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Yeah yeah EAP and watercooler conversations. Here's some things that would actually make my life and mental health as developer at a large game company better:

Yeah yeah EAP and watercooler conversations. Here's some things that would actually make my life and mental health as developer at a large game company better: - Eliminate crunch time due to management's bad planning - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation - Know what's important; when everything is "top priority," nothing is, and your developers have no idea what they should work on next - Weekly team meetings are for positive reinforcement, not "things are looking fine but we gotta keep pushing." That kind of "motivation" is extremely heavy on the mind - Remind us that sick days are for both physical and mental health and encourage us to use them if we need them

hasmolo 5y ago
bruh, this is the whole “boomer” management style. constantly implying your staff could do more, while cooly restricting praise and autonomy to just poison your org. these sort of “leaders” best quality is that their management style dies with their generation, if we try hard as a group to kill it.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Boomers? I'm getting tired of reading this. Youre being manipulated by partisan politics.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Not a "boomer" myself, but I strongly dislike the hate that gets sent towards them. We should be very thankful for a lot of the stuff they did for us. Also, I'd rather work with the average "boomer" than most people who deride "boomers".
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Amazing to me the arbitrary groups people feel they are allowed to discriminate against. Lets just insult a few dozen million people because of when they were born and actively pine for their demise because social media tells me they are what's wrong with everything. Hate is not a good look on you friend.
  - tartoran 5y ago
    I agree with the sentiment aimed at boomers in general is not warranted but the op was talking about boomer management style which is just a subset of that and it is what we have in large part now
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      "boomer management style" is not a thing. Are you saying that all people of a set generation manage in the exact same way. Are you also saying that all people younger than that generation are much better? Trade the word boomer out for Jewish, black, or your group of choice, see if it works.
      - tartoran 5y ago
        Im not saying any of the things you imply and really dislike your not so subtle racism or antisemitism innuendo. All I’m saying is that a certain management style born in a previous era is no longer working. I mentioned that I don’t like the ire at boomers or any particular group except for a subset of it and that is the management style. If the newer generation used the same style it won’t make a difference, what im hoping for is a fresh start. This discussion is regarding mental work related health and this is the frame in which Im making this comment
        wonderwonder 5y ago
        I am not saying you are racist or antisemitic (apologies if it came off that way), I am saying that casually discriminating against an entire group just for when they were born or holding a group responsible for the actions of a few is how we got racism and antisemitism. Its not ok to label a group of people with a casual slur "Boomer" and then assign responsibility for things we disagree with to that group, when each person in that group is an individual and should be treated as such.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > whole “boomer” management style Can we please not point the finger at whole categories of people simply based on their age?
- hyperman1 5y ago
  The last few months I see a lot of these age base remark. Boomer. Gen Z. Millenial. Each with their own long list of bad qualities, so other age groups have a reason to look down on them. I don't actually believe this is natural anymore. This must be orchestrated. Somewhere, some group is cynically pushing this narrative. Are they luring eyeballs by pushing divisive articles? Are they distracting from bigger problems? I don't know, but this feels fabricated.
  - russelldjimmy 5y ago
    Yes, it certainly is orchestrated but not necessarily consciously. Any business looks for results. Media companies will do whatever brings in results. What brings in results? Sowing discord and division because that’s what keeps people coming back. How do we sow division? By making strawmen of anything we don’t understand. When a millennial says “boomer” and when a boomer hears “boomer”, they are talking about completely different things. But the word “boomer” gives us the illusion that we’re all talking about the same thing and that the other person truly is out to “get us”. These are unfortunate tricks of the mind that are being used to serve our short term ego-gratifying needs. If any progress is to be made, we need to rise above these petty squabbles by focusing on what’s important and not what someone else tells us is important.
agumonkey 5y ago
I'd be curious if not most of workers issues all across the economy boils down to basically this. People in charge should be in charge, communicate well and strong, if they fail they compensate for it a bit, and acknowledge people's effort when things are harder.
- black_13 5y ago
