23 ms·

Although this is an extreme example, I sympathize and often have feelings like this. But it's not about the amount of work; it's about the constant internal str

by edw519 14y ago

Although this is an extreme example, I sympathize and often have feelings like this. But it's not about the amount of work; it's about the constant internal struggle. Let me explain. I have never had a problem about the volume or difficulty of work in any job I've ever had. In fact, some of my favorite memories of work have been sprints to finish something, whether in software, retail/distribution, or food service. I take great pride in delivering, sometimes with compromised quality, but always on time and budget. I imagine many here feel the same way. My internal struggle is the constant questioning of whether or not I should even put up with illogical bullshit. I have no doubt that hard work, long hours, complex work, and difficult customers are occasionally part of my world. But every day, in my morning exercise when I would prefer focusing on the work of the day, I always find my mind drifting into anger over unnecessary bullshit like: - working for unethical people - watching others line their pockets while I work - choosing what's best for the company vs. the customer - busting my ass while others sit and watch - endless meetings about nothing - watching great stuff I built being scrapped by idiots - watching horrible decisions made by those for their own benefit - witnessing the functional taking back seat to the political - dealing with managers who don't understand technology (and don't care to learn) - dealing with people who don't understand the business/industry and (don't care to learn) - horrible working conditions for workers while managers get luxury - constant work-prevention structure imposed by people who have never accomplished anything Some days I'm on top of the world, rejoicing when something I built provides great value to others. Other days, I feel like I'm digging holes on the beach only to see them filled up by the overnight tide of idiotic others. My struggle continues. I only hope I have the foresight to take intervention before I ever become like OP.

