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How about people stop pulling the ladder up behind them when they reach management levels of “success”? My career has been long stints of at least a decade. Ev

How about people stop pulling the ladder up behind them when they reach management levels of “success”? My career has been long stints of at least a decade. Every company has failed. One failed because the main source of income was providing local sales and support for a software product, but the company owner was collecting licensing fees and not passing them on to the licensor until we needed to ask for help. This came undone when one day our client rang the supplier directly only to find that their licence had expired three years ago. We lost that gig, which meant about 60% of the income evaporated overnight. How do I as a working stuff differentiate between the sleazy arseholes who are shady management like this guy, and the sleazy arseholes who are the ruthless successful types who will actually build successful companies? Who do I give my “long stint” loyalty to? I am 50 so I only have two more long stints in me and nobody is hiring 50yo software engineers with a broad exposure to languages and environments. Save the gospel sermons. Acknowledge that you got a good innings and none of it was due to you being innately virtuous as a human being.

yowlingcat 6y ago
I am sorry to hear that this happened to you. I have heard and witnessed many stories like this from my friends, and it is for this reason that I have always been wary about long stints. Companies exist to make money, not to manage your career. As you found out, at the end of the day, no one will look out for your career but you. I think posts like this are fundamentally irresponsible and a little bit psychologically manipulative. As a working stiff, you don't want to differentiate between personality types. You are not making a friend. You are allocating a portfolio of resources (your team) towards investments. You have to learn how to compare multiple opportunities against one another based on your own career goals, as well as how to do your due diligence on the health of the company, the industry it is in, the competitive landscape, the organizational topology, really anything that you can research or think about which could help you predict what will happen. And even then, you have to prepare for the unknowns. You have to be prepared to cut your losses if things don't work out, because despite your best efforts to do your research, you really don't know what things are like until you start working at a place. You should not stop your "interviewing" curiosity just because you begin a new role. You should continue observing, soaking in information, social interactions, situations, anything that helps you determine whether now that you're on the inside, you're honestly as confident that things will work out as when you started (things are always rosier before you start because you're getting the pitch). 50 is not too old to learn this skills, but it definitely makes things difficult. I was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your perspective) enough to have to learn these things to survive in the first few years of my career, working at some really unsavory companies where I started fast and left fast. It sucked, but I am glad I figured it out then rather than later. When you do long stints at companies, you risk not developing this intuitive sense for when things are going off the rails (or going really well) because you have not exercised it. I wish I could help you go back in time and make different decisions, because it always makes me so sad to read these stories. Good people end up getting screwed over.
- manicdee 6y ago
  How do you do due diligence though? I worked one job as PC support for a white box manufacturer. They were dabbling in telephony, even to the point of hiring engineers to build custom boxes to handle PSTN to VOIP conversion, leasing fibre from other companies to carry their call traffic. It was cute at the time, apart from the management who were all deadset focussed on saving pennies. Turn off the computer when you go home because those 20 cents a year it costs to run the thing in standby are extra profit! I left that job, that company ended up becoming the third biggest telco in the country. I signed up with another company that was already in the telco space but it turns out the CEO of this one was a clown, at one staff meeting shortly after Apple had released the iPhone 3G he held up the Nokia Navigator and said, “this is the future of phones, that Apple stuff is expensive crap.” That company doesn’t exist anymore (it was bought for scrap value by the third largest telco in the country)
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    Somewhat tautologically, by doing due diligence over and over. Take your former company for example. You see a couple examples of how they operate, but it does seem like frugality is an operating principle they hold dear. Is this a pennywise pound foolish mentality, or is it a mentality that follows from attempting to use resources efficiently to accomplish tasks and reduce waste? Take a look at the latter. The CEO makes a bold proclamation about the future; is he a visionary who anticipates the unmet needs of the present that will served by the future, or is he being opinionated for its own sake? Unfortunately, there isn't really enough information here to make a decision one way or another. You have to drill down both above and below to figure out what the company's overall story to their investors is. And you have to consider yourself one of them. You will be investing your time and your opportunity cost into them. Do you feel sufficiently sold? Always be asking this.
mnm1 6y ago
I don't think you can tell the difference. But does it really matter? You work there, you build the best things you can, maybe get a promotion or two, then you move on. Or you just work there, put in four to eight hours a day and move on. Or a combination of both. Does it actually matter of the company was successful (assuming you don't have equity)? You still got the experience and knowledge and that is something no one can take away. I've learned more at my current job (year 7) than 7 years working at over a dozen companies prior to that. The author makes a good point about this. So I'm not sure why it matters if the company has scruples or is successful in the long term.

