Being forced to use a particular OS, hardware or programming language? Working remotely? Certain company structure?
Abuse. Don’t take it. Know your worth.
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.
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.
Return to the office. Forced to use Windows again
Or ClearCase
Thankfully, we migrated to git entirely right before I joined the company
Never heard of it, but it looks aweful
The stuff of nightmares.
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.
Every engineering job I’ve left has been because of bad leadership.
The first, they hired a lead with no business being a lead. Not only was I much stronger from a technical perspective even though I had only been doing it professionally for about 3 years, but I was a better leader to the rest of the team as well. I had been sort of filling in in the interim before they were hired. They were let go not too long after I left.
The second, they hired an EM. I had been asked to work on setting up the code base for replatforming our web app and begin migrating pieces of it over. I was basically doing this on my own and working with timelines that I had given to leadership and providing weekly updates. This EM started micro-managing everything. This not only slowed my progress to a crawl, it was demotivating and stressful. They were let go not too long after I left.
My current position, I was moved to a new team during a company reorganization. The EM on this team is completely psychotic. Micro-managing to a degree that I’ve never seen before. They’re convinced that what we do Agile SCRUM, but we take in large projects each quarter, plan and scope them at the beginning, and then spend the rest of the quarter executing on them. When I or the team make suggestions that align better with agile, we’re gaslit and told our ideas “are waterfall not agile”.
We usually don’t take on projects that go longer than a quarter. The project that I’m on currently is bleeding into Q4. I warned about this from the very beginning, but the result was just more gaslighting, that I took too long on planning. I would have left, but the job market isn’t as friendly to hopping around as it was previously. Thankfully, I’ll be switching teams once this project is over.
Overall, all of these places had their problems beyond leadership. These are things that I can tolerate however, and with good leadership, can work towards improving. Once leadership turns to shit, it’s time to gtfo.
Yup. Most of the stink in companies start at the top, but there are suprisingly few people who are actually good at leadership. There are so many ego trips in management.
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 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.
We are truly lucky to be techies. Is there a paycheck that would let you take it though?
I worry that some rocket magician with an MBA will decide we can just use FreeCAD and stop paying for these silly Solidworks or Autodesk licenses.
Why pay when you can crack? 🧠
Because real manufacturing draws scrutiny, and these companies are audited regularly enough to make licensing fees palletable.
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
Active remote surveillance, no one?
That’s a thing? Or are you talking about endpoint security?
I’m speaking in abstract because it never happened to me.
But stuff like this, I suppose: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bosses-use-employee-tracking-software-for-remote-workers-2023-8?op=1
And then actively using/reviewing these to create competition between people, and/or change how people choose to work.
I kind of get the passive use, and the extreme cases, where people are not delivering and then you find they are not actually working, in retrospect.
That kind of stuff definitely would have me leaving or never accepting the job. That’s straight up spying - although, most of use use Google or Apple phones and are somehow fine with it 🤷
Toxic managers or coworkers
pay/benefits don’t trickle down
shit trickles downwhat 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
- 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.
So you’re a freelance now?
Salaried jobs in my spectrum do exist 😄 Even in France they do too 😉
@onlinepersona Left because of crappy management and no perspective as a not-that-junior-anymore developer.
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?
I read about the term “silent quitting”: quitting without any prior warning, just handing in the resignation without a chance to remedy the situation.
Here’s the thing - finding the next job took me effort. I’m not wasting that because the boss suddenly realized they can do better. They needed to figure that out before I took the effort to find my next gig.
And I expect the same now that I’m the boss. I do a one on one meeting with each of my direct reports like clockwork, and I ask probing questions about work conditions, career trajectory, and work/life balance.
It’s not their job to make sure I know if they’re satisfied with their job. It’s my job.
Their job is to do all the other amazing things they do to make me look like an amazing boss.
Is salary the most important factor for you?
My employees have taught me that salary is the least important thing - right up until the moment when it becomes the most important thing. No one knows when that will be: surprise car repair, medical bill, whatever.
People tend to figure out their market value. I’ve never successfully retained a significantly underpaid professional over the long term. Of course, I do always get a healthy discount on the talent I hire. People value a great boss a lot. But having a great manager doesn’t fix a leaking roof, so that discount amount has to be an amount they feel great about, not an insult to them.
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.
@frozenmolar Sure I tried, we are connected through several channels as messengers or similar, but even when asking some questions they only reply sporadically and do not seem to connect to each other, as well.
Far from eye far from heart, I reckon.
That’s really sad. But the important thing is you had good times in the past!
Yes. I make friends in all my jobs. How about you?
I’ve… tried? But despite being software developers, our interests often don’t align. I’ve gotten along well with many, but they’ve always stayed aquaintances. Back when I was younger and willing to go out and have a beer after work I did make more friends.
I do agree, sometimes it is difficult to chat within work hours because everyone is busy. And when you get older, you have commitments in family, and other plans, etc, getting even more difficult to make friends.
I try to hang out with my colleagues, because i want to make friends and I still have time for that.
But anyways, I felt that you can be a good friend! Felt bad for your colleagues missing the chance to make a good friend. (Sorry if that sounds odd because of my poor English)
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.
