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What about that manager "sounds like a dill-hole"? Realize that we have one very biased viewpoint with some very broad claims that cannot be verified. He "was

by bena 8y ago

What about that manager "sounds like a dill-hole"? Realize that we have one very biased viewpoint with some very broad claims that cannot be verified. He "was told to do many things that [he thinks] was not a valuable use of [his] time". Not his call. He doesn't get to allocate his time to parts of the project he feels "deserves" his attention. In some regards, it feels a little arrogant. And he pushes back on them. He _creates_ the very stress he is decrying here. His capacity to deal seems to be quite low. And then he asked for a day, blew up, then got two weeks. He apparently was told he was going to be on leave for two weeks, but assumed he was being fired. And since, in his mind, he's always right, that's the mindset he went home with. He blames his wife's miscarriage on his manager. Because "she was so stressed" over it. Let's ignore how this guy seems to turn everything into a life or death struggle. Stressing himself out so much at work that he gets a 2 week furlough, the stresses out so much during the furlough, that the shorten it to a week. And despite claiming earlier that being fired at that moment would leave him homeless in the street, a mere 4 months later, he acquired enough capital that a $30k severance was enough of an addition so he could work his startup for a year. 4 months. From homeless to having a year's worth of backup. And apparently was able to find a job. Which he probably could have done 16 months ago as well. When someone's life is crisis after crisis and nothing ever seems to be their fault, you really have to wonder just how biased their views are. I mean, he's down to essentially blaming not wanting to follow Amazon's style guidelines on causing his wife to miscarry. How about this? Don't want your code held up on styling complaints? Follow the fucking guidelines. Regardless if you like them or not. Those guidelines are for company-wide consistency, not anyone's personal preference. And if those guidelines are what he was complaining about, it's no wonder he's had 8 jobs in 17 years. He's so goddamn convinced that only he knows the one true color of the bike shed, that anyone who disagrees must be wrong. And it doesn't matter just how good that person is at other things. If the minute you ask something of them that they disagree with, they shut down, you just can't work like that. Discussion is fine. Disagreement, to a degree, is fine. But when a decision is made, it needs to be executed.

pbourke 8y ago
> What about that manager "sounds like a dill-hole"? If one of your team members is under obvious stress - and is asking to leave for the day - fucking let them leave for the day. If you don't do that - if you continue to poke at someone who's obviously having a hard time - then yes, you're a dill-hole.
- bena 8y ago
  Having a hard time doing what? Not following the OTB style? I think there should be some concern for a person's mental health. And sometimes I think people should be allowed to take a day off just because they can't mentally cope at work. I don't think that every claim of such is valid. If someone comes up to me and says the government radio signals are causing his brain to fill up with wrongthink, he may be under "obvious stress", but it's a problem solely on his end. He doesn't need a mental health day, he needs a psychologist. And that's an extreme example. I mean, look at the guy, he took a two week furlough and found a way to make that stress him out. Everything stresses him out. You can't not stress him out.
alistairSH 8y ago
Based on this account (and I agree it could be quite biased), the manager did a poor job of de-escalating the situation. I assume the OP had aired similar grievances previously, so the manager should have been prepared for this conversation. Regardless, if an employee comes to me so stressed out they can’t work, and asks to take an afternoon, I’m sending them home. I might very well start the PPI process as they’re driving home, if I thought the situation was unrecoverable.
nanoscopic 8y ago
I was given authority and encouraged to push back against people who are wasting company time. I made careful judgements and fought requests only when it made sense. Nearly all requested changes, even if they were ridiculous, if they had any value, I did. I know it could be construed from what little I've said that I am being arrogant and refusing to listen, that is not the case. I requested style guidelines to be put in place and would be happy to follow them. Amazon does not have style guidelines for the code in place. It was and is legacy code with no documented styling. The style I used was a modern proper one. The style complaints were arbitrary and came from a junior engineer. They were not based on mature reasoning or proper practice. I readily agree that I could have just said "I don't care" and lowered my stress level significantly. The stress was partially my own fault. I don't disagree with this. This is a big reason why I started my own company rather than immediately returning to another "corporate job". I needed to recover such that I can do my job without anything remotely like this happening. Based on my past experiences, if you are forced to stay home at all, you are very likely getting fired. The reason I wasn't is less to do with them telling the truth, and more to do with the fact that the projects I was working on had high dollar value for them and they wanted me to keep working. I started my company with around $35k on hand. I did not have any more money than that. My co-founder also contributed some of his money as well to cover expenses during the year. We lived frugally. There is no hidden saved up money here that I had to make it work. I am still broke to this moment because of this. I have a lot of experience in the industry; it is not significantly hard to find a place that will hire me. Finding a job that is a good fit is more difficult. Whatever guidelines I am presented with I follow. It might serve you to consider that you don't have sufficient information to cast the sort of judgements you are on me.
- bena 8y ago
  Once again, you can say it's not the case all you want. You control the entire story here. We only have the information you have provided in this post and only your post history to judge your character. But I prefer to separate the facts of the matter from the opinions. You said the style complaints were arbitrary. Style is arbitrary. Arguing for "mature reasoning" or "proper practice" is subjective. As long as there isn't anything really out there, most styles are fairly reasonable. But they let you go anyway afterwards. You're so convinced of your necessity, but ignore the very real fact that they existed before you were hired and continue to exist after you get fired. I didn't want to make the assumption that that $30k was effectively your only money. But still, they would have offered you a severance 4 months ago had they planned on letting you go as well. What else changed in those 4 months? Do you find it odd that for some reason you cannot fit in any job you take? I find it hard to believe that all 8 companies you've worked for have been that bad. It might serve you to consider that we are hardly the best judge of our own character. We have a great ability to rationalize everything we do and no one thinks they are the villain. Remove your ego from your story and actually look at it objectively. Ignore how you felt, see what you've done. Would you hire that guy?

