11 ms·

I had a situation once where we had a minor re-org and I ended up with a new manager. Literally day one, he made an attempt to change everyone's role. We were a

I had a situation once where we had a minor re-org and I ended up with a new manager. Literally day one, he made an attempt to change everyone's role. We were a team of developers and business analysts. He decided that everyone would become both and spend 50% of their time on each activity. Not sure why he thought this was a good idea, but he did. After he announced it, I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know that he was the boss and I'd do my best to accomplish anything he assigned me. I also let him know that the business analyst duties didn't fit well with my skillset and that I would very likely struggle to produce output. We had a good, honest conversation about the situation and I ended up staying 100% as a developer. In the end he was happy and I was happy. Why am I telling you? It's that I've learned it better to communicate and hopefully work things out then just pack up and head to another place.

buscoquadnary 4y ago
This right here. I realized long ago I should do whatever I can to the best of my ability. If my superiors want to do something stupid or use my skillet in a suboptimal way my responsibility is to do my best to council with them, share what I see and then do the best job I can at whatever I am assigned to, assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. My job is not my Identity we have an economic arrangement I do what I am asked to do, I do the best I can, not because my employer is fantastic but because I am mature enough to recognize that my work ethic is about me and not my employer, and then collect my pay check. If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine.
- nimblegorilla 4y ago
  I sort of agree. Jobs usually have aspects that seem unrewarding. But if you spend most of your time cleaning break rooms then it doesn't let you grow the type of skills needed to land a SWE salary at the next place.
  - buscoquadnary 4y ago
    I can and do practice those things in my own time. I love my craft I love to excel at it. I have a period of time coming up where I will not work for several weeks (still paid though), during this time I am planning on working through The Art of Computer Programming and learning mobile development. The responsibility for me to keep my skills sharp is upon me not my employer.
    - agentultra 4y ago
      As someone who collects and follows and works through AoCP, one does not simply, "work through the Art of Computer Programming," in a few weeks. That's something that comes through piecemeal. Many of the exercises are great but require work to really understand. It's not a series of books one reads cover to cover.
      - buscoquadnary 4y ago
        Thanks for the advice. I figured it would be something like that but thought this is probably the best chance I have to take a stab at it.
      - nowherebeen 4y ago
        I think yes and no. After working for 7 years+, you will hit a plateau. To break through, you will need to study on your own free time. That's because most individual work doesn't get harder after a certain level. It is the scale of it that makes the work difficult.
        capitalsigma 4y ago
        Not disagreeing that self study is valuable, but it's unclear to me how writing a bitonic sorting network in a bespoke assembler is going to get me promoted to staff
        agentultra 4y ago
- blululu 4y ago
  You know who is going to be the first one fired and the last one promoted? The SWE who is being asked to do some bogus tasks that aren't even close to what they are capable of. In many cases you are in one way or another obligated to act as you suggest, but it is not always good for you personally and simply pretending that you aren't getting screwed is pretty naive. You often don't really have much of a choice in these matters, aside from closing up shop and leaving. You can try to work it out with your boss and if that works great. Then again bosses who don't know how to use their people kind of suck to begin with as a rule, so it would be wishful thinking to expect that they will simply come around.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    The key distinction is between things that anyone could do (and you are asked to do them because you are the least productive) and things that nobody knows how to do (and you are asked to do them because you are the most capable to figure it out).
  - bornfreddy 4y ago
    Life if too short to work for a bad boss.
  - shubb 4y ago
    The example given is fridge cleaning, but tasks outside your narrow job spec can be very useful. For instance, if you are hired as a software tester, and snag a task setting up the automated build system, you can turn that into a higher paid dev ops careeer. Some people thrive in highly structured environments where they can optimize for metrics and get promotions - they do well in big companies. Others collect skills and achievements and use those to push their career forward - they do well in small companies and consulting. The world needs both. With that said, knowing when to say no is very important as you say.
  - topkai22 4y ago
    I have a good friend who runs a smallish (100 person) company with about 30-40 (mechanical) engineers. One of their long-term custodians got ill for a long spell and so engineers were asked to take out their own trash. Some people just refused to do so, to the point it got smelly and affected the org. One of the execs got fed up and took all the smelly trash out herself one night and then started going around and individually directing the engineers in person to take out their trash when she thought it was too full. For the people who didn't take out the trash, it was considered in annual reviews. Be thoughtful in what you evaluate as a "bogus" task. What is hard or complex isn't always what is important or noticed.
- SkyBelow 4y ago
  This works if you are at the end of your career, but otherwise one should look at building their career in case something happens to their current job.
- fileeditview 4y ago
