Imagine going into an environment suffering some serious performance issues adversely affecting the day-to-day operations of the business. From initial conversations it seems great. You're asked about how you'd handle, "difficult personalities" a fair bit, but aside from that, seems like you can add a ton of value.
In your first days, you exhaustively quantitatively measure the entire operating environment, prioritize a plan of attack based on the data, and go at it.
By the end of the week, you have many improvements testing successfully while still producing identical and correct results. In one instance, runtime reduced from 200 minutes ... to 1.2 seconds. You dutifully write up an explanation, articles, all the gory compiler knowledge, etc. Submit pull requests. Your team is chuffed.
Result? Someone on another team calls you into a meeting, to railroad and scream at you for, "making them look bad". I mean SCREAM. As if they're trying to kill you with words. You report the incident to who you are directed to report into and are told to, "man up."
-- -----
This is when you ensure the termination clause is airtight. You spend 5 minutes drafting a termination letter, print it, and hand it in. Drop the mic. Walk out. Good riddance.
-- -----
Scary thing? That's nothing. Ever get hired for performance tuning and then the DBA refuses to create your account, and cusses out the CTO when the CTO asks why? Ever see a developer get punched by someone? Have you been in an environment where there were actual cots set up for people who had to work through the night, because it happened that often?
I had this happen to me. Walked out after 2 months before completing 3 month trial period.
I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it.
He caused major outage when the code he developed and brought to the company as an asset failed. The code was to exchange SMS messages with an SMS gateway for Ukrainian operator. The messages were sent using mails. That was 15 years ago and not his fault, but his fault was that he received the XML messages and instead of using XML parser, he just parsed text by locating substring in a given line number from a given offset to a specified character.
So what happened is that they stopped pretty-printing XML messages in the responses.
When I pointed (with couple people around) that this is absolutely our fault (I did not say his, but everybody knew this), he started screaming at me that I am incompetent and that he was programming when I was shitting myself in a crib.
I left the same day.
I left companies suddenly on two more occasions:
- when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish).
- when my boss charged at me to hit me after I refused to lie to management. He stopped himself with his fist 10cm from my face but that, for me, was game over.
My first day of work many many years ago I did the usual (for me at least) and stopped by each office (before open floorplans were widespread) to introduce myself. The very first office the door was cracked so I knocked and slowly opened it a bit more to give a friendly "hello" and the guy immediately grabbed his desktop inkjet printer (one of those old half dome Epsons) and hurled it at me, crashing at my feet due to cables holding it back... That was one hell of a start. A wild next couple months followed. This post/comment gave me a nice flashback to it! Ty :D
> You report the incident to who you are directed to report into and are told to, "man up."
Given that you also mention further down a dev getting punched, I think this statement was code for “if you don’t like what they’re saying, you should just shut them up.”
Machismo-driven cultures are confusing until you realize that everyone is just expecting you to literally physically assault your way to the top, and is just annoyed with you for seeking peaceful resolutions rather than immediately jumping to violence / intimidation. In such societies, (public) peaceful resolutions lower the social status of both parties making them!
I've been in a position where my abilities vastly out stripped those of the rest of the team. I was insecurely seeking praise and adoration by fixing as many problems with the code as quickly as I could.
The mistake, in my opinion, that I made was that I did it alone.
I didn't communicate with team and work with them at their pace. I blasted ahead and did all the work myself. And it didn't win me any friends.
They were angry, very angry. They thought I made them look bad and I was being negatively critical of their work. They got defensive and stopped listening to the why and how of my changes.
When there's a huge skill impedence mismatch between you and the team of your peers you especially need to consider their feelings. Had I approached the situation by reaching out and explaining my ideas in a way that they understood and guided them along to the solution, I would have had a different outcome. They needed to be part of the solution even if I didn't agree with them completely.
I needed to accept and believe in myself and not go looking for praise from them. I needed to recognize that they spent their own time and effort on this work. Maybe they were lazy, maybe they didn't know better, or maybe they were too busy to write a performant solution, but the work was partly theirs and I needed to consider that. The best way to do that was to talk to them and listen.
More recently I have been more guiding and taken the team with me to a solution. I've had much better success with this. Sure it's slower. Sure I ended up with work that was good but not exactly how I wanted it. But I gained something I hadn't expected: a stronger bond with the team, knowing they would listen to me and I to them, and that we all respected each other. We also ended up producing better work as a team.