by bena 8y ago

pbourke 8y ago

> What about that manager "sounds like a dill-hole"? If one of your team members is under obvious stress - and is asking to leave for the day - fucking let them leave for the day. If you don't do that - if you continue to poke at someone who's obviously having a hard time - then yes, you're a dill-hole.

bena 8y ago
Having a hard time doing what? Not following the OTB style? I think there should be some concern for a person's mental health. And sometimes I think people should be allowed to take a day off just because they can't mentally cope at work. I don't think that every claim of such is valid. If someone comes up to me and says the government radio signals are causing his brain to fill up with wrongthink, he may be under "obvious stress", but it's a problem solely on his end. He doesn't need a mental health day, he needs a psychologist. And that's an extreme example. I mean, look at the guy, he took a two week furlough and found a way to make that stress him out. Everything stresses him out. You can't not stress him out.

alistairSH 8y ago

Based on this account (and I agree it could be quite biased), the manager did a poor job of de-escalating the situation. I assume the OP had aired similar grievances previously, so the manager should have been prepared for this conversation. Regardless, if an employee comes to me so stressed out they can’t work, and asks to take an afternoon, I’m sending them home. I might very well start the PPI process as they’re driving home, if I thought the situation was unrecoverable.

nanoscopic 8y ago

I was given authority and encouraged to push back against people who are wasting company time. I made careful judgements and fought requests only when it made sense. Nearly all requested changes, even if they were ridiculous, if they had any value, I did. I know it could be construed from what little I've said that I am being arrogant and refusing to listen, that is not the case. I requested style guidelines to be put in place and would be happy to follow them. Amazon does not have style guidelines for the code in place. It was and is legacy code with no documented styling. The style I used was a modern proper one. The style complaints were arbitrary and came from a junior engineer. They were not based on mature reasoning or proper practice. I readily agree that I could have just said "I don't care" and lowered my stress level significantly. The stress was partially my own fault. I don't disagree with this. This is a big reason why I started my own company rather than immediately returning to another "corporate job". I needed to recover such that I can do my job without anything remotely like this happening. Based on my past experiences, if you are forced to stay home at all, you are very likely getting fired. The reason I wasn't is less to do with them telling the truth, and more to do with the fact that the projects I was working on had high dollar value for them and they wanted me to keep working. I started my company with around $35k on hand. I did not have any more money than that. My co-founder also contributed some of his money as well to cover expenses during the year. We lived frugally. There is no hidden saved up money here that I had to make it work. I am still broke to this moment because of this. I have a lot of experience in the industry; it is not significantly hard to find a place that will hire me. Finding a job that is a good fit is more difficult. Whatever guidelines I am presented with I follow. It might serve you to consider that you don't have sufficient information to cast the sort of judgements you are on me.

bena 8y ago
Once again, you can say it's not the case all you want. You control the entire story here. We only have the information you have provided in this post and only your post history to judge your character. But I prefer to separate the facts of the matter from the opinions. You said the style complaints were arbitrary. Style is arbitrary. Arguing for "mature reasoning" or "proper practice" is subjective. As long as there isn't anything really out there, most styles are fairly reasonable. But they let you go anyway afterwards. You're so convinced of your necessity, but ignore the very real fact that they existed before you were hired and continue to exist after you get fired. I didn't want to make the assumption that that $30k was effectively your only money. But still, they would have offered you a severance 4 months ago had they planned on letting you go as well. What else changed in those 4 months? Do you find it odd that for some reason you cannot fit in any job you take? I find it hard to believe that all 8 companies you've worked for have been that bad. It might serve you to consider that we are hardly the best judge of our own character. We have a great ability to rationalize everything we do and no one thinks they are the villain. Remove your ego from your story and actually look at it objectively. Ignore how you felt, see what you've done. Would you hire that guy?