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Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired? (June 2022)

114 points by devKnight 4y ago

Each of us have limits as to the things we're willing to put up with at a job. What's taking you near your threshold?

handmodel 4y ago
I more or less have a no show job. I am a programmer but for a private company whose business is entertainment. About 5 years ago I came up with something that traceably earned the owner millions. The owner/CEO loves me but I report directly to him with no other co-workers so a bit hard to "move up" I get paid 150k a year to work maybe 40 (flexible) hours a month? For the last two years I've pursued side projects (more artistic than business) but haven't reached the brake even point. I've thought about leaving many times but it always feels like best case scenario I'd maybe get a 10%ish salary bump but one that is way more demanding. I know deep down this is bad for the long term but also hard to give up such a nice lifestyle especially when I've been able to fill it with other pursuits that were fulfilling.
- 999900000999 4y ago
  How's it bad for the long term, you have a fantastic low stress job. If this really earned the company millions, maybe you could negotiate with the CEO where you start a new joint venture or something. 150k a year is not bad money, outside of fang, that's actually closer to the top of the market.
  - devKnight 4y ago
    I think the hesitation is that your skills might atrophy as well as your ability to work in non-chill environments, in case it becomes necessary to move on in the future. Company could go under, get acquired etc etc
    - itsoktocry 4y ago
      >I think the hesitation is that your skills might atrophy Sounds like OP has more opportunity than the average person to keep skills up to date on company time.
      - OJFord 4y ago
        True, but not the support of colleagues and work that puts it into practice. Reading about Foobars at Scale isn't the same as working on them at Netflix or wherever. (Even if you try to put what you read into practice and it's somehow free/cheap to deploy at massive scale and load test it, it's still not the same.)
        coastflow 4y ago
        This is reasonable, though on the flipside, the commenter could also become stuck in a role at a large corporation where either the work is repetitive, or the skills are non-transferable to other companies (i.e. the work is highly specific to internal tools not used elsewhere), with no on-the-job time to improve one’s skills. You’re right that conditions could be far better for skill improvement, though having paid free time is also a great environment (e.g. for potentially earning a graduate degree online from a reputable institution).
        OJFord 4y ago
        I agree and wouldn't turn such a position down :') - I just wanted to point it that it's not a completely rosy skill-building scenario. Depends also on what you want to be learning, and how you learn I suppose. (E.g. I think I learn best from textbooks, at least as a first step, so I might fare better than someone who learns better with instruction, or less theoretical more hands-on stuff.)
    - stanmancan 4y ago
      > as well as your ability to work in non-chill environments This is a real thing, at least for me personally. I've been self-employed for the last 4 years and have been lucky enough to live a very cushy life. I make twice as much now than any job I had in the past, but all my income is more or less passive and has nothing to do with how much I work. That being said, I know my current situation won't last won't last forever and every so often I get pretty stressed out at the idea of having to go back to a regular job. As a result I probably work 40-50 hours a week on other projects trying to find something else that will 'stick' in case my current income source disappears. It's still cushy in the sense that I get to pick and choose when I work and what I work on, but the thought of going back to a full time job, or god forbid an office, is pretty stressful.
    - itronitron 4y ago
      I was once in a similar position as handmodel, for about two years, and absolutely terrified that my skills would atrophy. But now I realize that was just fear-driven and everything cycles, or is replaced, every five to ten years. So if you can skip one of those cycles you can avoid wasting a lot of effort.
      - handmodel 4y ago
        That is sorta how I hope it gets resolved. I do think I'm a quick learner, still. My job sounds extremely impressive on paper though when it comes to nuts and bolts I feel like I have atrophied for several years.
    - handmodel 4y ago
      I do feel like my skills have atrophied. I've def taught myself some skillsets over the years - I love to learn - but mostly things that seem fun/interesting/challenging and not things that would transfer into a similar paying job.
  - handmodel 4y ago
    Thank you. This is why I have not quit but why I responded to this thread of being "fired". I feel like it would make the decision for me and be a relief and work out in the long term. Just no time in the short term has it appealed enough to me to pull the trigger. I do the occasional job searching - but not a ton. And my network feels smaller than it was when I started the job.
- rr808 4y ago
  That's a dream job. You could work remotely on a regular job and keep this one.
- siva7 4y ago
  love these first world problems. enjoy :)
- jaywalk 4y ago
  I'll take your position if you decide you want to leave.
- dtx1 4y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/
- ninjaa 4y ago
  this is epic enjoy life build cool things and study or game all day
  - handmodel 4y ago
    I have been building a lot of cool stuff the last couple years in the hardware space. I think in my mind I thought I'd been able to spin it off as a side project? But so far its the type of things I post online and amateurs find it very interesting/artistic but hard to monetize/make sustainable.
- runjake 4y ago
  Why not a paying, small-scale technical side project to keep your skills up? (This is an actual question. I really want to hear your answer, no matter what it is, as I am in a similar-ish boat.)
  - handmodel 4y ago
    I probably should. I think it has been hard for me to find one that is part-time and worthwhile. I taught myself circuit design/CAD/3d modeling over the last couple years since I've been doing some amateur product design. I feel like I've made progress but also this has consumed a lot of my spare intellectual time and although I had a few people reach out to me after seeing my amateur projects online have not made any formal progress into the business.
- 100xdang 4y ago
- PaywallBuster 4y ago
  sounds good keep using your free time to improve your skills and/or building something on the side
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I’ve had similar situations and I empathize with you. I like to “own” things and build and feel excited about what I’m involved in. Collecting money for being alive and sharing wisdom sometimes when called upon leaves me very depressed. Everyone says “what a great job! Do whatever you want!” But what I want to do isn’t a side gig, I enjoy earth changing adventures in building amazing stuff that’s really important and hasn’t been done before. I enjoy the excitement of inventing new things as I fall asleep. I don’t get that from side projects. Conversely I enjoy throwing myself into an empty pool head first and it leads to burnout and high stress levels that impact my health. So I swing between these poles in my career.