I'm not saying any of this to discredit toxic work environments. I've been on broken teams before where everyone is turned against each.
Part of the responsibility for this lies with the leadership individuals who matched someone with skills out pacing the rest of the team, placing them as a peer on the team. They should have considered the team dynamics they were creating.
You can help reduce the toxicity of your work environment by considering your impact on a team and how you work with them. Being "right" about the work is seldom the only factor to consider and does not absolve you of ignoring the thoughts, ideas, and feelings of others.
I was bitten on my chest by a male co-worker with enough force that if I had not been wearing a shirt he would have bitten a chunk out of my chest.
He was not fired or even reprimanded. Like literally bitten. This was while working for Brit Systems.
I was so shocked I just froze. I believe every word you wrote because I too have seen some things. That was the worst (and sadly not only) physical assault, some of the mind games and toxic personalities in this industry have to be seen to be believed. Don't even get me started on the founder that would try to break up his first employees marriages so they would move into his house and focus on work because the rest of their life just imploded (he then pulled some chicanery in regard to the stock options right before they vested, clawed most of them back and the people who sacrificed everything got nothing, HE however became a multi millionaire).
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Developers on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched monitors glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to resign.
Yes, this is the problem. Unprofessional, low-quality employees think employment is "king of the hill," when really it's "tides lift all boats."
It only takes 1 person in a company of a hundred to completely destroy it. Allow one psychopath into your company and it'll go bankrupt or otherwise defunct within just a couple years.
These folks are afraid. They know their performance is substandard. They exist by hiding that low quality work from management.
When someone like you goes in there and makes a 3 hour report a real time dashboard, you can be sure management heard all manner of reasons why it took so long and that's just how things are and their expectations are unreasonable if they want it faster, they can try to hire someone, but there's no one who can do it better.
Until you. And then it's better and now their lives are worse, so you pay for it. You have to be gotten rid of because you are proof they their work isn't up to snuff. You came in and landed right on top of the hill. You were the king, so they had to knock you off.
I walked into a weird job environment not long ago.
First couple days were not that bad. Not particularly good, but nothing too bad. Like people weren't too friendly but neither too hostile.
There was, though, some casual heated discussion here and there. As I met some people more closely I began to see a trend: Everybody hated almost everybody else. One developer openly told me in our first conversation something like "You'll notice few people talk to me... Everyone hates me here.". Then somewhere else some shouting erupted for a few minutes, but nobody seemed to pay too much attention to it.
I saw someone get up from their desk, go to someone else and instead of normally asking whatever question they wanted to ask, start shouting their question. "How can it be that something something?!!! This is totally unacceptable!". Nobody even looked up from their screens or anything. It would turn out that was the way they always communicated.
We got a meeting with the whole team. Ah, no, not the whole team, just half of it. Why? - I asked. "Oh, we tried that but we can't have the whole team in one meeting because there are... conflicts and we end up not doing anything productive."
A few days later, I get called into a meeting with 6 other people, just to generally estimate a few tasks and discuss some of their details. After about two minutes or so, two people are arguing which ones are the tasks that we need to discuss. Things escalate and they are shouting while the rest watches calmly. I don't even know what to do or where to look because none seems to react at all to this. After some 15-20 minutes of this, the meeting is cancelled. People just stand up and return to their desks. I ask one of them if this is normal. "Yeah, pretty much."
I tried really hard and stayed there for more than 1 1/2 years. The only thing I have from all that is a lot of awful anecdotes about awful people.
This happens when a high performer enters an environment of low performers. They know there was a reason for you being hired and feel threatened.
In my experience, the best approach isn't to attempt to change the world immediately but to head straight for the most important decision maker and point out the problems with concrete solutions. If it doesn't work, resign. Eventually they will get the picture but a high performing new hire shouldn't have to suffer.
I've seen it too. Makes me happy that I'm in a business where it often is possible to quit and get a new job. Tons of people have suffered much worse but have to put up with it because for them getting a new job isn't so easy. People deserve to be treated as humans. There should be a law about it.
Damn I thought my last workplace was bad, but it was nothing compared to what you describe.
I did get told off by the boss for fixing someone's compilation errors(that they had force-pushed to master, deleting a week of my work) but he didn't scream at me.
