4 ms·

> The tech department has better working conditions that most other departments. How many departments are asked to check in every single day with what you did

> The tech department has better working conditions that most other departments. How many departments are asked to check in every single day with what you did yesterday and what you plan on doing today?

that_guy_iain 4y ago
The humanity of being asked two simple questions about what work you're doing. It's shocking. I know. But I've worked at a few companies where they rolled the standup out to otherd departments. If you honestly think being asked those 2 simple questions is not being treated well. You're going to have a hard life.
- esotericimpl 4y ago
- Retric 4y ago
  No single example on it’s own seems like such a big deal. But long hours, being on call, little respect, etc show IT is a low status profession that happens to pay reasonably well.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    It is just baffling that you think this. Have you worked in the service industry recently? Like about half of americans? Where you also work long hours, but don't have a set schedule, or health insurance, or pto. And are required to endure virtually any debasement a customer feels like exposing you to. And your behavior, appearance, comings and goings are rigidly governed by a handbook and enforced by petty tyrants enraged by also enduring all these same conditions? Get some perspective ffs. This is the easiest, cushiest job I've ever had, and the only one where people with masters degrees often consider me their peer despite my 11th grade education. Stop whining and join a union or something seriously. These are all minor and solvable problems.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      That says more about you than the average developer. You may feel you won the lottery because you don't have to stack boxes in your hometown for minimum wage because of the limitations on a grade 11 education. That person who put in the effort/time/money to get that masters might feel left out of the club of his former peers run the show. Please get some perspective not everyone is in your situation.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - Retric 4y ago
      Being cushy isn’t high status. Many IT jobs are paid hourly, don’t get health insurance, and some even get paid minimum wage. That said, I have had plenty of people describe their retail jobs as cushy because it’s low physical labor, inside with AC, and they don’t have to think.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    > IT is a low status profession that happens to pay reasonably well. IMO this is absolutely crucial to understand about our industry, for programmers too, not just IT. We're paid well because they can't avoid paying us well. But they don't want to let us in The Club of the actual professional or upper-middle class, in terms of perks and status (and, actually, pay in most of the industry, even in the US, doesn't quite rise to that level—$200k+ for mid-career-or-earlier isn't what most programmers see). Frequent monitoring and things like open floorplan offices are part of that. High-status gets very little monitoring, and an office. There are tons of little things like this. I think it may also be a minor reason our interviews are so god-awful (but I think the main reason is the huge players trying to reduce turnover to suppress the rate of wage increases).
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I think a major reason interviews are so god-awful is that, due in large part to the high wages, there are a lot of frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions. And when they fail an interview, they don’t dematerialize, but rather keep banging away hopelessly at the front door of the process. When companies want a fully algorithmic way to filter for signal, it’s not because we think it’s a great process, but because it’s one of the only viable processes.
      - awesomeMilou 4y ago
        > frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions PLEASE explain to me what value leetcode-type questions provide over what good of a software engineer someone is!
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        They don't measure "goodness", they merely check that the person actually knows how to write code. I disagree with them (I believe they are unnecessarily complex when it comes to the actual algorithms, and rarely mimic the real-world requirements of the job), but at least they do weed out idiots who can't even write a for loop.
        4y ago
  - baronswindle 4y ago
    Is being on call really a sign of low status? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most doctors have an on-call schedule. And if you think doctors aren't in a high-status profession, I reckon your standards are wildly different from my own. Long hours and little respect probably will vary from one employer to the next. However, I've been working as a developer for about ~10 years - most of it with a mid-size insurance company but the last couple with a large bank. I work longer hours than most of my colleagues, but I've rarely put in more than 50 hours in a week, and my average is probably closer to 45. And my non-engineering colleagues have always treated my fellow engineers and me with respect and an appreciation for the difficulty of what we do. If anything, they've usually been a bit too deferential. YMMV, but I think our profession is probably among the best in the world for workers. If my child were about to enter the working world and had the ability + interest, I'd absolutely recommend this as a career.
