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This is a political battle that will only be won with politics. Your performance won't save you; only your display of loyalty stands a chance. Display your all

This is a political battle that will only be won with politics. Your performance won't save you; only your display of loyalty stands a chance. Display your allegiance to the new director before he makes his final decision on who to cut. Find out what the new director wants to hear, and say it. If that means slagging on the old director, then so be it. Show that you can be a member of the new pack. This is about survival.

Cypher 2y ago
As an autistic worker, I find it impossible to lie... could this help in a discrimination case?
- kstenerud 2y ago
  That might be a tall order... It would likely be more fruitful in the long run to learn by rote how and when to lie. Learn some human psychology to help you. The patterns aren't that complicated.
- manfre 2y ago
  It won't help a case of you phrase it as not being as good of a liar. It would come across as you attempting to deceive the employer, but failing.
Attummm 2y ago
Software engineering used to be focused more on actual engineering. It was more about building cool things that created business value. The layer of politics seeping more into software engineering is giving developers a finance/management experience. That's not to say politics didn't exist before, but the idea of showing allegiance for survival feels more like Game of Thrones than software development. I guess the time when software culture had an abundance mindset has ended.
- socksy 2y ago
  Ah yes, back when spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri
- kstenerud 2y ago
  The focus hasn't changed; only the rose-colored glasses looking into a few gems of the past. Whenever there are more than two people together, there are politics - even if you try to pretend there aren't. There's no escaping it.
  - Attummm 2y ago
    The focus has changed, and the outcomes of that are felt throughout the industry. Even today, they are being discussed on HN in another thread[0]. I'll post an excerpt from the current highest-voted comment. > Like why didn't anyone catch the issue with the logs? Because it doesn't matter, every data team is a cost-centre that unscrupulous managers use to launch their careers by saying they're big on AI. So nothing works, no-one cares it doesn't work, most the data engineers are incapable of coding fizzbuzz but it doesn't matter. People always wonder why banks etc. use old mainframes. There's like a 0% success rate for new data projects. And that 0% includes projects which had launch parties etc. but no-one ever used the data or noticed how broken it was. I don't think a lot of orgs which use data as core-infra could modernize, the industry is just so broken at this point I don't think we can do what we did 30 years ago. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42010249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42010249
    - theamk 2y ago
      Was this ever different? I bet ever since first COBOL app was written, there were failed projects, or projects which appeared successful but were just barely limping along. "Mythical Man Month" was published in 1975.
  - User23 2y ago
    No, it’s definitely changed. As tech has become bigger and bigger the demographics of the field have approached the demographics of the overall population. Back in the 90s the tiny subset of self-selected people involved were almost all mission oriented true believers. As it grew and became extremely lucrative the folks with other priorities were attracted. As you say, there is always politics, but the difference in quantity is large enough to have a quality of its own.
- linguae 2y ago
  I hate to be that guy, but politics has always been part of the story of software development. The history of Apple is filled with all sorts of drama, with projects getting cancelled and people getting fired due to politics. Xerox PARC’s glory days in the 1970s were not politics-free; there were clashes between Bob Taylor and other high-level people, which finally reached a breaking point in 1983, leading to Taylor moving on to Digital Equipment Corporation and many PARC researchers following him there. Even in the non-profit open source world (some would say especially instead of even), there’s plenty of politics.