  I don't know how this works in the US but here in Germany your work contract roughly specifies what you do for work.. so for a software engineer it would be developing software and similar tasks. Cleaning break room fridges would not be an acceptable task. You sure could say yes and comply if you like cleaning fridges but usually people would probably just say no thanks. If you just exaggerated to make a point I agree with you partially. But you always have to consider your personal growth and satisfaction with your work.
  - JackFr 4y ago
    I did have a job at a very small defense contractor, where I was 99% a software engineer, but when we had to move the safe (happened twice) as the largest man in the firm and still reasonably fit in my 20's -- I also had to do that.
  - danaris 4y ago
    Unfortunately, all too often in the US, there is no contract. You apply based on a job description that can be changed at any time by the employer, and has no legal force in any case.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I took it as an exaggeration to make a point. They're unlikely to ask you to do that--or to pay you for doing so. But within the broad confines of developer, or product manager, or technical marketer, the is a wide range of roles and responsibilities. If you've been working on a mainframe and your employer decides to retire it but is happy to put you on some front-end web stuff which you've never touched, that's probably going to be a tough adjustment that may not end well.
    - jcadam 4y ago
      > If you've been working on a mainframe and your employer decides to retire it but is happy to put you on some front-end web stuff which you've never touched, that's probably going to be a tough adjustment that may not end well. Sure nice of them to give you that chance rather than just laying you off though. Would be even nicer if they spent a little money to train you on the front-end web stuff. Employers used to do that sort of the thing all the time - retrain known good workers rather than just fire them and hire new (unknown) ones.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jtwebman 4y ago
  This statement is what the older generation and companies want you to think. It doesn't have to be that way and companies and management need to change or people will leave for companies and management that think differently and want you to feel successful.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Some of my experiences align with that. You want me to spend time doing relatively useless things. I can. I am paid regardless. I am just not sure it is a good management or resources. I do my best to communicate openly with my immediate superior about the reality on the ground, but if my advice is summarily dismissed, at certain point I just check out.
  - RobRivera 4y ago
    a superior alternative to checking out is to work on things you deem both interesting and under the auspice of personal development and skills currency
- mindcrime 4y ago
  If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine. I mean... I can buy this to a point. But for me personally, there are lines. And there are things I'm just not going to do. Period. I know it's un-trendy to talk about anything being "beneath you", and I'm not sure that's the wording I would use, but there are simply things that I don't consider being in my wheelhouse and that if you ask me to do, I'm going to say "no". Then you can decide if you want to fire me or not. Case in point: I used to be a parts counter clerk at Advance Auto Parts. We got a new manager and one day he comes in and asks me to go outside and sweep the parking lot. I said "no" and he tells me to do it or I'm fired. So I rip off my Advance Auto Parts shirt, throw it in his face, say "fuck you" and walk out. 30+ years later I feel absolutely no regret about that. I didn't apologize then and I won't now. There's more to my life than a job and I can find another way to pay the bills. I don't have to take their bullshit.
  - malfist 4y ago
    You sure showed them! I bet that advance auto manager thought real hard about asking anybody else to....sweep. I'm glad you realized your hands were too important to be callused by a broom
    - peteradio 4y ago
      Quite snarky, heres my story. Worked at a big box home improvement store as a 15 year old kid on checkout. Someone literally shit diarrhea all over the floor, the store manager asked literally everyone in the store to clean it up including me, everyone refused, he ended up cleaning it himself. Some things are not part of the job!!!
      - malfist 4y ago
        There's a difference between being asked to clean up potential biohazards and being asked to push a broom for a few minutes and up and ripping your shirt off and quitting over it.
      - II2II 4y ago
- wonder_er 4y ago
  I've done a lot of service jobs, and commercial construction jobs, and have a deep appreciation for a clean and well-organized space. I love to sweep. If I could get paid as a SWE to just speak and "garden" our office, to make it a more pleasent environment, conducive to peaceful thought and pleasent interactions, I'd take that job in a heartbeat. Christopher Alexander is a bit of a god-father of object-oriented programming, and architecture: https://dorian.substack.com/p/at-any-given-moment-in-a-process https://dorian.substack.com/p/at-any-given-moment-in-a-proce... He believes that all work on something new starts with "repairing" the environment in which that new thing is being created. (The codebase, the room, the block). The first step of repair is to tidy and clean. Sooooo I can weave a compelling story to others about why cleaning and tidying is in fact _very_ reasonable to do, and some could argue it's some of the more important work someone could do.
- hacksoi 4y ago
  Your job should be your identity. You do it 8 hours a day. Your growth is extremely important. Ideally your job aligns with your values. If you haven't found this job yet you should keep searching. Do not complicate this with "economic arrangements" - you're just afraid.
  - chasd00 4y ago
