4 ms·

After being burnt out by previous 2 jobs I found an offer which advertised "good work-personal life balance" among other things. It turned out to be a subcontra

by b0rsuk 8y ago

After being burnt out by previous 2 jobs I found an offer which advertised "good work-personal life balance" among other things. It turned out to be a subcontractor for a grown-up startup. There were 4 people at the moment, including the boss (who conducted the interview himself! 20 years of programming experience). For the first time I felt sympathy and respect for my employer, and I got an impression he liked me too. An interesting thing he told me during the interview: we would not be paid for overtime, because our client doesn't pay for them. I was right. I got the job, and I was nearly 4 years unemployed at the time. This is my favourite job so far by far. The code is dirty, but it's something you just need to get used to (and my "Working with Legacy Code" is on its way). Collegues are smart (but we have 1 hardcore manipulator - to become immune to him, don't tell him anything personal and never try to please him). Deadlines are not a problem because with no unit tests (we do plan to write them) our client is afraid to breathe. Dirty code is not scary if you know how to approach it. I also worked in a corporation which had mostly women. Women love mind games and politics. Those I worked with definitely did. Presence of women is not necessarily an indicator of a stress-free workplace.

fareesh 8y ago
> I also worked in a corporation which had mostly women. Women love mind games and politics. Those I worked with definitely did. Presence of women is not necessarily an indicator of a stress-free workplace. It is imprecise to attribute intent to the politics and mind games that you may have experienced personally in an anecdotal case, using that kind of generalization. Also it may have had nothing to do with the fact that they were women, just a bad culture in that company specifically. There are plenty of companies with men who suffer the same problems. Overall it's an unfair generalization.
- sireat 8y ago
  Anecdotally my wife concurs with the OP. According to her experience(and talking with other women) as soon as the office gets 4-5 women, you get the Marie Antoinette type of tiny intrigues about issues that most heterosexual men would completely gloss over. Theoretically a man could spin such intrigues as well. It doesn't necessarily mean that such an office is a bad place to work as it may or may not affect overall productivity. Personally, I've never noticed such things but then again as a programmer most working environments are 90%+ men.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    "Marie Antoinette type of tiny intrigues about issues that most heterosexual men would completely gloss over." This term is a bit ill defined - I'm not sure what it specifically means. Do you mean workplace bullying or something else?
    - sireat 8y ago
      As far as I understand, this means office politics, a little bit of oneupmanship, talking behind back etc etc. Again, I apologize for mentioning this as I have no first hand knowledge.
- Viker 8y ago
  I understand that you would like to be correct... But op is very on point... I can also "anecdotally" confirm that when I have work in offices with alot of women, the resulting culture is exactly what op is talking about.
  - tobr 8y ago
    Well I can anecdotally refute it, so I don’t know where that leaves us.
    - fsloth 8y ago
      Confirmation bias or Selection bias [0][1] :)? Without proper study you could end up blaming free bananas in the office fruit bowl for increase or decrease in pathological office dynamics. Generally it can take only one bad individual to skew the behaviour patterns in a workplace. There are a lot of cognitive biases to choose from, though [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
venantius 8y ago
This might work for you, but I'd say in general this sounds like a fairly unhealthy workplace. Poor engineering practices (when exactly do the tests get written if not day by day?) and negative co-workers? You have to distrust someone pretty strongly to call them a "hardcard manipulator"
- b0rsuk 8y ago
  Yes, I distrust him strongly because he consistently works to undermine me. He doesn't upset me anymore because he's predictable and I understand what he's trying to do - make me lash out and discredit me. I could take it to my boss, but then it would be my word vs his word, and I'm not 100% sure my boss is who he appears to be. Maybe he just pretends to be a nice person. I wont take such risk so early in my new job, not after almost 3 years of unemployment. I don' think I have to do anything - I'll leave him in the dust because he's lazy. Yet overall, this workplace is the healthiest I worked in. You have to paint the overall picture. My boss cares about good software practices and treats people well. He appears honest. His expectations are realistic. Work time is very flexible.
- b0rsuk 8y ago
  The bad practices are mostly on the part of our client company. They understand they painted themselves into a corner, they are afraid to touch it anymore and are glad someone took it over from them. They loosened our deadlines because we're working with a giant hairball. I still think they have a problem with practices, but they're getting there.
jolux 8y ago
I guess open misogyny is ok on HN now? What the fuck is this?
- dang 8y ago
  The fact that somebody posted something does not make it "ok" on HN. Moderation takes time to kick in. So does flagging.
  - jolux 8y ago
    Mostly it just appalls me that I habitually share space online with people who believe those things about women, being a woman myself. There are social contours of a space which dictate norms of behavior beyond explicit enforcement of rules, and I suppose I just assumed they were different here.
    - dang 8y ago
      That makes sense. HN is larger than people usually assume—it gets about 5M monthly readers. In such a big population there are subsets who take any point of view, and on divisive topics the ones who tend to comment a lot online tend to... skew to the tails, shall we say. The vast majority just don't say anything. Since there is almost nothing to stop people from posting whatever they want, we get a wild set of initial conditions. You should see some of the content we have to deal with before you run across it (or rather, I hope you don't). There are good-citizen users who help us with this a lot. It takes moderation to react to that and settle into some community norm. HN does have relatively cohesive community norms, but with so large and open and online a community, such norms can never be more than a statistical cloud, with large outlier regions. This is why I tend to react when people draw conclusions about the community from particular posts that appear—it leads to misleading conclusions. A better thing to draw conclusions from would be the flagging behavior, but this is harder to observe and takes time to show up. Edit: There's another factor which is poorly understood, and which I think might have been at play in the comment you were reacting to above: HN is a highly international community. Norms on divisive issues vary greatly across countries. Many of us tend to assume that HN is composed of people mostly like ourselves (in terms of background), but that's far from true. After observing the data closely for many years, I'm convinced that many international differences come across as outrageous domestic behavior when we misinterpret who's speaking. Not that a statement would be more acceptable, necessarily, if we knew—but it would be less provocative, because people seem willing to adjust for this when encountering opposing views.
dang 8y ago
> Women love mind games and politics. That counts as trolling and you'll get banned if you do it here, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- b0rsuk 8y ago
  Oh boy did I step on a taboo. I'm not going to pretend I haven't said that. I suppose it can fall under "flamebait" or "political/ideological". So much for diversity and freedom of speech. (Yup I understand HN guidelines are not US constitution). ----- If you want to be thorough with your witch, SORRY wizard hunt, do report all the people who upvoted my comment. ----- Since my comment is flagged anyway, I may as well explain my point of view. 1. The sexes are different. 2. Physical differences between men and women exist, and they're obvious. 3. Mental differences between men and women are much harder to see and pinpoint, but given #2, it's plausible they can exist. 4. Women have inferior physical strength. 6. Current scientific knowledge says women didn't hunt much, letting them to spent a lot more time in their villages(nests). 7. Because of #4, alternative defensive mechanisms (against men) would be desirable 8. Because of #7, alternative defensive mechanisms would be possible. More opportunities to practice social skills (more time spent in company). The rest is anecdotal evidence and not yet proven or refuted.
  - dang 8y ago
    "Stepping on a taboo" is a self-flattering way of saying "started a flamewar" or "trolled". HN is a large, weakly cohesive, thinly distributed community. That leaves it vulnerable to provocation. I'm sure you wouldn't strut through a dry forest dropping lit cigarettes and boasting about it. Indeed, you'd agree that it was criminal negligence, regardless of the feeling it gives the strutter. What you're doing here is analogous. We ban accounts that do it because there's no alternative if we want to have a community at all. So please don't do it any more.

