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I've seen a lot of this over the past two years. I personally have witnessed five guys completely break down. Hell, we just had a manager who was under a lot o
by at-fates-hands 14y ago
I've seen a lot of this over the past two years. I personally have witnessed five guys completely break down.
Hell, we just had a manager who was under a lot of pressure last summer for a huge release. He had a complete breakdown and after four months off, he came back, took a demotion, but he's not the same guy anymore. He used to have a really outgoing personality and loved to talk about his band and music. Now he just nods when you say "hi" to him and keeps to himself.
While I applaud management for working with him and being patient during his recovery, I'm still wondering why other managers didn't raise flags before he went off the cliff.
For me, the larger problem is how do we stop this from happening? How can we stop these situations before people get to a dead end? For some of these people, it's really serious and something you don't ever come back from, which is really, really scary to me.
- neilk 14y agoFive? Is there some connection - the same industry, or the same company?
- at-fates-hands 14y agoSame industry (web development) different companies. The one thing which connects them all is a developer just like in the article. Driven to perfection, willing to do whatever is asked of him, and burns the candle at three ends until he finally goes over the edge. I'm talking averaging 70 hours a week for two year straight kind of candle burning. The kind of narcissistic pursuit which is simply impossible to achieve. I have stories of all five if you want to hear them. Let me know and I'll elaborate.
- ZoFreX 14y agoI would like to hear your stories :)
- at-fates-hands 14y agoHere you go - didn't want to keep it short: http://pastebin.com/EmM6sZnR http://pastebin.com/EmM6sZnR
- neilk 14y agoThanks - I posted it back to HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5586350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5586350
- oz 14y agoI, for one, would love to hear the stories.
- vorvzakone 14y ago"how do we stop this from happening?": Pay employees more, Recognize when engineers are not working and ask them why. This is because of poor management.