  - handmodel 4y ago
    I relate to that. I have some personal side projects that I enjoy though I worry they may not be sustainable if I start to have a family. Before this job I very much had a job I had complete ownership over and really loved it - even though it was not very well paying.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  How about getting the additional full time but potentially demanding job?
- caffeine 4y ago
  > know deep down this is bad for the long term It’s bad for your sense of self-worth, even if it’s not objectively a bad thing. One day you might ask yourself “Where would I be if I went all-in on something exciting rather than just putting 10% effort into my work for all those years?”
  - itronitron 4y ago
    That is a terrible way to live your life. If a person has interests they should pursue them, not act out of fear that one day they will be called to judgment.
- dbetteridge 4y ago
  Do some contracting on the side in an area you find interesting that would flex your tech skills? If youre only doing 40 hrs a month, finding a contract for 2 days a week or something would add workload, but ideally something you'd enjoy
  - atentaten 4y ago
    Where would one find these types of contracts?
    - dbetteridge 4y ago
      Look out on the monthly threads here and reach out asking if they're open to it. Build your network through previous jobs or events and then sometimes they reach out to you or you can reach out to them and ask. Not super helpful sorry, but they definitely exist.
  - devKnight 4y ago
    I'm also curious about how to get these kinds of contracts
- treespace8 4y ago
  It's a great problem to have. I think many of us here are in a similar position. Nice comfy jobs, well paid with no chance of promotion. I've been at mine for over a decade. I know it's going to be bad when its over, however there is also the real possibility of this position lasting until I retire. I think you may be under estimating luck. Maybe you are not underemployed, maybe you are overly lucky? If that is the case, then let it ride!
  - handmodel 4y ago
    Ultimately that's close to what I'm doing! Not jumping ship until something finds my way that is definitely better. I think I "want to be fired" because it would take some of the stress of the decision away from me. My girlfriend makes slightly more than me now - even though years ago I made about twice as her - and I admit I feel some pressure to keep up.
- honksillet 4y ago
  Keep this job.
- clcaev 4y ago
  Negotiate a percentage of profits on your next venture with the company.
rr808 4y ago
Colleague got laid off a month ago, but I'm still here. He has 3 months off over the summer before looking for work again. I haven't had a break more than 10 days since college, I'm super jealous.
- prewett 4y ago
  Companies are usually okay with people taking unpaid leave. Tell your manager "I'd like to take a 3 month unpaid sabbatical to do $fun, would July - Sep work okay?"
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    Companies are not usually ok with this. Do not ask for a 3 month sabbatical unless you are already about to quit. Plenty of companies would consider firing you on the spot.
    - lostcolony 4y ago
      Yeah; they're paying you for the work you do. Even unpaid, it still leaves this gaping hole in what they need done. They won't be able to find someone to pitch in for 3 months for any sort of skilled work, and they actually will still be on the hook for your benefits. The paid part for many companies is almost immaterial; if they'll let you have unpaid time off, they'll let you have paid time off. If they won't let you have paid time off, they won't let you have unpaid time off. Even as a manager, it's easier for me to let someone have one day off a week PTO, with a wink and a nod, than it is to formally get someone to work 80% hours. And that barely is perceptible to upper leadership.
      - rr808 4y ago
        I recall hearing another firm that did sabbaticals usually meant the employee was just getting ready to leave. People would spend a few months doing some travelling, relaxing, leetcode and interviewing - with safe fall back in case they didn't get anything.
rburhum 4y ago
Just quit. Life is too short and as you get older, money is supposed to work for you, not the other way around.
- meepmorp 4y ago
  But my family is used to living indoors and eating food every day.
  - linuxlizard 4y ago
    "What is it with you kids? Every other day it's 'Food, food, food'" -- Bender
  - MiscIdeaMaker99 4y ago
    One could get a new job _before_ they quit.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
I am comfortable with my job situation, but sometimes I day dream about being fired just so I have a good excuse to take 6mo to a year off of work.
- caffeine 4y ago
  Consider taking a longish holiday (like 3 weeks)? If at the end of it you don’t want to come back, quit. But that might be long enough to scratch the itch and feel refreshed.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    Easy to say when you're confident you can get a job that's just as good as what you have. Fact is, I am not. The ads I read these days for IT positions all look terrible.
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      "Those who trade freedom for security will loose both in the end" But dramatic quotes aside, since I have kids myself, I am leaning towards security, too. But I feel that this has indeed been blocking me a lot and I felt stagnating. The world is big and full of opportunities, but only if you go out and dare to look at them. So I do recommend at least a long holiday ;)
rschachte 4y ago
Took > a month off after being burned out by a previous corp. It did wonders for my mental health and gave me time to learn a lot of fun stuff. I already had a new job lined up, but I highly recommend saving up a bit of cash reserves to do this. During this time I also moved to a new state, signed up for sailing classes and read several technical books. Way better than sitting in useless meetings and not growing (again, if you can afford it, do it)
- joeman1000 4y ago
  Sounds cool! What did you read?
  - rschachte 4y ago
    Distributed Services in Go was incredible and hands on. I read Network programming in Go as well along with The Go Programming Language. Less technical I read Pragmatic Thinking by Andy Hunt I believe the name was, which was cool to get inspired in how to organize my thoughts as an engineer. I also read some fiction - old man and the sea.
- humourl3ss 4y ago
  I am doing the same thing, work felt pointless, just like you I was sitting in useless meetings and not growing, remote working made it worse. I got so depressed and stressed for nothing. Now I've been off for two months doing all sorts of fun coding stuff, and I feel like a new man. Too many big corps hiring developers for no reason, too many bullsh*t jobs (RIP David Graeber) that stifle our ability to enjoy life. We may get paid really well but for some reason, attending useless meetings and reacting to slack notifications and outlook pings kill my energy.
  - memonkey 4y ago
    This resonates with me. Waiting for people to message me. I have had so many issues trying to figure this one out. Zoom fatigue, slack fatigue, etc., etc. Maybe that's all it is just killing my energy.
- 4y ago
cehrlich 4y ago