  - Attummm 2y ago
    Actually, you've reinforced my point. Those examples are, as you said, high-level executives, not software engineers. While office politics has always existed, it used to remain within the context of engineering. You mention Apple, Steve Jobs was the business person/visionary. But Steve Wozniak, the engineer behind Apple, actually made it very clear he doesn't like nor want to participate in politics or business tricks.
- nvarsj 2y ago
  As long as humans have had to work together, politics exist. Whether you are isolated from it is solely down to your manager and leadership. But it’s always there.
chmod775 2y ago
Sure, do this if the compensation is worth debasing yourself. If it's not or you can easily find something else, there's no reason to put on the clown costume. If you are respected for your work alone and clearly shut down any attempts to recruit you into the political circus, chances are the children will not drag you into their squabbles. They'll be happy someone reliable is doing the work while they're busy playing fiefdom and leave you alone, rather than risk having it crash down around themselves over confronting someone who has no issues calling the act for what it is. > By the end he seemed intent on making my team out to be under performing. Do not, under any circumstances, let these people remain vague. As soon as you see them make allusions, make them nail themselves down. Examples: "In your opinion, am I under performing?". If the answer is yes: "In what areas is my performance lacking? What would be an improvement?". If the answer is no or he doesn't know: "Oh. I see. You really gave the impression that you do think so.". He'll apologize. Nine times out of ten the conversation will end with the latter. Even if he intended to make you look bad, get ahead of it and he will be unprepared and reflexively be nice. Chances are he'll mind his behavior around you in the future. Bullshitters fear the blunt.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  This might be good advice in times of plenty. But given the downturn, I wouldn’t do this unless you want some time off and are financially solid, or have an offer lined up.
socksy 2y ago
In all seriousness, if the director has someone on the shit list, then I don't think there's much that person could directly do to change that (in the short term at least), and suddenly changing one's tune to be sucking up to the new leader will be seen as what it is. If it were me, I would be taking stock of the current situation from a holistic point of view. The most persuasive you could be is if other people that the director trusts are telling them to keep you. So you go on a charm offensive on all the people from the other team, possibly even airing your worries of being shitcanned (depending on how sympathetic the person you're talking to would be). This also has the benefit of you not having to actually lie or mislead anyone. This is definitely not the time to be dying on any hills from a tech perspective, and you should help people get their work done and their PRs merged. If a rumour starts that you might get fired and you're beloved by those the new director respects, it may well behoove them to deny it, and when someone makes a statement out loud the desire to save face and stay consistent will be strong. However, if you don't manage to change their actual opinion longer term, or you don't succeed in persuading others, then youwill get fired. So simultaneously, you should be preparing for the worst. If you haven't already, write a brag file about everything you've achieved at the company — this is much easier while you still have access to all the systems and are able to look through history. This file is invaluable for writing your CV (which you might also want to be doing) and referring to before interviews. Basically, do what you can to get through this political turmoil, and work to reduce the possible downside of you not succeeding, because the odds are against you.
ionwake 2y ago
This amount of disloyalty can only ensure depression and a loss of identity IMO, for people like me.

