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I can’t imagine posting something like this and ever expecting to get hired again. What’s the upside? Can outside observers really make a considered judgement

I can’t imagine posting something like this and ever expecting to get hired again. What’s the upside? Can outside observers really make a considered judgement based on the one-sided and incomplete presentation? A claim of literal brain damage from stress is both difficult to substantiate and difficult to believe, and what are we supposed to do with it? I work at a similarly sized and positioned company, and all I can think is that the writer of this post seems very unbalanced.

rektide 4y ago
Possible upsides include catharsis and helping create a better known world, helping give us a more accurate image. Of what many probably perceieved as an immensely highly skilled part of the world, doing unbelievably important & relevant work.
kibwen 4y ago
This comment appears to be an apparently unintentional example of the chilling effect on discourse wrought by delegating so much power to our corporate overlords.
TremendousJudge 4y ago
>and all I can think is that the writer of this post seems very unbalanced Maybe the author wasn't that way, and going through the whole ordeal really damaged them, resulting in behavior that would previously seem unthinkable. Really stressful episodes can leave you very screwed up in the head, call it brain damage our however you like, it's a very real thing that happens.
- 300bps 4y ago
  Really stressful episodes can leave you very screwed up in the head Earlier in my career, I would sometimes get very annoyed when users would call me to report problems. Thinking about it, I realized that it was me that was the problem. I put a picture of a guy working in a coal mine next to my phone so I could have some perspective. Operation Overlord was the code-name for the Battle of Normandy. The average age of the soldiers in that battle was 20. Up to 226,000 casualties with up to 39,000 dead. I don't mean to belittle anyone's experiences, but she is claiming permanent brain damage from the stress of being a software engineer and used as evidence of that brain damage that, "some days I couldn’t find my car in the garage or forgot entire conversations". The first one was literally a Seinfeld episode. The second one - who doesn't do that?
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    I'm glad that strategy worked out for you. It's very easy to get sucked into something (anything), it becoming your entire world, and everything triggering a life or death stress response, when in reality it's not a problem. Being able to take distance from a situation as you mention, and remember that you're just sitting in an office and it's not like you're literally about to die is a very important skill to have. However, many people don't have it, or just get too apathetic about the job if they detach like that, and live very stressful lives. I've personally seen it happen several times.
  - jdlshore 4y ago
    > I don't mean to belittle anyone's experiences Then why did you do it? Surely if you’re self-aware enough to write this part, you’re self-aware enough to not write the rest of the paragraph, or to imply that, if it’s not Battle of Normandy bad, it’s not worth mentioning. She said that she was put on forced medical leave by her doctor. You ignored that in favor of making a dismissive comment about an anecdote. The author wrote a highly personal post about a difficult situation, in effort to advise people to avoid situations that caused her trauma. That takes a lot of courage, and I admire her for it.
    - 300bps 4y ago
      I can tell your comment comes from a place of wanting to be kind and I commend you for that intention. We just have different definitions of what constitutes being kind. I think it is kinder to tell people what you really think than it is to coddle them. Sometimes people are better off hearing hard truths. She described a career filled with unnecessary stress and unsuccessful projects where everyone else is at fault and every environment is toxic. If I were describing my own career in that way, I'd think it was time for some introspection.
      - jdlshore 4y ago
        If you were her friend, sure. But you're just some internet stranger piling on. Hard truths are delivered in private, not shouted in a public square where the author isn't even present. But that's not what actually inspired me to comment. The main thing that bugged me about this subthread is that, rather than contributing to a potentially interesting conversation about whether workspaces are toxic, and what to do about it, people are nitpicking whether the author's self-described trauma is legitimate or not. Regardless of whether it's true, it strikes me as a form of ad-hominem... ignoring the content in favor of attacking the author. That's not so much about you, I have to admit, as the whole subthread. Thanks for a thoughtful reply.
spicymaki 4y ago