scoot 14y ago
I think this point sums up (most of) the rest of your list quite nicely: "watching horrible decisions made by [others] for their own benefit" I think the answer lies in how you direct that feeling - either as hate for your job; or to drive a passion to control your own destiny by getting out and doing something yourself.
- lsc 14y ago
  >I think the answer lies in how you direct that feeling - either as hate for your job; or to drive a passion to control your own destiny by getting out and doing something yourself. It's not that simple. Seriously, people who work for me fight with me about exactly the same things I fought with my boss about back when I was really frustrated by working for other people. Working for yourself does not save you from dealing with these problems. It makes you see these problems from another angle, sure, but that doesn't always help. there are so many compromises you have to make when you own the company, too. I mean, it's different, in that you own it, and ultimately, you have lines you won't cross even if it destroys the company; but god damn it's harder when you can't just walk. (I mean, some people feel like they can't walk away from their jobs. I /never/ felt that way until I had my own company, with customers and contracts. Right now? I can't walk, not without corporate and personal bankruptcy. There's no serious debt, but leases act exactly like debt when you stop paying them; I'm on the hook for leases that total well north of a third of a million in datacenter space alone... of course, that's payable over the next five years or so.) But yeah. I remember when I could decide I was tired of my job, and just go get another one. That was nice. I mean, I talk a lot about the waste that salespeople are; the value subtracted by this negotiation process... that was actually a large part of the reason I went into business myself. It was clearly an irrational reason, as where I stand now, I spend a lot of time playing emotional games to see who gets the surplus value out of a deal, as the asking prices are set for companies that have margins at least an order of magnitude better than mine. And I still think it's a waste... but I'm doing it anyhow, because otherwise I can't afford jack. I mean, seriously, it is not unusual for the final price to be 20% of the asking price. what the hell? The real problem is that negotiation is supposed to find the things that are important to me that are not important to you, and vis-a-vis. You want to work out a deal where both parties benefit maximally, by changing the deal. (this, actually, I think is why small businesses can often compete with businesses that are much larger with giant economies of scale. I can negotiate (in the positive way) with an employee "I can't give you as much as that other company, but I can let you set your own hours and work from home." - or if the employee wants something else, I can change my company around to accommodate that in ways a large company could not.) Problem is? that is /hard/ - the people negotiating, first, have to understand the product, and generally speaking, salesmen selling technical stuff do not. Then, they have to have the authority to change the deal in non-standard ways (which I understand is hard because it means that five years from now, you've gotta keep supporting that one-off configuration. I'm moving co-lo, and all the one-off deals I made are now coming back to bite me in the ass. And I'm small enough that it can still all mostly be in my head.) It's way easier to make the "what you get" standard, then just figure out what the surplus value is in dollars, and play emotional games to see who gets the lions share of that surplus value. Worse, now /you/ are the guy that's gotta kill the project that your employee worked so hard on, because /you/ planned poorly. I mean, at least you can honestly take responsibility for it and apologize, but meh. Now you are the one taking advantage of that hard worker who never really gets all that much extra money. (not having a lot of money is a good excuse here, and yeah, a lot of people want recognition as much as they want money... but even that is hard to do correctly.) Now /you/ are the guy that has to put the kibosh on a promising new hire because your supplier decided to increase prices, or your revenue took a dive. It's easy to say 'I can do better' - actually doing better? harder than it looks. A lot harder, certainly, than just switching jobs.
fredsanford 14y ago
Wow... This situation must be more common than I thought. I've had a few jobs in my lifetime that left me with the feelings you posted here... The beatings will continue until morale improves. These points: - working for unethical people - busting my ass while others sit and watch - watching horrible decisions made by those for their own benefit were ultimately the biggest reasons I've left jobs. In one place I worked, we created software for the financial industry and sold it in regions, like such-and-such county or city. Then our office setup one of our systems and competed under the table with the regional customers around us. Scummy. Ultimately, I left over this issue and it is still my favorite job I've had or will ever have. All because one guy got greedy.
- LaGrange 14y ago
  Yes. The feeling is so common, it even has a name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias
- Shorel 14y ago
  I don't use or recommend Microsoft tools because of this. They are good, technically speaking, but they will always be scummy. Otherwise, if I am ever successful, Microsoft will clone my business. I think it has happened to almost all their partners. Unless they are bought by Microsoft, like the Sysinternals guys. That's the only good exit.
  - weirdkid 14y ago
    Same could be said for Google.
grey-area 14y ago
constant work-prevention structure imposed by people who have never accomplished anything I think this comment distills the essence of the problem the which gives people so much trouble. If your perspective is that of a maker/hacker then good work (which should be rewarded) is to make great things, things please people and improve their lives, and perhaps profit the company. If your goal is maximising profit for the company, sometimes good ideas will need to be canned or replaced by bad ones the customer wants, sometimes work will need to be stopped after much effort was put in, sometimes politics will override technical considerations. If your goal is maximising profit for the individual at minimal cost, you want others to do the work while you get the rewards, and neither the business nor other workers, nor their pet projects, are your concern - more fool them if they take the company propaganda as truth, believe they are living in a meritocracy, and don't realise the realities of workplace politics. From the perpective of a manager who has climbed the greasy pole to luxury while workers suffer horrible working conditions, who is the idiot? I would argue that classifying people as idiots is not useful and obscures the real differences in outlook which produce this sort of friction. There are many other perspectives to work (not tied to specific roles like manager or programmer I hasten to add), and holding them does not make people idiots, in fact many others might view someone slaving away for a company in the misapprehension that they are improving the world as an idiot; both would be wrong. The best way to deal with this IMHO is to recognise that workplaces have a culture, which contains and controls many different aspirations, and if you find this culture toxic, you should change job if at all possible - it is very hard to change a company culture or the perspectives of other workers on their work. Also, work should not be your only passion if you want to remain sane.
- nnq 14y ago
