6 ms·

Ask HN: Eight Months in and this job is unbearable

22 points by tonym9428 5y ago

So I started a job 8 months ago as a senior data scientist. So far, it's been horrible. I'm not learning, not allowed to use R/Python, am forced to use Excel, am micromanaged, etc. I have plenty of savings (10+ years worth). Just wondered how most of you would approach this situation. 1. Suck it up 2. quit now 3. keep working and quit in a few months 4. other

rexstjohn 5y ago
Sounds like you have a lot of leverage to tell them “this isn’t what I signed up for. I’m going to start looking for new jobs now, I’ll keep getting paid etc but I’ll be doing the minimum here until I leave.” Heads you win, tails you don’t lose. If they change it, you win. If they don’t change it, you win because you quit. And you get less pressure while you look.
Rylex 5y ago
Keep working until you have a new position. That's the smart play...
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Yeah, having a job increases your negotiating leverage and only gives you more options.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    Having 10 years savings is enough leverage. Also you can make out like you are about to get offers as you go through the interviews.
ssss11 5y ago
Don’t suck it up if it will affect your mental health (sounds like it is). The best option as someone else has said is lock in the new job before leaving so I’d be getting out there interviewing. Worst case you have the savings to just leave, my issue with job searching when out of a job is self confidence.. I always interview terribly in those times
GianFabien 5y ago
I wouldn't have lasted 8 months. Seems that the job description was deceptive. You are most fortunate with having lots of savings. If I were in your situation I would quit now, begin a startup doing what you most enjoy doing and then using that as your current job, seek out an ideal job. If you choose your niche well, you could even be a micro-acquihire.
Cryptonic 5y ago
Get a new job asap. I don't know how much energy the job sucks out of you for the job searching process. Yes, getting hired from a position in another might get you a better salary. But preparation and applying to jobs requires energy. Eventually it's better to have free energy to get an even better job and quit immediately when you have a plan of attack.
vanusa 5y ago
With that much in savings - quit now for the sake of your mental health, and your soul.
shiohime 5y ago
If you have that much savings you really should just leave and look for other opportunities or explore spaces you are interested in imo. Usually I hear it is best to look for other jobs while you are employed, however from my experience it is really hard to pull off looking for jobs while being simultaneously employed if you have a heavy workload. I left my job of 5 years earlier this year because I was purely burnt out, with only around a year of savings but don't regret it at all. I've had the opportunity to explore spaces I'd never have the chance to do while working at a traditional job, and even if my individual entrepreneurial efforts don't work out, the skills I've picked up while technically unemployed are very attractive to the field that I'm actually working in. Think of it as a full stop pivot in my professional career. But really, working a job you hate only gets worse and worse. Your productivity will start dropping and you'll start to increasingly feel like crap. Burnout is really rough, and you are almost certainly more valuable than you are being treated at a company like that. That's what I'd do at least, but yeah your call of course.
muzani 5y ago
2 or 3. I've left within 3 months with similar jobs. The longer you stay, the more it drags you down. It gets harder to interview because your confidence and energy levels have taken a beating. If there's one advice I'd say to a younger version of myself, it's to get out faster. Most mistakes lead to building some strength later on, this isn't one of them. The difference between quitting now and later is that being jobless puts time pressure on getting a new one, so you'll probably miss out on some less urgent companies that take months to interview, and you're more likely to take another bad deal. I think people are not quite picky enough about jobs; 90% of them are bad, same with 90% of the employee pool. So you need some room to go through the interview process and reject bad employers.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Any tips on identifying the better jobs through the interview process ? The further get into my tech career Im finding out that alot of jobs are bad jobs.
  - muzani 5y ago
    I'd say filter out anyone who's disrespectful and distrustful. You'll never do good work for a disrespectful employer, no matter how much they pay, and trying to do so will lead to burnout. This also includes self-respect, for certain roles bad for society. Distrust is more controversial. The downside is it's wasteful and you get micromanaged. The upside is that once you get past enough red tape, everyone trusts each other because there's nothing to distrust. It's subjective, but if you feel that way, you probably are. e.g. interviewers turning off the camera on om or asking for your pregnancy status. The objective indicator is Glassdoor. I personally reject interviews for anything below a 3.5 star. They can be wrong like everything else, but the correlation has been strong.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      Thanks for the guidance.
ridiculous_leke 5y ago
Quit. Life is too short for such horrible experience.
Jemaclus 5y ago
If you're in the United States, I would leave right now, take a few weeks off to get your head back on straight, and then look for a new job. This is one of the hottest job markets I've ever seen for software engineers, and perhaps particularly in the data science arena. I'm certain you could get another job quickly. If you're not in the States, then I don't have a ton of advice for you, but I would certainly look around for other options. Life's too short to be miserable 40+ hours per week.
- muzani 5y ago
  Job market is probably hotter outside the US now. Corona really encouraged remote, which encouraged not just outsourcing but full time remote jobs.
  - galesky 5y ago
    US is still far far ahead on salaries, companies and positions. I don't see a relevant metric that comes even close anywhere else, even w/ remote
    - muzani 5y ago
