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I feel this entire post. My career record (US Navy) for cost savings was something over $50MM. Every time I did something I had to do PowerPoints, present to F

I feel this entire post. My career record (US Navy) for cost savings was something over $50MM. Every time I did something I had to do PowerPoints, present to Flag Officers, etc. Hell, once I almost got hugely punished because I didn't let my boss take the credit (he had no desire to because he had zero idea what it was I even did). Note that some of that was as a Lean Six-Sigma Black Belt doing Enterprise projects (I hate every single bit of terminology in that entire godforsaken sentence), where it was literally my JOB to save the DOD as much money as possible with the least disruption possible. Those were the absolute worst years of my career. That period of my career was my reward for just going rogue and fixing things that saved millions. I'll echo the last part of that post: Beware of doing good things at work; the reward is rarely compensation and is usually more work for the same pay.

tehlike 3y ago
Sometimes I think of joining government org (3 letter agency) to find areas to improve $ efficiency on, or make decent direct contribution to US as a thank you for accepting me as an immigrant. I'm an engineer in a FAANG, who worked directly in money flow, and have had experience in diverse areas where it could come handy. Then I start thinking finding the right person to work with & right area to start at is probably 95% of the job, then give up.
- wslack 3y ago
  As someone who does this sort of work (but posting personally, not officially), you're 100% right. There are groups of already-networked folks you can join like USDS or 18F that are already connected to the problems. The post reminds me of some of the stuff you might see in gov, though I've never seen someone save money and be punished like this.
  - brainbag 3y ago
    What is 18F? That's not the easiest thing to search if you're not looking for the obvious.
    - pbmonster 3y ago
      https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/
      - thelastparadise 3y ago
        Typical gov. Have a money burning problem? Let's create yet another org to solve it.
        cthulha 3y ago
        No government has a money burning problem. They have expensive service delivery problems. I mean, if you're upset about government spending on tech, you better sit down before someone tells you what goes on in the large corporate sector...
    - pyhtel 3y ago
      https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/ Searching "USDS or 18F" helped google understand what I was looking for
  - csa 3y ago
    > though I've never seen someone save money and be punished like this It happens. From DoD civilian world, 6 months in with a new org (I was the fng)… tl;dr — Made some software that moved a project from imminent mission failure to mission success, and got all of my command chain in trouble in the process. 1. There was an 8-figure, 2-year R&D contract for some mission critical software that had functions that my org needed. We were updated regularly that everything was moving along swimmingly. At the end of the contract, only about 10% of the functions actually worked. This is totally ok from their side since R&D contracts are “best effort”, so no functioning deliverables are actually required. The part of the software that was mission critical for my org had 0% working. My org was fucked. 2. We need this software in 3 months or less or we can’t fulfill obligations that we had made years prior. 3. Manager gives me free rein to make something that can solve the problem. 4. I have a prototype in one week. It’s not as automated as the 8-figure solution was supposed to be, but we had bodies to help with that (and also do sanity checks at various stages). 5. Weeks two and three were refining based on feedback from stakeholders. 6. Week 4 was training about 60 people to use the software. 7. Software was iteratively refined over 6 months or so based on user feedback during active use, but no major changes were needed — just minor QoL stuff. 8. Software had the bonus side effect of getting two embattled groups to start talking to each other and resolving process issues, which saved unbelievable amounts of time and lowered stress levels immensely. 9. End result was that we were able to meet our obligations. Mission success! Software worked with amazing consistency (very little down time, almost all of it out of our control), and resiliency (changes were easy and fast to make without breaking the system). So… what did I get for this? A spot bonus? A coin? A handshake from the commandant? Nope… I got a reserved “thank you” from my supervisor. The aftermath tells why. When my supervisor changed the status update up her chain of command that “mission critical software missing, mission failure imminent”, to “mission software exists, outlook favorable” in the course of one month, people started asking questions? “You had someone in your department who could do this already?” (No, I had just started, and not for a programmer job.) “You asked to spend a big chunk of the 8-figure R&D contract on your mission critical needs, and that work could be done in a month!?! And you didn’t know this?!?!?” (Supervisor was not a programmer, so it was all basically magic.) So supervisor was sort of criticized for “wasting time and resources” and “not knowing her people”, even though she could not have reasonably known that I existed (the R&D contract started two years before I worked at the org) and could solve the problem. That’s bad, right? Well, it got worse. The head civilian of our org had been making updates to DC about a potential mission failure due to the 8-figure contract software not working. When that got updated to “not a problem” after it was evident that my system worked, he got called to task in Congress, with congressmen asking him the same sorts of questions that he asked my supervisor (“You had in house talent that could do this? In a month? And we spent how much time and money on a contract to get the same functionality?”). There were no good answers. Needless to say, once I heard about the fallout, I was looking for the next thing. I felt like I had done my civic duty as a public servant. It was clear to me that further involvement would probably have similar outcomes (efficiencies made at the cost of negative career risk for my command chain).