  Agree with what you said. But please don't make it sound like an axis with two extremes: "the maker/hacker" and "the profit maximizer". There's a third sweet spot, the "making your client happy" spot, sometimes at the expense of your hacker spirit and sometimes at the expense of a little more short term profit ("ripping them off"). The people who find this 3rd mode of thinking, who believe in "making stuff that helps others make stuff" make the company work and stay afloat and keep it a warm and nourishing environment for both themselves and the "pure hackers" and the "profit psychos".
_k 14y ago
There're lots of people who feel like you do.
konstruktor 14y ago
When you work in a company you don't own, there are a lot of things you will encounter that not under your control (1). Personally, I find the Stoics' attitude very helpful when dealing with that fact. They advocate distinguishing between what is in our control and what isn't, suggesting to focus on acting honorably oneself, but always with reservation, i.e. aware that others can always stop us from reaching our goals but never invalidate our sincere efforts. Talking of morning exercises, Marcus Aurelius used to remind himself in the morning that he would be around exactly the kind of people you describe, but that they did not have the power to make him crazy if he is aware of their inevitability: http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html (BTW: I only used this source because it seems to be public domain and available online, if you want to read translations of ancient texts, invest in a modern one that is more convenient to read.) (1) Of course, if you start your own company, you will be dealing with things you can't control as well. Edit: Replaced asterisks that made the text italics.
- thelittlelisper 14y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree with this. I work at one of the top cancer research labs in the world, and you'd be surprised how dysfunctional our organization has become. It's perfectly described by what edw519 has outlined. Seeing millions of dollars poured in projects that go nowhere since they are executed by incompetent workers lead by machiavellian managers is horribly depressing. I feel that a startup setting would be incredibly more efficient to do what we do. But of course it'd be difficult to fund it, unless it's operated as a charity or it's backed up by the gov't. In the meanwhile I'm acting as a stoic and enjoying some tiny victories.
  - wnight 14y ago
    Leak details. If nothing else, more light on the area would make it harder to screw around.
    - thelittlelisper 14y ago
      Thanks. Care to elaborate on this? It's difficult to leak details and make an impact. Academia is really screwed up. 90% of what gets published is a blatant lie, but nobody seems to care. Most researchers live in a distorted reality.
singular 14y ago
"I have never had a problem about the volume or difficulty of work in any job I've ever had. In fact, some of my favorite memories of work have been sprints to finish something, whether in software, retail/distribution, or food service." I'm sure if I put you on a 120 hour week for a few months you'd change your opinion about that, even if you were to ship something at the end of it. I don't think it's a good idea nor particularly ethical given the situation under discussion to boast about how you've never had a problem with overwork.
- stray 14y ago
  120-hour week for a few months? Shipped at the end of it? Is that a real project you worked on? If so, and if it happened a couple years ago in Colorado -- I was one of your coworkers. And I left just a couple weeks after the rest of you guys. That was some crazy shit but in the end we did ship. And on time, even. But I can't even pass that freeway exit any more without feeling a sense of dread.
  - singular 14y ago
    Haha no thank Science just a theoretical situation, my word I feel for you man - that sounds horrific. I don't think I'd be able to cope. Games industry? The point is that edw's comment on hours sits ill-at-ease with the rest of his post. As if overwork isn't a MAJOR factor in burnout. I don't disagree with his other points, rather we mustn't pretend like working ludicrous hours isn't bad for you.
  - infinite8s 14y ago
    120-hours for multiple weeks? Is that even possible? Why would anyone without substantial ownership stake even do that?
    - stray 14y ago
      Who said there wasn't substantial skin in the game? And actually I remember it as 110 hour weeks (though it's possible that I was the slacker of the bunch). Yeah, we had something like 3 months of working 15 to 18 hours per day, 7 days per week. Totally possible. Totally stupid.
dferlemann 14y ago
I have only 1.5 years of work experience as software engineer. Maybe I am wrong, but aren't most of these quirks just a part of working with others? Regardless you are working for yourself, a company or organization, you have to deal with people. And people can be unethical, apathetic, incompetent, rigid, inexperienced, inappropriate. And when your company become large, it will have processes to limit your reign of power for good of the company. Every person I've worked with (mostly software guys) think they are better than others, and suffered. To me, it's more of an inability to work with others and handling situations and problems.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  You learn well, grasshopper. Indeed, whatever your occupation you will balance imperfect choices of what you will do, who you will work with, and the outcome of your efforts. Humility and acceptance of your limits go far in preserving sanity, whether you lead a multibillion dollar corporation, write software with a team, or sweep the floors alone after hours. You don't have total control, but that doesn't mean you don't have some control; do what you can (sometimes that means doing your job well, and sometimes that means leaving your job for another).
  - dferlemann 14y ago
    That's why I adore small startups where you can grow with others while being pushed to innovate. And people you work with likely to have the same mentality. The fact that the limited resource presents such challenge it's actually exhilarating! Well, my current job though hits almost all items on that list. It sounds depressing, but it has been a great learning experience! I like challenges and I don't believe in complaints, always make the best of the current situation. (really, I'm just squeezing every bit of learning opportunities out of it... big organizations got huge resources. Ha! =D)
Cabal 14y ago
Unfortunately, after seeing Ed's previous breakdown on Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361056), I have to see comments like this in a new light.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  -1547. How in the name of a million fucks is that a breakdown? That sounds like a breakthrough. He's being honest about his atypical and unfortunate trajectory. I wish more people had the fucking cojones to be that way about their setbacks and rejections. Silicon Valley's tolerance of failure is paper-thin and a "heads, I win; tails, you lose" mentality. It means, "it's morally okay for me to fail you". It justifies fast firing and VC caprice, but if you actually fail, you're every bit as ostracized like PNG garbage as in any other society. On edw519's so-called "breakdown": The guy's been handed a shit sandwich by life-- when your IQ passes 150, conflicts with authority are inevitable; it comes to you looking for fights, and if you don't see it that way, then your IQ is not over 150 and probably not even 140 because every genuine 150+ I have ever met has experienced that-- and he keeps working his ass off and doing the right thing. Balls of Steel. You know how fucking hard it is to keep working your ass off when every signal coming your way is negative? How fucking brutal it can be to keep believing in yourself in a world where people avoid the sick, unlucky, or unpopular with no concern as to whether it's their fault? I have a lot of respect for winter travelers like 'edw519 and Abraham Lincoln. Summer traveling is nice, but you only get a sense of the real landscape if you go when the trees are bare.