Freelance clients who think that meetings don’t “count” as work and thus shouldn’t be invoiced. Obviously it’s up to me to fire these clients, but still…
- danielovichdk 4y ago
  What? Is this really happening?
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  It's not a bad idea to give free meetings and charge extra for normal hours. It also allows you to give free intro and consultations, subsidized by existing clients. Architects and lawyers (even a few doctors) frequently do this and it makes for a smooth way of onboarding new customers - I'm glad I'm not paying just for some basic info and I don't mind paying a bit more once I get the service.
  - sudobash1 4y ago
    Its one thing if those meetings are for meeting a new client or discussing a new project with an existing one, but it is another thing altogether for (eg) weekly hour+ long status meetings.
  - gwbrooks 4y ago
    ^^ This. One of the biggest ways to boost billings is to be consistently -- even relentlessly -- easy to do business with. That applies to billing and time tracking as well. Tightly scope, fix a fee against that scope and set your rate high enough that you can accommodate dumb meetings, the occasional on-site, etc. When I was consulting full-time, I never even charged for travel because that removed a potential objection from out-of-market clients. But my rate? It was at the upper end of the range.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
I used to do a lot of incident response type stuff and I just got tired of everything being on fire 200mph gogogogo all the time. It was already pretty fast-paced and then new management rolled in and decided to 2x the metrics just to do it, and I wasn't the only one with big changes on their linkedin recently. I realized that everyone and their mother is hiring and decided to scoot off. Oh, and before [the ordeal] I was doing a lot of travel consulting. If it weren't for [the ordeal] I probably would have quit a lot earlier because the work-life balance was just abysmal.
- ryanmcbride 4y ago
  Yup that's what happened to me at my last job. The stress and lack of sleep it caused me just wasn't worth it and it showed no signs of ever getting better. When I put in my notice they insisted that all these problems were going to disappear any day now but luckily I've been doing this long enough to know better.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  Same here. To this day I still don’t understand how some businesses expect devs to troubleshoot in production in the middle of the night, and fix underlying issues the morning after.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    I kinda get it, and I don’t wanna justify pointless pressuress - you are paid top percentile - there’s some expectation to work accordingly. The remaining 99% of population would do anything for such money.
    - manuelabeledo 4y ago
      One can only work 24/7 for so long, regardless of the money.
- barefeg 4y ago
  I’m curios to understand why everything was constantly on fire. Was it too many deployments bringing down stuff? Or flaky infrastructure?
incone123 4y ago
Just started a new job. Last place had people without technical or domain knowledge trying to lead a project that really needed both of those. New place seems much better. Also the new place only wants me on site when there's a specific need, not 'just because'. I hear from a former colleague that they interviewed for my replacement, offered the job to someone and he turned them down because he's not interested in being on site just because either.
danielovichdk 4y ago
I just entered a week of what is called PI planning in SAFe. What the fuck is going on in the world of software delivery. 100 people has to spend 4 days planing 3 months ahead based on headlines from the business. I have in my 22 years of professional experience never ever tried anything so shocking. Fire me. Please
- hiyer 4y ago
  At a FAANG company, my manager once made me sit in a 3 hour meeting on a Sunday to plan for projects that weren't even going to start for another 6 months. I quit soon after.
- aunlead 4y ago
  Just went through our PI planning last week. For those who have experienced it - I feel your pain!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rglullis 4y ago
  How is this different from quarterly OKR planning and KPI reporting?
- junga 4y ago
  I managed to survive three rounds of PI Planning before going nuts. Wasn't the only reason to leave that company but surely a big pain point.
- RealityVoid 4y ago
  At least enjoy the free food and drinks! SAFe is bonkers. Let me guess the field... Automotive?
  - danielovichdk 4y ago
    Green energy. Windmill software
- 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Kaze404 4y ago
Another week of releasing features and changing specs 2 hours before they're supposed to be shown to the public in a presentation.
wnolens 4y ago
I'm not sure what my boss does. He could be a deep-fake AI Zoom bot, only existing for our weekly 1:1 calls and I don't think anything would be different. Also the principal engineer on my team insists on well optimized solutions for new features when I just don't think it will matter. And it would take the same amount of time to implement later as it does now, except we'd have more understanding of the problem then.
- barefeg 4y ago
  Agree. Creating very optimized features is rarely achievable in an agile way. It will take so long before the user can see any value, and maybe they won’t like it in the end
- 1-more 4y ago
  > He could be a deep-fake AI Zoom bot, only existing for our weekly 1:1 calls and I don't think anything would be different. Sorry dude I got really into my animation side project and just wanted to see if I could pick up one of these extra wfh 9-5 salaries the WSJ keeps saying are out there. Things spiraled.
- thefourthchime 4y ago
  Sorry, that principal engineer sucks. You are correct to not pre-optimize. Just tell him to google "the first rule of optimization"
necessary 4y ago
Haven’t been able to do work all day because policy dictates that we must do all work on a VM that we RDP into. Thing is, remote computers sometimes go down, and today, all of our VMs are down. I’ve tried bringing up the issue but everyone seems to either not care/want me to fix it myself by knocking on the right doors and pushing the issue to leadership. But I don’t want to do all that, I’m a developer, and I just want my work environment to work for me, not against me. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Sigh. Should’ve got out early, but I liked the pay and flexibility. It’s not worth it though.
- cvhashim 4y ago
  My problems aren’t extreme as yours but for the last couple weeks, we’ve been having niggling, and almost nonstop environment issues. It’s hard to get anything done or commit code when things beyond my control keep breaking :(
  - necessary 4y ago
    This happens all the time. Leadership wants us to keep developing new features while ignoring the foundational issues that cause us to keep taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back. My condolences; it's a frustrating experience for sure, but we'll get through it.
kodah 4y ago
