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I liked coding but I got tired of staring at a screen all day especially when working from home. Just felt lonely and pointless. I also never seemed to get a s

I liked coding but I got tired of staring at a screen all day especially when working from home. Just felt lonely and pointless. I also never seemed to get a seat at the table. I was paid well but I always felt like just a pawn in someone’s game. In my last job the new boss spent three months moving everyone to new locations around the office. Made up all kinds of rules about who was worthy of a window office or the bigger cubicles. I literally felt like I was a doll and the boss was playing dollhouse.

batmaniam 6y ago
What do you do now?
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Self appointed inspector of rain storms.
frompdx 6y ago
I understand how you feel. Playing musical desks is a big pet peeve of mine. Being shuffled around because it is "more optimal", or whatever usually makes me feel like the person doing the rearranging is on a power trip, exerting the minimal amount of power they do have. Divvying up seating arrangements based on worthiness is another level of this. It reminds me of a teacher I had in high school. He went to Columbia Law and was an attorney for a few years before becoming a teacher. I asked him why he left law and he told me a story about one day a senior partner coming into his office to count the ceiling tiles. When my teach asked why he was counting the ceiling tiles the senior partner explained that they were going to reallocate offices so that those who worked the most hours got the biggest offices. My teacher said that was when he knew it was time to do something else.
muzani 6y ago
It's really odd but it bugs the hell out of me whenever I get assigned a seat. I thought it was just me being unreasonable. But maybe it just leads into the powerlessness of the situation. I worked as a consultant on one job, and one of the managers on a different consulting team pointed to all his men and joked, "We don't have the best people but we make up for it with numbers." It was a self depreciating joke, but there was some truth to it. There's just something about full time jobs that bugs me. The drab walls, cramped rooms, noisy air conditioning. The way I can't get sick days when my child is sick. I quit a job once because the HR tried to negotiate that I was worthy of only half a sick day because the clinic wouldn't say I was sick enough to be classified as sick, and they also forgot to pay me the trivial clinic fee they promised to. The CEO bought me a lot of nice meals and he was a good friend but in the end it was a transaction.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  I feel you. Assigned seats feels like you’re back in kindergarten. So much of workplace happiness boils down to respect and dignity. In fact I believe a lot of our current problems stem from not treating adults like adults, but that’s another topic.

batmaniam 6y ago

What do you do now?

mrfusion 6y ago
Self appointed inspector of rain storms.

frompdx 6y ago

I understand how you feel. Playing musical desks is a big pet peeve of mine. Being shuffled around because it is "more optimal", or whatever usually makes me feel like the person doing the rearranging is on a power trip, exerting the minimal amount of power they do have. Divvying up seating arrangements based on worthiness is another level of this. It reminds me of a teacher I had in high school. He went to Columbia Law and was an attorney for a few years before becoming a teacher. I asked him why he left law and he told me a story about one day a senior partner coming into his office to count the ceiling tiles. When my teach asked why he was counting the ceiling tiles the senior partner explained that they were going to reallocate offices so that those who worked the most hours got the biggest offices. My teacher said that was when he knew it was time to do something else.

muzani 6y ago

It's really odd but it bugs the hell out of me whenever I get assigned a seat. I thought it was just me being unreasonable. But maybe it just leads into the powerlessness of the situation. I worked as a consultant on one job, and one of the managers on a different consulting team pointed to all his men and joked, "We don't have the best people but we make up for it with numbers." It was a self depreciating joke, but there was some truth to it. There's just something about full time jobs that bugs me. The drab walls, cramped rooms, noisy air conditioning. The way I can't get sick days when my child is sick. I quit a job once because the HR tried to negotiate that I was worthy of only half a sick day because the clinic wouldn't say I was sick enough to be classified as sick, and they also forgot to pay me the trivial clinic fee they promised to. The CEO bought me a lot of nice meals and he was a good friend but in the end it was a transaction.

mrfusion 6y ago
I feel you. Assigned seats feels like you’re back in kindergarten. So much of workplace happiness boils down to respect and dignity. In fact I believe a lot of our current problems stem from not treating adults like adults, but that’s another topic.