  - pkteison 14y ago
    The beginning was good, but when you claimed that smart people are certain to not get along with authority you went way out on an unsupported limb. I personally think passion and drive correlate to conflict a lot stronger than intelligence does; plenty of smart people know how to choose their battles and bite their tongues, and the suggestion that if they do they must not be super smart is just outrageous.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
pasbesoin 14y ago
Ed, 110%. It's almost never about the effort involved -- at least, not on a short-term basis. It's about the context. I think the circumstances and frustration go beyond the description in this Dilbert cartoon, but it has never left my mind since I saw it: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/ Excerpt: "Wow! They're both better than my current job!"
michaelochurch 14y ago
You have fought the hydra bravely, and I commend you for that. May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. What do you suppose we do? For the long-term, here's the financial structure for the solution that I see: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macleod-17-building-the-future-and-financing-lifestyle-businesses/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle... . Essentially, I think VC-istan and MegaCorps are both dead ends when it comes to genuine technical excellence (which weird people like us care about). I think it's time to have a serious conversation about financing a fleet of mid-growth K-strategist startups instead of these red-ocean, r-strategist, get-big-or-die marketing gambits. Here's an insane thought that I had that just might work. Find a Midwestern city that has $25 million to blow on becoming a top technology hub and set up an Autonomy Fund. (I'll do the "grunt work" of screening for talent; if this idea has legs I'd drop everything to implement it.) 100 top-notch programmers, $125k per year (out of which their resource/AWS costs come, so no one's living high on the hog), and 2 years. First, these companies are designed to become profitable, not to exit, so compensation is profit-sharing, not the joke equity offered by VC-istan. The city that funds this takes a 37.5% profit-share of whatever they build (it's valuating their work at $333k per year, which is lower than a VC valuation, but the terms are better.) If it works, then add time to the schedule (i.e. more years of life and more startups) and possibly more engineers. This is like Y Combinator, but without the feeder-into-VC dynamic; it's to build real businesses that generating lasting value both to a geographical area and to technology itself. I seriously think that Autonomy Funds are going to be big in the next 10 years-- VC-istan is essentially a shitty implementation of an Autonomy Fund, except with selection based on connections rather than technical ability-- but there are some obvious problems (moral hazard, principal-agent issues) that need to be solved.
- IsaacL 14y ago
  When I saw this story, my first thought was to go to the comments and do a ctrl-F "michaelochurch". Was not disappointed. I think this story is essentially the Clueless -> Loser transition in Gervais principle terminology.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
vijayr 14y ago
Is this not common in other industries too? Not just software? The frustration level is probably higher in creative/logical work (software, advertising etc) but I'd guess the situation is probably worse in other industries. Is there any solution to this?
bconway 14y ago
Have you sought out a mental health professional? In my experience, most incidents like the one linked have little to do with the amount of work or the politics involved, and everything to do with an untreated emotional condition. A lot of your writing above rings true in the same fashion. Please be careful.
- vsync 14y ago
  Yes, being annoyed by unethical people is a mental condition.
  - jodrellblank 14y ago
    ... What, do you consider "being so annoyed by unethical people that you get committed to a mental institution" normal and OK?
hjay 14y ago
I too, struggle with a lot of this. I've seen people who just "sit back" when they are dissatisfied with the stuff that frustrates them at work. Problem with me is, I'm unable to do that. I DO enjoy the work I do, I DO recognize the value that I am bringing to the company/others, and I AM frustrated at people who insist on a work-prevention structure, but I just cannot bring myself to push things off my own plate. I see the people who stand around talking about useless miscellaneous happenings while everyone else is sitting/working. I see the people who (even in non-managerial roles), take the fruits of my effort, and wave it high in the air "oh look, I'm such a genius! Look at what I did!". I see those same people treat me like crap simply because I'm actually doing work and not talking about how I lost $500 playing online poker yesterday, or how his iPhone app made 5 bucks this month. I'm see those same people make racist or sexist remarks as a joke, 5 feet away from the subjects of their jokes. I'm not the "in" crowd, I'm just there to produce results and value so they can show it off, get promoted, and look back down on me and sneer. I also see that one other programmer on the other corner, working just like me, and being treated no differently. I'm a very patient and calm person, but seeing how much anger I have pent up, I can only extend a little of my remaining empathy and sense that, that one other programmer feels very much the same.
saintx 14y ago
I definitely sympathize. It feels that the world is accelerating toward the end of some century-long slide from value creation to value capture, where fortunes aren't so much built as they are acquired or harvested from the people who build them.
Wonderdonkey 14y ago
If I weren't in a different profession, I'd say we must work for the same company.
jf22 14y ago
>watching horrible decisions made by those for their own benefit Always consider you have imperfect information before coming to this verdict. As developer sometimes we think we know whats going on but really don't. As a new startup founder I find myself making tons of what I would previously classify as horrible decisions just because I have much more information about what is going on. The decisions you make change once you have to consider cash, timelines, resource availability and potential sales.
incision 14y ago
Bullseye. I think I've learned to work through this brand of bullshit without being consumed by it, but I've earned myself a pair of golden shackles in the process. My recent focus has been devising an escape route. I believe it starts with recognizing what's really important in life and learning to want less. I'm not sure where it ends, but it's hard to imagine escaping most of the bullshit while working for anyone else.
ttrreeww 14y ago
Don't worry, once I win the lottery, I shall create a paradise for workers. Until then, hold your breath.
bjelkeman-again 14y ago
This was essentially the reason is started my own businesses, or co-founded businesses. I was sick of all of the above. Then, eventually I got sick of the whole money grabbing nature the software business. It was just all about making someone else rich quick. I was going to quit the software business entirely, but a chance meeting led to finding someone who actually cared and wanted to make a difference, as well as being positioned to do so. And we ended up starting Akvo.org, and now all is a hell of a lot better.