- bigsassy 3y ago
  You'd want to start with the United States Digital Service (USDS). They're basically a consultancy inside the executive branch to build tech solutions for the various 3 letter agencies. You basically do a "tour of duty" for a year or so (however long you want), tackling one of these solutions. And they go out of their way to hire folks like you, from FAANG and other tech companies, so you work with good people. https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/
  - BonoboIO 3y ago
    Is the salary competitive?
    - mh- 3y ago
      to my knowledge, USDS is still constrained by the General Schedule[1] salary table. (no.) edit: incidentally, this other thread [2] on the front page today has lots of comments confirming. ctrl-f for USDS. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2023/saltbl.pdf https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... (PDF) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38067206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38067206
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - dror 3y ago
      Anyone with a current significant salary in tech who lives in a major metro will make $183.5K. The salaries adjust by location, pick your location from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2020/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... This is the SF area table: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/20Tables/html/SF.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
- pbronez 3y ago
  There are a lot of ways to make an impact in National Defense outside of direct government employment. It’s tricky to find a good contractor, but they exist. The direct employment option might get better with the recent executive order on AI. USG pays market wages for VA doctor/s; eventually they’ll do the same for tech roles.
busterarm 3y ago
> Six-Sigma Black Belt I'm so triggered by this phrase. The worst (to work for and performing) company I was at hired SSBBs like crazy and none of them really did anything or made a damn bit of difference, but if you took the courses you were fast-tracked for success as far as promotions went.
- CobaltFire 3y ago
  I was not at all popular among my "peers" in that world. I had too much common sense, and didn't make changes just to make changes. I was extremely effective, but since I didn't play by the rules I was ostracized internally. That said, it did give me the opportunity to get the hell out of that community and back into IT/CyberSec. In all honesty, there are absolutely good concepts and tools in that world. The issue is that the people who gravitate to that world have no ability to provide any value themselves so don't actually understand how to USE those tools properly. Everything is a nail when all you have is an ENTIRE TOOLBOX.
- syntaxing 3y ago
  It’s interesting because I found Mech design engineers with green belts to usually be really sharp. I only met like one black belt design engineer and he pivoted careers a decade ago. But most black belts I met in QA were managers. Most of the technicians that did the work weren’t certified but lived and breathed the products for decades.
  - busterarm 3y ago
    In that industry it makes sense. We were a services platform -- basically a massive, distributed call center.
  - CobaltFire 3y ago
    My experience was that the tools are absolutely useful. Green Belts are those who learned the tools, but stayed at their day job. Black Belts are when you pivot into doing it full time. Much like people who underperform in technical fields often pivot to Management, you see the same in the pivot to Process Improvement. That creates the issue of the lowest performers at the actual job being the ones most inclined to pivot into that position. There are always good ones (I'm biased, but think I was). The issue is that they are a relative rarity due to those (and I'm sure other) factors.
unicornmama 3y ago
> I'll echo the last part of that post: Beware of doing good things at work; the reward is rarely compensation and is usually more work for the same pay. Let’s rephrase this in a less nihilistic way: Understand your organization’s values and culture. And beware of doing good (or bad) things in a way that goes against your organization’s values and culture.
- CobaltFire 3y ago
  Speaking as someone who spent over 20 years in the DOD: There isn't a way to make things better in the DOD that doesn't go against the culture. Period. My literal JOB was to make things better and it was the worst time of my career. That was with Flag Officer backing and independent authority. I got a chest full of shiny candy and a pathological distaste for it all after a few years of that.
  - esafak 3y ago
    Bigger organizations tend to be more pathological; they attract and shelter sociopaths. So try to find a smaller one that is compatible with your values.
    - CobaltFire 3y ago
      Instead of finding a new org I retired and am doing my own thing. Figuring out what said own thing is is proving a bigger challenge than anticipated, but I'm enjoying it.
      - koliber 3y ago