by b0rsuk 8y ago

fareesh 8y ago

> I also worked in a corporation which had mostly women. Women love mind games and politics. Those I worked with definitely did. Presence of women is not necessarily an indicator of a stress-free workplace. It is imprecise to attribute intent to the politics and mind games that you may have experienced personally in an anecdotal case, using that kind of generalization. Also it may have had nothing to do with the fact that they were women, just a bad culture in that company specifically. There are plenty of companies with men who suffer the same problems. Overall it's an unfair generalization.

sireat 8y ago
Anecdotally my wife concurs with the OP. According to her experience(and talking with other women) as soon as the office gets 4-5 women, you get the Marie Antoinette type of tiny intrigues about issues that most heterosexual men would completely gloss over. Theoretically a man could spin such intrigues as well. It doesn't necessarily mean that such an office is a bad place to work as it may or may not affect overall productivity. Personally, I've never noticed such things but then again as a programmer most working environments are 90%+ men.
- fsloth 8y ago
  "Marie Antoinette type of tiny intrigues about issues that most heterosexual men would completely gloss over." This term is a bit ill defined - I'm not sure what it specifically means. Do you mean workplace bullying or something else?
  - sireat 8y ago
    As far as I understand, this means office politics, a little bit of oneupmanship, talking behind back etc etc. Again, I apologize for mentioning this as I have no first hand knowledge.
Viker 8y ago
I understand that you would like to be correct... But op is very on point... I can also "anecdotally" confirm that when I have work in offices with alot of women, the resulting culture is exactly what op is talking about.
- tobr 8y ago
  Well I can anecdotally refute it, so I don’t know where that leaves us.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    Confirmation bias or Selection bias [0][1] :)? Without proper study you could end up blaming free bananas in the office fruit bowl for increase or decrease in pathological office dynamics. Generally it can take only one bad individual to skew the behaviour patterns in a workplace. There are a lot of cognitive biases to choose from, though [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

