7 ms·

The subtlety is that its not about projects not being delivered on time, its about them never being delivered (either cancelled or scoped down until no one has

The subtlety is that its not about projects not being delivered on time, its about them never being delivered (either cancelled or scoped down until no one has to actually do anything). In an environment like this the incentive is to become a bottleneck for a lot of projects (so you get at least some that get delivered) and then a) do nothing on most to outwait the inevitable cancellation b) do the minimum possible work on the remainder, but make it seem as complex as possible. Even with low hours of work this becomes a very stressful environment as if you are trying to get something done, you have to be constantly convincing people you are depending on that the project is worthy of category b). While doing the exact thing to the people depending on you. Turnover makes this hard also as a small percentage of coworkers are very valuable to you (you can trust them to prioritize your project). From my experience this stress stretches into your out of work time, making the WLB worse even with a reasonable amount of "in office" hours.

frostwarrior 4y ago
Yeah. It's less like stress and more like a depressive void and a limbo where you have to work and at the same time not. Somehow this pace of low energy, zero initiative and low motivation also crushes your motivation for personal project.
- pm90 4y ago
  I mean nothing beats the feeling of delivering real value by building or fixing things. Its a great feeling! Often after having fixed something after working on it for hours, I will want to do even more for a while because of that “high”.
- throwfaraway5 4y ago
  I work for a another big company and this sounds exactly like my job. Currently trying to get out and writing applications since it becomes unbearable for me.
- muse900 4y ago
  Usually its the extremes that are having the same effects. Atm I am in a super demanding job, requiring me to overwork, make decisions on the spot, work on problems etc. On my free time while I want to sit down and watch some TV, go for running, enjoy a nice dinner or whatever... I FEEL EMPTY! I am fixated with my work... its not healthy and its creating low motivation for me. It feels like work has taken away all pleasures in life for me. It is not HEALTHY at all (I am currently seeing professionals about it) Generally anything in moderation is key... P.S. I do overwork myself for someone else to enjoy the fruits of my labour... sad story.
  - james_s_tayler 4y ago
    sounds like the beginnings of either burnout, depression or both. I'm in a job that's not quite demanding enough at the moment and it caused me to fall into a depression. It's good to catch it in time to do something about it.
    - muse900 4y ago
      agree, for me mostly for some reason its the fear of not finding another job... But well if you are depressed at your job... how bad can it get? And can really the money you make from a job make back for the depression? My personal opinion is NO!
8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
going through this now with my first L5 scope project.. not enjoying it. too many parties involved and i have to somehow convince them all to do work for me. meanwhile i keep getting bombarded with questions that mean nothing to my immediate scope of work, which is slowly pushing me behind schedule. good news is that my project is unlikely to get canned. we're in too deep already. learned early not to pick useless feature projects and cleanup work. if your manager isn't excited about what you're doing, its gonna get the ax.
- jrockway 4y ago
  The first project I worked on at Google was a system for consumers to send money to each other. My team made a mobile app before I joined, but it "wasn't part of the product vision" for that to be in the Google Wallet app. (So I guess we'll flush hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of code down the toilet!) Our PM looked around for teams willing to use our service, and found the Gmail team very receptive. A few engineers integrated it in about a week and we launched that "send money" button on Gmail at Google I/O. Could never get over how Gmail had "send money" but Google Wallet didn't. (They eventually changed their mind, of course.) I'll never forget the launch. I was sick, and sitting on the floor of a war room live-coding a script to give every attendee $1. Python, had tests, and it persisted its state to SQLite so that we could Control-C it if our service got too slow. It didn't get too slow; we did a lot of load testing and capacity problems and the launch was very smooth. Most fun I've ever had while sick. (10-year-older jrockway wouldn't go to work while sick, though.)
  - Workaccount2 4y ago
    >Our PM looked around for teams willing to use our service, and found the Gmail team very receptive. A few engineers integrated it in about a week and we launched that "send money" button on Gmail at Google I/O. Could never get over how Gmail had "send money" but Google Wallet didn't. (They eventually changed their mind, of course.) Thanks for the insight on why Google makes so many braindead decisions. It's so frustrating I'm ready to abandon them entirely.
  - hdjrudni 4y ago
bmj 4y ago
The subtlety is that its not about projects not being delivered on time, its about them never being delivered (either cancelled or scoped down until no one has to actually do anything). I can appreciate this feeling, because I've been living it for awhile. If I can borrow the original author's metaphor, as my career bucket sprung a leak, my other buckets were filled, and I've been just fine with that. As others have pointed out in this discussion, this is really all about perspective. If the career bucket is really important, then you will tend to that (but, again, here's where the metaphor falls apart, at least for the author -- he noticed his other buckets also leaking, but he focused on the career bucket [which, of course, is fine if it works for him]). Yes, the constantly changing landscape of my work can be a mental strain at times, but, for me, it's the devil I know. I've invested 15+ years with my employer, and I know the domain well. I don't want my other buckets to lose water in an effort to fill my career bucket, at least right now. tl;dr; To each their own.