        How did you go about figuring it out? I’m somewhere on this difficult path and would love to hear a good story. Contact details are in my profile if you’d be willing to share.
        CobaltFire 3y ago
        I'm about six months into figuring it out and only now getting a feel for who I am without all the pressures of making a living in my chosen career. I'll drop you a line via your profile contact info and maybe we can have a chat!
rvbissell 3y ago
> Hell, once I almost got hugely punished because I didn't let my boss take the credit ... I'm mentally tripping over that part. Is that normally expected? ... By recursion, it seems that POTUS should get all the kudos, all the time.
- CobaltFire 3y ago
  In the military it’s extremely common for someone above you in the Chain of Command to get the credit; it may be your boss, or several levels up. Some of that credit may or may not spill over to you, but the general thought process is that they are responsible for what happens in the command so they get the credit. Good ones avoid that and push the credit to where it belongs, but then they don’t promote. This leads to an incentive to take credit from those under you in order to get promoted.
  - rvbissell 3y ago
    Right, but someone /other than your boss/ was mad that you didn't arrange for your boss to receive the credit. That's the WTF detail.
    - CobaltFire 3y ago
      Correct; the fact that my name was on the presentation that went before Congress, vice my CO's, indicated to them that I went AROUND my CO. In reality, this is certainly possible. It just would have been a career killer. My CO was the one who sent that presentation up with my name front and center. He had to defuse the situation. Also, and this is absolutely relevant, I was not a Commissioned Officer. I retired as a Chief Petty Officer, though I had a degree (Nuclear Engineering) and multiple "graduate level" certifications (PMP, LSSBB, CISSP, etc., etc.). There is only so far competence and capability can take you without rank in the US military. I chose to exit rather than move over and promote, which was the right decision for me. I apologize for lacking the context in my previous comments; I often forget people don't understand the intricacies of the arcane ways of the military unless they subjected themselves to it.
  - 3y ago
DavidPeiffer 3y ago
I had an industrial engineering professor who did a full career in the military, focused on energy efficiently. Paraphrasing, "The great thing about the US Government is it's so big, if the optimal solution would save 30%, but you find a suboptimal solution that only saves 29%, nobody will notice because you're still saving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of savings." One of his big projects was on energy efficiently in remote military camps. The cost of fuel per gallon was around $100 delivered to parts of Afghanistan. They had tons of portable generators running at ~20-40% of capacity. If memory serves, ~70% is most efficient. By some combination of building a small or connecting a few tents to a single generator, they were able to very significantly reduce the fuel required and improve the quality of service.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > The cost of fuel per gallon was around $100 delivered to parts of Afghanistan This was one of the most deeply insane parts of the whole twenty-year war. Of course, wars have unlimited budgets, so trucking gasoline thousands of miles through hostile territory with occasional losses and then using it to aircondition tents was going to happen. While back inside the US teachers were having to buy school supplies with their own money, because only wars have unlimited budgets.
  - Hikikomori 3y ago
    Also using Blackwater mercenaries so they could just brush any of their deaths under the rug as they typically didn't use Americans for dangerous and unprotected jobs.
    - plonk 3y ago
      How much did Blackwater do? Did they actually fight or just guard?
      - H8crilA 3y ago
        AFAIK Blackwater was mostly for guard duty, but I'm sure in practice it wasn't just for that. There's also a lot of smaller orgs out there that do "guard duty", not just american (for example britain is also active). Also there was a point when Blackwater boasted that they could deploy a light brigade (~3k troops) anywhere in the world, people in the Pentagon figured it out and very quickly killed that org. Compare with Prigozhin and his adventures, just for reference he had more than 10k soldiers under his command, on heavy equipment (arty, tanks, ifvs), permission to illegally recruit from prisons, he even had air defence like Pantsirs, the motherfuckers even tried to get nuclear backpacks (man-portable nuclear bombs) from a storage site near Voronezh. I think those entities are being tolerated and even welcome, as long as they don't exceed some potentially threatening size.
count 3y ago
>Note that some of that was as a Lean Six-Sigma Black Belt doing Enterprise projects >(I hate every single bit of terminology in that entire godforsaken sentence. Checks out. :). A super convenient way to do cool stuff like that in the DoD is to do it for the most senior Flag you can get interested in it directly. Projects at SECDEF or SECNAV offices work...differently than outside, as there isn't really an 'up' left for most of the folks involved (in my experience - most are extremely focused on getting the job done and/or the geo-strategic problems).
- CobaltFire 3y ago
  During the time I worked in that position I was one office removed from COMFRC, which was the Flag I generally reported to via my CO (who was the one who put me in that position and was highly supportive, and who ended up as COMFRC in later years). Anything that was directly interfacing with that office was great; as soon as I was detailed to do something downline from that office it got painful despite reporting to that Flag. I wasn't in a position to go higher without spending more time in the service, and that was a non-starter for me.
