Abuse. Don't take it. Know your worth.
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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Programming
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I'm guess I'm lucky to never had encountered abuse. Have you seen it happen or experienced it yourself?
- abuse in the US workplace is (generally) not openly visible in ways you expect
- and yet, sexual abuse is still extremely prevalent in all industries
- US companies can impose a MASSIVE chilling effect just by having your healthcare tied to your employment
- mental abuse can be subtle (a form of psychological warfare) with something as simple as “we’re like a family here” or “you wouldn’t want to let down the team, would you?”
- the first episode of Zom 100 gave a really good example of how far the mental abuse can escalate – between overwork, lack of sleep, verbal abuse, bad diet, you no longer have time to step back and think, you become completely dependent on someone else telling you what to do, you no longer have the strength of will to even contemplate saying “No”
Harassment from toxic managers who abuse employees verbally (insults, etc.) It happens a lot sadly.
I was an admin at a company that was borderline psychopathic. Yeah, tons of abuse at all levels. No progression unless you were a member of the executive teams family or married to one of them. Completely dysfunctional workplace.
- In office - COVID taught us remote works best for me, there's no going back
- Pay - don't pay/offer enough or give a raise at least equivalent to inflation --> 👋
- Micro-management / bad management -👋
- Force windows or mac onto me - first I push back, but I will quit if push comes to shove
You’ve had a job where they let you use Linux on your machine? Every job I’ve had has been strictly windows
I could choose on all my jobs. I'm doing linux since so long, I don't even wanna hear of windows.
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Return to the office. Forced to use Windows again
The stuff of nightmares.
Using war metaphors
Requering blind loyalty
Requering acceptance of any task
Disregard for labor contracts
Dumb management
Using war metaphors
What do you mean?
Requering acceptance of any task
You would quit if something were against your morals e.g working on a project for Exxon mobile or something ?
War metaphors real examples:
Literally calling your employees your soldiers, calling starting positions as trenches, brainwashing your employees to a us versus the world mentality, ex-employees are 'dead' or 'on a suicidal path', etc.
Business is not war anyone who think it is has never saw what a single rifle bullet does to human flesh. Freaking psychos.
Task was being discussed, I raised valid concerns, they listened, agreed to the concerns and said 'yeah we still want you to do it'. I say I won't do this. They push harder. I left on the spot. Notice was on director desk the next day. I suspect management wanted me to take on a botched task so to have something negative over me. There may of may not have some level of nepotism there.
My previous job referred to ex employees as traitors or betrayers
Big yikes on the war metaphors. I'm also not a fan of alternative names for teams: squad, tribe, gang, clan, ... makes me cringe.
I suspect management wanted me to take on a botched task so to have something negative over me.
Sounds like somebody with a god complex or way too deep in the army role-play "soldiers follow orders" bullshit.
Toxic managers or coworkers
pay/benefits don't trickle down
shit trickles down
what I've learned is that 2 week notices only gives time for corporations to replace you with another unsuspecting victim so I'm just gonna run as soon as I can tell my work environment is toxic
these toxic workplaces can crumble for all I care
There are so many reasons to leave a job. I can only say why I left jobs or rejected job offers in the past:
- Left a bullshit job. I was bored.
- Left a job because I didn't like where I had to live.
- Left a job because the company was unraveling. It went under within a year.
- Let a job because of incompetent management and crappy code.
- Rejected an offer because the place felt like a morgue.
- Rejected an offer because the hiring manager's boss acted like a entitled asshole.
- Rejected an offer because the work spaces for developers were even worse than open plan.
Rejected an offer because the work spaces for developers were even worse than open plan.
I am incredibly curious to learn more
Work spaces? As in mini open spaces?
Left two jobs in the last 3 years because they offered remote and then tried to claw it back. If I ever set foot in an office again it'll be too soon.
I also tend to check in with myself on Sunday nights as I'm lying in bed. If I feel like I'm walking into a good situation the next morning, with good problems to solve and a decent chance of actually solving them, then I stick around. If I'm filled with dread awaiting the next off-hours disaster, I brush up my resume and flip the flag on LinkedIn.
I wish I were in the place you're in right now. Good on you dude. Did the job switches also come with tasty salary bumps?
Absolutely delicious, thank you for asking. I've been very fortunate and had a lot of help.
I'm extremely open to tech stacks and specific industries, though I would die happy if I never had to touch another line of TCL. Go to hell TCL, and take your upvar nonsense with you.
I'm currently between jobs and planning a career shift into a software engineer manager role, so I have been thinking about this quite a bit. A job I would leave - which is really leaving a manager/team, not a company - would rate poorly on these, which I'm polishing into a new "what type of position are you looking for?" answer:
- A team that works cooperatively, as we accomplish more together than in competition. Everyone should strive to be world class at their roles, as being around that is critical for learning from each other.
- An environment where clear and open communication is encouraged, including whatever anyone is struggling with.