      I might have phrased that poorly. I mean plenty of jobs outside the US have greatly increased salaries in 2021, which was a ripple effect of remote work/globalization. I was looking at a 25%-160% salary increase back while I was job hunting this year. It used to be that the biggest barrier to hiring outside a country was that it was less effective to have them work remotely 100% of the time. But now it's practically the same thing. Some companies are getting bargains, others are just using it to hire the best out of other countries.
  - Jemaclus 5y ago
    That's great to know. I'm in the US, so I couldn't speak to how the market operates outside, but I'm glad to hear that the markets are good across the board for engineers. Thanks for the additional info!
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Quit and never work full time again Also, why is "suck it up" even an option? Seems literally insane to do that
creakingstairs 5y ago
Are there some other variables that you haven't mentioned in the thread? like your Visa status, prestige of the job etc? Because option two seems like an obvious choice with your current skill set and saving. Thus, I feel like you might have other factors in play here.
kfk 5y ago
I have hired many people here in Poland leaving their prior job after 8 months or less, it’s ok if they can explain why. If you have 10 years of work experience you know what to do already, stay or leave are both reasonable options, it depends on what makes you less anxious I think. If not having a job is scary look for one before leaving it.
betwixthewires 5y ago
You're a data scientist and you can't use R or Python? Excuse my brashness, but what the fuck kind of shop is this?
yannoninator 5y ago
Quit. You're in control, dial the pressure on that company.
poulsbohemian 5y ago
Move on. Early in my career I ended up in a job that wasn't at all as marketed and it absolutely drained me. Unfortunately the economy wasn't as strong then as it is now so it took me ten months to find a new gig. In this market, you'll be fine so don't waste anymore time. I don't even know that it's a terrible thing to just say "mulligan" if you are asked in interviews why you are leaving so soon. So long as you aren't overtly negative toward your previous employer, I find it almost reassuring to hear someone say "it just hasn't worked out to be the gig I expected."
YeBanKo 5y ago
Leave. 8 month on the job is the right time to understand, that it’s not a good fit. You can’t use R/Python, Excel only – this right here is a good explanation for your prospect employers, why you aren’t satisfied with your current job. Btw, if Excel only, are you sure that you aren’t doing data analytics under name of data science? Unless your your resume is full of positions where you stayed for under a year, it should not be an issue. Seems like you have enough saving to time it well and spend some time to find a better fit.
quanto 5y ago
Option 3. A 8-month tenure looks too short on your resume, even by the mercurial tech tenure standards. Filling it up to 12-month or longer will help A. It looks better on your resume. You don't have to explain yourself every time someone asks why you left so early. Explaining yourself like this for years to come whenever you interview is a drag on its own. B. A few more months will give you time to interview at your pace. Consequently, you will have a better pool of offers and a better gauge of what the market can fetch for you. C. More time is good for building connections before you leave. I understand you are not learning from your day-to-day operations. However, are there coworkers that you can learn from before you leave? Do you wish to build and maintain bridges with some of these people? Abruptly quitting burns bridges, and it may be better to put conscious effort to build some connections before leaving.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Having it look bad is solved by removing it from the resume. Nobody will question a gap that long in 2021.
  - zerocount 5y ago
    I quit in April of 2021 and 8 out of 10 employers want to know what I've been doing since then. I think it's just one of those automatic questions since any reasonable response seems to satisfy them.
shrubble 5y ago
Python has the ability to read and write Excel spreadsheets... so read in data, process with R or Python, write results out in desired Excel spreadsheet format. Would that work?
starklevnertz 5y ago
Seems obvious to me. Why not to you?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jazzyjackson 5y ago
1/4: learn to stop worrying and love excel
- zerocount 5y ago
  The micromanagement is the bigger problem.
mmiliauskas 5y ago
Been there. Quit now!
yitchelle 5y ago
Another possible option is to look for other opportunities in the same company. It is usually much easier to switch department/office/sites that to switch companies. Of course, I am making the big assumption that he problems are you are describing is not company wide and is localised to your manager/team/department.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
toppy 5y ago
Based on your previous submissions to HN: Ask HN: How low is too low for a Glassdoor review? Ask HN: Should I Leave CA or Keep Looking for a Job? Ask HN: What determines whether you accept a job out of state? Ask HN: Do you normally leave a job with another lined up or Ask HN: At what point is it appropriate to leave startup? Ask HN: Moving from the startup world to bigger companies Ask HN: What would you consider “too short” and “too long” to stay at a job? Ask HN: What to do if you're not good at your new job? Ask HN: Moving to Bay Area from east coast? Ask HN: Job offer in SFyes? no? Ask HN: Ask them to pay/schedule or handle it myself? Ask HN: Should I look for a data science internship at age 30? Ask HN: Three jobs in eight months...am I justified? Ask HN: What should I do? Ask HN: Start date is set, but I got another offer. What to do? Ask HN: What can I do to turn things around and make my 30's “good”? I think you are just trolling...
- NumberCruncher 5y ago
  Not OP, but those questions are 2+ years old.
giantg2 5y ago
I've been doing #1 for a few years now. Your situation sounds different though. The micromanaging seems worse. And it sounds like you have some serious money. You should probably do #3 once you have a new a job lined up.
duffsdevice 5y ago
> am micromanaged, Book tip: "My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide", by Harry E. Chambers. It is a quite frequent problem in tech. And no, you are not likely to change it. And yes, it is very bad for mental health. Don't wait too long. One interesting insight from the book is that being subjected to micromanagement is somewhat correlated to having grown up with very critical parents. It is essentially a form of unhealthy power play.