Vicinity9635 3y ago
[dead]
joezydeco 3y ago
My favorite quote: "When you do the impossible, it becomes part of your job description"
- sam_bristow 3y ago
  "Gaze not into the abyss, lest you become recognized as an abyss domain expert, and they expect you keep gazing into the damn thing."
eftychis 3y ago
No good deed goes unpunished. A part of me finds I might know you. Another part states: this story is way too common.
gerdesj 3y ago
"Beware of doing good things at work" You do have the option of becoming self employed. If you do, then you might discover a very different perspective. I've been doing it for 23 years now, with two partners and around 20 odd employees. IT company, you wont have heard of us but you will know some of our customers. I'm still sort of working now (its ~0030 here) keeping an ear to the ground - HN, r/sysadmin (int al), The Register and a few others are some of my canaries. I listen to their songs. I also have a BirdNetPi doing the same for actual birds too. If my company cocks up it will probably be fatal. I/we don't get the luxury of blaming someone else and I certainly don't get to mumble some sort of bollocks about "Your x is very important to us, soz we failed, lol and that - here have some free credit rating checker thingie". Why not try running a small company and living on your own wits with no mother to land on - you are mother!
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  one day, maybe. Today, I personally lack the savings buffer nor desirable kinds of skills to pull it off properly. Wasn't born with a silver spoon, so I guess I gotta pay my dues. Even then, my kind of self work is just as unstable as my industry. I may in fact be good at it and still fail.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    You're probably just unhappy with what you do and don't realize it. I am on my journey out of exactly what you're describing, and it came down to me realizing that I'd rather make less and solve real problems, instead of being an overpaid Copilot operator.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I'm a bit angry at the current market, but I like the work I do. And sadly, I'm far from overpaid (you can probably guess my industry in 1-2 guesses now. Not like I keep it secret on this profile to begin with). I really do want to do my own work without being binded to corporate whiplash, but I still have a mortgage and car to pay off. And I need to rebuild my 6 months savings after the current year of layoff. I'm going to start laying down the foundations on the side next year, but I see at least 5 more years before I can even consider jumping off.
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
At the wrong gig, with the wrong bosses. I have the misfortune of being at one of those bad places now. I was at a much better place before, where if I went out of my way and saved a couple million, I'd actually be congratulated; boss would even let have the credit. Never stay at a job where the culture is toxic. Even if the money is better. Nothing eats at the soul like being held down by feckless, petty careerists and control freaks.
- anoncareer0212 3y ago
  This. 1000x this. Even if it's a FAANG, do it, there's no shame. I had a good run at one, then the culture went to crap due to one of those long boring stories that still can't communicate how...easy it is for things to be awful, even when they shouldn't be. When they are, just move on. Life's too short. Whatever blows you up with $2 million in savings would blow you up at $500K
- _diq5 3y ago
  I've been trying to leave my current gig for the last 9+ months. It's tough to find the right roles these days
- bdw5204 3y ago
  I agree that getting out of a toxic culture is a great idea but you can also just check out, give them what they want and save as much money as you can. Especially if your goal is to eventually start your own company. Ideally, you should be working for a company that pays well and that actually rewards you for doing things that are good for the business. But it does seem like virtually every company has some kind of dysfunction.
  - throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
    Checking out literally turns me into an alcoholic. I can't live like that. I'm not an entrepreneur, I'm just a guy who cares way too much about wanting to do a good job. I agree though, there is no perfect place; wherever you go, there you are. Still, if you're unhappy, you're not going to be less happy by changing to a better job.
pdntspa 3y ago
This is the source of so much despair for me, I have lived it in two jobs. I want the stability of nice salaried gig but I know that if I do well, my managers are going to see that as slack and I am going to be overworked to a breaking point. And the greedy fucks would never agree to a rev-share or profit-share, no just here's your annual 5% increase now shut the fuck up and do your job. A few jobs ago I was asked to list the names of projects I was actively maintaining for the company, that list stretched out to two entire screens in Excel at default font size! I was burnt out to the point of severe depression. Even worse is I hate the bullshit ritual of submission that is job hunting.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  I can relate. The feeling of being undervalued and taken advantage of is poison for the soul. It's gotten to the point where I optimize for financial independence, maximum income, minimum hours worked and maximum free time.
throwaway5959 3y ago
> I'll echo the last part of that post: Beware of doing good things at work; the reward is rarely compensation and is usually more work for the same pay. Preach. 100%.