I've been, for the last two years, asking my teams business leadership to open up remote hiring and start championing higher salaries for my team mates. My team works on internal infrastructure and we build tools and capabilities that are unlike many/most teams at my company, every one of which are on the critical path. One of the baseline requirements of this team is that engineers pick up four different working languages for our products (which are software development kits, CLIs, and some backends). I have now lost all of the original engineers I joined the team with (minus one who was promoted), my team of five has shrunk to two (twice), and management has been riding "people only use us for counter offers" (which can't be true because we're several orders of magnitude under our peer groups in competitive offers - ask me how I know). I'm now trying to interview, handle incidents, develop features, and release patches with the help of one other engineer. Please, for the love of god, take me out back and fire me like Old Yeller.
- pragmatic 4y ago
  Why on earth are you still there?
  - kodah 4y ago
    I like the engineers I work with and the stuff we work on is unique, interesting, and challenging.
fmakunbound 4y ago
I complete a ticket, now I've got to spend a day writing another ticket about how it's supposed to be deployed so any regular jack off can deploy it. Then I've got to find a "champion" (aka. a middle manager) to "champion" the ticket I wrote about the ticket. Then I have to notify several Slack channels about it, wait a bit in case someone makes a stink, then finally press "deploy" in Jenkins. It's a Modern Stack™ – cookie cutter, untestable locally, horde of Golang services on Kubernetes pulling and pushing to various cloud services. Of course, it's ad-tech and for a company that seems to be the media equivalent of a Jerry Springer show.
- 1-more 4y ago
  I hated Ad tech. Wishing you the best.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwaway42614 4y ago
I am relatively high up in the eng org for a medium-sized company that has a fair amount of natural churn in our userbase. The past 2 years or so, our revenue has been declining and at first it was hand-waved away as COVID-related, but now people are starting to try to figure out why. The reason is blindingly obvious - our new user input has dropped to multi-year lows and churn has stayed constant. For some reason, people are convinced it is something else, and we've had endless meetings about it. I am constantly being asked to pull up more and more contorted reports to answer people's pet theories about what is going on, none of which make sense, but we spend forever on them. Eventually if you torture enough data, you'll find something, I guess. But it feels odd to overlook the things that are well-supported by data and make intuitive sense as well. It is like going into the ER and complaining that you feel lightheaded and when they notice your left arm has been severed and blood is spurting out, they rush to treat it, but you instead say "I had a lot of bread this morning, maybe I'm sensitive to gluten.. Can we test that first?" We do not have basic operational metrics around things like signup conversion and whenever I've tried to draw attention to those, it devolves into trying to create a dashboard with thousands of mostly useless metrics instead. The last time I tried to get everyone to focus on collecting a few operational metrics at first, I got shouted down and told we didn't want to limit anything upfront, and I have sort of checked out of those meetings ever since. No raises/bonuses this year and everyone was forced back to the office. I'm torn between being more and more worried about losing people and being worried about them being left in a tough spot here as things get worse.
- zkirill 4y ago
  Sounds like humans trying to shift the blame to data (which cannot be fired). You have my sympathies.
- devKnight 4y ago
  just get out, while you still can
zkirill 4y ago
I am a technical co-founder and I can't wait to fire and replace myself with someone who is better than me so that I can go and do [another thing over there that's on fire].
taternuts 4y ago
I was burned out on start ups and wanted to join a larger company that had more support and a work life balance. I effectively joined a start-up within a larger company and have worked insane hours trying to help push out their V1 product with one other engineer. I pushed back on the hours and subsequently have been screamed at by HR for refusing to regularly start at 6am and work 70 hour weeks - they attempted to make me quit so they wouldn't have to pay me severance (I declined - said if they weren't satisfied with me they can fire me). Now that the V1 is out things /have/ gotten better work-wise, but almost in a completely opposite way where now we have to deal with compliance and I need approval from the technical manager just to sneeze. I know upper-management doesn't like me because I was a squeaky wheel (I even championed the other engineer on the team to threaten to quit to get a raise) and it's just a weird situation. I'm definitely not getting any kind of raise from this company and they for sure don't care about my growth (or any of their employees really). I've been trying to make it at least a year (coming close) before looking elsewhere for my resume's sake but it's been hell at times and I feel like I've been at this company for 2+ years. Even with the recent slow-down in hours, I would love to get fired, take a couple months off, and deal with some personal health issues while studying for the next gig.
Mandatum 4y ago
Churn. I've had 4 managers in 6 months. I'm ready to go consulting because at this rate I never have the same colleagues for more than a few months anyway, and I'll get paid more. Just waiting for that RSU cliff, or redundancy. Whatever comes first.
mikesabbagh 4y ago
I'm working in a dysfunctional team for several months now, every one wants to solve problems his way. Waiting for my contract to finish to hit the door. Bought a farm lately where I spend my free time and money. This brings me back to sanity every week-end. Nature heals, you just need to visit her often.
bradlys 4y ago
Me. Just want a good severance package. Already been planning for it and going to hopefully get them to convert. I know what buttons to push. Just start calling management out in larger meetings. ;) Making it clear that people don’t know what they’re doing tends to really send you out on the “not a team player” track.
amatxn 4y ago
I’d quit tomorrow if my company offered a decent severance package. I’m super burned out and with attrition and hiring freezes, I’m stuck with double the workload. I wake up in the middle of the night stressing and full of anxiety about going to work. I despise going to work on Mondays due to the slog of meetings all day long. Writing software used to be fun and I’d do it after hours as a hobby. Now, I can’t stand the thought and just hope I can get 3-5 more years in the industry before I bail out for good.
- putsjoe 4y ago
  Just a small tip for Mondays. I stopped going to the gym on Mondays and essentially got rid of any miserable activities for the evening, clearing it up. I still dread Mondays, just a little less because I know after work I can just relax and cook a nice meal.
  - amatxn 4y ago
    I’ve cut out anything extra on Mondays. I’ve kept my exercise routine in the morning because it keeps me sane.
Xoke 4y ago
About four years ago I started pushing for MFA for everyone. Two years ago we finally got approved to enable it for all staff. Last year we got approval for all students. Now the CEO wants us to remove MFA because students are quitting over this (although everyone else I talk to hasn't heard a single student quit from it). I have to find legislation that requires MFA or he will ask to remove it. I'm thinking this will be the hill I die on...