by edw519 14y ago

scoot 14y ago

I think this point sums up (most of) the rest of your list quite nicely: "watching horrible decisions made by [others] for their own benefit" I think the answer lies in how you direct that feeling - either as hate for your job; or to drive a passion to control your own destiny by getting out and doing something yourself.

lsc 14y ago
>I think the answer lies in how you direct that feeling - either as hate for your job; or to drive a passion to control your own destiny by getting out and doing something yourself. It's not that simple. Seriously, people who work for me fight with me about exactly the same things I fought with my boss about back when I was really frustrated by working for other people. Working for yourself does not save you from dealing with these problems. It makes you see these problems from another angle, sure, but that doesn't always help. there are so many compromises you have to make when you own the company, too. I mean, it's different, in that you own it, and ultimately, you have lines you won't cross even if it destroys the company; but god damn it's harder when you can't just walk. (I mean, some people feel like they can't walk away from their jobs. I /never/ felt that way until I had my own company, with customers and contracts. Right now? I can't walk, not without corporate and personal bankruptcy. There's no serious debt, but leases act exactly like debt when you stop paying them; I'm on the hook for leases that total well north of a third of a million in datacenter space alone... of course, that's payable over the next five years or so.) But yeah. I remember when I could decide I was tired of my job, and just go get another one. That was nice. I mean, I talk a lot about the waste that salespeople are; the value subtracted by this negotiation process... that was actually a large part of the reason I went into business myself. It was clearly an irrational reason, as where I stand now, I spend a lot of time playing emotional games to see who gets the surplus value out of a deal, as the asking prices are set for companies that have margins at least an order of magnitude better than mine. And I still think it's a waste... but I'm doing it anyhow, because otherwise I can't afford jack. I mean, seriously, it is not unusual for the final price to be 20% of the asking price. what the hell? The real problem is that negotiation is supposed to find the things that are important to me that are not important to you, and vis-a-vis. You want to work out a deal where both parties benefit maximally, by changing the deal. (this, actually, I think is why small businesses can often compete with businesses that are much larger with giant economies of scale. I can negotiate (in the positive way) with an employee "I can't give you as much as that other company, but I can let you set your own hours and work from home." - or if the employee wants something else, I can change my company around to accommodate that in ways a large company could not.) Problem is? that is /hard/ - the people negotiating, first, have to understand the product, and generally speaking, salesmen selling technical stuff do not. Then, they have to have the authority to change the deal in non-standard ways (which I understand is hard because it means that five years from now, you've gotta keep supporting that one-off configuration. I'm moving co-lo, and all the one-off deals I made are now coming back to bite me in the ass. And I'm small enough that it can still all mostly be in my head.) It's way easier to make the "what you get" standard, then just figure out what the surplus value is in dollars, and play emotional games to see who gets the lions share of that surplus value. Worse, now /you/ are the guy that's gotta kill the project that your employee worked so hard on, because /you/ planned poorly. I mean, at least you can honestly take responsibility for it and apologize, but meh. Now you are the one taking advantage of that hard worker who never really gets all that much extra money. (not having a lot of money is a good excuse here, and yeah, a lot of people want recognition as much as they want money... but even that is hard to do correctly.) Now /you/ are the guy that has to put the kibosh on a promising new hire because your supplier decided to increase prices, or your revenue took a dive. It's easy to say 'I can do better' - actually doing better? harder than it looks. A lot harder, certainly, than just switching jobs.

fredsanford 14y ago

Wow... This situation must be more common than I thought. I've had a few jobs in my lifetime that left me with the feelings you posted here... The beatings will continue until morale improves. These points: - working for unethical people - busting my ass while others sit and watch - watching horrible decisions made by those for their own benefit were ultimately the biggest reasons I've left jobs. In one place I worked, we created software for the financial industry and sold it in regions, like such-and-such county or city. Then our office setup one of our systems and competed under the table with the regional customers around us. Scummy. Ultimately, I left over this issue and it is still my favorite job I've had or will ever have. All because one guy got greedy.