    - Xeronate 4y ago
      I don't think on call is a sign of low status, but I think OP is correct that programming is a low status job. People respect the business guys with the big ideas, not the implementors and tbh I think that's fair. It's still one of the best jobs in terms of benefits, but you have to be willing to accept that your life as a corporate programmer is mainly carrying out someone else's ideas.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Being on call is just one sign, just as IT is more than just programming. Also the vast majority of doctors, especially the high status ones aren’t on call. However, being on call is representative of something. Your electric company has linemen ready to respond at 2AM because they provide a service which needs to be available 24/7. However, good luck trying to contact your dermatologist, accountant, physical trainer etc at 2AM.
    - yourapostasy 4y ago
      > Is being on call really a sign of low status? For all practical purposes, above a certain level of management, you are implicitly on call all the time. However, the bar to clear to engage you gets higher the further up the leadership layers you go. A manager of a handful of teams comprising about 100 staff gets engaged for less serious fires than the CEO, but both are "on call". It might take the board of directors chartering a helicopter to get to the CEO's fly fishing cabin during the CEO's vacation if a situation warranting such presents itself, but the CEO is absolutely on call 24x7x365. The complexity of what engages the on call person I suspect is what connotes status. Called for clearing out disk space: low status. Called for application outage that has stumped multiple technical teams: higher status. Called for a production outage impacting the next day's C-level reports that requires engaging other management: higher status. Called for heading off a shareholder proxy battle: even higher status. Note here complexity doesn't solely reside in the technical realm, but frequently is rather a blend of technical factors, social factors, and quickly making impactful decisions in low-information situations.
  - lmm 4y ago
    Long hours, being on call, and not getting respect are bad things, and you should not work a job where they happen. That has absolutely zero relation to whether you're asked what you're working on.
- peteradio 4y ago
  The problem with the question is never liking the answer: "I'm probably gonna have to stare at the sky for 4-5 hours, and what you consider real work is gonna maybe start happening tomorrow." I can't wait for low-code to get good. It's going to throw back in real time the obliqueness of the request: "Validating most likely candidate solution..." 8 hrs later "Solution failed to validate ... please try rephrasing request."
  - Hermitian909 4y ago
    > I'm probably gonna have to stare at the sky for 4-5 hours, and what you consider real work is gonna maybe start happening tomorrow It may not be indicative of the industry at large, but most engineers I know get away with this by changing the framing "I'm working on a doc" or "I'm scoping this feature" etc. Obviously this does not work with sufficiently bad management.
- ResearchCode 4y ago
  Daily interrogations by someone who finished a two-day "agile" course. Doctors don't have to put up with this. Or you could always get a better job that doesn't do "standups".
  - ozim 4y ago
    Do you happen to know what kind of BS doctors have to put up every day? Care to outline it for me?
    - tartoran 4y ago
      Doctors have to see multiple dozens of patients a day. Often their life sucks, have to sleep on the job in the hospital, etc. Never be envious with their plot, private capital sucks the juice out of everyone unlese we fight back.
      - that_guy_iain 4y ago
        > private capital sucks the juice out of everyone unlese we fight back. They're even busier in public hosptials btw
    - ResearchCode 4y ago
      Sure, show me the two-day course I can take that enables me to work in a hospital micro-managing the doctors.
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    Your lucky if they had a two-day course on "agile". And Doctors have rounds where they talk about what the status update of their patients.
    - ambicapter 4y ago
      Well, patients are important. Reinventing the wheel because your company suffers from NIH syndrome is not.
icelancer 4y ago
Sales and Marketing both deal with this and have for much longer than software developers.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  Having worked sales. You got asked what you've done today multiple times during the day.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    Yeah, same. Once per day would be a dream.
stcroixx 4y ago
Kids in US public schools stop getting micromanaged like this around first grade. Tech workers are treated like toddlers.
vbezhenar 4y ago
What will happen if you will tell your manager that you will not visit those standups anymore? Will you be fired?
PhasmaFelis 4y ago
Annoying as morning standups are, they are (well, should be) about keeping the team in sync and communicating, not about Big Brother watching you. Companies that want to be Big Brother have much more intrusive and insidious ways of doing that. I am a disorganized guy who hates authority and interruptions, and even so I have grudgingly come to realize that (strictly) 15-minute morning standups actually do increase my productivity.