I'm sorry but I don't share your sentiment here. You were asked a fair bit about difficult personalities. That is you were warned as much as HR could warn you. And then you jump into the role totally oblivious to that aspect and you go about focusing only on engineering. I mean, and it's typical for engineers, there are _always_ way more moving parts in businesses than machines. But you always focus there and take pride of it. Yet, the most difficult challenges are people - not machines. So, you did effectively nothing to detect where the people problem lied and prepare the ground to deal with that as well. And when that blew in your face you just left and say the story like there was nothing you could do about it.
Oh man, the worst are those that pretend to be benevolent but end up firing you after a vacation. The one who writes memory-bloated code, who keeps state around, that loves to cross types has the gaul to do a single performance review after 8 months to criticize your code quality and fire you. (Recent experience)
Or how about the one guy that shouts at people when they ask ANY question on why things work that way, responding with things like "NO!! It's not how we do it" and berating newer employees with their lack of legacy knowledge.
I've seen a grown man, extremely well educated, data scientist make a fellow data scientist cry. I've. Seen. Things.
I also made a conscience decision to focus on people, co-workers, and foster those relationships where I can. Sometimes I have to leave those behind when drastic life changes happen, but ultimately I'll always be there should they need me. Kudos to the OP for including the Sinek clip, love that guy.
I am very much working class / (blue collar) in my upbringing. Raised by single parent in a very run down area with a fair amount of poverty. I luckily found an early love and curiosity for computers and eventually found my way into software engineering. If this had not have happened god knows where I would be, when I look at where my friends have ended up. I learned quite early in my life, that if someone picks you out , then you need to immediately front up to it or it will just escalate from there and you're in for a bucket load of torment and bullying. I am not presenting this as any sort of solution , it's far from ideal. I can misread situations / emails and feel fight or flight come on (and my ego insists it needs to be fight 'don't let them walk all over you'). This means i ALWAYS I clash with the arseholes whenever our paths cross. It's made me quite popular with co-workers as I confront them everytime, but I don't think its doing my career any favours.
I actually had my friendships with the folks there used against me. If I thought something was wrong or shouldn't be done, my boss would say, "You like your friends here, don't you?"
W.T.F.??
There's really no correct thing to do. I lost so much sleep just trying to come up with something that wouldn't be turned against me.
It's a form of learned helplessness. They force you into a no-win situation, so you'll stop winning. They can't win on merit or competence, so they force you into no-wins. Impossible deadlines. etc. etc.
It's the opposite of "Hire people smarter than you and get out of their way." Their strategy is more like... "Hire people smarter than you, get them to do your job, make their life hell, so they quit, then take all the credit."
> are those that pretend to be benevolent but end up firing you after a vacation.
This happened to a close friend of mine relatively recently, both the "benevolent" and the "firing after the vacation part". I cannot understand such tactics.
In the end it was much better for said friend the way things turned out for him, but right when it happened it was a shitty situation to be in, because you just don't understand why that is happening to you.
You won’t always have that option. In ‘02 I ended up taking a job as I had been out of work for 9 mos, it paid 1/2 of what I was earning previously, and that was just the start.
But, I had no other options at the time. It took 2 years to gtfo, and the next place was minimally better (I got ptsd from pager noises there).
So, yeah, learning to survive a toxic work place is a good thing.
I have some health problems now that I blame on the stress.
I think there is still value in developing a coping mechanism, or the few days spent in this culture will change your worldview for the worse, even if it’s just a bit.
I spent years in a toxic primary school - things were tried to improve it, but some kids were still being bullied constantly. Back then, private schools in my area were hardly an option, and other schools were a legal hassle to switch to. Sometimes you need to learn to cope.
Ironic that you write that a few days after Montana announced that it is cancelling unemployment benefit to force people into jobs.
Few people have the luxury of SV-style job agility, so having a basic survival guide is useful. It might just keep them sane until they can make a change for the better.
Most foreigners have visas that require them to continue working for the same company, or leave the country.
Even if the problem isn't immediate deportation, changing jobs might reset a time counter which is needed for other visas. There's often a requirement of 2 to 5 years continuous relevant work experience. In such circumstances, the only remaining option is to shut up, sit tight, and turn the other cheek.
