4 ms·

Given this, should I risk being labelled incompetent, by telling my stakeholders about my problems or should I put in the long hours needed to get stuff done (a

by patio11 11y ago

Given this, should I risk being labelled incompetent, by telling my stakeholders about my problems or should I put in the long hours needed to get stuff done (as that's what people in startups do). Gaaaaaaaaaaah. Sorry, that was just my scream of frustration about a world which doesn't make this answer obvious. You're an adult now. Go to manager; say that you've inherited a code base written by a more senior developer which has a substantial amount of technical debt in it and you'll need time to get up to speed on it. Work together to get a better understanding of when the milestones will be shipped successfully. (Unobvious-to-younguns true fact about managing: managers often need predictability a lot more than they need speed.) Do not work 15 hour days to try to grok the code better. If you model your manager as a heartless automaton (and he isn't!), he'd heartlessly prefer you to be resting at home rather than in the hospital, since only one of those means you'll be filing TPS reports tomorrow. Do not attempt to sprint your way out a scheduling issue. The business will always be capable of finding another catastrophe. You know how there are a herd of cows or a murder of crows? There's a startup of catastrophes. Companies/individuals/teams which develop crunch cultures never stop crunching. They ship whatever the blocked milestone was -- late, of course, because crunching very rarely actually speeds shipping -- and then promptly identify a new milestone to crunch towards. It is not the job of 23 year old developers to insulate the business from the predictable consequences of the actions of more senior employees. If your manager feels differently, there are many saner managers available. That's a pretty radical step, but choosing burnout is a much worse step. Burnout is not fun. You wouldn't choose to develop adult-onset diabetes because it would avoid a difficult conversation at work. Don't choose burnout, either.

zamalek 11y ago
> Do not work 15 hour days to try to grok the code better. ... because that's less likely to succeed than using 8 hours a day. Even if you neglect the long-term eventuality of burnout working more hours in a creative/intellectual job does not result in more work being done: it will nearly always result in less. If you can't get the work done in your normal working hours it means that the deadline is actually impossible. Some problems cannot be solved by throwing numbers at them; your manager has to throw planning at them.
- crdb 11y ago
  In many companies: - saying "it's going to take me X months because of the technical debt" is not an acceptable answer to the manager; - working 15 hour days and taking X months more than the deadline is rewarded particularly if every diff is recorded in some kind of micromanagement tool used by the manager, for being "team spirit" even and especially with lower productivity. Since not everybody can hop jobs easily, a successful way to survive in such a situation CAN be to just pretend to work long hours, put in the face time, enthusiastically play along with the micromanagement game and hope the job market will improve before the company goes under or the department is disciplined for its lack of productivity, and before this situation takes too deep a toll on your intellectual ability and happiness. The key is continuous small, trackable deliverables, and focusing on additive changes rather than improving the existing codebase. It's important not to think about karma as such managers get promoted out of the way before their results catch up with them, and you'll just get more miserable as you watch them fly higher and higher on their column of hot air. /rant
  - zamalek 11y ago
    > Since not everybody can hop jobs easily That's a reality I forgot about. Your advice is far better than mine is for someone just starting out.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      No, it's not. The damage of burnout is real. It can damage peoples' physical health, and also their marriages/relationships. Then there's "faking". That damages your soul, your heart, your inner person. Have integrity. Don't fake. So, if he/she has to put in the insane hours to prevent being laid off, he/she should be job hunting for a sane situation, starting today.
  - vlladin 11y ago
    I completely agree with this. I understand how you believe that by owning the code you must work extra hours and make things happen. First you have to take a detached look at things and understand how much of that is self pressure and how much is actually required from you (by the management). A manager's job is to push developers and "make things happen" faster, better and cheaper. They really only care about tangible results. Understand that it's their job, and it is never personal. I would suggest you take a step back, evaluate the expectations you REALLY have to meet and decide on two of these variables: Time, Quality and Cost. Usually there are really small things you can do that have a huge splash result-wise. Start by doing that, and it will give you more time to understand the codebase and plan/execute big changes in the future.
gadders 11y ago
>> (Unobvious-to-younguns true fact about managing: managers often need predictability a lot more than they need speed.) As a project manager of approaching 20 years experience, I would agree with this. Some things can be fixed with temporary extra effort, but a lot of things can't. If a task I budgeted x days for is going to take 3x days, I'd rather know asap. That way, alternative steps can be taken - scope can be cut, extra people can be assigned, deadlines can be moved or budgets can be changed. It's better to have these hard conversations as soon as possible.
- surreal 11y ago
  And equally, sometimes the deadlines are somewhat arbitrary because the manager doesn't know any better. I've seen situations where a manager has said "so you'll have this done in a week, yes?", and a response of "I actually suspect it would take 3 weeks because X" was received most gratefully. Deadlines are sometimes set on a whim, not by some external necessity.
  - gadders 11y ago
    Definitely. Being told something like that after you've already publicised your milestone dates is not good...