> What’s the upside? Can outside observers really make a considered judgement based on the one-sided and incomplete presentation? Not everything has to have an upside. It takes courage to be a whistle-blower. >... and what are we supposed to do with it? We are supposed to learn from others experience, so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. > I work at a similarly sized and positioned company, and all I can think is that the writer of this post seems very unbalanced. So what? Why do you think your experience at a different org matters in this case? If everything is working well for you, good, carry on.
ryanobjc 4y ago
“Seems very unbalanced”…. As in the author isn’t presenting all sides because it’s a personal experience narrative? Or are you using a sly way of calling them crazy?
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throw149102 4y ago
The other way to look at it is to see it as very intelligent filtering by the author. If I only want to work at places that are committed to my mental health, and I have the expertise to get hired at Google, then I might very well be comfortable with filtering out 99% of companies. If the average person sees me and goes "Well I think this person is very unbalanced" and chooses not to hire them, that saves a lot of time for the author. You could say a very similar thing about coming out as gay. If a man figures out he's gay, he doesn't benefit from still including women in his dating pool. Maybe his dating pool shrinks by 95%, but who cares, he only wants the last 5% anyway. The hard part of dating isn't really finding a dateable person, but narrowing down the set of all people to a mostly optimal one. Likewise, the hard part of finding a job isn't finding a place that's hiring, but narrowing down the set of all jobs to a mostly optimal one.
didibus 4y ago
Really? Sometimes I'd agree, but this post made me think positively of this person. What they described they were doing and tried to do seems like everything I'd expect of a good employee. It's too bad they didn't get the support they needed for it to work and suffered psychologically from it. They seemed to care deeply about the work and have really high standards for what they were building. They explained that they tried to rally people, bring light to the issue, they stepped in to try and unblock the project, get people moving along, resolve disagreements, etc. At the same time, all the complaints I've seen before on poorly run organizations. Projects are stalled, spinning their wheels, entralled in forever discussions, decisions are not being made, and when you try to escalate to get things unblocked, the leadership doesn't do anything about it, they just go well I want you all to figure it out ok. And things go right back to being the same dysfunctional. Eventually it hemorrhages talent, people start to leave, quit, switch to something else, and only then does something gets done because now it reflects in actual metrics. You have to have worked in better run organizations to maybe recognize how badly run that is. The role of an exec is to maximize output from the resources and assets under their control. Knowing how to best leverage talent, knowing how to properly delegate authority to key people, intervene when there's contention that goes unresolved for too long, allocate additional resources when output suffers from the lack of it, and make decisions about what to invest in, who to invest in, and what/who gets the cut and won't be invested in. All these things are what good management should do. I think sometimes we talk too much about being a good engineer, but we don't have enough conversation about being a good exec, trust me, like how half of all engineers are below average, and some are outright terrible, this is true of execs as well, except execs seem to get away with it for even longer normally, because there's so many people under them to pick up their slack.
sam0x17 4y ago
It's weird, I had the opposite reaction. I find myself wondering whether there is some way to fit them in my org. To each their own, I suppose.
eropple 4y ago
I'd try to hire Katelyn in an instant if I had an appropriate role. Her reputation precedes her (I knew of her from multiple social/technical circles long before I knew she was even on HN) and honesty, when you've gone out of your way to try to fix a problem and it's made you blow a proverbial tire in the process, doesn't bother me. You, on the other hand, are slagging her with personal attacks in multiple comments in this thread. I wouldn't hire you after knowing you wrote them and I don't think you'd be saying the things you are with your name on them.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  I made two comments, including this one, neither of which I’d call “slagging”, but I can see why you might disagree. It sounds like we wouldn’t be a good cultural fit for each other’s organizations and that’s okay. Thanks for providing an alternative viewpoint to consider.
- deleted 4y ago
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nnoitra 4y ago
Yeah, let's just be slaves and never say what we really think. Engineers should never succumb to corporate slavery, here are the reasons: 1) too smart 2) Can find a job elsewhere 3) Google in a resume is literally gold(for her particularly) Should there never be a competence level after which one can share what they really think. Are we really free if we can't voice unpopular opinions like hey it's a FAANG but it sucked.