tehlike 3y ago

Sometimes I think of joining government org (3 letter agency) to find areas to improve $ efficiency on, or make decent direct contribution to US as a thank you for accepting me as an immigrant. I'm an engineer in a FAANG, who worked directly in money flow, and have had experience in diverse areas where it could come handy. Then I start thinking finding the right person to work with & right area to start at is probably 95% of the job, then give up.

wslack 3y ago
As someone who does this sort of work (but posting personally, not officially), you're 100% right. There are groups of already-networked folks you can join like USDS or 18F that are already connected to the problems. The post reminds me of some of the stuff you might see in gov, though I've never seen someone save money and be punished like this.
- brainbag 3y ago
  What is 18F? That's not the easiest thing to search if you're not looking for the obvious.
  - pbmonster 3y ago
    https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/
    - thelastparadise 3y ago
      Typical gov. Have a money burning problem? Let's create yet another org to solve it.
      - cthulha 3y ago
        No government has a money burning problem. They have expensive service delivery problems. I mean, if you're upset about government spending on tech, you better sit down before someone tells you what goes on in the large corporate sector...
  - pyhtel 3y ago
    https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/ Searching "USDS or 18F" helped google understand what I was looking for
- csa 3y ago
  > though I've never seen someone save money and be punished like this It happens. From DoD civilian world, 6 months in with a new org (I was the fng)… tl;dr — Made some software that moved a project from imminent mission failure to mission success, and got all of my command chain in trouble in the process. 1. There was an 8-figure, 2-year R&D contract for some mission critical software that had functions that my org needed. We were updated regularly that everything was moving along swimmingly. At the end of the contract, only about 10% of the functions actually worked. This is totally ok from their side since R&D contracts are “best effort”, so no functioning deliverables are actually required. The part of the software that was mission critical for my org had 0% working. My org was fucked. 2. We need this software in 3 months or less or we can’t fulfill obligations that we had made years prior. 3. Manager gives me free rein to make something that can solve the problem. 4. I have a prototype in one week. It’s not as automated as the 8-figure solution was supposed to be, but we had bodies to help with that (and also do sanity checks at various stages). 5. Weeks two and three were refining based on feedback from stakeholders. 6. Week 4 was training about 60 people to use the software. 7. Software was iteratively refined over 6 months or so based on user feedback during active use, but no major changes were needed — just minor QoL stuff. 8. Software had the bonus side effect of getting two embattled groups to start talking to each other and resolving process issues, which saved unbelievable amounts of time and lowered stress levels immensely. 9. End result was that we were able to meet our obligations. Mission success! Software worked with amazing consistency (very little down time, almost all of it out of our control), and resiliency (changes were easy and fast to make without breaking the system). So… what did I get for this? A spot bonus? A coin? A handshake from the commandant? Nope… I got a reserved “thank you” from my supervisor. The aftermath tells why. When my supervisor changed the status update up her chain of command that “mission critical software missing, mission failure imminent”, to “mission software exists, outlook favorable” in the course of one month, people started asking questions? “You had someone in your department who could do this already?” (No, I had just started, and not for a programmer job.) “You asked to spend a big chunk of the 8-figure R&D contract on your mission critical needs, and that work could be done in a month!?! And you didn’t know this?!?!?” (Supervisor was not a programmer, so it was all basically magic.) So supervisor was sort of criticized for “wasting time and resources” and “not knowing her people”, even though she could not have reasonably known that I existed (the R&D contract started two years before I worked at the org) and could solve the problem. That’s bad, right? Well, it got worse. The head civilian of our org had been making updates to DC about a potential mission failure due to the 8-figure contract software not working. When that got updated to “not a problem” after it was evident that my system worked, he got called to task in Congress, with congressmen asking him the same sorts of questions that he asked my supervisor (“You had in house talent that could do this? In a month? And we spent how much time and money on a contract to get the same functionality?”). There were no good answers. Needless to say, once I heard about the fallout, I was looking for the next thing. I felt like I had done my civic duty as a public servant. It was clear to me that further involvement would probably have similar outcomes (efficiencies made at the cost of negative career risk for my command chain).
bigsassy 3y ago
You'd want to start with the United States Digital Service (USDS). They're basically a consultancy inside the executive branch to build tech solutions for the various 3 letter agencies. You basically do a "tour of duty" for a year or so (however long you want), tackling one of these solutions. And they go out of their way to hire folks like you, from FAANG and other tech companies, so you work with good people. https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/
- BonoboIO 3y ago
  Is the salary competitive?
  - mh- 3y ago
    to my knowledge, USDS is still constrained by the General Schedule[1] salary table. (no.) edit: incidentally, this other thread [2] on the front page today has lots of comments confirming. ctrl-f for USDS. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2023/saltbl.pdf https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... (PDF) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38067206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38067206
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - dror 3y ago
    Anyone with a current significant salary in tech who lives in a major metro will make $183.5K. The salaries adjust by location, pick your location from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2020/general-schedule/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... This is the SF area table: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/20Tables/html/SF.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
pbronez 3y ago
There are a lot of ways to make an impact in National Defense outside of direct government employment. It’s tricky to find a good contractor, but they exist. The direct employment option might get better with the recent executive order on AI. USG pays market wages for VA doctor/s; eventually they’ll do the same for tech roles.

