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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

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.

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.