yowlingcat 6y ago

I am sorry to hear that this happened to you. I have heard and witnessed many stories like this from my friends, and it is for this reason that I have always been wary about long stints. Companies exist to make money, not to manage your career. As you found out, at the end of the day, no one will look out for your career but you. I think posts like this are fundamentally irresponsible and a little bit psychologically manipulative. As a working stiff, you don't want to differentiate between personality types. You are not making a friend. You are allocating a portfolio of resources (your team) towards investments. You have to learn how to compare multiple opportunities against one another based on your own career goals, as well as how to do your due diligence on the health of the company, the industry it is in, the competitive landscape, the organizational topology, really anything that you can research or think about which could help you predict what will happen. And even then, you have to prepare for the unknowns. You have to be prepared to cut your losses if things don't work out, because despite your best efforts to do your research, you really don't know what things are like until you start working at a place. You should not stop your "interviewing" curiosity just because you begin a new role. You should continue observing, soaking in information, social interactions, situations, anything that helps you determine whether now that you're on the inside, you're honestly as confident that things will work out as when you started (things are always rosier before you start because you're getting the pitch). 50 is not too old to learn this skills, but it definitely makes things difficult. I was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your perspective) enough to have to learn these things to survive in the first few years of my career, working at some really unsavory companies where I started fast and left fast. It sucked, but I am glad I figured it out then rather than later. When you do long stints at companies, you risk not developing this intuitive sense for when things are going off the rails (or going really well) because you have not exercised it. I wish I could help you go back in time and make different decisions, because it always makes me so sad to read these stories. Good people end up getting screwed over.

manicdee 6y ago
How do you do due diligence though? I worked one job as PC support for a white box manufacturer. They were dabbling in telephony, even to the point of hiring engineers to build custom boxes to handle PSTN to VOIP conversion, leasing fibre from other companies to carry their call traffic. It was cute at the time, apart from the management who were all deadset focussed on saving pennies. Turn off the computer when you go home because those 20 cents a year it costs to run the thing in standby are extra profit! I left that job, that company ended up becoming the third biggest telco in the country. I signed up with another company that was already in the telco space but it turns out the CEO of this one was a clown, at one staff meeting shortly after Apple had released the iPhone 3G he held up the Nokia Navigator and said, “this is the future of phones, that Apple stuff is expensive crap.” That company doesn’t exist anymore (it was bought for scrap value by the third largest telco in the country)
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  Somewhat tautologically, by doing due diligence over and over. Take your former company for example. You see a couple examples of how they operate, but it does seem like frugality is an operating principle they hold dear. Is this a pennywise pound foolish mentality, or is it a mentality that follows from attempting to use resources efficiently to accomplish tasks and reduce waste? Take a look at the latter. The CEO makes a bold proclamation about the future; is he a visionary who anticipates the unmet needs of the present that will served by the future, or is he being opinionated for its own sake? Unfortunately, there isn't really enough information here to make a decision one way or another. You have to drill down both above and below to figure out what the company's overall story to their investors is. And you have to consider yourself one of them. You will be investing your time and your opportunity cost into them. Do you feel sufficiently sold? Always be asking this.

mnm1 6y ago

I don't think you can tell the difference. But does it really matter? You work there, you build the best things you can, maybe get a promotion or two, then you move on. Or you just work there, put in four to eight hours a day and move on. Or a combination of both. Does it actually matter of the company was successful (assuming you don't have equity)? You still got the experience and knowledge and that is something no one can take away. I've learned more at my current job (year 7) than 7 years working at over a dozen companies prior to that. The author makes a good point about this. So I'm not sure why it matters if the company has scruples or is successful in the long term.