venantius 8y ago

This might work for you, but I'd say in general this sounds like a fairly unhealthy workplace. Poor engineering practices (when exactly do the tests get written if not day by day?) and negative co-workers? You have to distrust someone pretty strongly to call them a "hardcard manipulator"

b0rsuk 8y ago
Yes, I distrust him strongly because he consistently works to undermine me. He doesn't upset me anymore because he's predictable and I understand what he's trying to do - make me lash out and discredit me. I could take it to my boss, but then it would be my word vs his word, and I'm not 100% sure my boss is who he appears to be. Maybe he just pretends to be a nice person. I wont take such risk so early in my new job, not after almost 3 years of unemployment. I don' think I have to do anything - I'll leave him in the dust because he's lazy. Yet overall, this workplace is the healthiest I worked in. You have to paint the overall picture. My boss cares about good software practices and treats people well. He appears honest. His expectations are realistic. Work time is very flexible.
b0rsuk 8y ago
The bad practices are mostly on the part of our client company. They understand they painted themselves into a corner, they are afraid to touch it anymore and are glad someone took it over from them. They loosened our deadlines because we're working with a giant hairball. I still think they have a problem with practices, but they're getting there.

jolux 8y ago

I guess open misogyny is ok on HN now? What the fuck is this?

dang 8y ago
The fact that somebody posted something does not make it "ok" on HN. Moderation takes time to kick in. So does flagging.
- jolux 8y ago
  Mostly it just appalls me that I habitually share space online with people who believe those things about women, being a woman myself. There are social contours of a space which dictate norms of behavior beyond explicit enforcement of rules, and I suppose I just assumed they were different here.
  - dang 8y ago
    That makes sense. HN is larger than people usually assume—it gets about 5M monthly readers. In such a big population there are subsets who take any point of view, and on divisive topics the ones who tend to comment a lot online tend to... skew to the tails, shall we say. The vast majority just don't say anything. Since there is almost nothing to stop people from posting whatever they want, we get a wild set of initial conditions. You should see some of the content we have to deal with before you run across it (or rather, I hope you don't). There are good-citizen users who help us with this a lot. It takes moderation to react to that and settle into some community norm. HN does have relatively cohesive community norms, but with so large and open and online a community, such norms can never be more than a statistical cloud, with large outlier regions. This is why I tend to react when people draw conclusions about the community from particular posts that appear—it leads to misleading conclusions. A better thing to draw conclusions from would be the flagging behavior, but this is harder to observe and takes time to show up. Edit: There's another factor which is poorly understood, and which I think might have been at play in the comment you were reacting to above: HN is a highly international community. Norms on divisive issues vary greatly across countries. Many of us tend to assume that HN is composed of people mostly like ourselves (in terms of background), but that's far from true. After observing the data closely for many years, I'm convinced that many international differences come across as outrageous domestic behavior when we misinterpret who's speaking. Not that a statement would be more acceptable, necessarily, if we knew—but it would be less provocative, because people seem willing to adjust for this when encountering opposing views.

dang 8y ago

> Women love mind games and politics. That counts as trolling and you'll get banned if you do it here, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

b0rsuk 8y ago
Oh boy did I step on a taboo. I'm not going to pretend I haven't said that. I suppose it can fall under "flamebait" or "political/ideological". So much for diversity and freedom of speech. (Yup I understand HN guidelines are not US constitution). ----- If you want to be thorough with your witch, SORRY wizard hunt, do report all the people who upvoted my comment. ----- Since my comment is flagged anyway, I may as well explain my point of view. 1. The sexes are different. 2. Physical differences between men and women exist, and they're obvious. 3. Mental differences between men and women are much harder to see and pinpoint, but given #2, it's plausible they can exist. 4. Women have inferior physical strength. 6. Current scientific knowledge says women didn't hunt much, letting them to spent a lot more time in their villages(nests). 7. Because of #4, alternative defensive mechanisms (against men) would be desirable 8. Because of #7, alternative defensive mechanisms would be possible. More opportunities to practice social skills (more time spent in company). The rest is anecdotal evidence and not yet proven or refuted.
- dang 8y ago
  "Stepping on a taboo" is a self-flattering way of saying "started a flamewar" or "trolled". HN is a large, weakly cohesive, thinly distributed community. That leaves it vulnerable to provocation. I'm sure you wouldn't strut through a dry forest dropping lit cigarettes and boasting about it. Indeed, you'd agree that it was criminal negligence, regardless of the feeling it gives the strutter. What you're doing here is analogous. We ban accounts that do it because there's no alternative if we want to have a community at all. So please don't do it any more.