Cypher 2y ago

As an autistic worker, I find it impossible to lie... could this help in a discrimination case?

kstenerud 2y ago
That might be a tall order... It would likely be more fruitful in the long run to learn by rote how and when to lie. Learn some human psychology to help you. The patterns aren't that complicated.
manfre 2y ago
It won't help a case of you phrase it as not being as good of a liar. It would come across as you attempting to deceive the employer, but failing.

Attummm 2y ago

Software engineering used to be focused more on actual engineering. It was more about building cool things that created business value. The layer of politics seeping more into software engineering is giving developers a finance/management experience. That's not to say politics didn't exist before, but the idea of showing allegiance for survival feels more like Game of Thrones than software development. I guess the time when software culture had an abundance mindset has ended.

socksy 2y ago
Ah yes, back when spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri
kstenerud 2y ago
The focus hasn't changed; only the rose-colored glasses looking into a few gems of the past. Whenever there are more than two people together, there are politics - even if you try to pretend there aren't. There's no escaping it.
- Attummm 2y ago
  The focus has changed, and the outcomes of that are felt throughout the industry. Even today, they are being discussed on HN in another thread[0]. I'll post an excerpt from the current highest-voted comment. > Like why didn't anyone catch the issue with the logs? Because it doesn't matter, every data team is a cost-centre that unscrupulous managers use to launch their careers by saying they're big on AI. So nothing works, no-one cares it doesn't work, most the data engineers are incapable of coding fizzbuzz but it doesn't matter. People always wonder why banks etc. use old mainframes. There's like a 0% success rate for new data projects. And that 0% includes projects which had launch parties etc. but no-one ever used the data or noticed how broken it was. I don't think a lot of orgs which use data as core-infra could modernize, the industry is just so broken at this point I don't think we can do what we did 30 years ago. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42010249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42010249
  - theamk 2y ago
    Was this ever different? I bet ever since first COBOL app was written, there were failed projects, or projects which appeared successful but were just barely limping along. "Mythical Man Month" was published in 1975.
- User23 2y ago
  No, it’s definitely changed. As tech has become bigger and bigger the demographics of the field have approached the demographics of the overall population. Back in the 90s the tiny subset of self-selected people involved were almost all mission oriented true believers. As it grew and became extremely lucrative the folks with other priorities were attracted. As you say, there is always politics, but the difference in quantity is large enough to have a quality of its own.
linguae 2y ago
I hate to be that guy, but politics has always been part of the story of software development. The history of Apple is filled with all sorts of drama, with projects getting cancelled and people getting fired due to politics. Xerox PARC’s glory days in the 1970s were not politics-free; there were clashes between Bob Taylor and other high-level people, which finally reached a breaking point in 1983, leading to Taylor moving on to Digital Equipment Corporation and many PARC researchers following him there. Even in the non-profit open source world (some would say especially instead of even), there’s plenty of politics.
- Attummm 2y ago
  Actually, you've reinforced my point. Those examples are, as you said, high-level executives, not software engineers. While office politics has always existed, it used to remain within the context of engineering. You mention Apple, Steve Jobs was the business person/visionary. But Steve Wozniak, the engineer behind Apple, actually made it very clear he doesn't like nor want to participate in politics or business tricks.
nvarsj 2y ago
As long as humans have had to work together, politics exist. Whether you are isolated from it is solely down to your manager and leadership. But it’s always there.

chmod775 2y ago

Sure, do this if the compensation is worth debasing yourself. If it's not or you can easily find something else, there's no reason to put on the clown costume. If you are respected for your work alone and clearly shut down any attempts to recruit you into the political circus, chances are the children will not drag you into their squabbles. They'll be happy someone reliable is doing the work while they're busy playing fiefdom and leave you alone, rather than risk having it crash down around themselves over confronting someone who has no issues calling the act for what it is. > By the end he seemed intent on making my team out to be under performing. Do not, under any circumstances, let these people remain vague. As soon as you see them make allusions, make them nail themselves down. Examples: "In your opinion, am I under performing?". If the answer is yes: "In what areas is my performance lacking? What would be an improvement?". If the answer is no or he doesn't know: "Oh. I see. You really gave the impression that you do think so.". He'll apologize. Nine times out of ten the conversation will end with the latter. Even if he intended to make you look bad, get ahead of it and he will be unprepared and reflexively be nice. Chances are he'll mind his behavior around you in the future. Bullshitters fear the blunt.

mixmastamyk 2y ago
This might be good advice in times of plenty. But given the downturn, I wouldn’t do this unless you want some time off and are financially solid, or have an offer lined up.

socksy 2y ago

In all seriousness, if the director has someone on the shit list, then I don't think there's much that person could directly do to change that (in the short term at least), and suddenly changing one's tune to be sucking up to the new leader will be seen as what it is. If it were me, I would be taking stock of the current situation from a holistic point of view. The most persuasive you could be is if other people that the director trusts are telling them to keep you. So you go on a charm offensive on all the people from the other team, possibly even airing your worries of being shitcanned (depending on how sympathetic the person you're talking to would be). This also has the benefit of you not having to actually lie or mislead anyone. This is definitely not the time to be dying on any hills from a tech perspective, and you should help people get their work done and their PRs merged. If a rumour starts that you might get fired and you're beloved by those the new director respects, it may well behoove them to deny it, and when someone makes a statement out loud the desire to save face and stay consistent will be strong. However, if you don't manage to change their actual opinion longer term, or you don't succeed in persuading others, then youwill get fired. So simultaneously, you should be preparing for the worst. If you haven't already, write a brag file about everything you've achieved at the company — this is much easier while you still have access to all the systems and are able to look through history. This file is invaluable for writing your CV (which you might also want to be doing) and referring to before interviews. Basically, do what you can to get through this political turmoil, and work to reduce the possible downside of you not succeeding, because the odds are against you.

ionwake 2y ago

This amount of disloyalty can only ensure depression and a loss of identity IMO, for people like me.