rektide 4y ago

Possible upsides include catharsis and helping create a better known world, helping give us a more accurate image. Of what many probably perceieved as an immensely highly skilled part of the world, doing unbelievably important & relevant work.

kibwen 4y ago

This comment appears to be an apparently unintentional example of the chilling effect on discourse wrought by delegating so much power to our corporate overlords.

TremendousJudge 4y ago

>and all I can think is that the writer of this post seems very unbalanced Maybe the author wasn't that way, and going through the whole ordeal really damaged them, resulting in behavior that would previously seem unthinkable. Really stressful episodes can leave you very screwed up in the head, call it brain damage our however you like, it's a very real thing that happens.

300bps 4y ago
Really stressful episodes can leave you very screwed up in the head Earlier in my career, I would sometimes get very annoyed when users would call me to report problems. Thinking about it, I realized that it was me that was the problem. I put a picture of a guy working in a coal mine next to my phone so I could have some perspective. Operation Overlord was the code-name for the Battle of Normandy. The average age of the soldiers in that battle was 20. Up to 226,000 casualties with up to 39,000 dead. I don't mean to belittle anyone's experiences, but she is claiming permanent brain damage from the stress of being a software engineer and used as evidence of that brain damage that, "some days I couldn’t find my car in the garage or forgot entire conversations". The first one was literally a Seinfeld episode. The second one - who doesn't do that?
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  I'm glad that strategy worked out for you. It's very easy to get sucked into something (anything), it becoming your entire world, and everything triggering a life or death stress response, when in reality it's not a problem. Being able to take distance from a situation as you mention, and remember that you're just sitting in an office and it's not like you're literally about to die is a very important skill to have. However, many people don't have it, or just get too apathetic about the job if they detach like that, and live very stressful lives. I've personally seen it happen several times.
- jdlshore 4y ago
  > I don't mean to belittle anyone's experiences Then why did you do it? Surely if you’re self-aware enough to write this part, you’re self-aware enough to not write the rest of the paragraph, or to imply that, if it’s not Battle of Normandy bad, it’s not worth mentioning. She said that she was put on forced medical leave by her doctor. You ignored that in favor of making a dismissive comment about an anecdote. The author wrote a highly personal post about a difficult situation, in effort to advise people to avoid situations that caused her trauma. That takes a lot of courage, and I admire her for it.
  - 300bps 4y ago
    I can tell your comment comes from a place of wanting to be kind and I commend you for that intention. We just have different definitions of what constitutes being kind. I think it is kinder to tell people what you really think than it is to coddle them. Sometimes people are better off hearing hard truths. She described a career filled with unnecessary stress and unsuccessful projects where everyone else is at fault and every environment is toxic. If I were describing my own career in that way, I'd think it was time for some introspection.
    - jdlshore 4y ago
      If you were her friend, sure. But you're just some internet stranger piling on. Hard truths are delivered in private, not shouted in a public square where the author isn't even present. But that's not what actually inspired me to comment. The main thing that bugged me about this subthread is that, rather than contributing to a potentially interesting conversation about whether workspaces are toxic, and what to do about it, people are nitpicking whether the author's self-described trauma is legitimate or not. Regardless of whether it's true, it strikes me as a form of ad-hominem... ignoring the content in favor of attacking the author. That's not so much about you, I have to admit, as the whole subthread. Thanks for a thoughtful reply.

spicymaki 4y ago

> What’s the upside? Can outside observers really make a considered judgement based on the one-sided and incomplete presentation? Not everything has to have an upside. It takes courage to be a whistle-blower. >... and what are we supposed to do with it? We are supposed to learn from others experience, so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. > I work at a similarly sized and positioned company, and all I can think is that the writer of this post seems very unbalanced. So what? Why do you think your experience at a different org matters in this case? If everything is working well for you, good, carry on.

ryanobjc 4y ago

“Seems very unbalanced”…. As in the author isn’t presenting all sides because it’s a personal experience narrative? Or are you using a sly way of calling them crazy?