114 points by devKnight 4y ago

Each of us have limits as to the things we're willing to put up with at a job. What's taking you near your threshold?

I more or less have a no show job. I am a programmer but for a private company whose business is entertainment. About 5 years ago I came up with something that traceably earned the owner millions. The owner/CEO loves me but I report directly to him with no other co-workers so a bit hard to "move up" I get paid 150k a year to work maybe 40 (flexible) hours a month? For the last two years I've pursued side projects (more artistic than business) but haven't reached the brake even point. I've thought about leaving many times but it always feels like best case scenario I'd maybe get a 10%ish salary bump but one that is way more demanding. I know deep down this is bad for the long term but also hard to give up such a nice lifestyle especially when I've been able to fill it with other pursuits that were fulfilling.

999900000999 4y ago
How's it bad for the long term, you have a fantastic low stress job. If this really earned the company millions, maybe you could negotiate with the CEO where you start a new joint venture or something. 150k a year is not bad money, outside of fang, that's actually closer to the top of the market.
- devKnight 4y ago
  I think the hesitation is that your skills might atrophy as well as your ability to work in non-chill environments, in case it becomes necessary to move on in the future. Company could go under, get acquired etc etc
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >I think the hesitation is that your skills might atrophy Sounds like OP has more opportunity than the average person to keep skills up to date on company time.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      True, but not the support of colleagues and work that puts it into practice. Reading about Foobars at Scale isn't the same as working on them at Netflix or wherever. (Even if you try to put what you read into practice and it's somehow free/cheap to deploy at massive scale and load test it, it's still not the same.)
      - coastflow 4y ago
        This is reasonable, though on the flipside, the commenter could also become stuck in a role at a large corporation where either the work is repetitive, or the skills are non-transferable to other companies (i.e. the work is highly specific to internal tools not used elsewhere), with no on-the-job time to improve one’s skills. You’re right that conditions could be far better for skill improvement, though having paid free time is also a great environment (e.g. for potentially earning a graduate degree online from a reputable institution).
        OJFord 4y ago
        I agree and wouldn't turn such a position down :') - I just wanted to point it that it's not a completely rosy skill-building scenario. Depends also on what you want to be learning, and how you learn I suppose. (E.g. I think I learn best from textbooks, at least as a first step, so I might fare better than someone who learns better with instruction, or less theoretical more hands-on stuff.)
  - stanmancan 4y ago
    > as well as your ability to work in non-chill environments This is a real thing, at least for me personally. I've been self-employed for the last 4 years and have been lucky enough to live a very cushy life. I make twice as much now than any job I had in the past, but all my income is more or less passive and has nothing to do with how much I work. That being said, I know my current situation won't last won't last forever and every so often I get pretty stressed out at the idea of having to go back to a regular job. As a result I probably work 40-50 hours a week on other projects trying to find something else that will 'stick' in case my current income source disappears. It's still cushy in the sense that I get to pick and choose when I work and what I work on, but the thought of going back to a full time job, or god forbid an office, is pretty stressful.
  - itronitron 4y ago
    I was once in a similar position as handmodel, for about two years, and absolutely terrified that my skills would atrophy. But now I realize that was just fear-driven and everything cycles, or is replaced, every five to ten years. So if you can skip one of those cycles you can avoid wasting a lot of effort.
    - handmodel 4y ago
      That is sorta how I hope it gets resolved. I do think I'm a quick learner, still. My job sounds extremely impressive on paper though when it comes to nuts and bolts I feel like I have atrophied for several years.
  - handmodel 4y ago
    I do feel like my skills have atrophied. I've def taught myself some skillsets over the years - I love to learn - but mostly things that seem fun/interesting/challenging and not things that would transfer into a similar paying job.
- handmodel 4y ago
  Thank you. This is why I have not quit but why I responded to this thread of being "fired". I feel like it would make the decision for me and be a relief and work out in the long term. Just no time in the short term has it appealed enough to me to pull the trigger. I do the occasional job searching - but not a ton. And my network feels smaller than it was when I started the job.
rr808 4y ago
That's a dream job. You could work remotely on a regular job and keep this one.
siva7 4y ago
love these first world problems. enjoy :)
jaywalk 4y ago
I'll take your position if you decide you want to leave.
dtx1 4y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/
ninjaa 4y ago
this is epic enjoy life build cool things and study or game all day
- handmodel 4y ago
  I have been building a lot of cool stuff the last couple years in the hardware space. I think in my mind I thought I'd been able to spin it off as a side project? But so far its the type of things I post online and amateurs find it very interesting/artistic but hard to monetize/make sustainable.
runjake 4y ago
Why not a paying, small-scale technical side project to keep your skills up? (This is an actual question. I really want to hear your answer, no matter what it is, as I am in a similar-ish boat.)
- handmodel 4y ago
  I probably should. I think it has been hard for me to find one that is part-time and worthwhile. I taught myself circuit design/CAD/3d modeling over the last couple years since I've been doing some amateur product design. I feel like I've made progress but also this has consumed a lot of my spare intellectual time and although I had a few people reach out to me after seeing my amateur projects online have not made any formal progress into the business.
100xdang 4y ago
PaywallBuster 4y ago
sounds good keep using your free time to improve your skills and/or building something on the side
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fnordpiglet 4y ago
I’ve had similar situations and I empathize with you. I like to “own” things and build and feel excited about what I’m involved in. Collecting money for being alive and sharing wisdom sometimes when called upon leaves me very depressed. Everyone says “what a great job! Do whatever you want!” But what I want to do isn’t a side gig, I enjoy earth changing adventures in building amazing stuff that’s really important and hasn’t been done before. I enjoy the excitement of inventing new things as I fall asleep. I don’t get that from side projects. Conversely I enjoy throwing myself into an empty pool head first and it leads to burnout and high stress levels that impact my health. So I swing between these poles in my career.
- handmodel 4y ago
  I relate to that. I have some personal side projects that I enjoy though I worry they may not be sustainable if I start to have a family. Before this job I very much had a job I had complete ownership over and really loved it - even though it was not very well paying.
yieldcrv 4y ago
How about getting the additional full time but potentially demanding job?
caffeine 4y ago
> know deep down this is bad for the long term It’s bad for your sense of self-worth, even if it’s not objectively a bad thing. One day you might ask yourself “Where would I be if I went all-in on something exciting rather than just putting 10% effort into my work for all those years?”
- itronitron 4y ago
  That is a terrible way to live your life. If a person has interests they should pursue them, not act out of fear that one day they will be called to judgment.
dbetteridge 4y ago
Do some contracting on the side in an area you find interesting that would flex your tech skills? If youre only doing 40 hrs a month, finding a contract for 2 days a week or something would add workload, but ideally something you'd enjoy
- atentaten 4y ago
  Where would one find these types of contracts?
  - dbetteridge 4y ago
    Look out on the monthly threads here and reach out asking if they're open to it. Build your network through previous jobs or events and then sometimes they reach out to you or you can reach out to them and ask. Not super helpful sorry, but they definitely exist.
- devKnight 4y ago
  I'm also curious about how to get these kinds of contracts
treespace8 4y ago
It's a great problem to have. I think many of us here are in a similar position. Nice comfy jobs, well paid with no chance of promotion. I've been at mine for over a decade. I know it's going to be bad when its over, however there is also the real possibility of this position lasting until I retire. I think you may be under estimating luck. Maybe you are not underemployed, maybe you are overly lucky? If that is the case, then let it ride!
- handmodel 4y ago
  Ultimately that's close to what I'm doing! Not jumping ship until something finds my way that is definitely better. I think I "want to be fired" because it would take some of the stress of the decision away from me. My girlfriend makes slightly more than me now - even though years ago I made about twice as her - and I admit I feel some pressure to keep up.
honksillet 4y ago
Keep this job.
clcaev 4y ago
Negotiate a percentage of profits on your next venture with the company.