that_guy_iain 4y ago

The humanity of being asked two simple questions about what work you're doing. It's shocking. I know. But I've worked at a few companies where they rolled the standup out to otherd departments. If you honestly think being asked those 2 simple questions is not being treated well. You're going to have a hard life.

esotericimpl 4y ago
Retric 4y ago
No single example on it’s own seems like such a big deal. But long hours, being on call, little respect, etc show IT is a low status profession that happens to pay reasonably well.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  It is just baffling that you think this. Have you worked in the service industry recently? Like about half of americans? Where you also work long hours, but don't have a set schedule, or health insurance, or pto. And are required to endure virtually any debasement a customer feels like exposing you to. And your behavior, appearance, comings and goings are rigidly governed by a handbook and enforced by petty tyrants enraged by also enduring all these same conditions? Get some perspective ffs. This is the easiest, cushiest job I've ever had, and the only one where people with masters degrees often consider me their peer despite my 11th grade education. Stop whining and join a union or something seriously. These are all minor and solvable problems.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    That says more about you than the average developer. You may feel you won the lottery because you don't have to stack boxes in your hometown for minimum wage because of the limitations on a grade 11 education. That person who put in the effort/time/money to get that masters might feel left out of the club of his former peers run the show. Please get some perspective not everyone is in your situation.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Retric 4y ago
    Being cushy isn’t high status. Many IT jobs are paid hourly, don’t get health insurance, and some even get paid minimum wage. That said, I have had plenty of people describe their retail jobs as cushy because it’s low physical labor, inside with AC, and they don’t have to think.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > IT is a low status profession that happens to pay reasonably well. IMO this is absolutely crucial to understand about our industry, for programmers too, not just IT. We're paid well because they can't avoid paying us well. But they don't want to let us in The Club of the actual professional or upper-middle class, in terms of perks and status (and, actually, pay in most of the industry, even in the US, doesn't quite rise to that level—$200k+ for mid-career-or-earlier isn't what most programmers see). Frequent monitoring and things like open floorplan offices are part of that. High-status gets very little monitoring, and an office. There are tons of little things like this. I think it may also be a minor reason our interviews are so god-awful (but I think the main reason is the huge players trying to reduce turnover to suppress the rate of wage increases).
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I think a major reason interviews are so god-awful is that, due in large part to the high wages, there are a lot of frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions. And when they fail an interview, they don’t dematerialize, but rather keep banging away hopelessly at the front door of the process. When companies want a fully algorithmic way to filter for signal, it’s not because we think it’s a great process, but because it’s one of the only viable processes.
    - awesomeMilou 4y ago
      > frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions PLEASE explain to me what value leetcode-type questions provide over what good of a software engineer someone is!
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        They don't measure "goodness", they merely check that the person actually knows how to write code. I disagree with them (I believe they are unnecessarily complex when it comes to the actual algorithms, and rarely mimic the real-world requirements of the job), but at least they do weed out idiots who can't even write a for loop.
      - 4y ago
- baronswindle 4y ago
  Is being on call really a sign of low status? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most doctors have an on-call schedule. And if you think doctors aren't in a high-status profession, I reckon your standards are wildly different from my own. Long hours and little respect probably will vary from one employer to the next. However, I've been working as a developer for about ~10 years - most of it with a mid-size insurance company but the last couple with a large bank. I work longer hours than most of my colleagues, but I've rarely put in more than 50 hours in a week, and my average is probably closer to 45. And my non-engineering colleagues have always treated my fellow engineers and me with respect and an appreciation for the difficulty of what we do. If anything, they've usually been a bit too deferential. YMMV, but I think our profession is probably among the best in the world for workers. If my child were about to enter the working world and had the ability + interest, I'd absolutely recommend this as a career.
  - Xeronate 4y ago
