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Don't quite understand this article. Seems to be looking through rose colored glasses. There's no indication that this guy would've radically changed his career

Don't quite understand this article. Seems to be looking through rose colored glasses. There's no indication that this guy would've radically changed his career by moving to the new position, but because he did, he now writes a medium post with a overly exaggerated, click-bait title about advice he deemed the worst ever which could've been the greatest ever if his new position was a dumpster fire with people he didn't get along with.

twblalock 8y ago
It seems like his current position was not going to work out if he stayed -- the team was losing good people, the situation was chaotic, etc. When people leave a sinking ship, a person who gets promoted to fill the gap in management has an even tougher job than the manager who left. The team is smaller and a lot of the best people have moved on, morale is low, and the project is probably already behind on deadlines. The factors that caused the project to go wrong in the first place will still exist and may be entirely out of the manager's control. If the author's new position turned out to be bad, he could have moved on from that as well. By leaving he had a chance to get out of a bad situation. By staying he would have guaranteed that his situation would remain bad. He didn't have much to lose.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  Yes, the advice the rats are fleeing, soon you'll be king ignores why they are fleeing. Any non-sinking ship beats a sinking ship. The new position he selected (after researching several) was "interesting" - a positive indicator. It was also still within Microsoft, so a baseline of safety. tl;dr The "risk" was highly constrained; and things would likely be better, at least regress to the mean.
  - jshowa3 8y ago
    I joined a position that was much more interesting, with a much more established company that had much better resources, technology wise. Turns out that the people that I was working with were very arrogant, played a lot of politics, and didn't care about providing help. Many of the work was heavily siloed to the individual and little training was provided. Granted, I accept that part of it was me not asking for help when I needed it, but the lack of interest and ease of frustration when doing so was apparent. I was a contractor (to hire) there and I left after 1.5 years because I was basically having cold sweats everyday I came into the office from feeling like I was being scrutinized all the time. Funny enough, I actually tried to quit after a year and they agreed, but couldn't find anyone to replace me in 4 weeks, so they were ecstatic when I decided to stay on for them. So, I'm much more weary of "positive" indicators. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but part of his claim was that "comfort is a beautiful garden where careers won't grow" which I disagree with because comfort often builds expertise due to constant, repeated exposure (aka. deliberate practice). Its different than climbing the corporate ladder, but it depends on what you value I guess.
kanox 8y ago
> There's no indication that this guy would've radically changed his career by moving to the new position Job interviews can offer plenty of indication regarding how different the new position is. Article seems to have the same basic idea as https://xkcd.com/1768 https://xkcd.com/1768 - When in doubt it's better to leave.
- YjSe2GMQ 8y ago
  Not only XKCD's anecdotal evidence confirms it's good to change. A straight coin toss experiment says so too: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/quitting-your-job-and-other-life-choices/495122/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/quittin... Also, personal, from a 28 year old: why would you work for 9 years straight on the same project? Sounds very boring.
- jshowa3 8y ago
  Job interviews often hide the following: 1) What the people are like 2) What the benefits are 3) What your bosses like 4) What the company culture is like Pretty much everything meaningful about a job is kept hidden because of the game of "you shouldn't look like your benefits shopping". I haven't gone to a single job interview where those were discussed before hiring at a non-superficial level (I've interviewed about 5-6 times in my professional career) And you're actively discouraged from asking these questions when learning about interviewing techniques.

twblalock 8y ago

It seems like his current position was not going to work out if he stayed -- the team was losing good people, the situation was chaotic, etc. When people leave a sinking ship, a person who gets promoted to fill the gap in management has an even tougher job than the manager who left. The team is smaller and a lot of the best people have moved on, morale is low, and the project is probably already behind on deadlines. The factors that caused the project to go wrong in the first place will still exist and may be entirely out of the manager's control. If the author's new position turned out to be bad, he could have moved on from that as well. By leaving he had a chance to get out of a bad situation. By staying he would have guaranteed that his situation would remain bad. He didn't have much to lose.

hyperpallium 8y ago
Yes, the advice the rats are fleeing, soon you'll be king ignores why they are fleeing. Any non-sinking ship beats a sinking ship. The new position he selected (after researching several) was "interesting" - a positive indicator. It was also still within Microsoft, so a baseline of safety. tl;dr The "risk" was highly constrained; and things would likely be better, at least regress to the mean.
- jshowa3 8y ago
  I joined a position that was much more interesting, with a much more established company that had much better resources, technology wise. Turns out that the people that I was working with were very arrogant, played a lot of politics, and didn't care about providing help. Many of the work was heavily siloed to the individual and little training was provided. Granted, I accept that part of it was me not asking for help when I needed it, but the lack of interest and ease of frustration when doing so was apparent. I was a contractor (to hire) there and I left after 1.5 years because I was basically having cold sweats everyday I came into the office from feeling like I was being scrutinized all the time. Funny enough, I actually tried to quit after a year and they agreed, but couldn't find anyone to replace me in 4 weeks, so they were ecstatic when I decided to stay on for them. So, I'm much more weary of "positive" indicators. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but part of his claim was that "comfort is a beautiful garden where careers won't grow" which I disagree with because comfort often builds expertise due to constant, repeated exposure (aka. deliberate practice). Its different than climbing the corporate ladder, but it depends on what you value I guess.

kanox 8y ago

> There's no indication that this guy would've radically changed his career by moving to the new position Job interviews can offer plenty of indication regarding how different the new position is. Article seems to have the same basic idea as https://xkcd.com/1768 https://xkcd.com/1768 - When in doubt it's better to leave.

YjSe2GMQ 8y ago
Not only XKCD's anecdotal evidence confirms it's good to change. A straight coin toss experiment says so too: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/quitting-your-job-and-other-life-choices/495122/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/quittin... Also, personal, from a 28 year old: why would you work for 9 years straight on the same project? Sounds very boring.
jshowa3 8y ago
Job interviews often hide the following: 1) What the people are like 2) What the benefits are 3) What your bosses like 4) What the company culture is like Pretty much everything meaningful about a job is kept hidden because of the game of "you shouldn't look like your benefits shopping". I haven't gone to a single job interview where those were discussed before hiring at a non-superficial level (I've interviewed about 5-6 times in my professional career) And you're actively discouraged from asking these questions when learning about interviewing techniques.