- Work that takes on difficult problems and strives to work through them with the highest standards.
- A position that enables me to grow down my desired career path, which as of this writing means reporting to a software manager who is willing to delegate project management tasks and eventually people management as well.
Something I wouldn't reveal during an interview, though critically important, is a work environment that I can arrange such that it best enables me, and not be boxed in by someone else's conceived ideas of how software engineers should act or work. I've felt like a square peg in a round hole my entire life. Turns out it's a concrete objective fact (ADHD). I am so goddamn tired of feeling bad or apologizing for things that are actually just the scaffolding that I need to survive.
At my previous company, they started forcing us to go back to the office, first once per week, then at least 8 days per month. I hated it but I could take it. Then, they said they had to replace our workstations with an SOE Laptop (some standard hardware and software configuration that is usually completely locked down, and you need to open a ticket to install anything). I hated this more, but I could still take it.
The last straw that made me quit was that my boss forced me to work on a project using a dead technology only because there was no one else that could do it. But I had absolutely zero experience with that technology. I was the only one who knew how to build a good user interface, so that's why the task fell on my lap.
You took enough abuse. Glad you respected yourself in the end and quit.
I switched from Windows to Mac over a decade ago and never looked back. Working in software engineering at startups I always had Macs. I recently joined a larger company that is all Microsoft. I’m seriously burned out on having to use a Windows laptop and Windows software again. It’s just so kludgy and inefficient. I never really realized how bad it was until now.
I felt that same way when I started using MacOS for work, but got used to it.
The fact that there's no way to snap windows to a side of the screen without manually moving the window and resizing it is absurd. I have programs that allow me to do it, but like come on.
Also I still despise how fullscreen on MacOS works. It's so obnoxious.
Me too. I got a MacBook for testing Safari, but sometimes I take it to meetings because it's easier than extricating my usual machine from its dock (which unplugs the Ethernet cable so all my SSH sessions die along with anything running in them). But as somebody who likes having things in full screen (it bothers me if I can see the desktop peeking through), I get very annoyed needing to scroll through every app I've got open until I stumble across the one I want every time I have to switch context.
I usually check in with myself:
- Am I growing in my career?
- Am I happy with my current workplace: people, culture, flexibility?
- Am I valued to the company, i.e. my opinions are considered and regarded to some certain?
If one or two of these conditions failed, I would consider moving. After all, if I went to a workplace and I didn't find any joy or recognition, the paycheck wouldn't make me stay.
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Jira
oh Jira isn't that bad
Maybe. I guess I hate the idea behind Jira more than Jira itself. I call it middle management driven Agile.
Also doesn't help that Jira (and Confluence) were fucking slow for a long while. Nobody wants to use slow software as an integral part of the dev chain.
I will quit if I don't feel happy anymore, which most likely because of people. If colleagues I like are all gone, I probably go somewhere else.
Sometimes it might be the salary which causes people to leave.
I read about the term "silent quitting": quitting without any prior warning, just handing in the resignation without a chance to remedy the situation.
Sometimes it might be the salary which causes people to leave.
Definitely. Got the highest pay bumps when switching. Was only a reason to switch once for me though. Is salary the most important factor for you?
remember that “2 weeks notice” is a kindness you’re giving them, it’s not a requirement and companies will never show you that kindness when they fire you
In Europe it's at least 1 month for both sides. Luckily. I can't imagine working at-will.
Unless you're on a contract. If you're in the US and you're not sure if you're on a contract, you're not on a contract. At-will goes both ways.
I am okay with some discount on my salary if I am really happy with my colleagues. We go to work every day, it is important to be happy.
If most of my friends are gone, and the salary is not satifactory, I will definitely quit for higher pay!
Do you make friends at work?
@onlinepersona @frozenmolar I thought I did make friends at my old job.
These people do not seem very interested anymore, tho ._.
That - and the fact, that my new job is fully remote and on the other side of the country - is why I don't at my new job.
That sounds really sad, did you try to connect with them? I usually try to connect with old friends with festival blessings, e.g. Christmas. This removes the awkwardness for not connecting for too long. Then you can follow up by questions like how things are going.
But I guess sometimes it is really difficult to connect, since people just move on to dofferent stages of their lives.
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I'm likely to do that shortly. I'm in an environment with a few toxic colleagues who know fuck all about what needs to be done, or how to do it, but manage to impact decision making and cast doubt on my abilities and deliverables to date. I have had to step outside of my role to deliver multiple big ticket tasks (e.g. I've been brought on to uplift code for multiple applications, but have also had to build a MEM deployment from scratch as there was no endpoint management), but no-one has the knowledge or the interest in taking over the finished products, expecting I'll add it to my responsibilities.
A job is about to open up elsewhere that I've been encouraged to apply for, so I'll keep trudging along and will let them know at my notice period. I've tried so hard to get involved with no luck, so now they'll be forced to take interest.
@onlinepersona Left because of crappy management and no perspective as a not-that-junior-anymore developer.
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