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> I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?) This mindset is how you kneecap your career. You’ve pigeonholed yourself into the

> I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?) This mindset is how you kneecap your career. You’ve pigeonholed yourself into the foot soldier category when it becomes immediately obvious to managers that you aren’t thinking about what’s actually good for the company. You may already know this, but it needs to be explicitly called out that taking that approach to your business relationship with your employer defines the relationship.

czscout 4y ago
I think it's possible to be invested in the performance and improvement of the company you work for without being personally invested in the exact product you're helping to develop.
jonfw 4y ago
Caring about the product is not good for your career. You should care about your career, and most of the time, that means that progressing the product should be your goal. However, when the interests of yourself and your company diverge, don't get stuck holding the bag.
- Alupis 4y ago
  If you care about your work-product, and can find a way to be passionate about it, then everything else comes very easy. That includes being noticed, promoted, etc. Passionate does not necessarily imply loving absolutely every aspect of the job, it just means you've found some aspect you really enjoy and are excited to spend some time on. People who work solely to advance their careers are generally not awesome to work with, in my experience. The people who work passionately tend to have their careers advanced for them. YMMV...
  - jonfw 3y ago
    When the interests of the company and yourself are aligned, absolutely! It is easy though to fall into the trap of making improvements for the sake of improvements, without any real visibility of why that matters to the business. That’s when you can work hard and stagnate at the same time
sBqQu3U0wH 4y ago
Well, this is more what I feel internally about working in general than about a particular company. This is not something that spills out into the work environment. I perform tasks to the best of my ability and just "put on a face" that is expected of me. Company is satisfied about my performance during evaluations.
hotpotamus 4y ago
Here's the managers in "Office Space" telling the employees to always think of what's good for the company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0NNVm5ajMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0NNVm5ajMQ
lisasays 4y ago
My spin would be: "This is how companies kneecap employees, by forcing them to think this way." "But how could this ever be possible, in a field with high salaries and a permanent shortage of skilled workers?", you ask. By constantly punishing us for caring. By continually providing shitty office space, and bullshit-driven work cultures and interview rituals. And just plain lying, toxic managers and co-workers to deal with. And then asking us to invest the best years of our livesin all of the above, and then to "care" ... in exchange for not-so-great compensation, a joke vacation allowance - and zero job security.
- kortilla 4y ago
  I’m telling you from experience as a manager that this is wrong. People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. If they don’t, there is usually some other issue (difficultly to work with) explicitly holding them back. I have seen many otherwise great engineers take the mindset of “I’m paid to do X so I don’t care about making sure X is the right thing” and they just sit at the senior level their whole career. It’s not bad with current comp levels by any means, but they never move beyond it because they constantly telegraph that they aren’t interested with that attitude. Keep a clock puncher mindset and you’ll get treated like one.
  - m_rpn 4y ago
    In my opinion the problem is this: company wants you to "show you are performing at an higher level" before giving you higher pay or a promotion, but this can take years in a mid to big sized company, and even performing at 200% your peers doesn't guarantee you get what you deserve, since most of the promotions in structured companies are not tied to performance whatsoever, but to networking and being supporters of your superiors (scientifically proven), only for salespeople performance in sale has been shown to be directly tied to promotion, but then they are also shown to be bad managers when they actually get promoted (too tied to pursuing their own agenda). So companies want you to have faith in them to recognize your value sooner or later, but they don't give you any faith back in return, it's never the case that some HR manager says "oh let's give this guy a quick promotion, let's have faith in him!". Another point, if one is a professional is supposed to do his job for the agreed rate and nothing more, nothing less so i should be evaluated in what my regular 8 hours of work are, and within the boundaries of my job description, nothing more, nothing less. When you go to the butcher and order a 1kg steak, you pay precisely it's weight, not more, not less. Let's stop normalizing this "go above and beyond thing", it's not working (most managers suck at their job, scientifically proven), just be fair with the employees and respect everybody's time.
danlugo92 4y ago
You're giving off strong "We're a family" vibes in this comment just so you know.

czscout 4y ago

I think it's possible to be invested in the performance and improvement of the company you work for without being personally invested in the exact product you're helping to develop.

jonfw 4y ago

Caring about the product is not good for your career. You should care about your career, and most of the time, that means that progressing the product should be your goal. However, when the interests of yourself and your company diverge, don't get stuck holding the bag.

Alupis 4y ago
If you care about your work-product, and can find a way to be passionate about it, then everything else comes very easy. That includes being noticed, promoted, etc. Passionate does not necessarily imply loving absolutely every aspect of the job, it just means you've found some aspect you really enjoy and are excited to spend some time on. People who work solely to advance their careers are generally not awesome to work with, in my experience. The people who work passionately tend to have their careers advanced for them. YMMV...
- jonfw 3y ago
  When the interests of the company and yourself are aligned, absolutely! It is easy though to fall into the trap of making improvements for the sake of improvements, without any real visibility of why that matters to the business. That’s when you can work hard and stagnate at the same time

sBqQu3U0wH 4y ago

Well, this is more what I feel internally about working in general than about a particular company. This is not something that spills out into the work environment. I perform tasks to the best of my ability and just "put on a face" that is expected of me. Company is satisfied about my performance during evaluations.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Here's the managers in "Office Space" telling the employees to always think of what's good for the company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0NNVm5ajMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0NNVm5ajMQ

lisasays 4y ago

My spin would be: "This is how companies kneecap employees, by forcing them to think this way." "But how could this ever be possible, in a field with high salaries and a permanent shortage of skilled workers?", you ask. By constantly punishing us for caring. By continually providing shitty office space, and bullshit-driven work cultures and interview rituals. And just plain lying, toxic managers and co-workers to deal with. And then asking us to invest the best years of our livesin all of the above, and then to "care" ... in exchange for not-so-great compensation, a joke vacation allowance - and zero job security.

kortilla 4y ago
I’m telling you from experience as a manager that this is wrong. People who take ownership and initiative for the things they work on get quickly promoted. If they don’t, there is usually some other issue (difficultly to work with) explicitly holding them back. I have seen many otherwise great engineers take the mindset of “I’m paid to do X so I don’t care about making sure X is the right thing” and they just sit at the senior level their whole career. It’s not bad with current comp levels by any means, but they never move beyond it because they constantly telegraph that they aren’t interested with that attitude. Keep a clock puncher mindset and you’ll get treated like one.
- m_rpn 4y ago
  In my opinion the problem is this: company wants you to "show you are performing at an higher level" before giving you higher pay or a promotion, but this can take years in a mid to big sized company, and even performing at 200% your peers doesn't guarantee you get what you deserve, since most of the promotions in structured companies are not tied to performance whatsoever, but to networking and being supporters of your superiors (scientifically proven), only for salespeople performance in sale has been shown to be directly tied to promotion, but then they are also shown to be bad managers when they actually get promoted (too tied to pursuing their own agenda). So companies want you to have faith in them to recognize your value sooner or later, but they don't give you any faith back in return, it's never the case that some HR manager says "oh let's give this guy a quick promotion, let's have faith in him!". Another point, if one is a professional is supposed to do his job for the agreed rate and nothing more, nothing less so i should be evaluated in what my regular 8 hours of work are, and within the boundaries of my job description, nothing more, nothing less. When you go to the butcher and order a 1kg steak, you pay precisely it's weight, not more, not less. Let's stop normalizing this "go above and beyond thing", it's not working (most managers suck at their job, scientifically proven), just be fair with the employees and respect everybody's time.

danlugo92 4y ago

You're giving off strong "We're a family" vibes in this comment just so you know.