5 ms·

Just leave. It's the professional thing to do, if you can sustain yourself. In 2012 I've left my hometown and went to the other side of my country to work at a

by henvic 5y ago

Just leave. It's the professional thing to do, if you can sustain yourself. In 2012 I've left my hometown and went to the other side of my country to work at a startup. Within 20 days I left because the situation was critical. I was already feeling like I should leave on the second week, but decided to wait just to break-even from my moving expenses. It was e-commerce startup where the team lead / project manager was actually the only backend engineer. One of the problems I had was that it was impossible to work with him. He despised git, so we used svn. Fine. It was in the early days of git, I could understand that. He didn't write proper svn messages (but garbage like... always 'ghnwerigkelrwn'), and told me I shouldn't care about it. Ugh... Okay, I think I can try to change this situation. Then on my first days of work I noticed that something was very wrong with the repo. Turns out the guy configured his Eclipse IDE to commit to SVN any time he saved any change. And he'd just type random keys out of boredom in any part of the system (PHP, which is an interpreted language) and break things wildly. For those that doesn't know: SVN is a centralized versioning system. It's not like git, where you push things 'later'. When you commit, it's sent to a central server.

throwaway123x2 5y ago
Oh God that sounds like a special kind of nightmare. Did you see any hints re:this during the interview?
- henvic 5y ago
  Mostly just a bit of 'bro culture'. I also was told they were worried I'd 'rob their code' as I was using my personal computer instead of a company-provided one. This guy told me the owners were worried because I could just take the code home (of course, I wouldn't delete/create the repo when arriving/leaving each day lol). I don't know if it was really the startup founders' concerns or his paranoia, though. After I left, I returned 6 months later to say hi (the founders discovered I was in town and asked me to go there, to their new office). So I went there, hoping this guy wasn't there, and guess what? They fired me about 2 months later after I left. They played a trick on me, asking me what I thought about him once I came to the office. Only then, after I've politely tried to avoid shaming him while saying our working >style< was very different, I was told that they let him go. I burst out in a laugh, finally telling them openly that they did the right thing. Then, they asked me why I didn't let them know about it. I was just too naive, thinking they'd just outright reject my opinion and decided just leaving was the better thing to do for my mental health. I was wrong: honest criticism seemed welcome by them.
  - throwaway123x2 5y ago
    You have to be careful with that sort of thing, especially when you're new and don't have the vibe of the place... I think you did the right thing by not saying anything at first. I'm glad you were able to get out early though.
  - henvic 5y ago
    s/fired me/fired him lol
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Just leave. Not a good idea for the OP to leave without having another job to start. The OP only found this job after a long period of job searching. Having a large unexplained resume gap followed by a short 6-month employment followed by another gap is the type of pattern that starts to scare hiring managers. Start the job search, but don’t just leave until you have something else to go to. Avoid introducing another resume gap within months of the previous long resume gap.
- gsich 5y ago
  Read the next sentence. >It's the professional thing to do, if you can sustain yourself. This is the part you somehow missed.
  - bla3 5y ago
    I think the point is that even if OP can sustain themselves, leaving before having a new job lined up will likely negatively impact their chances for their next job. So unless they can sustain themselves indefinitely (unlikely, else why would they have a job now), lining up a new job before leaving seems like good advice.
  - chadash 5y ago
    Neh. Even if you can sustain yourself, better to look for jobs while you have a job. Companies will think they can give you a lower offer if you aren't currently employed. Sure you can negotiate up, but better to start with a better hand.
- emerongi 5y ago
  This is if you optimize for money. If you optimize for happiness, the decision process can be wildly different.
  - redisman 5y ago
    For many people being unemployed is not a happy place. Not everyone can get a good SWE job in a week depending on location, skills, relationships, etc
jabo 5y ago
I’m more shocked that Eclipse even had a feature that would svn commit on every file save.
- henvic 5y ago
  He put it together by writing a script.
kaetemi 5y ago
In such a situation. He's treating the SVN as his own, not as a team resource. Just mirror his changes to git, and move on. Bypass authority.

by henvic 5y ago

throwaway123x2 5y ago

Oh God that sounds like a special kind of nightmare. Did you see any hints re:this during the interview?

henvic 5y ago
Mostly just a bit of 'bro culture'. I also was told they were worried I'd 'rob their code' as I was using my personal computer instead of a company-provided one. This guy told me the owners were worried because I could just take the code home (of course, I wouldn't delete/create the repo when arriving/leaving each day lol). I don't know if it was really the startup founders' concerns or his paranoia, though. After I left, I returned 6 months later to say hi (the founders discovered I was in town and asked me to go there, to their new office). So I went there, hoping this guy wasn't there, and guess what? They fired me about 2 months later after I left. They played a trick on me, asking me what I thought about him once I came to the office. Only then, after I've politely tried to avoid shaming him while saying our working >style< was very different, I was told that they let him go. I burst out in a laugh, finally telling them openly that they did the right thing. Then, they asked me why I didn't let them know about it. I was just too naive, thinking they'd just outright reject my opinion and decided just leaving was the better thing to do for my mental health. I was wrong: honest criticism seemed welcome by them.
- throwaway123x2 5y ago
  You have to be careful with that sort of thing, especially when you're new and don't have the vibe of the place... I think you did the right thing by not saying anything at first. I'm glad you were able to get out early though.
- henvic 5y ago
  s/fired me/fired him lol

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> Just leave. Not a good idea for the OP to leave without having another job to start. The OP only found this job after a long period of job searching. Having a large unexplained resume gap followed by a short 6-month employment followed by another gap is the type of pattern that starts to scare hiring managers. Start the job search, but don’t just leave until you have something else to go to. Avoid introducing another resume gap within months of the previous long resume gap.

gsich 5y ago
Read the next sentence. >It's the professional thing to do, if you can sustain yourself. This is the part you somehow missed.
- bla3 5y ago
  I think the point is that even if OP can sustain themselves, leaving before having a new job lined up will likely negatively impact their chances for their next job. So unless they can sustain themselves indefinitely (unlikely, else why would they have a job now), lining up a new job before leaving seems like good advice.
- chadash 5y ago
  Neh. Even if you can sustain yourself, better to look for jobs while you have a job. Companies will think they can give you a lower offer if you aren't currently employed. Sure you can negotiate up, but better to start with a better hand.
emerongi 5y ago
This is if you optimize for money. If you optimize for happiness, the decision process can be wildly different.
- redisman 5y ago
  For many people being unemployed is not a happy place. Not everyone can get a good SWE job in a week depending on location, skills, relationships, etc

jabo 5y ago

I’m more shocked that Eclipse even had a feature that would svn commit on every file save.

henvic 5y ago
He put it together by writing a script.

kaetemi 5y ago

In such a situation. He's treating the SVN as his own, not as a team resource. Just mirror his changes to git, and move on. Bypass authority.