22 points by tonym9428 5y ago

rexstjohn 5y ago

Sounds like you have a lot of leverage to tell them “this isn’t what I signed up for. I’m going to start looking for new jobs now, I’ll keep getting paid etc but I’ll be doing the minimum here until I leave.” Heads you win, tails you don’t lose. If they change it, you win. If they don’t change it, you win because you quit. And you get less pressure while you look.

Rylex 5y ago

Keep working until you have a new position. That's the smart play...

rsj_hn 5y ago
Yeah, having a job increases your negotiating leverage and only gives you more options.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Having 10 years savings is enough leverage. Also you can make out like you are about to get offers as you go through the interviews.

ssss11 5y ago

Don’t suck it up if it will affect your mental health (sounds like it is). The best option as someone else has said is lock in the new job before leaving so I’d be getting out there interviewing. Worst case you have the savings to just leave, my issue with job searching when out of a job is self confidence.. I always interview terribly in those times

GianFabien 5y ago

I wouldn't have lasted 8 months. Seems that the job description was deceptive. You are most fortunate with having lots of savings. If I were in your situation I would quit now, begin a startup doing what you most enjoy doing and then using that as your current job, seek out an ideal job. If you choose your niche well, you could even be a micro-acquihire.

Cryptonic 5y ago

Get a new job asap. I don't know how much energy the job sucks out of you for the job searching process. Yes, getting hired from a position in another might get you a better salary. But preparation and applying to jobs requires energy. Eventually it's better to have free energy to get an even better job and quit immediately when you have a plan of attack.

vanusa 5y ago

With that much in savings - quit now for the sake of your mental health, and your soul.