    > Your job should be your identity if your job is your identity then be sure and put away some savings for therapy. The moment something happens to your job outside your control like getting laid off, company going under, workplace harassment, even nasty office politics then a mental crisis will soon follow.
    - hacksoi 4y ago
      Typical worst case scenario thinking that prevents you from even trying.
      - FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
        Compromise: Your vocation can be your identity (and you may not have found exactly what it is yet). Though if your particular workplace situation gets bad, you may want to detach from that one job, or find ways in which the imperfect job/situation can further the larger mission.
  - j0hnyl 4y ago
    This is such awful advice. Some folks are lucky to have the job/identity thing going on, but for everyone else it's a means to an end, and that's fine.
- earnestresponse 4y ago
  I can appreciate this, I think to some degree (especially in a physical office) there is a degree of community required, and as long as there is a general acceptance that this kind of "other stuff" is either minimal or accepted in lieu of your "regular" work (as opposed to in addition to), I think it's OK. My main concern, honestly, is not so much that the work is "beneath me" but more that I get pidgonholed doing that work. I know this isn't realistic, but I don't want come review time for people to say "it's great you do this stuff around the office/for the team/for the org" but it doesn't affect your metrics. In some cases, I think the fear is being asked to do these things in a non-documented way means you have no evidence that you had these "extra-curricular" things you had to complete. I'm fortunate I haven't had that happen to me, but it's a fear I always have at the back of my head whenever these sort of requests happen.
- braingenious 4y ago
  >My job is not my Identity we have an economic arrangement I do what I am asked to do …within the predefined framework of “roles” >If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine. Your wording here is kind of vague. Are you saying that you would acquiesce to anything a boss requests? What if it’s not the breakroom but a public bathroom? What if instead of cleaning it’s foot rubs? Would you taste test exotic foods for your boss? Babysit their kids? If the answer to any of these is even remotely close to “yes”, then to you there is no such thing as a software engineer or a software engineer’s salary. There would only be only servants and sovereigns, and servants’ wages.
  - buscoquadnary 4y ago
    You omitted an important qualifier. > assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. If someone asks me to clean the bathroom, sure I do it at home, much more rewarding to make $50 an hour, and probably less gross than the bathroom where a toddler is potty training. As for the rest of those items although they may not explicitly fall under legal violations by US federal law, given the relationship between myself and my boss they probably cross policy lines and could be excluded under illegal. Except for taste testing food I'd do that one for sure. But your framing this as a ruler and subject relationship is off the mark because every thing you listed has people that get paid to do exactly those things, that doesn't make them all serfs to a lordly managerial class. It seems you have concocted the most absurd extreme interpretation of my words and then used that to refute my argument. Ultimately I am willing to do pretty much whatever I am asked to as long as it is legal and moral, included in moral is my dignity as a human being. Ultimately I feel that trying to frame every interaction with an employer as adversarial and feeling that everything is workers vs managers is immature and reductionist. At the end of the day Initech or Introde or whatever as a company doesn't really exist it is a legal fiction we use in society. What does exist is my boss my coworkers my customers. I want to treat them well and with respect and make life easier for them not because they deserve it, or because I think I will get ahead. I do it because I want to be a good person and good people treat others well even regardless of who they are. It doesn't mean I need to be a door mat or allow myself to be exploited, but it means as an employee I try to behave like I would want my employees to behave if I were a manager, and if sometimes that means they ask me to do something for them that isn't inside of my regular job description I'll try and do that because I dont bave to come in and see Mr. Introde every day, I come in and see Dan my boss, or Carl the director and those are people. Most everyone you meet is another person just trying to get by in the world and most people can really use someone cutting them some slack once in a while.
- zemvpferreira 4y ago
  I'm not above doing any work that's morally ok but salary is only part my compensation for a job. I'm also paid in skill growth and career opportunities. I'm not going to get better by cleaning fridges, so asking me to do chores all the time is short-changing me even if the money is good (for this point in my career). If I were employed at a place that did not let me work on high-impact high-visibility roles, I'd move to somewhere that did as soon as possible. (Unless I was already where I wanted to get in my career)
feet 4y ago
How did the rest of the department fare? Were you the only one who avoided going hybrid?
- mattw2121 4y ago
  There was a half-hearted effort for everyone to go hybrid. After a few months everyone naturally fell back into the individual roles we had before the edict was issued. There was a lot of struggling before this silent return to original duties happened. No one really ever acknowledged the bad course we were on, just went back to the way things worked. One developer actually found that he liked the business analyst work better and continued on that path.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> I've learned it better to communicate Good advice for almost any situation.
duxup 4y ago
So many developer stories out there where it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss.
- mooreds 4y ago