  Its pay pay pay thats it those who employ us are trying wringing out the last little bit as the did in all other parts of the economy. We are experiencing what was going on in the steel automotive sectors in 70s. No wonder ppl are crazy miserable and burnt out.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation This doesn’t really work in practice. You’d think that forcing the company to pay more to hit a deadline would be a disincentive, but instead it makes crunch time forgivable because the company is paying extra for it. “What are you complaining about? You’re getting time and a half to work those extra 20 hours!” It also does nothing to address the core problem of overwork leading to burnout. If anything, it lures people deeper into burnout because for many people it’s hard to turn down extra money. Finally, I haven’t seen good results from offering crunch time pay incentives for many reasons, but the most unexpected is that the incentives are very lopsided across the team. An experienced developer who has young kids at home may not be able to stay late, but an inexperienced junior straight of college with nearly zero external obligations may be able to put in 80 hours of poking around the codebase while racking up huge paychecks for contributing very little. Worst case, the seniors end up with even more work because they have to go back and rework a project that was done by juniors working crunch time while their usual senior/mentor peers were unavailable. The incentives of extra hourly crunch time payouts get weird very quickly.
ravenstine 5y ago
How about this? Treat software engineers like they actually know something. If an engineer thinks something is a bad idea, actually listen to them instead of pretending to listen. It amazes me how many companies see software engineers as extremely low tier, but I think a lot of that stems from most engineers lacking direct involvement with decision makers and other personnel. This is why I am pessimistic about the concept of having project managers act as an interface between engineering and the rest of the company. On one hand, it relieves engineers of a certain amount of responsibility but the tradeoff is that now one or two individuals have an incentive to do things to please both parties at once. The result is that no one really knows what that engineer guy Al actually does around here. Perhaps a lot of problems around engineering morale would go away if we eliminated the middle men and only engineers themselves to interface with the rest of the company and advocate what they think makes sense rather than what makes sense to a project manager who will only do what results in the least amount of hassle for them. It would be up to the engineers themselves to make sure they aren't culturally segregated and made low tier. If you're an engineer and your company gives the sales people their own desks while you have to share a desk, consider how much that company actually values you.
- wreath 5y ago
  The alternative is to have engineering managers be the interface between engineers and business, product managers partner up with the engineering managers and team leads do the project management part along with EM. Product tells the team what business problems are worth solving and then gets out of the way completely. EM and Team lead are who decide on timeline and deadlines after consulting with the rest.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    That's essentially what I'm arguing against, although what you are suggesting is somewhat common and is slightly better in that at least someone whom is supposedly an engineer is involved. My problem with your solution is that, practically speaking, engineering managers often end up being glorified vice project managers because of the number of meetings they end up in. As a result, they can be significantly disconnected from the actual technology being used and the perils they are fraught with that can cause complications when implementing even simple features. At least an EM knows something about engineering. And an EM is a role that indeed should exist in some capacity, whether or not that's the exact title they are given. What I believe would be better is for engineering teams to be involved in the early to middle stages of planning and pre-development, and for either an EM or team lead to have the authority to prevent product owners and other departments from applying undue pressure on individual engineers. That should be the primary role of a lead, and they should otherwise step out of the way and let engineers speak for themselves since they are the ones working directly with the software and APIs being used. Otherwise, we end up with a similar problem to the one I witness, which is that the EM in your approach would end up being incentivized towards diplomacy more so than serving the needs of either side. A leader-as-an-interface shields both parties from each other but also facilitates alienation. An EM that works in tandem with the engineering team can make sense, but standing between engineering and other company operations to me is an anti-pattern. Middle men are better off not existing at all even if it means having no EM or PM. All they do is remove power from both sides rather than become involved on an as-needed basis.
novok 5y ago
Just get out of the game development industry and move to another software development type. It's much better on the other side. It was obviously bad in 2004 with public exposes, and it is still the same today: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html Game development will improve its working conditions when nobody wants to work for a game company, until then they will be underpaid and overworked compared other software development types. There is a crazy hot hiring market elsewhere in the industry, do your part by walking away.