shiohime 5y ago

If you have that much savings you really should just leave and look for other opportunities or explore spaces you are interested in imo. Usually I hear it is best to look for other jobs while you are employed, however from my experience it is really hard to pull off looking for jobs while being simultaneously employed if you have a heavy workload. I left my job of 5 years earlier this year because I was purely burnt out, with only around a year of savings but don't regret it at all. I've had the opportunity to explore spaces I'd never have the chance to do while working at a traditional job, and even if my individual entrepreneurial efforts don't work out, the skills I've picked up while technically unemployed are very attractive to the field that I'm actually working in. Think of it as a full stop pivot in my professional career. But really, working a job you hate only gets worse and worse. Your productivity will start dropping and you'll start to increasingly feel like crap. Burnout is really rough, and you are almost certainly more valuable than you are being treated at a company like that. That's what I'd do at least, but yeah your call of course.

muzani 5y ago

2 or 3. I've left within 3 months with similar jobs. The longer you stay, the more it drags you down. It gets harder to interview because your confidence and energy levels have taken a beating. If there's one advice I'd say to a younger version of myself, it's to get out faster. Most mistakes lead to building some strength later on, this isn't one of them. The difference between quitting now and later is that being jobless puts time pressure on getting a new one, so you'll probably miss out on some less urgent companies that take months to interview, and you're more likely to take another bad deal. I think people are not quite picky enough about jobs; 90% of them are bad, same with 90% of the employee pool. So you need some room to go through the interview process and reject bad employers.

edmcnulty101 5y ago
Any tips on identifying the better jobs through the interview process ? The further get into my tech career Im finding out that alot of jobs are bad jobs.
- muzani 5y ago
  I'd say filter out anyone who's disrespectful and distrustful. You'll never do good work for a disrespectful employer, no matter how much they pay, and trying to do so will lead to burnout. This also includes self-respect, for certain roles bad for society. Distrust is more controversial. The downside is it's wasteful and you get micromanaged. The upside is that once you get past enough red tape, everyone trusts each other because there's nothing to distrust. It's subjective, but if you feel that way, you probably are. e.g. interviewers turning off the camera on om or asking for your pregnancy status. The objective indicator is Glassdoor. I personally reject interviews for anything below a 3.5 star. They can be wrong like everything else, but the correlation has been strong.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    Thanks for the guidance.

ridiculous_leke 5y ago

Quit. Life is too short for such horrible experience.

Jemaclus 5y ago

If you're in the United States, I would leave right now, take a few weeks off to get your head back on straight, and then look for a new job. This is one of the hottest job markets I've ever seen for software engineers, and perhaps particularly in the data science arena. I'm certain you could get another job quickly. If you're not in the States, then I don't have a ton of advice for you, but I would certainly look around for other options. Life's too short to be miserable 40+ hours per week.

muzani 5y ago
Job market is probably hotter outside the US now. Corona really encouraged remote, which encouraged not just outsourcing but full time remote jobs.
- galesky 5y ago
  US is still far far ahead on salaries, companies and positions. I don't see a relevant metric that comes even close anywhere else, even w/ remote
  - muzani 5y ago
    I might have phrased that poorly. I mean plenty of jobs outside the US have greatly increased salaries in 2021, which was a ripple effect of remote work/globalization. I was looking at a 25%-160% salary increase back while I was job hunting this year. It used to be that the biggest barrier to hiring outside a country was that it was less effective to have them work remotely 100% of the time. But now it's practically the same thing. Some companies are getting bargains, others are just using it to hire the best out of other countries.
- Jemaclus 5y ago
  That's great to know. I'm in the US, so I couldn't speak to how the market operates outside, but I'm glad to hear that the markets are good across the board for engineers. Thanks for the additional info!

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Quit and never work full time again Also, why is "suck it up" even an option? Seems literally insane to do that

creakingstairs 5y ago

Are there some other variables that you haven't mentioned in the thread? like your Visa status, prestige of the job etc? Because option two seems like an obvious choice with your current skill set and saving. Thus, I feel like you might have other factors in play here.

kfk 5y ago

I have hired many people here in Poland leaving their prior job after 8 months or less, it’s ok if they can explain why. If you have 10 years of work experience you know what to do already, stay or leave are both reasonable options, it depends on what makes you less anxious I think. If not having a job is scary look for one before leaving it.

betwixthewires 5y ago

You're a data scientist and you can't use R or Python? Excuse my brashness, but what the fuck kind of shop is this?

yannoninator 5y ago

Quit. You're in control, dial the pressure on that company.

poulsbohemian 5y ago

Move on. Early in my career I ended up in a job that wasn't at all as marketed and it absolutely drained me. Unfortunately the economy wasn't as strong then as it is now so it took me ten months to find a new gig. In this market, you'll be fine so don't waste anymore time. I don't even know that it's a terrible thing to just say "mulligan" if you are asked in interviews why you are leaving so soon. So long as you aren't overtly negative toward your previous employer, I find it almost reassuring to hear someone say "it just hasn't worked out to be the gig I expected."