  > it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss. Sure, but why? Why wouldn't you have a direct, honest conversation with your manager? I'll tell you why. Because it can be terrifying. You don't know how they will react, whether you'll be forced off interesting projects, put at the top of the layoff list, or similar. You can watch how they handle other situations and get an inkling, but you don't know. Good bosses won't react like that and there are many good bosses out there who want you to grow and will work with you to achieve your goals. But there are plenty of bad bosses too. From this perspective, it's a lot easier to just pack it in, write off the boss and company, and find a new job. It's less satisfying, to be sure, but less terrifying. It's taken me a long time to realize how important it is to have a boss you can have a direct conversation with. It's also a factor of my experience and knowledge of my self-worth too. If I were a new developer in my first job, it'd be a lot harder to have a tough conversation with my boss, because my alternatives would be fewer.
  - duxup 4y ago
    Maybe "communicating with your boss" is a skill folks need to be taught. Uncomfortable, scary, yup, but necessary.
    - wccrawford 4y ago
      Yup, and IMO definitely less scary than finding and starting an entirely new job.
    - mooreds 4y ago
      Would love to read an article on this! Do you have any reading to recommend?
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
treyfitty 4y ago
Communication is a 2-way street. From experience, this approach doesn't work if your manager is dogmatic/egotistical and unwilling to hear you.
- codegeek 4y ago
  You wouldn't know until you talk to them at least once. Don't assume anything.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
beebmam 4y ago
> Why am I telling you? It's that I've learned it better to communicate and hopefully work things out then just pack up and head to another place. How do you know it was better, in this circumstance, if you don't know what the outcome of packing up would have been? It's impossible to know all the consequences of our actions.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  because they didn't want to switch careers part-time into something far outside their original job description. that sounds borderline illegal as constructive dismissal anyway (ie that job you took? we're cutting the hours on that to half, good luck seeing as much career growth opportunity as you had expected when signing the contract)
- SteveNuts 4y ago
  Because if they were anything like me, and the boss unilaterally decided I'm going down a different career path, they would have eventually quit.
- kroltan 4y ago
  I think the implication here is that he otherwise liked the position. Sure, you can always hike and try something new, but if you like what you were doing before, communicating helps. Don't assume that a change is immediately Unwaivering Word Of God.
ajkjk 4y ago
> I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know that he was the boss and I'd do my best to accomplish anything he assigned me. Never understood this attitude. I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. He can ask around for other opinions so it's not just coming from me but it's a hard line. Of course this mostly works cause as a developer you don't need to be afraid of finding another job. But that's good. Workers having leverage over bosses is good.
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  > I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. The reason not to do this is that you're very likely to provoke a defensive response and have the other person dig in their heels. A gentler approach is more likely to get results, less likely to create tension in the relationship, and sets the tone of future decision making as adversarial. If that doesn't work you can try firmer approaches, and you can of course always quit or use the threat of quitting, but 99 times out of 100 leading with that will lead to worse outcomes. You don't give up any leverage by first trying to resolve conflicts without threats.
  - ajkjk 4y ago
    Well the magnitude of your response should be calibrated to the magnitude of the grievance. A new boss coming in and changing everything in a way nobody signed up for or is on board with is very egregious, and I _will_ quit if they don't back down, so I'm going to tell them that. It's a statement of fact. If they don't stop, and I quit, and I didn't say that ahead of time, then I haven't communicated what I meant to.
    - datavirtue 4y ago
      I find it much more satisfying to smile and nod and then leave unexpectedly without notice.
      - 4y ago
akudha 4y ago
Glad it worked for you, but in my experience, this doesn't always work. Making everyone a developer and a business analyst is a super stupid idea. This is not something subtle like rotating people to work on different parts of the same codebase. What is even more stupid is that it looks like he decided it unilaterally (based on your comment). Why should anyone work for a person like this? If a boss decides to make huge changes like this unilaterally without at least talking to the team, why does he deserve a polite conversation from his team?
- 121789 4y ago
  I don't know, there's lots of room for nuance. Maybe the boss asked around and half the team said they felt silo'd and one dimensional, and they wanted a bit more of a "smart person on the team whose core contribution is development" rather than "developer who just takes tickets and builds" mindset. Maybe the edict was a bit more like a proposal. It seems like the manager was willing to be flexible and change his proposal, so I won't necessarily assume bad intent
AlwaysRock 4y ago
> After a year of trying, coaching, assuming I’m the problem, talking to my skip level, hard convos with my boss, and much more etc Seems like OP did all these things.
kqr 4y ago
I think someone on HN suggested "change your employer" with the dual meaning intended. First try to get the necessary changes through without swapping in a completely different employer. If that's not possible, look for a new job.