busterarm 3y ago

> Six-Sigma Black Belt I'm so triggered by this phrase. The worst (to work for and performing) company I was at hired SSBBs like crazy and none of them really did anything or made a damn bit of difference, but if you took the courses you were fast-tracked for success as far as promotions went.

CobaltFire 3y ago
I was not at all popular among my "peers" in that world. I had too much common sense, and didn't make changes just to make changes. I was extremely effective, but since I didn't play by the rules I was ostracized internally. That said, it did give me the opportunity to get the hell out of that community and back into IT/CyberSec. In all honesty, there are absolutely good concepts and tools in that world. The issue is that the people who gravitate to that world have no ability to provide any value themselves so don't actually understand how to USE those tools properly. Everything is a nail when all you have is an ENTIRE TOOLBOX.
syntaxing 3y ago
It’s interesting because I found Mech design engineers with green belts to usually be really sharp. I only met like one black belt design engineer and he pivoted careers a decade ago. But most black belts I met in QA were managers. Most of the technicians that did the work weren’t certified but lived and breathed the products for decades.
- busterarm 3y ago
  In that industry it makes sense. We were a services platform -- basically a massive, distributed call center.
- CobaltFire 3y ago
  My experience was that the tools are absolutely useful. Green Belts are those who learned the tools, but stayed at their day job. Black Belts are when you pivot into doing it full time. Much like people who underperform in technical fields often pivot to Management, you see the same in the pivot to Process Improvement. That creates the issue of the lowest performers at the actual job being the ones most inclined to pivot into that position. There are always good ones (I'm biased, but think I was). The issue is that they are a relative rarity due to those (and I'm sure other) factors.

unicornmama 3y ago

> I'll echo the last part of that post: Beware of doing good things at work; the reward is rarely compensation and is usually more work for the same pay. Let’s rephrase this in a less nihilistic way: Understand your organization’s values and culture. And beware of doing good (or bad) things in a way that goes against your organization’s values and culture.

CobaltFire 3y ago
Speaking as someone who spent over 20 years in the DOD: There isn't a way to make things better in the DOD that doesn't go against the culture. Period. My literal JOB was to make things better and it was the worst time of my career. That was with Flag Officer backing and independent authority. I got a chest full of shiny candy and a pathological distaste for it all after a few years of that.
- esafak 3y ago
  Bigger organizations tend to be more pathological; they attract and shelter sociopaths. So try to find a smaller one that is compatible with your values.
  - CobaltFire 3y ago
    Instead of finding a new org I retired and am doing my own thing. Figuring out what said own thing is is proving a bigger challenge than anticipated, but I'm enjoying it.
    - koliber 3y ago
      How did you go about figuring it out? I’m somewhere on this difficult path and would love to hear a good story. Contact details are in my profile if you’d be willing to share.
      - CobaltFire 3y ago
        I'm about six months into figuring it out and only now getting a feel for who I am without all the pressures of making a living in my chosen career. I'll drop you a line via your profile contact info and maybe we can have a chat!

rvbissell 3y ago

> Hell, once I almost got hugely punished because I didn't let my boss take the credit ... I'm mentally tripping over that part. Is that normally expected? ... By recursion, it seems that POTUS should get all the kudos, all the time.