frostwarrior 4y ago

Yeah. It's less like stress and more like a depressive void and a limbo where you have to work and at the same time not. Somehow this pace of low energy, zero initiative and low motivation also crushes your motivation for personal project.

pm90 4y ago
I mean nothing beats the feeling of delivering real value by building or fixing things. Its a great feeling! Often after having fixed something after working on it for hours, I will want to do even more for a while because of that “high”.
throwfaraway5 4y ago
I work for a another big company and this sounds exactly like my job. Currently trying to get out and writing applications since it becomes unbearable for me.
muse900 4y ago
Usually its the extremes that are having the same effects. Atm I am in a super demanding job, requiring me to overwork, make decisions on the spot, work on problems etc. On my free time while I want to sit down and watch some TV, go for running, enjoy a nice dinner or whatever... I FEEL EMPTY! I am fixated with my work... its not healthy and its creating low motivation for me. It feels like work has taken away all pleasures in life for me. It is not HEALTHY at all (I am currently seeing professionals about it) Generally anything in moderation is key... P.S. I do overwork myself for someone else to enjoy the fruits of my labour... sad story.
- james_s_tayler 4y ago
  sounds like the beginnings of either burnout, depression or both. I'm in a job that's not quite demanding enough at the moment and it caused me to fall into a depression. It's good to catch it in time to do something about it.
  - muse900 4y ago
    agree, for me mostly for some reason its the fear of not finding another job... But well if you are depressed at your job... how bad can it get? And can really the money you make from a job make back for the depression? My personal opinion is NO!

8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago

going through this now with my first L5 scope project.. not enjoying it. too many parties involved and i have to somehow convince them all to do work for me. meanwhile i keep getting bombarded with questions that mean nothing to my immediate scope of work, which is slowly pushing me behind schedule. good news is that my project is unlikely to get canned. we're in too deep already. learned early not to pick useless feature projects and cleanup work. if your manager isn't excited about what you're doing, its gonna get the ax.

jrockway 4y ago
The first project I worked on at Google was a system for consumers to send money to each other. My team made a mobile app before I joined, but it "wasn't part of the product vision" for that to be in the Google Wallet app. (So I guess we'll flush hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of code down the toilet!) Our PM looked around for teams willing to use our service, and found the Gmail team very receptive. A few engineers integrated it in about a week and we launched that "send money" button on Gmail at Google I/O. Could never get over how Gmail had "send money" but Google Wallet didn't. (They eventually changed their mind, of course.) I'll never forget the launch. I was sick, and sitting on the floor of a war room live-coding a script to give every attendee $1. Python, had tests, and it persisted its state to SQLite so that we could Control-C it if our service got too slow. It didn't get too slow; we did a lot of load testing and capacity problems and the launch was very smooth. Most fun I've ever had while sick. (10-year-older jrockway wouldn't go to work while sick, though.)
- Workaccount2 4y ago
  >Our PM looked around for teams willing to use our service, and found the Gmail team very receptive. A few engineers integrated it in about a week and we launched that "send money" button on Gmail at Google I/O. Could never get over how Gmail had "send money" but Google Wallet didn't. (They eventually changed their mind, of course.) Thanks for the insight on why Google makes so many braindead decisions. It's so frustrating I'm ready to abandon them entirely.
- hdjrudni 4y ago

bmj 4y ago

The subtlety is that its not about projects not being delivered on time, its about them never being delivered (either cancelled or scoped down until no one has to actually do anything). I can appreciate this feeling, because I've been living it for awhile. If I can borrow the original author's metaphor, as my career bucket sprung a leak, my other buckets were filled, and I've been just fine with that. As others have pointed out in this discussion, this is really all about perspective. If the career bucket is really important, then you will tend to that (but, again, here's where the metaphor falls apart, at least for the author -- he noticed his other buckets also leaking, but he focused on the career bucket [which, of course, is fine if it works for him]). Yes, the constantly changing landscape of my work can be a mental strain at times, but, for me, it's the devil I know. I've invested 15+ years with my employer, and I know the domain well. I don't want my other buckets to lose water in an effort to fill my career bucket, at least right now. tl;dr; To each their own.