buscoquadnary 4y ago

This right here. I realized long ago I should do whatever I can to the best of my ability. If my superiors want to do something stupid or use my skillet in a suboptimal way my responsibility is to do my best to council with them, share what I see and then do the best job I can at whatever I am assigned to, assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. My job is not my Identity we have an economic arrangement I do what I am asked to do, I do the best I can, not because my employer is fantastic but because I am mature enough to recognize that my work ethic is about me and not my employer, and then collect my pay check. If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine.

nimblegorilla 4y ago
I sort of agree. Jobs usually have aspects that seem unrewarding. But if you spend most of your time cleaning break rooms then it doesn't let you grow the type of skills needed to land a SWE salary at the next place.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  I can and do practice those things in my own time. I love my craft I love to excel at it. I have a period of time coming up where I will not work for several weeks (still paid though), during this time I am planning on working through The Art of Computer Programming and learning mobile development. The responsibility for me to keep my skills sharp is upon me not my employer.
  - agentultra 4y ago
    As someone who collects and follows and works through AoCP, one does not simply, "work through the Art of Computer Programming," in a few weeks. That's something that comes through piecemeal. Many of the exercises are great but require work to really understand. It's not a series of books one reads cover to cover.
    - buscoquadnary 4y ago
      Thanks for the advice. I figured it would be something like that but thought this is probably the best chance I have to take a stab at it.
    - nowherebeen 4y ago
      I think yes and no. After working for 7 years+, you will hit a plateau. To break through, you will need to study on your own free time. That's because most individual work doesn't get harder after a certain level. It is the scale of it that makes the work difficult.
      - capitalsigma 4y ago
        Not disagreeing that self study is valuable, but it's unclear to me how writing a bitonic sorting network in a bespoke assembler is going to get me promoted to staff
        agentultra 4y ago
blululu 4y ago
You know who is going to be the first one fired and the last one promoted? The SWE who is being asked to do some bogus tasks that aren't even close to what they are capable of. In many cases you are in one way or another obligated to act as you suggest, but it is not always good for you personally and simply pretending that you aren't getting screwed is pretty naive. You often don't really have much of a choice in these matters, aside from closing up shop and leaving. You can try to work it out with your boss and if that works great. Then again bosses who don't know how to use their people kind of suck to begin with as a rule, so it would be wishful thinking to expect that they will simply come around.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  The key distinction is between things that anyone could do (and you are asked to do them because you are the least productive) and things that nobody knows how to do (and you are asked to do them because you are the most capable to figure it out).
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  Life if too short to work for a bad boss.
- shubb 4y ago
  The example given is fridge cleaning, but tasks outside your narrow job spec can be very useful. For instance, if you are hired as a software tester, and snag a task setting up the automated build system, you can turn that into a higher paid dev ops careeer. Some people thrive in highly structured environments where they can optimize for metrics and get promotions - they do well in big companies. Others collect skills and achievements and use those to push their career forward - they do well in small companies and consulting. The world needs both. With that said, knowing when to say no is very important as you say.
- topkai22 4y ago
  I have a good friend who runs a smallish (100 person) company with about 30-40 (mechanical) engineers. One of their long-term custodians got ill for a long spell and so engineers were asked to take out their own trash. Some people just refused to do so, to the point it got smelly and affected the org. One of the execs got fed up and took all the smelly trash out herself one night and then started going around and individually directing the engineers in person to take out their trash when she thought it was too full. For the people who didn't take out the trash, it was considered in annual reviews. Be thoughtful in what you evaluate as a "bogus" task. What is hard or complex isn't always what is important or noticed.
SkyBelow 4y ago
This works if you are at the end of your career, but otherwise one should look at building their career in case something happens to their current job.
fileeditview 4y ago
I don't know how this works in the US but here in Germany your work contract roughly specifies what you do for work.. so for a software engineer it would be developing software and similar tasks. Cleaning break room fridges would not be an acceptable task. You sure could say yes and comply if you like cleaning fridges but usually people would probably just say no thanks. If you just exaggerated to make a point I agree with you partially. But you always have to consider your personal growth and satisfaction with your work.