I headbutted a PM once, after a meeting it was just me and him in a room and he got right into my face over some comment I had made (presumably about how poorly everything was going) and he pushed me back against the wall with both hands, quite a lot of force abd looked like he was gonna swing, so I broke his nose and walked out.
10 minutes later get a call from the agency saying my services are no longer required, get off the tube and get a call if I’m free for and interview and the next day started a new job ;)
It’s sometimes the right thing to tell a bully to fuck off, and if you’re being threatened physically to use proportional force in self defense, I did end up hurting someone and I don’t feel at all bad for it as it goes.
My boss once tried to reason his way out of a contract with me. When he couldn't, he simply said he just wasn't going to honour that clause in the contract.
It's amazing how you can annihilate years of built up trust in 3 seconds, by uttering that phrase, "I'm not going to honor it".
A week later he wanted to make an unrelated deal with me. I had of course decided to leave the company.
He was flabbergasted when I asked him if he would honour this new deal that he was offering.
I worked in a small startup company (~20) with a horrible founder. As a lead, she would ask me why some people are taking their lunch time after 2pm. I didn't know how to answer. Our standup would last 45 minutes where she would interrogate each person. As a lead, I didn't have the guts to fix it. I stayed for a year. There are many things I should've done and I could've done. That was a truly toxic place.
I really like this emphasis on trust. I have worked on “superstar” teams where people sabotaged each other at every turn. I have seen teams with a real mix of talent, sometimes pretty mediocre honestly, achieve amazing things because everyone just rows in the same direction.
I have been one of the toxic persons in a workplace. I was young and immature and an ungrateful arrogant prick. Not saying I'm totally reformed now (I still have my moments!). But every so often I see a little former-me running around. After a certain point I stop them and ask them to please calm the fuck down, because they are acting fucking nuts. That can sometimes result in a 180-degree behavior change (especially after a manager has already talked to them) because they usually don't want to get fired. I can't "fix" them, but I can give them the benefit of the doubt that they may want to be better, and may just need a nudge now and then to re-adjust.
Sometimes the people aren't toxic, they're just encouraged to be that way by the management and company culture. Lots of younger engineers have only worked at a single company and don't have the benefit of experience. Always good to assume the best, even with a highly toxic person.
At my current company there really isn't a technical promotion track. You either get into management or stagnate. That's created some unfortunate situations where excellent technical contributors with poor personalities keep slamming up against the invisible wall preventing advancement instead of being encouraged to stay technical. Also, weak management allows minor technical disputes to turn into all out wars. Pretty sad. Good for me I guess, as my aging brain's best contribution seems to have been in moderating the conflicts.
I don't understand why the author casually says Basecamp "burned it all down". Basecamp took action to set a culture they believed would help them succeed long term. Is having a tough conversation with employees that risks offending some of them burning it all down?
For people that aren’t good socially (especially those that don’t fit it in the culture quickly) having a group of people that you try to work with is sorta useless advice.
Speaking anecdotally: It took me a long time to understand how to be a good listener and pick on social cues and not be constantly worried about appearing like an idiot. While I was cordial with coworkers I tried not to engage with them after work: I’ve always wanted to keep those 2 worlds separated. I do hang out with coworkers when eg it’s crunch time, or in celebrating a successful launch. But that’s it.
Early in my career, I was unlucky to work at several toxic workplaces. After a while I learned to quickly exercise my rights and quickly cut all ties with the company when I observe some red flags. Slavery is not a thing anymore, job mobility is.
I was in a very toxic workplace for the last ~18 years. It's hard not to appropriate bad behavior. It definitely comes from the top.
From people yelling at you in front of your peers, to the not-so-subtle threats. Purposely sabotaging projects you're on. Not providing access or computers when needed. Being yelled at when going to take your newborn baby to a doctor appointment (pre-scheduled).
It's not worth it. Just find a better place to work.
Toxic workplaces are enabled by everyone, not just a few people. When something unacceptable happens, make a decision that even though it didn’t happen to you this time, that’s not the kind of place you want to work. Don’t make other peoples problems your own, but stand up for them.
And most importantly, realize that if you can’t quit a job for reasons even if you witness something terrible happen, you’re not an employee, you’re a slave. Cultivate the resources and make life decisions so that no job is too good to quit, no income stream too important to lose.