rr808 4y ago

Colleague got laid off a month ago, but I'm still here. He has 3 months off over the summer before looking for work again. I haven't had a break more than 10 days since college, I'm super jealous.

prewett 4y ago
Companies are usually okay with people taking unpaid leave. Tell your manager "I'd like to take a 3 month unpaid sabbatical to do $fun, would July - Sep work okay?"
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Companies are not usually ok with this. Do not ask for a 3 month sabbatical unless you are already about to quit. Plenty of companies would consider firing you on the spot.
  - lostcolony 4y ago
    Yeah; they're paying you for the work you do. Even unpaid, it still leaves this gaping hole in what they need done. They won't be able to find someone to pitch in for 3 months for any sort of skilled work, and they actually will still be on the hook for your benefits. The paid part for many companies is almost immaterial; if they'll let you have unpaid time off, they'll let you have paid time off. If they won't let you have paid time off, they won't let you have unpaid time off. Even as a manager, it's easier for me to let someone have one day off a week PTO, with a wink and a nod, than it is to formally get someone to work 80% hours. And that barely is perceptible to upper leadership.
    - rr808 4y ago
      I recall hearing another firm that did sabbaticals usually meant the employee was just getting ready to leave. People would spend a few months doing some travelling, relaxing, leetcode and interviewing - with safe fall back in case they didn't get anything.

rburhum 4y ago

Just quit. Life is too short and as you get older, money is supposed to work for you, not the other way around.

meepmorp 4y ago
But my family is used to living indoors and eating food every day.
- linuxlizard 4y ago
  "What is it with you kids? Every other day it's 'Food, food, food'" -- Bender
- MiscIdeaMaker99 4y ago
  One could get a new job _before_ they quit.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

I am comfortable with my job situation, but sometimes I day dream about being fired just so I have a good excuse to take 6mo to a year off of work.

caffeine 4y ago
Consider taking a longish holiday (like 3 weeks)? If at the end of it you don’t want to come back, quit. But that might be long enough to scratch the itch and feel refreshed.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Easy to say when you're confident you can get a job that's just as good as what you have. Fact is, I am not. The ads I read these days for IT positions all look terrible.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "Those who trade freedom for security will loose both in the end" But dramatic quotes aside, since I have kids myself, I am leaning towards security, too. But I feel that this has indeed been blocking me a lot and I felt stagnating. The world is big and full of opportunities, but only if you go out and dare to look at them. So I do recommend at least a long holiday ;)

rschachte 4y ago

Took > a month off after being burned out by a previous corp. It did wonders for my mental health and gave me time to learn a lot of fun stuff. I already had a new job lined up, but I highly recommend saving up a bit of cash reserves to do this. During this time I also moved to a new state, signed up for sailing classes and read several technical books. Way better than sitting in useless meetings and not growing (again, if you can afford it, do it)

joeman1000 4y ago
Sounds cool! What did you read?
- rschachte 4y ago
  Distributed Services in Go was incredible and hands on. I read Network programming in Go as well along with The Go Programming Language. Less technical I read Pragmatic Thinking by Andy Hunt I believe the name was, which was cool to get inspired in how to organize my thoughts as an engineer. I also read some fiction - old man and the sea.
humourl3ss 4y ago
I am doing the same thing, work felt pointless, just like you I was sitting in useless meetings and not growing, remote working made it worse. I got so depressed and stressed for nothing. Now I've been off for two months doing all sorts of fun coding stuff, and I feel like a new man. Too many big corps hiring developers for no reason, too many bullsh*t jobs (RIP David Graeber) that stifle our ability to enjoy life. We may get paid really well but for some reason, attending useless meetings and reacting to slack notifications and outlook pings kill my energy.
- memonkey 4y ago
  This resonates with me. Waiting for people to message me. I have had so many issues trying to figure this one out. Zoom fatigue, slack fatigue, etc., etc. Maybe that's all it is just killing my energy.
4y ago