- JackFr 4y ago
  I did have a job at a very small defense contractor, where I was 99% a software engineer, but when we had to move the safe (happened twice) as the largest man in the firm and still reasonably fit in my 20's -- I also had to do that.
- danaris 4y ago
  Unfortunately, all too often in the US, there is no contract. You apply based on a job description that can be changed at any time by the employer, and has no legal force in any case.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I took it as an exaggeration to make a point. They're unlikely to ask you to do that--or to pay you for doing so. But within the broad confines of developer, or product manager, or technical marketer, the is a wide range of roles and responsibilities. If you've been working on a mainframe and your employer decides to retire it but is happy to put you on some front-end web stuff which you've never touched, that's probably going to be a tough adjustment that may not end well.
  - jcadam 4y ago
    > If you've been working on a mainframe and your employer decides to retire it but is happy to put you on some front-end web stuff which you've never touched, that's probably going to be a tough adjustment that may not end well. Sure nice of them to give you that chance rather than just laying you off though. Would be even nicer if they spent a little money to train you on the front-end web stuff. Employers used to do that sort of the thing all the time - retrain known good workers rather than just fire them and hire new (unknown) ones.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jtwebman 4y ago
This statement is what the older generation and companies want you to think. It doesn't have to be that way and companies and management need to change or people will leave for companies and management that think differently and want you to feel successful.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Some of my experiences align with that. You want me to spend time doing relatively useless things. I can. I am paid regardless. I am just not sure it is a good management or resources. I do my best to communicate openly with my immediate superior about the reality on the ground, but if my advice is summarily dismissed, at certain point I just check out.
- RobRivera 4y ago
  a superior alternative to checking out is to work on things you deem both interesting and under the auspice of personal development and skills currency
mindcrime 4y ago
If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine. I mean... I can buy this to a point. But for me personally, there are lines. And there are things I'm just not going to do. Period. I know it's un-trendy to talk about anything being "beneath you", and I'm not sure that's the wording I would use, but there are simply things that I don't consider being in my wheelhouse and that if you ask me to do, I'm going to say "no". Then you can decide if you want to fire me or not. Case in point: I used to be a parts counter clerk at Advance Auto Parts. We got a new manager and one day he comes in and asks me to go outside and sweep the parking lot. I said "no" and he tells me to do it or I'm fired. So I rip off my Advance Auto Parts shirt, throw it in his face, say "fuck you" and walk out. 30+ years later I feel absolutely no regret about that. I didn't apologize then and I won't now. There's more to my life than a job and I can find another way to pay the bills. I don't have to take their bullshit.
- malfist 4y ago
  You sure showed them! I bet that advance auto manager thought real hard about asking anybody else to....sweep. I'm glad you realized your hands were too important to be callused by a broom
  - peteradio 4y ago
    Quite snarky, heres my story. Worked at a big box home improvement store as a 15 year old kid on checkout. Someone literally shit diarrhea all over the floor, the store manager asked literally everyone in the store to clean it up including me, everyone refused, he ended up cleaning it himself. Some things are not part of the job!!!
    - malfist 4y ago
      There's a difference between being asked to clean up potential biohazards and being asked to push a broom for a few minutes and up and ripping your shirt off and quitting over it.
    - II2II 4y ago
wonder_er 4y ago
I've done a lot of service jobs, and commercial construction jobs, and have a deep appreciation for a clean and well-organized space. I love to sweep. If I could get paid as a SWE to just speak and "garden" our office, to make it a more pleasent environment, conducive to peaceful thought and pleasent interactions, I'd take that job in a heartbeat. Christopher Alexander is a bit of a god-father of object-oriented programming, and architecture: https://dorian.substack.com/p/at-any-given-moment-in-a-process https://dorian.substack.com/p/at-any-given-moment-in-a-proce... He believes that all work on something new starts with "repairing" the environment in which that new thing is being created. (The codebase, the room, the block). The first step of repair is to tidy and clean. Sooooo I can weave a compelling story to others about why cleaning and tidying is in fact _very_ reasonable to do, and some could argue it's some of the more important work someone could do.
hacksoi 4y ago
Your job should be your identity. You do it 8 hours a day. Your growth is extremely important. Ideally your job aligns with your values. If you haven't found this job yet you should keep searching. Do not complicate this with "economic arrangements" - you're just afraid.
