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I have left the last 2 shops I worked at due to being put into shitty situations and either nothing was done, or for my last role I was very clearly forced to h

I have left the last 2 shops I worked at due to being put into shitty situations and either nothing was done, or for my last role I was very clearly forced to have no choice but to quit. I'll keep the details to a minimum to protect their and my own privacy, though I'm not sure I owe them that. 2 jobs ago: I was told by my cto that we were going to use a pen testing firm to get a report on our new system, pretty standard stuff. What was not cool was that this pen testing firm offered a week trial or something like that, and my cto's plan was to utilize their services for the report, which was needed for us to satisfy an enterprise requirement so we could sign a deal and collect $$$, and cancel quickly as to avoid paying the pen testing company the 40k or some large amount for their services. Is it maybe the pen testing firm's fault for offering a free trial, maybe, but at the very least it's a snake like move to do such a thing esp when our company was going to use the report to generate unknown amounts of enterprise cash going forward. If we found value in it, and it made us comply and get deals, we should pay that company for their services, just like we'd want others to do for our company. I would not have liked to hear anyone at the company suggest such slimy tactics, let alone my CTO. I was pretty tight-nit with the CEO, and was a very early employee. We had seen many ups and downs together both professionally and personally. I went to him as a friend, because I felt almost like a cofounder without the perks, because I had been there so long, and wanted to let my ceo and my friend know what a C level was telling me to do, because I honestly didn't know if I was being told to commit fraud, and at the very least, that shit can't be coming from the top, it'll only get more slimy down the chain if that's the precedent the org leader sets. I was shocked when the ceo didn't believe me after he spoke to the cto. I was then faced with the choice to stay and work under a cto I now had a major issue with and didn't respect, or quit the company I felt I helped build. I quit, with no plan in place because that request came out of the blue and forced me in between rock and hard place. Thankfully I landed on my feet quickly, at the last job I had... 1 job ago: A coworker on my team started to hold calls over after standup with just us 2, and then would start quizzing me on systems as if they didn't know how they worked. Some of these systems mind you, this person wrote, yet I was multiple times forced into a corner with them as they played dumb and asked leading and trivial questions, as if I were being tested by them for unknown reasons. The first few times this happened I chalked it up to me misinterpreting what was going on, but I started to pay closer attention after that to see if it was being done deliberately, and it without a doubt was. One of the most extreme calls I was being asked to explain to this person a system they authored, and they knew I knew they authored it, because I had done much of the code review for them when they wrote it. I asked this person why they were making me explain the code to them, they wrote it, and the person once again acted like they weren't sure what I meant. I became very pissed off at being (I hate this word but it's a textbook example) gaslit by a coworker, so much so that I hung up the call and immediately messaged my vp. This is where it gets shitty. The vp heard my issue and saw how upset I was. I was furious. I was threatening to quit. They talked to the other person, and came back to me and said they were "choosing to believe the other person", which if you majored in doublespeak or do pr for a living, is another way of saying "I think you're lying". Now my vp of eng is telling me he doesn't believe me when I go to him upset about a coworker intentionally fucking with me. Why I had any faith in them after being called a liar and left to be messed with is beyond me. At this point I'm thinking there must be something wrong with me that I'm not believed when I go to my leaders with legit issues. It honestly is one of the worst feelings to know I'm not lying, yet not have the people who should have my back believe me, and I still get upset to this day looking back at how I was dismissed when I had no reason to lie or make up stories. Long story short I should have left then, but stuck it out another 6 months, being harassed by this person in different ways the whole time. I on more than one occasion regrettably lost my cool with them in public channels and was not professional. I was burned out, and harassed by a psychopath and not believed by leadership. I quit when in an all hands they announced the coworker's promotion to my team's manager, which now put my harasser who was on the same level as me, in a position of power, as my boss, and it was clear that they wanted me out, but didn't want to fire me, so I was forced into either quitting my job or staying at a place where my harasser is now my boss and in charge of everything I do every day, and having the ability to sabotage my ability to earn more money, performance reviews, workloads, stress levels, or advance my career beyond my current role. I quit. I was fucked with by a coworker, called a liar, and forced to either work under a psycho person or quit the company and abandon the large project I had created while working there that I honestly loved to wake up every day and get to work on. That one really fucked me up. I've been out of work for a year now. Lost everything. I honestly don't even want to go back to software, but due to financial obligations and the debt from being out of work and losing all my possessions, I have no choice. Software is mentally taxing enough, let alone when you try to do the right thing in the face of corruption and nobody believes you, or you are the daily victim of a mind fuck from some unstable coworker with a bone to pick. That made my existing sabbatical level burnout turn into something that honestly has to be some form of trauma, and I haven't wanted to write a line of code since I quit that job a year ago, and I haven't. A week after I quit, the first huge rounds of layoffs started as well. Now I'm being asked in intro calls why there's a year gap on my resume, and I've already experienced people not believing me when I tell them the truth, so, I've been "contracting" here and there for a year, which is a lie. Funny how my attempts to be an honest person cost me two careers I never wanted to leave and resulted in me being the one telling fucking lies. Universe you are a cruel and mysterious sob.