CobaltFire 3y ago
In the military it’s extremely common for someone above you in the Chain of Command to get the credit; it may be your boss, or several levels up. Some of that credit may or may not spill over to you, but the general thought process is that they are responsible for what happens in the command so they get the credit. Good ones avoid that and push the credit to where it belongs, but then they don’t promote. This leads to an incentive to take credit from those under you in order to get promoted.
- rvbissell 3y ago
  Right, but someone /other than your boss/ was mad that you didn't arrange for your boss to receive the credit. That's the WTF detail.
  - CobaltFire 3y ago
    Correct; the fact that my name was on the presentation that went before Congress, vice my CO's, indicated to them that I went AROUND my CO. In reality, this is certainly possible. It just would have been a career killer. My CO was the one who sent that presentation up with my name front and center. He had to defuse the situation. Also, and this is absolutely relevant, I was not a Commissioned Officer. I retired as a Chief Petty Officer, though I had a degree (Nuclear Engineering) and multiple "graduate level" certifications (PMP, LSSBB, CISSP, etc., etc.). There is only so far competence and capability can take you without rank in the US military. I chose to exit rather than move over and promote, which was the right decision for me. I apologize for lacking the context in my previous comments; I often forget people don't understand the intricacies of the arcane ways of the military unless they subjected themselves to it.
- 3y ago

DavidPeiffer 3y ago

I had an industrial engineering professor who did a full career in the military, focused on energy efficiently. Paraphrasing, "The great thing about the US Government is it's so big, if the optimal solution would save 30%, but you find a suboptimal solution that only saves 29%, nobody will notice because you're still saving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of savings." One of his big projects was on energy efficiently in remote military camps. The cost of fuel per gallon was around $100 delivered to parts of Afghanistan. They had tons of portable generators running at ~20-40% of capacity. If memory serves, ~70% is most efficient. By some combination of building a small or connecting a few tents to a single generator, they were able to very significantly reduce the fuel required and improve the quality of service.

pjc50 3y ago
> The cost of fuel per gallon was around $100 delivered to parts of Afghanistan This was one of the most deeply insane parts of the whole twenty-year war. Of course, wars have unlimited budgets, so trucking gasoline thousands of miles through hostile territory with occasional losses and then using it to aircondition tents was going to happen. While back inside the US teachers were having to buy school supplies with their own money, because only wars have unlimited budgets.
- Hikikomori 3y ago
  Also using Blackwater mercenaries so they could just brush any of their deaths under the rug as they typically didn't use Americans for dangerous and unprotected jobs.
  - plonk 3y ago
    How much did Blackwater do? Did they actually fight or just guard?
    - H8crilA 3y ago
      AFAIK Blackwater was mostly for guard duty, but I'm sure in practice it wasn't just for that. There's also a lot of smaller orgs out there that do "guard duty", not just american (for example britain is also active). Also there was a point when Blackwater boasted that they could deploy a light brigade (~3k troops) anywhere in the world, people in the Pentagon figured it out and very quickly killed that org. Compare with Prigozhin and his adventures, just for reference he had more than 10k soldiers under his command, on heavy equipment (arty, tanks, ifvs), permission to illegally recruit from prisons, he even had air defence like Pantsirs, the motherfuckers even tried to get nuclear backpacks (man-portable nuclear bombs) from a storage site near Voronezh. I think those entities are being tolerated and even welcome, as long as they don't exceed some potentially threatening size.

count 3y ago

>Note that some of that was as a Lean Six-Sigma Black Belt doing Enterprise projects >(I hate every single bit of terminology in that entire godforsaken sentence. Checks out. :). A super convenient way to do cool stuff like that in the DoD is to do it for the most senior Flag you can get interested in it directly. Projects at SECDEF or SECNAV offices work...differently than outside, as there isn't really an 'up' left for most of the folks involved (in my experience - most are extremely focused on getting the job done and/or the geo-strategic problems).

CobaltFire 3y ago
During the time I worked in that position I was one office removed from COMFRC, which was the Flag I generally reported to via my CO (who was the one who put me in that position and was highly supportive, and who ended up as COMFRC in later years). Anything that was directly interfacing with that office was great; as soon as I was detailed to do something downline from that office it got painful despite reporting to that Flag. I wasn't in a position to go higher without spending more time in the service, and that was a non-starter for me.