hasmolo 5y ago

bruh, this is the whole “boomer” management style. constantly implying your staff could do more, while cooly restricting praise and autonomy to just poison your org. these sort of “leaders” best quality is that their management style dies with their generation, if we try hard as a group to kill it.

fartcannon 5y ago
Boomers? I'm getting tired of reading this. Youre being manipulated by partisan politics.
skinkestek 5y ago
Not a "boomer" myself, but I strongly dislike the hate that gets sent towards them. We should be very thankful for a lot of the stuff they did for us. Also, I'd rather work with the average "boomer" than most people who deride "boomers".
wonderwonder 5y ago
Amazing to me the arbitrary groups people feel they are allowed to discriminate against. Lets just insult a few dozen million people because of when they were born and actively pine for their demise because social media tells me they are what's wrong with everything. Hate is not a good look on you friend.
- tartoran 5y ago
  I agree with the sentiment aimed at boomers in general is not warranted but the op was talking about boomer management style which is just a subset of that and it is what we have in large part now
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    "boomer management style" is not a thing. Are you saying that all people of a set generation manage in the exact same way. Are you also saying that all people younger than that generation are much better? Trade the word boomer out for Jewish, black, or your group of choice, see if it works.
    - tartoran 5y ago
      Im not saying any of the things you imply and really dislike your not so subtle racism or antisemitism innuendo. All I’m saying is that a certain management style born in a previous era is no longer working. I mentioned that I don’t like the ire at boomers or any particular group except for a subset of it and that is the management style. If the newer generation used the same style it won’t make a difference, what im hoping for is a fresh start. This discussion is regarding mental work related health and this is the frame in which Im making this comment
      - wonderwonder 5y ago
        I am not saying you are racist or antisemitic (apologies if it came off that way), I am saying that casually discriminating against an entire group just for when they were born or holding a group responsible for the actions of a few is how we got racism and antisemitism. Its not ok to label a group of people with a casual slur "Boomer" and then assign responsibility for things we disagree with to that group, when each person in that group is an individual and should be treated as such.
goodpoint 5y ago
> whole “boomer” management style Can we please not point the finger at whole categories of people simply based on their age?
hyperman1 5y ago
The last few months I see a lot of these age base remark. Boomer. Gen Z. Millenial. Each with their own long list of bad qualities, so other age groups have a reason to look down on them. I don't actually believe this is natural anymore. This must be orchestrated. Somewhere, some group is cynically pushing this narrative. Are they luring eyeballs by pushing divisive articles? Are they distracting from bigger problems? I don't know, but this feels fabricated.
- russelldjimmy 5y ago
  Yes, it certainly is orchestrated but not necessarily consciously. Any business looks for results. Media companies will do whatever brings in results. What brings in results? Sowing discord and division because that’s what keeps people coming back. How do we sow division? By making strawmen of anything we don’t understand. When a millennial says “boomer” and when a boomer hears “boomer”, they are talking about completely different things. But the word “boomer” gives us the illusion that we’re all talking about the same thing and that the other person truly is out to “get us”. These are unfortunate tricks of the mind that are being used to serve our short term ego-gratifying needs. If any progress is to be made, we need to rise above these petty squabbles by focusing on what’s important and not what someone else tells us is important.

agumonkey 5y ago

I'd be curious if not most of workers issues all across the economy boils down to basically this. People in charge should be in charge, communicate well and strong, if they fail they compensate for it a bit, and acknowledge people's effort when things are harder.