by patio11 11y ago

zamalek 11y ago

> Do not work 15 hour days to try to grok the code better. ... because that's less likely to succeed than using 8 hours a day. Even if you neglect the long-term eventuality of burnout working more hours in a creative/intellectual job does not result in more work being done: it will nearly always result in less. If you can't get the work done in your normal working hours it means that the deadline is actually impossible. Some problems cannot be solved by throwing numbers at them; your manager has to throw planning at them.

crdb 11y ago
In many companies: - saying "it's going to take me X months because of the technical debt" is not an acceptable answer to the manager; - working 15 hour days and taking X months more than the deadline is rewarded particularly if every diff is recorded in some kind of micromanagement tool used by the manager, for being "team spirit" even and especially with lower productivity. Since not everybody can hop jobs easily, a successful way to survive in such a situation CAN be to just pretend to work long hours, put in the face time, enthusiastically play along with the micromanagement game and hope the job market will improve before the company goes under or the department is disciplined for its lack of productivity, and before this situation takes too deep a toll on your intellectual ability and happiness. The key is continuous small, trackable deliverables, and focusing on additive changes rather than improving the existing codebase. It's important not to think about karma as such managers get promoted out of the way before their results catch up with them, and you'll just get more miserable as you watch them fly higher and higher on their column of hot air. /rant
- zamalek 11y ago
  > Since not everybody can hop jobs easily That's a reality I forgot about. Your advice is far better than mine is for someone just starting out.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    No, it's not. The damage of burnout is real. It can damage peoples' physical health, and also their marriages/relationships. Then there's "faking". That damages your soul, your heart, your inner person. Have integrity. Don't fake. So, if he/she has to put in the insane hours to prevent being laid off, he/she should be job hunting for a sane situation, starting today.
- vlladin 11y ago
  I completely agree with this. I understand how you believe that by owning the code you must work extra hours and make things happen. First you have to take a detached look at things and understand how much of that is self pressure and how much is actually required from you (by the management). A manager's job is to push developers and "make things happen" faster, better and cheaper. They really only care about tangible results. Understand that it's their job, and it is never personal. I would suggest you take a step back, evaluate the expectations you REALLY have to meet and decide on two of these variables: Time, Quality and Cost. Usually there are really small things you can do that have a huge splash result-wise. Start by doing that, and it will give you more time to understand the codebase and plan/execute big changes in the future.

gadders 11y ago

>> (Unobvious-to-younguns true fact about managing: managers often need predictability a lot more than they need speed.) As a project manager of approaching 20 years experience, I would agree with this. Some things can be fixed with temporary extra effort, but a lot of things can't. If a task I budgeted x days for is going to take 3x days, I'd rather know asap. That way, alternative steps can be taken - scope can be cut, extra people can be assigned, deadlines can be moved or budgets can be changed. It's better to have these hard conversations as soon as possible.

surreal 11y ago
And equally, sometimes the deadlines are somewhat arbitrary because the manager doesn't know any better. I've seen situations where a manager has said "so you'll have this done in a week, yes?", and a response of "I actually suspect it would take 3 weeks because X" was received most gratefully. Deadlines are sometimes set on a whim, not by some external necessity.
- gadders 11y ago
  Definitely. Being told something like that after you've already publicised your milestone dates is not good...