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Ask HN: What questions do you _wish_ you could ask your co-workers?

13 points by gvr 15y ago

Things you just keep to yourself, maybe because you don't want to come across as whiney, confrontational, demoralizing or for some other reason.

gvr 15y ago
Here are some: Am I the only that... 1. is tired of the semi-mandatory Friday afternoon karaoke sessions? If I hear One More Time one more time it’s not going to end well. If you saw Falling Down you know what I mean… 2. thinks there’s no way this product is going to ship on time even if Linus Thorvalds himself descended from the heavens on a white horse to join the dev team? 3. would like the CEO to share more information? I feel like I’m running around blindfolded. 4. is stressed out by the CEO sharing too much information. Sometimes the truth hurts. 5. That thinks we should work harder and more focused? Sometimes this office feels like a f-n day care center! What are we, a bunch of 6-year olds? I wanna change the world. 6. That feels our product decisions are too data-driven? I thought I joined a group of human beings when I took this job, not a bunch of nodes in a datacenter. 7. That feels our product decisions are too gut-driven? It’s like we’re in Las Vegas on the wrong side of the table… “This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.” (I collected a few more at http://blog.otelic.com/?p=198 http://blog.otelic.com/?p=198, but no need to visit that page - I'm just wondering what people out there are curious about)
- russell 15y ago
  2. I remember being at a release meeting for a quarterly software update for a mainframe manufacturer. As they went around the room everyone declared their projects were ready. Until they got to me. I said our test suite was way behind schedule. (It was our first release.) Then they went around the room again and it seemed that everyone else was behind also. We actually did make the original schedule, but no one else did. (I make no claim that it always worked out that way. :-)
  - gvr 15y ago
    The truth tends to have interesting domino effects :)
bartonfink 15y ago
* Why don't we invest more energy into preventing fires and less into fighting them? * How many times must I recommend approach A only to be told to try approach B, and then when approach B doesn't work be told to implement A? * When is our CTO going to step out of the "first developer" role and into something approximating technical leadership?
- deleted 15y ago
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- Mz 15y ago
  Why don't we invest more energy into preventing fires and less into fighting them? I would upvote this 500 times if I could. I was a homemaker and homeschooling mom for many years, so I had enormous power to say "Okay, I'm done with this stupidity. How do we fix it once and for all?" and then making it happen. Thus I have a rather low threshold of tolerance for the slow bureaucratic process at work. I am currently on a pilot team that handles complaint files and I have tried to actively advocate for more fire prevention, less fire fighting. I think we are getting some good things done but I still feel there is too little emphasis on fire-prevention activities. Sorry for, oops, deleting my earlier version of this post a hair before your reply showed up.
  - bartonfink 15y ago
    No worries. My reply was basically to say that I know what to say to make my case, but I don't know how to make the CTO listen. This is his first CTO position, and up until August he was the only developer, so a lot of bad practices we have (e.g. no process whatsoever) are holdovers from the way he worked for a year and change. The obvious problem is that working alone dodges an awful lot of problems that arise when you have to work together. Now, we're running into these problems but the CTO isn't dealing with them - he just disengages whenever they get brought up and says something like "You're right, that's important, but first let's work on ...". Quite frustrating. And again, no worries on the delete.
hkmurakami 15y ago
* Sales guys - Does every request have to be called "urgent"? Have you ever had a non-urgent request? * Why do things seem to pop up at the last minute, giving us nowhere near enough lead time?
steve8918 15y ago
1) How much do you make 2) How many stock options did you get 3) What was your bonus last year 4) Why the #&@#$ is <fill-in-the-blank> paid more than us???
- logn 15y ago
  glassdoor.com helps for this but not for startups
wayathrow 15y ago
Are all you guys as fucking bored and burned out as I am since the acquisition? Counting the long days until we're vested?
tunaslut 15y ago
why the hell did you create soooo many layers of abstraction and obfuscation for such a simple CRUD requirement? seriously. WHY?

