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I walked into a weird job environment not long ago. First couple days were not that bad. Not particularly good, but nothing too bad. Like people weren't too fr
by genezeta 5y ago
I walked into a weird job environment not long ago.
First couple days were not that bad. Not particularly good, but nothing too bad. Like people weren't too friendly but neither too hostile.
There was, though, some casual heated discussion here and there. As I met some people more closely I began to see a trend: Everybody hated almost everybody else. One developer openly told me in our first conversation something like "You'll notice few people talk to me... Everyone hates me here.". Then somewhere else some shouting erupted for a few minutes, but nobody seemed to pay too much attention to it.
I saw someone get up from their desk, go to someone else and instead of normally asking whatever question they wanted to ask, start shouting their question. "How can it be that something something?!!! This is totally unacceptable!". Nobody even looked up from their screens or anything. It would turn out that was the way they always communicated.
We got a meeting with the whole team. Ah, no, not the whole team, just half of it. Why? - I asked. "Oh, we tried that but we can't have the whole team in one meeting because there are... conflicts and we end up not doing anything productive."
A few days later, I get called into a meeting with 6 other people, just to generally estimate a few tasks and discuss some of their details. After about two minutes or so, two people are arguing which ones are the tasks that we need to discuss. Things escalate and they are shouting while the rest watches calmly. I don't even know what to do or where to look because none seems to react at all to this. After some 15-20 minutes of this, the meeting is cancelled. People just stand up and return to their desks. I ask one of them if this is normal. "Yeah, pretty much."
I tried really hard and stayed there for more than 1 1/2 years. The only thing I have from all that is a lot of awful anecdotes about awful people.
- __exit__ 5y agoWow, 1.5 years of bearing such daily situations, that is something I find impressive given the anecdotes you described. I would probably not have lasted than long in such an environment. Good for you to leave that place at last. Hope you found a much more better environment!
- genezeta 5y agoThanks. > Hope you found a much more better environment! Ah, we'll see how that goes.
- smsm42 5y ago> I tried really hard and stayed there for more than 1 1/2 years Was it worth it? Do you regret not quitting after the first 2 months?
- genezeta 5y agoIt's kind of hard to tell, actually. On the one hand I did need a job and I'm at that age where it's not always easy to find one. On the other, ah, maybe I regret it a little, but not too much. I mean, I'm usually pretty calm myself and I have worked previously with difficult people, so while it was truly a horrible place, it didn't affect me too much[1]. And then again, I did achieve some things. It was a really old project with old code and people with little and outdated knowledge, and I managed to clean up large parts, teach some things to the two or three receptive developers there, and write detailed but practical documentation for all the things I did. So all in all, at some level I do feel like I accomplished something. But then again... There were other, much larger problems with the team, the project, management, etc, which were just insane. I ended up quitting when, after meeting with management once more, they simply answered that they didn't care and they wouldn't change a single thing at all. ---- [1] I do confess there were days when I thought about quitting, and just this once, on my second-to-last day, I did get angry at someone.