    I don't think on call is a sign of low status, but I think OP is correct that programming is a low status job. People respect the business guys with the big ideas, not the implementors and tbh I think that's fair. It's still one of the best jobs in terms of benefits, but you have to be willing to accept that your life as a corporate programmer is mainly carrying out someone else's ideas.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Being on call is just one sign, just as IT is more than just programming. Also the vast majority of doctors, especially the high status ones aren’t on call. However, being on call is representative of something. Your electric company has linemen ready to respond at 2AM because they provide a service which needs to be available 24/7. However, good luck trying to contact your dermatologist, accountant, physical trainer etc at 2AM.
  - yourapostasy 4y ago
    > Is being on call really a sign of low status? For all practical purposes, above a certain level of management, you are implicitly on call all the time. However, the bar to clear to engage you gets higher the further up the leadership layers you go. A manager of a handful of teams comprising about 100 staff gets engaged for less serious fires than the CEO, but both are "on call". It might take the board of directors chartering a helicopter to get to the CEO's fly fishing cabin during the CEO's vacation if a situation warranting such presents itself, but the CEO is absolutely on call 24x7x365. The complexity of what engages the on call person I suspect is what connotes status. Called for clearing out disk space: low status. Called for application outage that has stumped multiple technical teams: higher status. Called for a production outage impacting the next day's C-level reports that requires engaging other management: higher status. Called for heading off a shareholder proxy battle: even higher status. Note here complexity doesn't solely reside in the technical realm, but frequently is rather a blend of technical factors, social factors, and quickly making impactful decisions in low-information situations.
- lmm 4y ago
  Long hours, being on call, and not getting respect are bad things, and you should not work a job where they happen. That has absolutely zero relation to whether you're asked what you're working on.
peteradio 4y ago
The problem with the question is never liking the answer: "I'm probably gonna have to stare at the sky for 4-5 hours, and what you consider real work is gonna maybe start happening tomorrow." I can't wait for low-code to get good. It's going to throw back in real time the obliqueness of the request: "Validating most likely candidate solution..." 8 hrs later "Solution failed to validate ... please try rephrasing request."
- Hermitian909 4y ago
  > I'm probably gonna have to stare at the sky for 4-5 hours, and what you consider real work is gonna maybe start happening tomorrow It may not be indicative of the industry at large, but most engineers I know get away with this by changing the framing "I'm working on a doc" or "I'm scoping this feature" etc. Obviously this does not work with sufficiently bad management.
ResearchCode 4y ago
Daily interrogations by someone who finished a two-day "agile" course. Doctors don't have to put up with this. Or you could always get a better job that doesn't do "standups".
- ozim 4y ago
  Do you happen to know what kind of BS doctors have to put up every day? Care to outline it for me?
  - tartoran 4y ago
    Doctors have to see multiple dozens of patients a day. Often their life sucks, have to sleep on the job in the hospital, etc. Never be envious with their plot, private capital sucks the juice out of everyone unlese we fight back.
    - that_guy_iain 4y ago
      > private capital sucks the juice out of everyone unlese we fight back. They're even busier in public hosptials btw
  - ResearchCode 4y ago
    Sure, show me the two-day course I can take that enables me to work in a hospital micro-managing the doctors.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  Your lucky if they had a two-day course on "agile". And Doctors have rounds where they talk about what the status update of their patients.
  - ambicapter 4y ago
    Well, patients are important. Reinventing the wheel because your company suffers from NIH syndrome is not.

icelancer 4y ago

Sales and Marketing both deal with this and have for much longer than software developers.

that_guy_iain 4y ago
Having worked sales. You got asked what you've done today multiple times during the day.
- icelancer 4y ago
  Yeah, same. Once per day would be a dream.

stcroixx 4y ago

Kids in US public schools stop getting micromanaged like this around first grade. Tech workers are treated like toddlers.

vbezhenar 4y ago

What will happen if you will tell your manager that you will not visit those standups anymore? Will you be fired?

PhasmaFelis 4y ago

Annoying as morning standups are, they are (well, should be) about keeping the team in sync and communicating, not about Big Brother watching you. Companies that want to be Big Brother have much more intrusive and insidious ways of doing that. I am a disorganized guy who hates authority and interruptions, and even so I have grudgingly come to realize that (strictly) 15-minute morning standups actually do increase my productivity.