And from time to time, when it’s necessary, use that wealth to protect yourself and people around you. Be able to go to your boss or your CEO or your HR department and be able to say “this is unacceptable, fix it or accept my resignation”.
A lot of bad things still happen to people (women, minorities, people who are really invested in their career, and more) in part because there isn’t that feedback of people standing up and walking out... too many people are too afraid of standing up for what’s right or losing income.
Yeah I never did the 'take the team with me' thing but I wish I had. I heard great things from people I've met randomly who work as a team and go together to a new gig. Sounds like a lot of fun. Is it too late for me. I am > 40 and tried of the industry. Well, you know, tired of "industry" in general and the workers/company conflict that naturally arises. Reading that linked thread about BaseCamp - and I won't give my opinion on it - but it does show a tension between employer/employee that is always there, even when it isn't.
> Is just telling people to be loyal to each other enough?
Uh, no. This industry is obsessed with individually optimized paths to success. In other words, everybody is looking out for themselves. I have been on teams where there was camaraderie, mostly because of shared struggle. But, the idea that people are suddenly interested in the common good is laughable.
I'll trade his "trust" for accountability and consequences any day, especially for management. Without visible accountability, appeals to loyalty are meaningless. Also, I have seen manipulators and liars game these altruistic arrangements.
One particular gig had a co-worker that was given a sudden lift into power. That person had trouble after a month and tried to cover some misleading stats and results. Then they came after their co-workers, manipulating public chat while being fairly nasty in DM. On the surface they were all about the common good, but to us individually the person was toxic.
Screenshots. Documentation. That's what saved my job in that particular instance. I showed how the public Slack was different than DM, which was different than direct email. Multiple contradictory threads. I saw what was happening and covered my ass with documentation.
Management tried to handle the initial problems with appeals to shared goals and teamwork, which are noble. This person was very good during those calls. We went to bosses individually and said there were problems and that this person was getting toxic. Response was "we'll look into it." Nothing happened.
In the end, problems got undeniable and we ended up in a series of one-on-ones with managers. My screenshots worked. That person was given a soft exit. The mid-level managers that ignored it got no consequences. The people that were left absorbed that person's leftover mess and nobody trusted anybody and management lost credibility. To this day, I document DMs out of habit.
[+] [-] MrFoof|4 years ago|reply
In your first days, you exhaustively quantitatively measure the entire operating environment, prioritize a plan of attack based on the data, and go at it.
By the end of the week, you have many improvements testing successfully while still producing identical and correct results. In one instance, runtime reduced from 200 minutes ... to 1.2 seconds. You dutifully write up an explanation, articles, all the gory compiler knowledge, etc. Submit pull requests. Your team is chuffed.
Result? Someone on another team calls you into a meeting, to railroad and scream at you for, "making them look bad". I mean SCREAM. As if they're trying to kill you with words. You report the incident to who you are directed to report into and are told to, "man up."
-- -----
This is when you ensure the termination clause is airtight. You spend 5 minutes drafting a termination letter, print it, and hand it in. Drop the mic. Walk out. Good riddance.
-- -----
Scary thing? That's nothing. Ever get hired for performance tuning and then the DBA refuses to create your account, and cusses out the CTO when the CTO asks why? Ever see a developer get punched by someone? Have you been in an environment where there were actual cots set up for people who had to work through the night, because it happened that often?
I've. Seen. Things.
[+] [-] lmilcin|4 years ago|reply
I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it.
He caused major outage when the code he developed and brought to the company as an asset failed. The code was to exchange SMS messages with an SMS gateway for Ukrainian operator. The messages were sent using mails. That was 15 years ago and not his fault, but his fault was that he received the XML messages and instead of using XML parser, he just parsed text by locating substring in a given line number from a given offset to a specified character.
So what happened is that they stopped pretty-printing XML messages in the responses.
When I pointed (with couple people around) that this is absolutely our fault (I did not say his, but everybody knew this), he started screaming at me that I am incompetent and that he was programming when I was shitting myself in a crib.
I left the same day.
I left companies suddenly on two more occasions:
- when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish).
- when my boss charged at me to hit me after I refused to lie to management. He stopped himself with his fist 10cm from my face but that, for me, was game over.
[+] [-] imperialdrive|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derefr|4 years ago|reply
Given that you also mention further down a dev getting punched, I think this statement was code for “if you don’t like what they’re saying, you should just shut them up.”