Vicinity9635 3y ago

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joezydeco 3y ago

My favorite quote: "When you do the impossible, it becomes part of your job description"

sam_bristow 3y ago
"Gaze not into the abyss, lest you become recognized as an abyss domain expert, and they expect you keep gazing into the damn thing."

eftychis 3y ago

No good deed goes unpunished. A part of me finds I might know you. Another part states: this story is way too common.

gerdesj 3y ago

"Beware of doing good things at work" You do have the option of becoming self employed. If you do, then you might discover a very different perspective. I've been doing it for 23 years now, with two partners and around 20 odd employees. IT company, you wont have heard of us but you will know some of our customers. I'm still sort of working now (its ~0030 here) keeping an ear to the ground - HN, r/sysadmin (int al), The Register and a few others are some of my canaries. I listen to their songs. I also have a BirdNetPi doing the same for actual birds too. If my company cocks up it will probably be fatal. I/we don't get the luxury of blaming someone else and I certainly don't get to mumble some sort of bollocks about "Your x is very important to us, soz we failed, lol and that - here have some free credit rating checker thingie". Why not try running a small company and living on your own wits with no mother to land on - you are mother!

johnnyanmac 3y ago
one day, maybe. Today, I personally lack the savings buffer nor desirable kinds of skills to pull it off properly. Wasn't born with a silver spoon, so I guess I gotta pay my dues. Even then, my kind of self work is just as unstable as my industry. I may in fact be good at it and still fail.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  You're probably just unhappy with what you do and don't realize it. I am on my journey out of exactly what you're describing, and it came down to me realizing that I'd rather make less and solve real problems, instead of being an overpaid Copilot operator.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I'm a bit angry at the current market, but I like the work I do. And sadly, I'm far from overpaid (you can probably guess my industry in 1-2 guesses now. Not like I keep it secret on this profile to begin with). I really do want to do my own work without being binded to corporate whiplash, but I still have a mortgage and car to pay off. And I need to rebuild my 6 months savings after the current year of layoff. I'm going to start laying down the foundations on the side next year, but I see at least 5 more years before I can even consider jumping off.

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

At the wrong gig, with the wrong bosses. I have the misfortune of being at one of those bad places now. I was at a much better place before, where if I went out of my way and saved a couple million, I'd actually be congratulated; boss would even let have the credit. Never stay at a job where the culture is toxic. Even if the money is better. Nothing eats at the soul like being held down by feckless, petty careerists and control freaks.

anoncareer0212 3y ago
This. 1000x this. Even if it's a FAANG, do it, there's no shame. I had a good run at one, then the culture went to crap due to one of those long boring stories that still can't communicate how...easy it is for things to be awful, even when they shouldn't be. When they are, just move on. Life's too short. Whatever blows you up with $2 million in savings would blow you up at $500K
_diq5 3y ago
I've been trying to leave my current gig for the last 9+ months. It's tough to find the right roles these days
bdw5204 3y ago
I agree that getting out of a toxic culture is a great idea but you can also just check out, give them what they want and save as much money as you can. Especially if your goal is to eventually start your own company. Ideally, you should be working for a company that pays well and that actually rewards you for doing things that are good for the business. But it does seem like virtually every company has some kind of dysfunction.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  Checking out literally turns me into an alcoholic. I can't live like that. I'm not an entrepreneur, I'm just a guy who cares way too much about wanting to do a good job. I agree though, there is no perfect place; wherever you go, there you are. Still, if you're unhappy, you're not going to be less happy by changing to a better job.

pdntspa 3y ago

This is the source of so much despair for me, I have lived it in two jobs. I want the stability of nice salaried gig but I know that if I do well, my managers are going to see that as slack and I am going to be overworked to a breaking point. And the greedy fucks would never agree to a rev-share or profit-share, no just here's your annual 5% increase now shut the fuck up and do your job. A few jobs ago I was asked to list the names of projects I was actively maintaining for the company, that list stretched out to two entire screens in Excel at default font size! I was burnt out to the point of severe depression. Even worse is I hate the bullshit ritual of submission that is job hunting.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
I can relate. The feeling of being undervalued and taken advantage of is poison for the soul. It's gotten to the point where I optimize for financial independence, maximum income, minimum hours worked and maximum free time.

throwaway5959 3y ago

> I'll echo the last part of that post: Beware of doing good things at work; the reward is rarely compensation and is usually more work for the same pay. Preach. 100%.