- chasd00 4y ago
  > Your job should be your identity if your job is your identity then be sure and put away some savings for therapy. The moment something happens to your job outside your control like getting laid off, company going under, workplace harassment, even nasty office politics then a mental crisis will soon follow.
  - hacksoi 4y ago
    Typical worst case scenario thinking that prevents you from even trying.
    - FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
      Compromise: Your vocation can be your identity (and you may not have found exactly what it is yet). Though if your particular workplace situation gets bad, you may want to detach from that one job, or find ways in which the imperfect job/situation can further the larger mission.
- j0hnyl 4y ago
  This is such awful advice. Some folks are lucky to have the job/identity thing going on, but for everyone else it's a means to an end, and that's fine.
earnestresponse 4y ago
I can appreciate this, I think to some degree (especially in a physical office) there is a degree of community required, and as long as there is a general acceptance that this kind of "other stuff" is either minimal or accepted in lieu of your "regular" work (as opposed to in addition to), I think it's OK. My main concern, honestly, is not so much that the work is "beneath me" but more that I get pidgonholed doing that work. I know this isn't realistic, but I don't want come review time for people to say "it's great you do this stuff around the office/for the team/for the org" but it doesn't affect your metrics. In some cases, I think the fear is being asked to do these things in a non-documented way means you have no evidence that you had these "extra-curricular" things you had to complete. I'm fortunate I haven't had that happen to me, but it's a fear I always have at the back of my head whenever these sort of requests happen.
braingenious 4y ago
>My job is not my Identity we have an economic arrangement I do what I am asked to do …within the predefined framework of “roles” >If my boss wants to pay me a SWE salary and then insists I clean out the break room fridge on Friday that is his perogrative not mine. Your wording here is kind of vague. Are you saying that you would acquiesce to anything a boss requests? What if it’s not the breakroom but a public bathroom? What if instead of cleaning it’s foot rubs? Would you taste test exotic foods for your boss? Babysit their kids? If the answer to any of these is even remotely close to “yes”, then to you there is no such thing as a software engineer or a software engineer’s salary. There would only be only servants and sovereigns, and servants’ wages.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  You omitted an important qualifier. > assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. If someone asks me to clean the bathroom, sure I do it at home, much more rewarding to make $50 an hour, and probably less gross than the bathroom where a toddler is potty training. As for the rest of those items although they may not explicitly fall under legal violations by US federal law, given the relationship between myself and my boss they probably cross policy lines and could be excluded under illegal. Except for taste testing food I'd do that one for sure. But your framing this as a ruler and subject relationship is off the mark because every thing you listed has people that get paid to do exactly those things, that doesn't make them all serfs to a lordly managerial class. It seems you have concocted the most absurd extreme interpretation of my words and then used that to refute my argument. Ultimately I am willing to do pretty much whatever I am asked to as long as it is legal and moral, included in moral is my dignity as a human being. Ultimately I feel that trying to frame every interaction with an employer as adversarial and feeling that everything is workers vs managers is immature and reductionist. At the end of the day Initech or Introde or whatever as a company doesn't really exist it is a legal fiction we use in society. What does exist is my boss my coworkers my customers. I want to treat them well and with respect and make life easier for them not because they deserve it, or because I think I will get ahead. I do it because I want to be a good person and good people treat others well even regardless of who they are. It doesn't mean I need to be a door mat or allow myself to be exploited, but it means as an employee I try to behave like I would want my employees to behave if I were a manager, and if sometimes that means they ask me to do something for them that isn't inside of my regular job description I'll try and do that because I dont bave to come in and see Mr. Introde every day, I come in and see Dan my boss, or Carl the director and those are people. Most everyone you meet is another person just trying to get by in the world and most people can really use someone cutting them some slack once in a while.
zemvpferreira 4y ago
I'm not above doing any work that's morally ok but salary is only part my compensation for a job. I'm also paid in skill growth and career opportunities. I'm not going to get better by cleaning fridges, so asking me to do chores all the time is short-changing me even if the money is good (for this point in my career). If I were employed at a place that did not let me work on high-impact high-visibility roles, I'd move to somewhere that did as soon as possible. (Unless I was already where I wanted to get in my career)

