3 ms·

Unfortunately, the CTO that hired me left the company two weeks after I started which caused a significant cultural shift. I did my due diligence, no need for t

Unfortunately, the CTO that hired me left the company two weeks after I started which caused a significant cultural shift. I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting.

yowlingcat 6y ago
> I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting. > Unfortunately, you never really find out until you work somewhere. If you invest in a stock that you tried to research and it drops to a value of zero and you say "well you never really know until you try it", am I gaslighting you if I tell you that there's room for improvement in your due diligence process? A CTO hiring you and then leaving the company 2 weeks after you started is a major red flag. This is not a common occurrence in anything but a dysfunctional org. Now, there is of course only so far you can predict into the future, and surprises do happen. But whose decision was it to accept the offer? And who is ultimately on the hook for it, whether it's in your control or not? To protect yourself, you need to own the responsibility for that decision, even if you have no control over it happening inside the company. There are companies you can accept offers from where the chances of this happening are one in several thousand, and companies where the chances are closer to one in fifty. To what extent are you confident in your ability to accurately predict and gauge a range and confidence interval about that? I used to say the same things you did, and I kept getting the same results. Eventually, I just got tired of it and I realized I'd do quite a lot to prevent it from happening in the future -- or at least, if it happened again, I didn't want it to be a surprise. I'm thankful to say that I'm significantly closer to that point now, although it took many years of trial and error. And surely, I have even more room to improve, and I look forward to honing my technique even further as I gain more experience! If what you're trying isn't working for you, it may be worthwhile to try to reconsider your process and see if you can improve it. If you don't even try to improve it and you're unhappy with your results, why do you think that would ever change?
- grumple 6y ago
  You are truly insufferable and making incorrect assumptions. This happened once, in my current role. > This is not a common occurrence in anything but a dysfunctional org. This happens all the time in orgs all over the planet. Hiring managers and executives get new jobs and things change. Time from offer acceptance to starting work is always nonzero in big companies (measured in weeks to months in most of the fortune 500, I'd bet - my current company is Fortune 10[1], so there's that - cto in this case means of the particular division of this company, not the parent). Now, please... do us both a favor and stop talking out of your ass. 1. https://fortune.com/fortune500/ https://fortune.com/fortune500/
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    > This happens all the time in orgs all over the planet. > You are truly insufferable and making incorrect assumptions. This happened once, in my current role. > Now, please... do us both a favor and stop talking out of your ass. I'm going to be blunt here. If it's anything like this to work with you (which I don't know, only your colleagues can say), then I think you have a lot to work on: - You freely admit that you don't have a track record of working at orgs that insist on the highest standards for design - You seem to harbor unchecked presumptions and lack the curiosity to seek them out - You lash out at others who suggest that maybe these things are not universal - You take little responsibility or ownership for the situation you're in If I was a hiring manager for a team that cared about good design of any kind, why would I hire you? It would be like oil and water. It's one thing to end up in an org practicing your craft in a way where quality just isn't appreciated. And I imagine many of us have been there (I certainly have). But, it is another thing entirely to extrapolate it to a universal circumstance, or into something unavoidable. Figuring out how to adequately communicate and tradeoff the short term and long term value of good design to other stakeholders in the company is one of the /bare minimums/ to being a competent designer. Why would I trust you to visually communicate something to a customer if I cannot even trust you to verbally communicate properly with your team? I have very rarely worked with designers unable to do that with a variety of stakeholders. And honestly, if you cannot do that successfully, I think you need to go back and work on your fundamentals.
    - ldarby 6y ago
      This is the comment section on HN, not an office. I agree with some of your points, but I also agree with grumple that you are truly insufferable.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - yowlingcat 6y ago
        > I also agree with grumple that you are truly insufferable. Go for it! I get paid well to do quality work by employers who appreciate the value of that. Why would I care about whether someone who is content with mediocrity finds that insufferable? My message goes out to those who want to do quality work, who maybe aren't there quite yet, and are keeping their minds open: don't give up. Every little bit helps. Every career transition you make to a firm that has a little bit of a higher bar than the one before is a difference to be proud of, and one day, you eventually arrive at one that's fairly close to the top. Be patient, keep improving, and don't give up! You can do it!

