissists that need their crowds of admirers, and co-dependents that need to admire somebody. It doesn't work for most people though.
- jarjoura 9y agoEh for a time that was most definitely true.
- DavidWoof 9y agoI've probably had more problems trying to work with bosses who were couldn't make decisions at all and avoided all confrontation and let the project slip to the level of the lower common denominator. By any reasonable definition, Linus Torvalds is a "tyrant", and the resulting quality of linux speaks for itself. All successful projects of sufficient size probably need a tyrant at the top someplace who can and will make final decisions and enforce them, otherwise everything falls apart in conflicting requirements and bike-shedding. Ahh, you might reply, but these are "toxic" tyrants, a phrase this article never bothers to define, allowing everyone to just project their own vision of a bad boss onto it.
- ht85 9y agoLinus Torvalds might be behaving in a tyrannic way, but I think everyone would agree that he does it to enforce the philosophy and goals of the project and drive it long term, which is fine. I think the "toxic" tyrant has an agenda unrelated to the company performance, stemming from their lack of self confidence mixed with a lack of empathy. They overcompensate by seeking praise from those they perceive as weak, and sabotage those they see as treats. When I find someone a bit aggressive or overbearing professionally, I try to observe how they behave outside of their job. If they're moderate and respectful, they are usually just very focused people, and probably good allies with the proper boundaries and communication. If the behavior happens outside work as well, I'll just assume they're a lost cause and kill them with neutrality. Never let them bother me but never give them credit either, be extra zealous when they send me on a wild goose chase, until they get bored and latch onto someone else. Oh and raise my eyebrows before agreeing with them.
- michaelcampbell 9y agoYour post seems to be a "I have lived this" version of the quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- crdoconnor 9y ago>By any reasonable definition, Linus Torvalds is a "tyrant" I don't think writing colorful rants at core committers who unapologetically do the one thing he tells them not to - break userspace - really qualifies him as a tyrant. I'd honestly love a boss who only blows up over things he's warned me about many times and are under my control.
- Angostura 9y agoA tyrant isn't someone who is clear and decisive. A tyrant exercising power in cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary ways.
- whatyoucantsay 9y agoTry telling that to Johnny Ive.
- omgitzwowzie 9y agoThe entire workplace culture of the US is tyrannical. Workers do not get to vote, you just hope for a good King or search for a new one.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Kenji 9y agoYou vote with your job applications. Tyrants don't deserve skilled people who work for them.
- profalseidol 9y agoFor most, work with tyrants is life.
- crispinb 9y agoMostly true, but techs can over-estimate how much choice many people have. My ex wife was horribly bullied at work, and lived with it because she was early-career in an academic field she loved but where jobs were scarce. She won out through dogged and dignified persistence, and became respected by all (including the erstwhile bullies). She's a highly intelligent and credentialled professional and unless she wanted to throw away years of work, did not have a realistic option not to work with tyrants. Millions less gifted and lucky than her have less choice still. Life's also too short to go homeless or hungry for long.
- madmork 9y agoyup. that's why I left corporate ;)
- kafkaesq 9y agoLife is too short to work with tyrants. It's also -- for the very majority of people -- way too damn short to simply cut one's self off from salary and (don't forget, please), health insurance. Especially when your industry suffers from the illusion that "all the good people have high-paying jobs they love, that you could never possibly woo them away from", and hence "if you don't have a job already, what the fuck is wrong with you? You must really, really suck." Especially when one has family and/or other dependents to support. You know, stuff like that.