Machismo-driven cultures are confusing until you realize that everyone is just expecting you to literally physically assault your way to the top, and is just annoyed with you for seeking peaceful resolutions rather than immediately jumping to violence / intimidation. In such societies, (public) peaceful resolutions lower the social status of both parties making them!
[+] [-] phibz|4 years ago|reply
The mistake, in my opinion, that I made was that I did it alone.
I didn't communicate with team and work with them at their pace. I blasted ahead and did all the work myself. And it didn't win me any friends.
They were angry, very angry. They thought I made them look bad and I was being negatively critical of their work. They got defensive and stopped listening to the why and how of my changes.
When there's a huge skill impedence mismatch between you and the team of your peers you especially need to consider their feelings. Had I approached the situation by reaching out and explaining my ideas in a way that they understood and guided them along to the solution, I would have had a different outcome. They needed to be part of the solution even if I didn't agree with them completely.
I needed to accept and believe in myself and not go looking for praise from them. I needed to recognize that they spent their own time and effort on this work. Maybe they were lazy, maybe they didn't know better, or maybe they were too busy to write a performant solution, but the work was partly theirs and I needed to consider that. The best way to do that was to talk to them and listen.
More recently I have been more guiding and taken the team with me to a solution. I've had much better success with this. Sure it's slower. Sure I ended up with work that was good but not exactly how I wanted it. But I gained something I hadn't expected: a stronger bond with the team, knowing they would listen to me and I to them, and that we all respected each other. We also ended up producing better work as a team.
I'm not saying any of this to discredit toxic work environments. I've been on broken teams before where everyone is turned against each.
Part of the responsibility for this lies with the leadership individuals who matched someone with skills out pacing the rest of the team, placing them as a peer on the team. They should have considered the team dynamics they were creating.
You can help reduce the toxicity of your work environment by considering your impact on a team and how you work with them. Being "right" about the work is seldom the only factor to consider and does not absolve you of ignoring the thoughts, ideas, and feelings of others.
[+] [-] jdhendrickson|4 years ago|reply
He was not fired or even reprimanded. Like literally bitten. This was while working for Brit Systems.
I was so shocked I just froze. I believe every word you wrote because I too have seen some things. That was the worst (and sadly not only) physical assault, some of the mind games and toxic personalities in this industry have to be seen to be believed. Don't even get me started on the founder that would try to break up his first employees marriages so they would move into his house and focus on work because the rest of their life just imploded (he then pulled some chicanery in regard to the stock options right before they vested, clawed most of them back and the people who sacrificed everything got nothing, HE however became a multi millionaire).
[+] [-] tpoacher|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bourgwaletariat|4 years ago|reply
It only takes 1 person in a company of a hundred to completely destroy it. Allow one psychopath into your company and it'll go bankrupt or otherwise defunct within just a couple years.
These folks are afraid. They know their performance is substandard. They exist by hiding that low quality work from management.
When someone like you goes in there and makes a 3 hour report a real time dashboard, you can be sure management heard all manner of reasons why it took so long and that's just how things are and their expectations are unreasonable if they want it faster, they can try to hire someone, but there's no one who can do it better.
Until you. And then it's better and now their lives are worse, so you pay for it. You have to be gotten rid of because you are proof they their work isn't up to snuff. You came in and landed right on top of the hill. You were the king, so they had to knock you off.
Welcome to the war on competence.
[+] [-] genezeta|4 years ago|reply
First couple days were not that bad. Not particularly good, but nothing too bad. Like people weren't too friendly but neither too hostile.
There was, though, some casual heated discussion here and there. As I met some people more closely I began to see a trend: Everybody hated almost everybody else. One developer openly told me in our first conversation something like "You'll notice few people talk to me... Everyone hates me here.". Then somewhere else some shouting erupted for a few minutes, but nobody seemed to pay too much attention to it.
I saw someone get up from their desk, go to someone else and instead of normally asking whatever question they wanted to ask, start shouting their question. "How can it be that something something?!!! This is totally unacceptable!". Nobody even looked up from their screens or anything. It would turn out that was the way they always communicated.
We got a meeting with the whole team. Ah, no, not the whole team, just half of it. Why? - I asked. "Oh, we tried that but we can't have the whole team in one meeting because there are... conflicts and we end up not doing anything productive."