Unfortunately, the CTO that hired me left the company two weeks after I started which caused a significant cultural shift. I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting.

yowlingcat 6y ago

> I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting. > Unfortunately, you never really find out until you work somewhere. If you invest in a stock that you tried to research and it drops to a value of zero and you say "well you never really know until you try it", am I gaslighting you if I tell you that there's room for improvement in your due diligence process? A CTO hiring you and then leaving the company 2 weeks after you started is a major red flag. This is not a common occurrence in anything but a dysfunctional org. Now, there is of course only so far you can predict into the future, and surprises do happen. But whose decision was it to accept the offer? And who is ultimately on the hook for it, whether it's in your control or not? To protect yourself, you need to own the responsibility for that decision, even if you have no control over it happening inside the company. There are companies you can accept offers from where the chances of this happening are one in several thousand, and companies where the chances are closer to one in fifty. To what extent are you confident in your ability to accurately predict and gauge a range and confidence interval about that? I used to say the same things you did, and I kept getting the same results. Eventually, I just got tired of it and I realized I'd do quite a lot to prevent it from happening in the future -- or at least, if it happened again, I didn't want it to be a surprise. I'm thankful to say that I'm significantly closer to that point now, although it took many years of trial and error. And surely, I have even more room to improve, and I look forward to honing my technique even further as I gain more experience! If what you're trying isn't working for you, it may be worthwhile to try to reconsider your process and see if you can improve it. If you don't even try to improve it and you're unhappy with your results, why do you think that would ever change?

grumple 6y ago
You are truly insufferable and making incorrect assumptions. This happened once, in my current role. > This is not a common occurrence in anything but a dysfunctional org. This happens all the time in orgs all over the planet. Hiring managers and executives get new jobs and things change. Time from offer acceptance to starting work is always nonzero in big companies (measured in weeks to months in most of the fortune 500, I'd bet - my current company is Fortune 10[1], so there's that - cto in this case means of the particular division of this company, not the parent). Now, please... do us both a favor and stop talking out of your ass. 1. https://fortune.com/fortune500/ https://fortune.com/fortune500/
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  > This happens all the time in orgs all over the planet. > You are truly insufferable and making incorrect assumptions. This happened once, in my current role. > Now, please... do us both a favor and stop talking out of your ass. I'm going to be blunt here. If it's anything like this to work with you (which I don't know, only your colleagues can say), then I think you have a lot to work on: - You freely admit that you don't have a track record of working at orgs that insist on the highest standards for design - You seem to harbor unchecked presumptions and lack the curiosity to seek them out - You lash out at others who suggest that maybe these things are not universal - You take little responsibility or ownership for the situation you're in If I was a hiring manager for a team that cared about good design of any kind, why would I hire you? It would be like oil and water. It's one thing to end up in an org practicing your craft in a way where quality just isn't appreciated. And I imagine many of us have been there (I certainly have). But, it is another thing entirely to extrapolate it to a universal circumstance, or into something unavoidable. Figuring out how to adequately communicate and tradeoff the short term and long term value of good design to other stakeholders in the company is one of the /bare minimums/ to being a competent designer. Why would I trust you to visually communicate something to a customer if I cannot even trust you to verbally communicate properly with your team? I have very rarely worked with designers unable to do that with a variety of stakeholders. And honestly, if you cannot do that successfully, I think you need to go back and work on your fundamentals.
  - ldarby 6y ago
    This is the comment section on HN, not an office. I agree with some of your points, but I also agree with grumple that you are truly insufferable.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - yowlingcat 6y ago
      > I also agree with grumple that you are truly insufferable. Go for it! I get paid well to do quality work by employers who appreciate the value of that. Why would I care about whether someone who is content with mediocrity finds that insufferable? My message goes out to those who want to do quality work, who maybe aren't there quite yet, and are keeping their minds open: don't give up. Every little bit helps. Every career transition you make to a firm that has a little bit of a higher bar than the one before is a difference to be proud of, and one day, you eventually arrive at one that's fairly close to the top. Be patient, keep improving, and don't give up! You can do it!