LaGrange 14y ago
Yes. The feeling is so common, it even has a name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias
Shorel 14y ago
I don't use or recommend Microsoft tools because of this. They are good, technically speaking, but they will always be scummy. Otherwise, if I am ever successful, Microsoft will clone my business. I think it has happened to almost all their partners. Unless they are bought by Microsoft, like the Sysinternals guys. That's the only good exit.
- weirdkid 14y ago
  Same could be said for Google.

grey-area 14y ago

constant work-prevention structure imposed by people who have never accomplished anything I think this comment distills the essence of the problem the which gives people so much trouble. If your perspective is that of a maker/hacker then good work (which should be rewarded) is to make great things, things please people and improve their lives, and perhaps profit the company. If your goal is maximising profit for the company, sometimes good ideas will need to be canned or replaced by bad ones the customer wants, sometimes work will need to be stopped after much effort was put in, sometimes politics will override technical considerations. If your goal is maximising profit for the individual at minimal cost, you want others to do the work while you get the rewards, and neither the business nor other workers, nor their pet projects, are your concern - more fool them if they take the company propaganda as truth, believe they are living in a meritocracy, and don't realise the realities of workplace politics. From the perpective of a manager who has climbed the greasy pole to luxury while workers suffer horrible working conditions, who is the idiot? I would argue that classifying people as idiots is not useful and obscures the real differences in outlook which produce this sort of friction. There are many other perspectives to work (not tied to specific roles like manager or programmer I hasten to add), and holding them does not make people idiots, in fact many others might view someone slaving away for a company in the misapprehension that they are improving the world as an idiot; both would be wrong. The best way to deal with this IMHO is to recognise that workplaces have a culture, which contains and controls many different aspirations, and if you find this culture toxic, you should change job if at all possible - it is very hard to change a company culture or the perspectives of other workers on their work. Also, work should not be your only passion if you want to remain sane.

nnq 14y ago
Agree with what you said. But please don't make it sound like an axis with two extremes: "the maker/hacker" and "the profit maximizer". There's a third sweet spot, the "making your client happy" spot, sometimes at the expense of your hacker spirit and sometimes at the expense of a little more short term profit ("ripping them off"). The people who find this 3rd mode of thinking, who believe in "making stuff that helps others make stuff" make the company work and stay afloat and keep it a warm and nourishing environment for both themselves and the "pure hackers" and the "profit psychos".

_k 14y ago

There're lots of people who feel like you do.

konstruktor 14y ago

When you work in a company you don't own, there are a lot of things you will encounter that not under your control (1). Personally, I find the Stoics' attitude very helpful when dealing with that fact. They advocate distinguishing between what is in our control and what isn't, suggesting to focus on acting honorably oneself, but always with reservation, i.e. aware that others can always stop us from reaching our goals but never invalidate our sincere efforts. Talking of morning exercises, Marcus Aurelius used to remind himself in the morning that he would be around exactly the kind of people you describe, but that they did not have the power to make him crazy if he is aware of their inevitability: http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html (BTW: I only used this source because it seems to be public domain and available online, if you want to read translations of ancient texts, invest in a modern one that is more convenient to read.) (1) Of course, if you start your own company, you will be dealing with things you can't control as well. Edit: Replaced asterisks that made the text italics.

thelittlelisper 14y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I work at one of the top cancer research labs in the world, and you'd be surprised how dysfunctional our organization has become. It's perfectly described by what edw519 has outlined. Seeing millions of dollars poured in projects that go nowhere since they are executed by incompetent workers lead by machiavellian managers is horribly depressing. I feel that a startup setting would be incredibly more efficient to do what we do. But of course it'd be difficult to fund it, unless it's operated as a charity or it's backed up by the gov't. In the meanwhile I'm acting as a stoic and enjoying some tiny victories.
- wnight 14y ago
  Leak details. If nothing else, more light on the area would make it harder to screw around.
  - thelittlelisper 14y ago
    Thanks. Care to elaborate on this? It's difficult to leak details and make an impact. Academia is really screwed up. 90% of what gets published is a blatant lie, but nobody seems to care. Most researchers live in a distorted reality.

singular 14y ago

"I have never had a problem about the volume or difficulty of work in any job I've ever had. In fact, some of my favorite memories of work have been sprints to finish something, whether in software, retail/distribution, or food service." I'm sure if I put you on a 120 hour week for a few months you'd change your opinion about that, even if you were to ship something at the end of it. I don't think it's a good idea nor particularly ethical given the situation under discussion to boast about how you've never had a problem with overwork.