A few days later, I get called into a meeting with 6 other people, just to generally estimate a few tasks and discuss some of their details. After about two minutes or so, two people are arguing which ones are the tasks that we need to discuss. Things escalate and they are shouting while the rest watches calmly. I don't even know what to do or where to look because none seems to react at all to this. After some 15-20 minutes of this, the meeting is cancelled. People just stand up and return to their desks. I ask one of them if this is normal. "Yeah, pretty much."
I tried really hard and stayed there for more than 1 1/2 years. The only thing I have from all that is a lot of awful anecdotes about awful people.
[+] [-] robjan|4 years ago|reply
In my experience, the best approach isn't to attempt to change the world immediately but to head straight for the most important decision maker and point out the problems with concrete solutions. If it doesn't work, resign. Eventually they will get the picture but a high performing new hire shouldn't have to suffer.
[+] [-] elSidCampeador|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjourne|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amarant|4 years ago|reply
I did get told off by the boss for fixing someone's compilation errors(that they had force-pushed to master, deleting a week of my work) but he didn't scream at me.
[+] [-] Mauricebranagh|4 years ago|reply
If its assault call the police and tell HR fire them and ill drop the charges "maybe"
[+] [-] johnchristopher|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] felipellrocha|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austinshea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] one2three4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gabereiser|4 years ago|reply
Or how about the one guy that shouts at people when they ask ANY question on why things work that way, responding with things like "NO!! It's not how we do it" and berating newer employees with their lack of legacy knowledge.
I've seen a grown man, extremely well educated, data scientist make a fellow data scientist cry. I've. Seen. Things.
I also made a conscience decision to focus on people, co-workers, and foster those relationships where I can. Sometimes I have to leave those behind when drastic life changes happen, but ultimately I'll always be there should they need me. Kudos to the OP for including the Sinek clip, love that guy.
[+] [-] giantandroids|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bourgwaletariat|4 years ago|reply
W.T.F.??
There's really no correct thing to do. I lost so much sleep just trying to come up with something that wouldn't be turned against me.
It's a form of learned helplessness. They force you into a no-win situation, so you'll stop winning. They can't win on merit or competence, so they force you into no-wins. Impossible deadlines. etc. etc.
It's the opposite of "Hire people smarter than you and get out of their way." Their strategy is more like... "Hire people smarter than you, get them to do your job, make their life hell, so they quit, then take all the credit."
Psychos.
[+] [-] diragon|4 years ago|reply
Data scientists seem to be on a level of their own when it comes to disrespecting colleagues. I've been surprised by this recently.
[+] [-] paganel|4 years ago|reply
This happened to a close friend of mine relatively recently, both the "benevolent" and the "firing after the vacation part". I cannot understand such tactics.
In the end it was much better for said friend the way things turned out for him, but right when it happened it was a shitty situation to be in, because you just don't understand why that is happening to you.
[+] [-] kwdc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bedobi|4 years ago|reply
Don't! Cut your losses and move on. Life is too short to spend any significant amounts of time around toxic people, no matter the context.
[+] [-] mgarfias|4 years ago|reply
But, I had no other options at the time. It took 2 years to gtfo, and the next place was minimally better (I got ptsd from pager noises there).
So, yeah, learning to survive a toxic work place is a good thing.
I have some health problems now that I blame on the stress.
[+] [-] manmal|4 years ago|reply
I spent years in a toxic primary school - things were tried to improve it, but some kids were still being bullied constantly. Back then, private schools in my area were hardly an option, and other schools were a legal hassle to switch to. Sometimes you need to learn to cope.
[+] [-] dingaling|4 years ago|reply
Few people have the luxury of SV-style job agility, so having a basic survival guide is useful. It might just keep them sane until they can make a change for the better.
[+] [-] peterburkimsher|4 years ago|reply
Even if the problem isn't immediate deportation, changing jobs might reset a time counter which is needed for other visas. There's often a requirement of 2 to 5 years continuous relevant work experience. In such circumstances, the only remaining option is to shut up, sit tight, and turn the other cheek.