black_13 5y ago
Its pay pay pay thats it those who employ us are trying wringing out the last little bit as the did in all other parts of the economy. We are experiencing what was going on in the steel automotive sectors in 70s. No wonder ppl are crazy miserable and burnt out.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation This doesn’t really work in practice. You’d think that forcing the company to pay more to hit a deadline would be a disincentive, but instead it makes crunch time forgivable because the company is paying extra for it. “What are you complaining about? You’re getting time and a half to work those extra 20 hours!” It also does nothing to address the core problem of overwork leading to burnout. If anything, it lures people deeper into burnout because for many people it’s hard to turn down extra money. Finally, I haven’t seen good results from offering crunch time pay incentives for many reasons, but the most unexpected is that the incentives are very lopsided across the team. An experienced developer who has young kids at home may not be able to stay late, but an inexperienced junior straight of college with nearly zero external obligations may be able to put in 80 hours of poking around the codebase while racking up huge paychecks for contributing very little. Worst case, the seniors end up with even more work because they have to go back and rework a project that was done by juniors working crunch time while their usual senior/mentor peers were unavailable. The incentives of extra hourly crunch time payouts get weird very quickly.

ravenstine 5y ago

How about this? Treat software engineers like they actually know something. If an engineer thinks something is a bad idea, actually listen to them instead of pretending to listen. It amazes me how many companies see software engineers as extremely low tier, but I think a lot of that stems from most engineers lacking direct involvement with decision makers and other personnel. This is why I am pessimistic about the concept of having project managers act as an interface between engineering and the rest of the company. On one hand, it relieves engineers of a certain amount of responsibility but the tradeoff is that now one or two individuals have an incentive to do things to please both parties at once. The result is that no one really knows what that engineer guy Al actually does around here. Perhaps a lot of problems around engineering morale would go away if we eliminated the middle men and only engineers themselves to interface with the rest of the company and advocate what they think makes sense rather than what makes sense to a project manager who will only do what results in the least amount of hassle for them. It would be up to the engineers themselves to make sure they aren't culturally segregated and made low tier. If you're an engineer and your company gives the sales people their own desks while you have to share a desk, consider how much that company actually values you.

wreath 5y ago
The alternative is to have engineering managers be the interface between engineers and business, product managers partner up with the engineering managers and team leads do the project management part along with EM. Product tells the team what business problems are worth solving and then gets out of the way completely. EM and Team lead are who decide on timeline and deadlines after consulting with the rest.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  That's essentially what I'm arguing against, although what you are suggesting is somewhat common and is slightly better in that at least someone whom is supposedly an engineer is involved. My problem with your solution is that, practically speaking, engineering managers often end up being glorified vice project managers because of the number of meetings they end up in. As a result, they can be significantly disconnected from the actual technology being used and the perils they are fraught with that can cause complications when implementing even simple features. At least an EM knows something about engineering. And an EM is a role that indeed should exist in some capacity, whether or not that's the exact title they are given. What I believe would be better is for engineering teams to be involved in the early to middle stages of planning and pre-development, and for either an EM or team lead to have the authority to prevent product owners and other departments from applying undue pressure on individual engineers. That should be the primary role of a lead, and they should otherwise step out of the way and let engineers speak for themselves since they are the ones working directly with the software and APIs being used. Otherwise, we end up with a similar problem to the one I witness, which is that the EM in your approach would end up being incentivized towards diplomacy more so than serving the needs of either side. A leader-as-an-interface shields both parties from each other but also facilitates alienation. An EM that works in tandem with the engineering team can make sense, but standing between engineering and other company operations to me is an anti-pattern. Middle men are better off not existing at all even if it means having no EM or PM. All they do is remove power from both sides rather than become involved on an as-needed basis.

novok 5y ago

Just get out of the game development industry and move to another software development type. It's much better on the other side. It was obviously bad in 2004 with public exposes, and it is still the same today: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html Game development will improve its working conditions when nobody wants to work for a game company, until then they will be underpaid and overworked compared other software development types. There is a crazy hot hiring market elsewhere in the industry, do your part by walking away.