stray 14y ago
120-hour week for a few months? Shipped at the end of it? Is that a real project you worked on? If so, and if it happened a couple years ago in Colorado -- I was one of your coworkers. And I left just a couple weeks after the rest of you guys. That was some crazy shit but in the end we did ship. And on time, even. But I can't even pass that freeway exit any more without feeling a sense of dread.
- singular 14y ago
  Haha no thank Science just a theoretical situation, my word I feel for you man - that sounds horrific. I don't think I'd be able to cope. Games industry? The point is that edw's comment on hours sits ill-at-ease with the rest of his post. As if overwork isn't a MAJOR factor in burnout. I don't disagree with his other points, rather we mustn't pretend like working ludicrous hours isn't bad for you.
- infinite8s 14y ago
  120-hours for multiple weeks? Is that even possible? Why would anyone without substantial ownership stake even do that?
  - stray 14y ago
    Who said there wasn't substantial skin in the game? And actually I remember it as 110 hour weeks (though it's possible that I was the slacker of the bunch). Yeah, we had something like 3 months of working 15 to 18 hours per day, 7 days per week. Totally possible. Totally stupid.

dferlemann 14y ago

I have only 1.5 years of work experience as software engineer. Maybe I am wrong, but aren't most of these quirks just a part of working with others? Regardless you are working for yourself, a company or organization, you have to deal with people. And people can be unethical, apathetic, incompetent, rigid, inexperienced, inappropriate. And when your company become large, it will have processes to limit your reign of power for good of the company. Every person I've worked with (mostly software guys) think they are better than others, and suffered. To me, it's more of an inability to work with others and handling situations and problems.

ctdonath 14y ago
You learn well, grasshopper. Indeed, whatever your occupation you will balance imperfect choices of what you will do, who you will work with, and the outcome of your efforts. Humility and acceptance of your limits go far in preserving sanity, whether you lead a multibillion dollar corporation, write software with a team, or sweep the floors alone after hours. You don't have total control, but that doesn't mean you don't have some control; do what you can (sometimes that means doing your job well, and sometimes that means leaving your job for another).
- dferlemann 14y ago
  That's why I adore small startups where you can grow with others while being pushed to innovate. And people you work with likely to have the same mentality. The fact that the limited resource presents such challenge it's actually exhilarating! Well, my current job though hits almost all items on that list. It sounds depressing, but it has been a great learning experience! I like challenges and I don't believe in complaints, always make the best of the current situation. (really, I'm just squeezing every bit of learning opportunities out of it... big organizations got huge resources. Ha! =D)

Cabal 14y ago

Unfortunately, after seeing Ed's previous breakdown on Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361056), I have to see comments like this in a new light.

michaelochurch 14y ago
-1547. How in the name of a million fucks is that a breakdown? That sounds like a breakthrough. He's being honest about his atypical and unfortunate trajectory. I wish more people had the fucking cojones to be that way about their setbacks and rejections. Silicon Valley's tolerance of failure is paper-thin and a "heads, I win; tails, you lose" mentality. It means, "it's morally okay for me to fail you". It justifies fast firing and VC caprice, but if you actually fail, you're every bit as ostracized like PNG garbage as in any other society. On edw519's so-called "breakdown": The guy's been handed a shit sandwich by life-- when your IQ passes 150, conflicts with authority are inevitable; it comes to you looking for fights, and if you don't see it that way, then your IQ is not over 150 and probably not even 140 because every genuine 150+ I have ever met has experienced that-- and he keeps working his ass off and doing the right thing. Balls of Steel. You know how fucking hard it is to keep working your ass off when every signal coming your way is negative? How fucking brutal it can be to keep believing in yourself in a world where people avoid the sick, unlucky, or unpopular with no concern as to whether it's their fault? I have a lot of respect for winter travelers like 'edw519 and Abraham Lincoln. Summer traveling is nice, but you only get a sense of the real landscape if you go when the trees are bare.
- pkteison 14y ago
  The beginning was good, but when you claimed that smart people are certain to not get along with authority you went way out on an unsupported limb. I personally think passion and drive correlate to conflict a lot stronger than intelligence does; plenty of smart people know how to choose their battles and bite their tongues, and the suggestion that if they do they must not be super smart is just outrageous.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago

pasbesoin 14y ago

Ed, 110%. It's almost never about the effort involved -- at least, not on a short-term basis. It's about the context. I think the circumstances and frustration go beyond the description in this Dilbert cartoon, but it has never left my mind since I saw it: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/ Excerpt: "Wow! They're both better than my current job!"