[+] [-] diragon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyberpunk|4 years ago|reply
10 minutes later get a call from the agency saying my services are no longer required, get off the tube and get a call if I’m free for and interview and the next day started a new job ;)
It’s sometimes the right thing to tell a bully to fuck off, and if you’re being threatened physically to use proportional force in self defense, I did end up hurting someone and I don’t feel at all bad for it as it goes.
[+] [-] mbrodersen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sackerhews|4 years ago|reply
It's amazing how you can annihilate years of built up trust in 3 seconds, by uttering that phrase, "I'm not going to honor it".
A week later he wanted to make an unrelated deal with me. I had of course decided to leave the company.
He was flabbergasted when I asked him if he would honour this new deal that he was offering.
[+] [-] sideproject|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgeecollins|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway823882|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 01100011|4 years ago|reply
At my current company there really isn't a technical promotion track. You either get into management or stagnate. That's created some unfortunate situations where excellent technical contributors with poor personalities keep slamming up against the invisible wall preventing advancement instead of being encouraged to stay technical. Also, weak management allows minor technical disputes to turn into all out wars. Pretty sad. Good for me I guess, as my aging brain's best contribution seems to have been in moderating the conflicts.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] practicalpants|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm90|4 years ago|reply
Speaking anecdotally: It took me a long time to understand how to be a good listener and pick on social cues and not be constantly worried about appearing like an idiot. While I was cordial with coworkers I tried not to engage with them after work: I’ve always wanted to keep those 2 worlds separated. I do hang out with coworkers when eg it’s crunch time, or in celebrating a successful launch. But that’s it.
[+] [-] mkl95|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamra|4 years ago|reply
From people yelling at you in front of your peers, to the not-so-subtle threats. Purposely sabotaging projects you're on. Not providing access or computers when needed. Being yelled at when going to take your newborn baby to a doctor appointment (pre-scheduled).
It's not worth it. Just find a better place to work.
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
And most importantly, realize that if you can’t quit a job for reasons even if you witness something terrible happen, you’re not an employee, you’re a slave. Cultivate the resources and make life decisions so that no job is too good to quit, no income stream too important to lose.
And from time to time, when it’s necessary, use that wealth to protect yourself and people around you. Be able to go to your boss or your CEO or your HR department and be able to say “this is unacceptable, fix it or accept my resignation”.
A lot of bad things still happen to people (women, minorities, people who are really invested in their career, and more) in part because there isn’t that feedback of people standing up and walking out... too many people are too afraid of standing up for what’s right or losing income.
[+] [-] yrgulation|4 years ago|reply
One piece of advice I was given early on in my career: "If you can't change the people, then change the people".
Working with people you get along with not only helps keep your mental state healthy, but it also makes one more productive.
[+] [-] duxup|4 years ago|reply
I just got a lot of "be loyal to each other before being loyal to Kelsus" and "Kelsus" and that's kinda empty.
Being "loyal" to your friends can be just as much a recipe for bad choices as good as far as I read it...
[+] [-] Bayart|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _____bee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bawolff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickthrower2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ogou|4 years ago|reply
Uh, no. This industry is obsessed with individually optimized paths to success. In other words, everybody is looking out for themselves. I have been on teams where there was camaraderie, mostly because of shared struggle. But, the idea that people are suddenly interested in the common good is laughable.
I'll trade his "trust" for accountability and consequences any day, especially for management. Without visible accountability, appeals to loyalty are meaningless. Also, I have seen manipulators and liars game these altruistic arrangements.
One particular gig had a co-worker that was given a sudden lift into power. That person had trouble after a month and tried to cover some misleading stats and results. Then they came after their co-workers, manipulating public chat while being fairly nasty in DM. On the surface they were all about the common good, but to us individually the person was toxic.
Screenshots. Documentation. That's what saved my job in that particular instance. I showed how the public Slack was different than DM, which was different than direct email. Multiple contradictory threads. I saw what was happening and covered my ass with documentation.
Management tried to handle the initial problems with appeals to shared goals and teamwork, which are noble. This person was very good during those calls. We went to bosses individually and said there were problems and that this person was getting toxic. Response was "we'll look into it." Nothing happened.
In the end, problems got undeniable and we ended up in a series of one-on-ones with managers. My screenshots worked. That person was given a soft exit. The mid-level managers that ignored it got no consequences. The people that were left absorbed that person's leftover mess and nobody trusted anybody and management lost credibility. To this day, I document DMs out of habit.