YeBanKo 5y ago

Leave. 8 month on the job is the right time to understand, that it’s not a good fit. You can’t use R/Python, Excel only – this right here is a good explanation for your prospect employers, why you aren’t satisfied with your current job. Btw, if Excel only, are you sure that you aren’t doing data analytics under name of data science? Unless your your resume is full of positions where you stayed for under a year, it should not be an issue. Seems like you have enough saving to time it well and spend some time to find a better fit.

quanto 5y ago

Option 3. A 8-month tenure looks too short on your resume, even by the mercurial tech tenure standards. Filling it up to 12-month or longer will help A. It looks better on your resume. You don't have to explain yourself every time someone asks why you left so early. Explaining yourself like this for years to come whenever you interview is a drag on its own. B. A few more months will give you time to interview at your pace. Consequently, you will have a better pool of offers and a better gauge of what the market can fetch for you. C. More time is good for building connections before you leave. I understand you are not learning from your day-to-day operations. However, are there coworkers that you can learn from before you leave? Do you wish to build and maintain bridges with some of these people? Abruptly quitting burns bridges, and it may be better to put conscious effort to build some connections before leaving.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
Having it look bad is solved by removing it from the resume. Nobody will question a gap that long in 2021.
- zerocount 5y ago
  I quit in April of 2021 and 8 out of 10 employers want to know what I've been doing since then. I think it's just one of those automatic questions since any reasonable response seems to satisfy them.

shrubble 5y ago

Python has the ability to read and write Excel spreadsheets... so read in data, process with R or Python, write results out in desired Excel spreadsheet format. Would that work?

starklevnertz 5y ago

Seems obvious to me. Why not to you?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jazzyjackson 5y ago

1/4: learn to stop worrying and love excel

zerocount 5y ago
The micromanagement is the bigger problem.

mmiliauskas 5y ago

Been there. Quit now!

yitchelle 5y ago

Another possible option is to look for other opportunities in the same company. It is usually much easier to switch department/office/sites that to switch companies. Of course, I am making the big assumption that he problems are you are describing is not company wide and is localised to your manager/team/department.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

toppy 5y ago

Based on your previous submissions to HN: Ask HN: How low is too low for a Glassdoor review? Ask HN: Should I Leave CA or Keep Looking for a Job? Ask HN: What determines whether you accept a job out of state? Ask HN: Do you normally leave a job with another lined up or Ask HN: At what point is it appropriate to leave startup? Ask HN: Moving from the startup world to bigger companies Ask HN: What would you consider “too short” and “too long” to stay at a job? Ask HN: What to do if you're not good at your new job? Ask HN: Moving to Bay Area from east coast? Ask HN: Job offer in SFyes? no? Ask HN: Ask them to pay/schedule or handle it myself? Ask HN: Should I look for a data science internship at age 30? Ask HN: Three jobs in eight months...am I justified? Ask HN: What should I do? Ask HN: Start date is set, but I got another offer. What to do? Ask HN: What can I do to turn things around and make my 30's “good”? I think you are just trolling...

NumberCruncher 5y ago
Not OP, but those questions are 2+ years old.

giantg2 5y ago

I've been doing #1 for a few years now. Your situation sounds different though. The micromanaging seems worse. And it sounds like you have some serious money. You should probably do #3 once you have a new a job lined up.

duffsdevice 5y ago

> am micromanaged, Book tip: "My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide", by Harry E. Chambers. It is a quite frequent problem in tech. And no, you are not likely to change it. And yes, it is very bad for mental health. Don't wait too long. One interesting insight from the book is that being subjected to micromanagement is somewhat correlated to having grown up with very critical parents. It is essentially a form of unhealthy power play.