michaelochurch 14y ago

You have fought the hydra bravely, and I commend you for that. May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. What do you suppose we do? For the long-term, here's the financial structure for the solution that I see: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macleod-17-building-the-future-and-financing-lifestyle-businesses/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle... . Essentially, I think VC-istan and MegaCorps are both dead ends when it comes to genuine technical excellence (which weird people like us care about). I think it's time to have a serious conversation about financing a fleet of mid-growth K-strategist startups instead of these red-ocean, r-strategist, get-big-or-die marketing gambits. Here's an insane thought that I had that just might work. Find a Midwestern city that has $25 million to blow on becoming a top technology hub and set up an Autonomy Fund. (I'll do the "grunt work" of screening for talent; if this idea has legs I'd drop everything to implement it.) 100 top-notch programmers, $125k per year (out of which their resource/AWS costs come, so no one's living high on the hog), and 2 years. First, these companies are designed to become profitable, not to exit, so compensation is profit-sharing, not the joke equity offered by VC-istan. The city that funds this takes a 37.5% profit-share of whatever they build (it's valuating their work at $333k per year, which is lower than a VC valuation, but the terms are better.) If it works, then add time to the schedule (i.e. more years of life and more startups) and possibly more engineers. This is like Y Combinator, but without the feeder-into-VC dynamic; it's to build real businesses that generating lasting value both to a geographical area and to technology itself. I seriously think that Autonomy Funds are going to be big in the next 10 years-- VC-istan is essentially a shitty implementation of an Autonomy Fund, except with selection based on connections rather than technical ability-- but there are some obvious problems (moral hazard, principal-agent issues) that need to be solved.

IsaacL 14y ago
When I saw this story, my first thought was to go to the comments and do a ctrl-F "michaelochurch". Was not disappointed. I think this story is essentially the Clueless -> Loser transition in Gervais principle terminology.
- michaelochurch 14y ago

vijayr 14y ago

Is this not common in other industries too? Not just software? The frustration level is probably higher in creative/logical work (software, advertising etc) but I'd guess the situation is probably worse in other industries. Is there any solution to this?

bconway 14y ago

Have you sought out a mental health professional? In my experience, most incidents like the one linked have little to do with the amount of work or the politics involved, and everything to do with an untreated emotional condition. A lot of your writing above rings true in the same fashion. Please be careful.

vsync 14y ago
Yes, being annoyed by unethical people is a mental condition.
- jodrellblank 14y ago
  ... What, do you consider "being so annoyed by unethical people that you get committed to a mental institution" normal and OK?

hjay 14y ago

I too, struggle with a lot of this. I've seen people who just "sit back" when they are dissatisfied with the stuff that frustrates them at work. Problem with me is, I'm unable to do that. I DO enjoy the work I do, I DO recognize the value that I am bringing to the company/others, and I AM frustrated at people who insist on a work-prevention structure, but I just cannot bring myself to push things off my own plate. I see the people who stand around talking about useless miscellaneous happenings while everyone else is sitting/working. I see the people who (even in non-managerial roles), take the fruits of my effort, and wave it high in the air "oh look, I'm such a genius! Look at what I did!". I see those same people treat me like crap simply because I'm actually doing work and not talking about how I lost $500 playing online poker yesterday, or how his iPhone app made 5 bucks this month. I'm see those same people make racist or sexist remarks as a joke, 5 feet away from the subjects of their jokes. I'm not the "in" crowd, I'm just there to produce results and value so they can show it off, get promoted, and look back down on me and sneer. I also see that one other programmer on the other corner, working just like me, and being treated no differently. I'm a very patient and calm person, but seeing how much anger I have pent up, I can only extend a little of my remaining empathy and sense that, that one other programmer feels very much the same.

saintx 14y ago

I definitely sympathize. It feels that the world is accelerating toward the end of some century-long slide from value creation to value capture, where fortunes aren't so much built as they are acquired or harvested from the people who build them.

Wonderdonkey 14y ago

If I weren't in a different profession, I'd say we must work for the same company.

jf22 14y ago

>watching horrible decisions made by those for their own benefit Always consider you have imperfect information before coming to this verdict. As developer sometimes we think we know whats going on but really don't. As a new startup founder I find myself making tons of what I would previously classify as horrible decisions just because I have much more information about what is going on. The decisions you make change once you have to consider cash, timelines, resource availability and potential sales.

incision 14y ago

Bullseye. I think I've learned to work through this brand of bullshit without being consumed by it, but I've earned myself a pair of golden shackles in the process. My recent focus has been devising an escape route. I believe it starts with recognizing what's really important in life and learning to want less. I'm not sure where it ends, but it's hard to imagine escaping most of the bullshit while working for anyone else.

ttrreeww 14y ago

Don't worry, once I win the lottery, I shall create a paradise for workers. Until then, hold your breath.

bjelkeman-again 14y ago

This was essentially the reason is started my own businesses, or co-founded businesses. I was sick of all of the above. Then, eventually I got sick of the whole money grabbing nature the software business. It was just all about making someone else rich quick. I was going to quit the software business entirely, but a chance meeting led to finding someone who actually cared and wanted to make a difference, as well as being positioned to do so. And we ended up starting Akvo.org, and now all is a hell of a lot better.