feet 4y ago

How did the rest of the department fare? Were you the only one who avoided going hybrid?

mattw2121 4y ago
There was a half-hearted effort for everyone to go hybrid. After a few months everyone naturally fell back into the individual roles we had before the edict was issued. There was a lot of struggling before this silent return to original duties happened. No one really ever acknowledged the bad course we were on, just went back to the way things worked. One developer actually found that he liked the business analyst work better and continued on that path.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

> I've learned it better to communicate Good advice for almost any situation.

duxup 4y ago

So many developer stories out there where it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss.

mooreds 4y ago
> it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss. Sure, but why? Why wouldn't you have a direct, honest conversation with your manager? I'll tell you why. Because it can be terrifying. You don't know how they will react, whether you'll be forced off interesting projects, put at the top of the layoff list, or similar. You can watch how they handle other situations and get an inkling, but you don't know. Good bosses won't react like that and there are many good bosses out there who want you to grow and will work with you to achieve your goals. But there are plenty of bad bosses too. From this perspective, it's a lot easier to just pack it in, write off the boss and company, and find a new job. It's less satisfying, to be sure, but less terrifying. It's taken me a long time to realize how important it is to have a boss you can have a direct conversation with. It's also a factor of my experience and knowledge of my self-worth too. If I were a new developer in my first job, it'd be a lot harder to have a tough conversation with my boss, because my alternatives would be fewer.
- duxup 4y ago
  Maybe "communicating with your boss" is a skill folks need to be taught. Uncomfortable, scary, yup, but necessary.
  - wccrawford 4y ago
    Yup, and IMO definitely less scary than finding and starting an entirely new job.
  - mooreds 4y ago
    Would love to read an article on this! Do you have any reading to recommend?
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago

treyfitty 4y ago

Communication is a 2-way street. From experience, this approach doesn't work if your manager is dogmatic/egotistical and unwilling to hear you.

codegeek 4y ago
You wouldn't know until you talk to them at least once. Don't assume anything.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

beebmam 4y ago

> Why am I telling you? It's that I've learned it better to communicate and hopefully work things out then just pack up and head to another place. How do you know it was better, in this circumstance, if you don't know what the outcome of packing up would have been? It's impossible to know all the consequences of our actions.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
because they didn't want to switch careers part-time into something far outside their original job description. that sounds borderline illegal as constructive dismissal anyway (ie that job you took? we're cutting the hours on that to half, good luck seeing as much career growth opportunity as you had expected when signing the contract)
SteveNuts 4y ago
Because if they were anything like me, and the boss unilaterally decided I'm going down a different career path, they would have eventually quit.
kroltan 4y ago
I think the implication here is that he otherwise liked the position. Sure, you can always hike and try something new, but if you like what you were doing before, communicating helps. Don't assume that a change is immediately Unwaivering Word Of God.

ajkjk 4y ago

> I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know that he was the boss and I'd do my best to accomplish anything he assigned me. Never understood this attitude. I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. He can ask around for other opinions so it's not just coming from me but it's a hard line. Of course this mostly works cause as a developer you don't need to be afraid of finding another job. But that's good. Workers having leverage over bosses is good.

tomtheelder 4y ago
> I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. The reason not to do this is that you're very likely to provoke a defensive response and have the other person dig in their heels. A gentler approach is more likely to get results, less likely to create tension in the relationship, and sets the tone of future decision making as adversarial. If that doesn't work you can try firmer approaches, and you can of course always quit or use the threat of quitting, but 99 times out of 100 leading with that will lead to worse outcomes. You don't give up any leverage by first trying to resolve conflicts without threats.
- ajkjk 4y ago
  Well the magnitude of your response should be calibrated to the magnitude of the grievance. A new boss coming in and changing everything in a way nobody signed up for or is on board with is very egregious, and I _will_ quit if they don't back down, so I'm going to tell them that. It's a statement of fact. If they don't stop, and I quit, and I didn't say that ahead of time, then I haven't communicated what I meant to.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    I find it much more satisfying to smile and nod and then leave unexpectedly without notice.
    - 4y ago

akudha 4y ago

Glad it worked for you, but in my experience, this doesn't always work. Making everyone a developer and a business analyst is a super stupid idea. This is not something subtle like rotating people to work on different parts of the same codebase. What is even more stupid is that it looks like he decided it unilaterally (based on your comment). Why should anyone work for a person like this? If a boss decides to make huge changes like this unilaterally without at least talking to the team, why does he deserve a polite conversation from his team?

121789 4y ago
I don't know, there's lots of room for nuance. Maybe the boss asked around and half the team said they felt silo'd and one dimensional, and they wanted a bit more of a "smart person on the team whose core contribution is development" rather than "developer who just takes tickets and builds" mindset. Maybe the edict was a bit more like a proposal. It seems like the manager was willing to be flexible and change his proposal, so I won't necessarily assume bad intent

AlwaysRock 4y ago

> After a year of trying, coaching, assuming I’m the problem, talking to my skip level, hard convos with my boss, and much more etc Seems like OP did all these things.

kqr 4y ago

I think someone on HN suggested "change your employer" with the dual meaning intended. First try to get the necessary changes through without swapping in a completely different employer. If that's not possible, look for a new job.