lnsru 3y ago
I wrote another day, that the co-workers are not the friends. Many disagreed. But that’s typical shit. The psycho stories are rare and nobody believes them unless one experiences that in person. A colleague can go from nice sport partner to complete psycho when circumstances change. I got lots of advice from my parents and grandparents about work. I thought, it was some decades old crap. But I was wrong. I naively believed, that going to work and delivering best results is what counts. Wrong!!! That does not count! I was too young and too stupid not to analyze entrenched actors and who’s really in control. My direct manager was not in control, he was a clerk for weird group of people on different levels. That was very funny, because I have great experience in my field. And every project plan I created for a stupid device was canceled, because it interfered with parts designed by important people. My work was sabotaged for years. I even reported some weird hardware buying scheme at the 5x market rate. Made myself very unpopular. Lost belief in my skills completely. Found a new job as software developer leaving hardware design completely, because this area is poisoned to me by my last job. My sanity was saved by running a consultancy on the side. I delivered everything what clients asked on time and with acceptable quality, so I know, that everything I do is all right. Despite that I had hard time digesting the situation at work and comparing it to my own results. The gap was just too big. Now I see that my project was always derailed by the important guy without any technical knowledge, but with connections everywhere. This story costs the company millions. Because the current system is like from 1985 looking at the technical level of it. But since the important people stick to it (because this outdated crap keeps them important) nothing will change. Depending on factory load the yearly loss can be two digit million number. But in the reality nobody cares about such things, it’s a collateral in a game of power.

lnsru 3y ago

I wrote another day, that the co-workers are not the friends. Many disagreed. But that’s typical shit. The psycho stories are rare and nobody believes them unless one experiences that in person. A colleague can go from nice sport partner to complete psycho when circumstances change. I got lots of advice from my parents and grandparents about work. I thought, it was some decades old crap. But I was wrong. I naively believed, that going to work and delivering best results is what counts. Wrong!!! That does not count! I was too young and too stupid not to analyze entrenched actors and who’s really in control. My direct manager was not in control, he was a clerk for weird group of people on different levels. That was very funny, because I have great experience in my field. And every project plan I created for a stupid device was canceled, because it interfered with parts designed by important people. My work was sabotaged for years. I even reported some weird hardware buying scheme at the 5x market rate. Made myself very unpopular. Lost belief in my skills completely. Found a new job as software developer leaving hardware design completely, because this area is poisoned to me by my last job. My sanity was saved by running a consultancy on the side. I delivered everything what clients asked on time and with acceptable quality, so I know, that everything I do is all right. Despite that I had hard time digesting the situation at work and comparing it to my own results. The gap was just too big. Now I see that my project was always derailed by the important guy without any technical knowledge, but with connections everywhere. This story costs the company millions. Because the current system is like from 1985 looking at the technical level of it. But since the important people stick to it (because this outdated crap keeps them important) nothing will change. Depending on factory load the yearly loss can be two digit million number. But in the reality nobody cares about such things, it’s a collateral in a game of power.