13 points by gvr 15y ago

Things you just keep to yourself, maybe because you don't want to come across as whiney, confrontational, demoralizing or for some other reason.

gvr 15y ago

Here are some: Am I the only that... 1. is tired of the semi-mandatory Friday afternoon karaoke sessions? If I hear One More Time one more time it’s not going to end well. If you saw Falling Down you know what I mean… 2. thinks there’s no way this product is going to ship on time even if Linus Thorvalds himself descended from the heavens on a white horse to join the dev team? 3. would like the CEO to share more information? I feel like I’m running around blindfolded. 4. is stressed out by the CEO sharing too much information. Sometimes the truth hurts. 5. That thinks we should work harder and more focused? Sometimes this office feels like a f-n day care center! What are we, a bunch of 6-year olds? I wanna change the world. 6. That feels our product decisions are too data-driven? I thought I joined a group of human beings when I took this job, not a bunch of nodes in a datacenter. 7. That feels our product decisions are too gut-driven? It’s like we’re in Las Vegas on the wrong side of the table… “This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.” (I collected a few more at http://blog.otelic.com/?p=198 http://blog.otelic.com/?p=198, but no need to visit that page - I'm just wondering what people out there are curious about)

russell 15y ago
2. I remember being at a release meeting for a quarterly software update for a mainframe manufacturer. As they went around the room everyone declared their projects were ready. Until they got to me. I said our test suite was way behind schedule. (It was our first release.) Then they went around the room again and it seemed that everyone else was behind also. We actually did make the original schedule, but no one else did. (I make no claim that it always worked out that way. :-)
- gvr 15y ago
  The truth tends to have interesting domino effects :)

bartonfink 15y ago

* Why don't we invest more energy into preventing fires and less into fighting them? * How many times must I recommend approach A only to be told to try approach B, and then when approach B doesn't work be told to implement A? * When is our CTO going to step out of the "first developer" role and into something approximating technical leadership?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
Mz 15y ago
Why don't we invest more energy into preventing fires and less into fighting them? I would upvote this 500 times if I could. I was a homemaker and homeschooling mom for many years, so I had enormous power to say "Okay, I'm done with this stupidity. How do we fix it once and for all?" and then making it happen. Thus I have a rather low threshold of tolerance for the slow bureaucratic process at work. I am currently on a pilot team that handles complaint files and I have tried to actively advocate for more fire prevention, less fire fighting. I think we are getting some good things done but I still feel there is too little emphasis on fire-prevention activities. Sorry for, oops, deleting my earlier version of this post a hair before your reply showed up.
- bartonfink 15y ago
  No worries. My reply was basically to say that I know what to say to make my case, but I don't know how to make the CTO listen. This is his first CTO position, and up until August he was the only developer, so a lot of bad practices we have (e.g. no process whatsoever) are holdovers from the way he worked for a year and change. The obvious problem is that working alone dodges an awful lot of problems that arise when you have to work together. Now, we're running into these problems but the CTO isn't dealing with them - he just disengages whenever they get brought up and says something like "You're right, that's important, but first let's work on ...". Quite frustrating. And again, no worries on the delete.

hkmurakami 15y ago

* Sales guys - Does every request have to be called "urgent"? Have you ever had a non-urgent request? * Why do things seem to pop up at the last minute, giving us nowhere near enough lead time?

steve8918 15y ago

1) How much do you make 2) How many stock options did you get 3) What was your bonus last year 4) Why the #&@#$ is <fill-in-the-blank> paid more than us???

logn 15y ago
glassdoor.com helps for this but not for startups

wayathrow 15y ago

Are all you guys as fucking bored and burned out as I am since the acquisition? Counting the long days until we're vested?

tunaslut 15y ago

why the hell did you create soooo many layers of abstraction and obfuscation for such a simple CRUD requirement? seriously. WHY?