cehrlich 4y ago

Freelance clients who think that meetings don’t “count” as work and thus shouldn’t be invoiced. Obviously it’s up to me to fire these clients, but still…

danielovichdk 4y ago
What? Is this really happening?
jokethrowaway 4y ago
It's not a bad idea to give free meetings and charge extra for normal hours. It also allows you to give free intro and consultations, subsidized by existing clients. Architects and lawyers (even a few doctors) frequently do this and it makes for a smooth way of onboarding new customers - I'm glad I'm not paying just for some basic info and I don't mind paying a bit more once I get the service.
- sudobash1 4y ago
  Its one thing if those meetings are for meeting a new client or discussing a new project with an existing one, but it is another thing altogether for (eg) weekly hour+ long status meetings.
- gwbrooks 4y ago
  ^^ This. One of the biggest ways to boost billings is to be consistently -- even relentlessly -- easy to do business with. That applies to billing and time tracking as well. Tightly scope, fix a fee against that scope and set your rate high enough that you can accommodate dumb meetings, the occasional on-site, etc. When I was consulting full-time, I never even charged for travel because that removed a potential objection from out-of-market clients. But my rate? It was at the upper end of the range.

jabroni_salad 4y ago

I used to do a lot of incident response type stuff and I just got tired of everything being on fire 200mph gogogogo all the time. It was already pretty fast-paced and then new management rolled in and decided to 2x the metrics just to do it, and I wasn't the only one with big changes on their linkedin recently. I realized that everyone and their mother is hiring and decided to scoot off. Oh, and before [the ordeal] I was doing a lot of travel consulting. If it weren't for [the ordeal] I probably would have quit a lot earlier because the work-life balance was just abysmal.

ryanmcbride 4y ago
Yup that's what happened to me at my last job. The stress and lack of sleep it caused me just wasn't worth it and it showed no signs of ever getting better. When I put in my notice they insisted that all these problems were going to disappear any day now but luckily I've been doing this long enough to know better.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
Same here. To this day I still don’t understand how some businesses expect devs to troubleshoot in production in the middle of the night, and fix underlying issues the morning after.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  I kinda get it, and I don’t wanna justify pointless pressuress - you are paid top percentile - there’s some expectation to work accordingly. The remaining 99% of population would do anything for such money.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    One can only work 24/7 for so long, regardless of the money.
barefeg 4y ago
I’m curios to understand why everything was constantly on fire. Was it too many deployments bringing down stuff? Or flaky infrastructure?

incone123 4y ago

Just started a new job. Last place had people without technical or domain knowledge trying to lead a project that really needed both of those. New place seems much better. Also the new place only wants me on site when there's a specific need, not 'just because'. I hear from a former colleague that they interviewed for my replacement, offered the job to someone and he turned them down because he's not interested in being on site just because either.

danielovichdk 4y ago

I just entered a week of what is called PI planning in SAFe. What the fuck is going on in the world of software delivery. 100 people has to spend 4 days planing 3 months ahead based on headlines from the business. I have in my 22 years of professional experience never ever tried anything so shocking. Fire me. Please

hiyer 4y ago
At a FAANG company, my manager once made me sit in a 3 hour meeting on a Sunday to plan for projects that weren't even going to start for another 6 months. I quit soon after.
aunlead 4y ago
Just went through our PI planning last week. For those who have experienced it - I feel your pain!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rglullis 4y ago
How is this different from quarterly OKR planning and KPI reporting?
junga 4y ago
I managed to survive three rounds of PI Planning before going nuts. Wasn't the only reason to leave that company but surely a big pain point.
RealityVoid 4y ago
At least enjoy the free food and drinks! SAFe is bonkers. Let me guess the field... Automotive?
- danielovichdk 4y ago
  Green energy. Windmill software
4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Kaze404 4y ago

Another week of releasing features and changing specs 2 hours before they're supposed to be shown to the public in a presentation.

wnolens 4y ago

I'm not sure what my boss does. He could be a deep-fake AI Zoom bot, only existing for our weekly 1:1 calls and I don't think anything would be different. Also the principal engineer on my team insists on well optimized solutions for new features when I just don't think it will matter. And it would take the same amount of time to implement later as it does now, except we'd have more understanding of the problem then.

barefeg 4y ago
Agree. Creating very optimized features is rarely achievable in an agile way. It will take so long before the user can see any value, and maybe they won’t like it in the end
1-more 4y ago
> He could be a deep-fake AI Zoom bot, only existing for our weekly 1:1 calls and I don't think anything would be different. Sorry dude I got really into my animation side project and just wanted to see if I could pick up one of these extra wfh 9-5 salaries the WSJ keeps saying are out there. Things spiraled.
thefourthchime 4y ago
Sorry, that principal engineer sucks. You are correct to not pre-optimize. Just tell him to google "the first rule of optimization"

necessary 4y ago

Haven’t been able to do work all day because policy dictates that we must do all work on a VM that we RDP into. Thing is, remote computers sometimes go down, and today, all of our VMs are down. I’ve tried bringing up the issue but everyone seems to either not care/want me to fix it myself by knocking on the right doors and pushing the issue to leadership. But I don’t want to do all that, I’m a developer, and I just want my work environment to work for me, not against me. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Sigh. Should’ve got out early, but I liked the pay and flexibility. It’s not worth it though.

cvhashim 4y ago
My problems aren’t extreme as yours but for the last couple weeks, we’ve been having niggling, and almost nonstop environment issues. It’s hard to get anything done or commit code when things beyond my control keep breaking :(
- necessary 4y ago
  This happens all the time. Leadership wants us to keep developing new features while ignoring the foundational issues that cause us to keep taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back. My condolences; it's a frustrating experience for sure, but we'll get through it.