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throw149102 4y ago

The other way to look at it is to see it as very intelligent filtering by the author. If I only want to work at places that are committed to my mental health, and I have the expertise to get hired at Google, then I might very well be comfortable with filtering out 99% of companies. If the average person sees me and goes "Well I think this person is very unbalanced" and chooses not to hire them, that saves a lot of time for the author. You could say a very similar thing about coming out as gay. If a man figures out he's gay, he doesn't benefit from still including women in his dating pool. Maybe his dating pool shrinks by 95%, but who cares, he only wants the last 5% anyway. The hard part of dating isn't really finding a dateable person, but narrowing down the set of all people to a mostly optimal one. Likewise, the hard part of finding a job isn't finding a place that's hiring, but narrowing down the set of all jobs to a mostly optimal one.

didibus 4y ago

Really? Sometimes I'd agree, but this post made me think positively of this person. What they described they were doing and tried to do seems like everything I'd expect of a good employee. It's too bad they didn't get the support they needed for it to work and suffered psychologically from it. They seemed to care deeply about the work and have really high standards for what they were building. They explained that they tried to rally people, bring light to the issue, they stepped in to try and unblock the project, get people moving along, resolve disagreements, etc. At the same time, all the complaints I've seen before on poorly run organizations. Projects are stalled, spinning their wheels, entralled in forever discussions, decisions are not being made, and when you try to escalate to get things unblocked, the leadership doesn't do anything about it, they just go well I want you all to figure it out ok. And things go right back to being the same dysfunctional. Eventually it hemorrhages talent, people start to leave, quit, switch to something else, and only then does something gets done because now it reflects in actual metrics. You have to have worked in better run organizations to maybe recognize how badly run that is. The role of an exec is to maximize output from the resources and assets under their control. Knowing how to best leverage talent, knowing how to properly delegate authority to key people, intervene when there's contention that goes unresolved for too long, allocate additional resources when output suffers from the lack of it, and make decisions about what to invest in, who to invest in, and what/who gets the cut and won't be invested in. All these things are what good management should do. I think sometimes we talk too much about being a good engineer, but we don't have enough conversation about being a good exec, trust me, like how half of all engineers are below average, and some are outright terrible, this is true of execs as well, except execs seem to get away with it for even longer normally, because there's so many people under them to pick up their slack.

sam0x17 4y ago

It's weird, I had the opposite reaction. I find myself wondering whether there is some way to fit them in my org. To each their own, I suppose.

eropple 4y ago

I'd try to hire Katelyn in an instant if I had an appropriate role. Her reputation precedes her (I knew of her from multiple social/technical circles long before I knew she was even on HN) and honesty, when you've gone out of your way to try to fix a problem and it's made you blow a proverbial tire in the process, doesn't bother me. You, on the other hand, are slagging her with personal attacks in multiple comments in this thread. I wouldn't hire you after knowing you wrote them and I don't think you'd be saying the things you are with your name on them.

teakettle42 4y ago
I made two comments, including this one, neither of which I’d call “slagging”, but I can see why you might disagree. It sounds like we wouldn’t be a good cultural fit for each other’s organizations and that’s okay. Thanks for providing an alternative viewpoint to consider.
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nnoitra 4y ago

Yeah, let's just be slaves and never say what we really think. Engineers should never succumb to corporate slavery, here are the reasons: 1) too smart 2) Can find a job elsewhere 3) Google in a resume is literally gold(for her particularly) Should there never be a competence level after which one can share what they really think. Are we really free if we can't voice unpopular opinions like hey it's a FAANG but it sucked.