kodah 4y ago

I've been, for the last two years, asking my teams business leadership to open up remote hiring and start championing higher salaries for my team mates. My team works on internal infrastructure and we build tools and capabilities that are unlike many/most teams at my company, every one of which are on the critical path. One of the baseline requirements of this team is that engineers pick up four different working languages for our products (which are software development kits, CLIs, and some backends). I have now lost all of the original engineers I joined the team with (minus one who was promoted), my team of five has shrunk to two (twice), and management has been riding "people only use us for counter offers" (which can't be true because we're several orders of magnitude under our peer groups in competitive offers - ask me how I know). I'm now trying to interview, handle incidents, develop features, and release patches with the help of one other engineer. Please, for the love of god, take me out back and fire me like Old Yeller.

pragmatic 4y ago
Why on earth are you still there?
- kodah 4y ago
  I like the engineers I work with and the stuff we work on is unique, interesting, and challenging.

fmakunbound 4y ago

I complete a ticket, now I've got to spend a day writing another ticket about how it's supposed to be deployed so any regular jack off can deploy it. Then I've got to find a "champion" (aka. a middle manager) to "champion" the ticket I wrote about the ticket. Then I have to notify several Slack channels about it, wait a bit in case someone makes a stink, then finally press "deploy" in Jenkins. It's a Modern Stack™ – cookie cutter, untestable locally, horde of Golang services on Kubernetes pulling and pushing to various cloud services. Of course, it's ad-tech and for a company that seems to be the media equivalent of a Jerry Springer show.

1-more 4y ago
I hated Ad tech. Wishing you the best.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwaway42614 4y ago

I am relatively high up in the eng org for a medium-sized company that has a fair amount of natural churn in our userbase. The past 2 years or so, our revenue has been declining and at first it was hand-waved away as COVID-related, but now people are starting to try to figure out why. The reason is blindingly obvious - our new user input has dropped to multi-year lows and churn has stayed constant. For some reason, people are convinced it is something else, and we've had endless meetings about it. I am constantly being asked to pull up more and more contorted reports to answer people's pet theories about what is going on, none of which make sense, but we spend forever on them. Eventually if you torture enough data, you'll find something, I guess. But it feels odd to overlook the things that are well-supported by data and make intuitive sense as well. It is like going into the ER and complaining that you feel lightheaded and when they notice your left arm has been severed and blood is spurting out, they rush to treat it, but you instead say "I had a lot of bread this morning, maybe I'm sensitive to gluten.. Can we test that first?" We do not have basic operational metrics around things like signup conversion and whenever I've tried to draw attention to those, it devolves into trying to create a dashboard with thousands of mostly useless metrics instead. The last time I tried to get everyone to focus on collecting a few operational metrics at first, I got shouted down and told we didn't want to limit anything upfront, and I have sort of checked out of those meetings ever since. No raises/bonuses this year and everyone was forced back to the office. I'm torn between being more and more worried about losing people and being worried about them being left in a tough spot here as things get worse.

zkirill 4y ago
Sounds like humans trying to shift the blame to data (which cannot be fired). You have my sympathies.
devKnight 4y ago
just get out, while you still can

zkirill 4y ago

I am a technical co-founder and I can't wait to fire and replace myself with someone who is better than me so that I can go and do [another thing over there that's on fire].

taternuts 4y ago

I was burned out on start ups and wanted to join a larger company that had more support and a work life balance. I effectively joined a start-up within a larger company and have worked insane hours trying to help push out their V1 product with one other engineer. I pushed back on the hours and subsequently have been screamed at by HR for refusing to regularly start at 6am and work 70 hour weeks - they attempted to make me quit so they wouldn't have to pay me severance (I declined - said if they weren't satisfied with me they can fire me). Now that the V1 is out things /have/ gotten better work-wise, but almost in a completely opposite way where now we have to deal with compliance and I need approval from the technical manager just to sneeze. I know upper-management doesn't like me because I was a squeaky wheel (I even championed the other engineer on the team to threaten to quit to get a raise) and it's just a weird situation. I'm definitely not getting any kind of raise from this company and they for sure don't care about my growth (or any of their employees really). I've been trying to make it at least a year (coming close) before looking elsewhere for my resume's sake but it's been hell at times and I feel like I've been at this company for 2+ years. Even with the recent slow-down in hours, I would love to get fired, take a couple months off, and deal with some personal health issues while studying for the next gig.

Mandatum 4y ago

Churn. I've had 4 managers in 6 months. I'm ready to go consulting because at this rate I never have the same colleagues for more than a few months anyway, and I'll get paid more. Just waiting for that RSU cliff, or redundancy. Whatever comes first.

mikesabbagh 4y ago

I'm working in a dysfunctional team for several months now, every one wants to solve problems his way. Waiting for my contract to finish to hit the door. Bought a farm lately where I spend my free time and money. This brings me back to sanity every week-end. Nature heals, you just need to visit her often.

bradlys 4y ago

Me. Just want a good severance package. Already been planning for it and going to hopefully get them to convert. I know what buttons to push. Just start calling management out in larger meetings. ;) Making it clear that people don’t know what they’re doing tends to really send you out on the “not a team player” track.

amatxn 4y ago

I’d quit tomorrow if my company offered a decent severance package. I’m super burned out and with attrition and hiring freezes, I’m stuck with double the workload. I wake up in the middle of the night stressing and full of anxiety about going to work. I despise going to work on Mondays due to the slog of meetings all day long. Writing software used to be fun and I’d do it after hours as a hobby. Now, I can’t stand the thought and just hope I can get 3-5 more years in the industry before I bail out for good.

putsjoe 4y ago
Just a small tip for Mondays. I stopped going to the gym on Mondays and essentially got rid of any miserable activities for the evening, clearing it up. I still dread Mondays, just a little less because I know after work I can just relax and cook a nice meal.
- amatxn 4y ago
  I’ve cut out anything extra on Mondays. I’ve kept my exercise routine in the morning because it keeps me sane.

Xoke 4y ago

About four years ago I started pushing for MFA for everyone. Two years ago we finally got approved to enable it for all staff. Last year we got approval for all students. Now the CEO wants us to remove MFA because students are quitting over this (although everyone else I talk to hasn't heard a single student quit from it). I have to find legislation that requires MFA or he will ask to remove it. I'm thinking this will be the hill I die on...