>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple years prior and a taste of how painful it was. Some of my coworkers shared deeper things I’d never heard in a work setting. It was awkward. It was beautiful.
I'd rather not have my manager forcing me to do group therapy. I owe the company some work hours and they own me money.
If I want to have personal relations with someone from my work, befriend somebody, share personal things, that is my choice. My personal life is not the company business.
Of course I wouldn't say all that to the manager, but 'I'll put him on the list of people I should be careful about, and fake some confessions.
It’s pretty nuts, putting out your dirty laundry in public is a surefire way to self sabotage - especially in a work setting. In American culture, there’s a lot of “positive self help” talk about being open about these things. But the reality is - it actually just provides drama and ammunition to people who might not have your best interests at heart. Some things are best kept between your close trusted friends and family or therapist, no matter how trendy the culture is about being “open”.
In recent years I had a manager who read a lot of pop-psychology and self-help books. His 1:1s turned into pseudo therapy sessions where he tried to assume the role of therapist. He and I did not get along because I politely changed the subject back to work and the office every time he tried to get me to “open up” about my childhood, my home life, my fears and anxieties, and other topics.
I thought he was a weird outlier, but I joined an invite-only Slack for management a while ago where I’d estimate 1/4 of the topics in the #1-on-1s channel are from managers trying to psychoanalyze their team or act as therapists. The good news is that the Slack is very good about correcting these people about their role and what is appropriate for work. The bad news is that these new managers are getting the idea from somewhere that they need to be some type of therapist and patriarch of the team. It feels like a weird iteration of new-age management philosophies that breed in B-list business books and social media like LinkedIn.
I wouldn’t necessarily be worried about them using it against me later, just the fact that they want to force me to open up and be pretend buddies is annoying. It’s a work relationship.
It could be just me enjoying remote work, but I am not looking to be friends with them 4000 km away. I’m too old for this, I know all my work friendships faded away in a couple of years and even in those years we focused on work and chat about career.
Don’t force me to share personal things with everyone. I’ll share it if I feel like it with the ones that I feel like it.
I'm thinking maybe this is rather to present an opportunity for the team to put forward their expectations, pain points and desires. Being 'vulnerable' for me in a workplace setting means perhaps admitting that I really don't appreciate people bikeshedding over items I'm submitting for review (rather than being actually constructive) or that I feel the git work flow don't attribute fairly (hiding my contributions). Maybe others feel the same and we could do something about it? And those were only on individualistic side. To evolve the team and team play I'd think this a good time to bring up that I'm actually hating responding to support inquiries and rather have Pete doing more of that. And that I think Sue is doing amazing work with Figma and I'd really like to learn from her. Wouldn't this type of 'vulnerable' make sense in a team?
Paraphrasing Seth Godin: do you want your heart surgeon greeting you before surgery by authentically telling you about the big fight he just had with his wife this morning?
Not gonna lie. When these sorts of situations have arisen in the past, I find it really tempting to troll. These prompts are such BS that they just invite a BS response.
“Whoo. OK. I’ve never talked about this, but here goes. When I was 12 I used a Hello Kitty doll to kill a man. Wow. Feels great to finally get that off my chest.”
We had a team building exercise, that I wasn't able to attend. The person running it decided that a great ice-breaker would be for everyone to name their greatest fear.
I'm a parent. You can probably pretty easily infer what my greatest fear is.
Would I share that? Fuck no! Not only am I not particularly willing to get that intimate with a bunch of strangers, I also don't want to be a huge fucking downer. What I do want is to recognize that while you can speed-run friendship & bonding to some degree, it's fucking inappropriate to try to do so at work. It's work. I'll make friends if I make friends, but otherwise I'm out at 5, physically, mentally and emotionally.
Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. That seems pretty far from “being forced into group therapy” in my perception.
It was the author and colleagues that decided to overstate, and seemingly did not regret. Groups of humans sometimes have connections like these, whatever the environment they are in.
I am sure other similar meeting with the same prompt only generated people saying they have two cats, they I am anxious about learning a new programming language or that they do not quite understand Stripe business model
Yea, this was really disturbing. Your work and manager already have a lot of power over you. It seems really nefarious to ask employees to bring in vulnerabilities about themselves from outside of work. I don’t buy the team building nonsense, which will probably used as the “explanation” here.
I work in manufacturing and we have a weekly safety slide that normally presents a safety based work scenario or learning, this week's one was based on how to be safe while out trick or treating and one of the guys said he didn't appreciate being told in how to behave outside of work hours. I have have to admit that his attitude caught me off guard but I understand where he is coming from even if the intention comes from a good place finding the line between work and home can be a grey area. Saying that I don't thinkmi would appreciate being ambushed with being asked to provide a personal anecdote
Putting aside the trite "we're cool here" corporate routine, it sounds to me like a hack of a manager gave someone the opening to trauma dump on their co-workers and some by-standers got treated to some drive by group theory. Awful all around.
I am the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. I grew up in a familialy dishonest context so being open and transparent has been my default.
That attitude is a liability at work and I’ve learned the hard way.
We’ve all heard the phrase don’t shit where you eat. In modern workplace cadence that means don’t use your workplace as your source of therapy or friends or certainly family.
The way we present yourselves at work has to intrinsically be a performance because that’s how money works.
Find another place to express emotions and thoughts and find friends. That place should not be the workplace.
I agree and this wasn't the only red flag in the post for me. The reverence for a company that does, in the end, "just" process payments or the part about "a billionaire liked my project"... I feel like there's something rather unhealthy about that kind of mindset.
All the best to the author of the post, hopefully they can find more meaningful work.
I think the better approach would be for the manager to share something themselves, to demonstrate that a bit of vulnerability is okay, but not even ask if anyone else wants to say anything and certainly not make people feel they should. In other words lead by example so that if someone feels like they want to open up they can and their manager will be supportive.
10% more vulnerable than normal is open to interpretation. You don't need to lie or put anyone on a list, it's just an attempt to foster persona relations between a team, the idea being with a little empathy and knowledge of each other people might be more likely to resolve future differences amicably.
I had a manager do something like this but in a slightly better way. Each week we took it in turns doing our "life story". Some did it funny, some did it really personal and serious, some more of a CV, and some a mix of them all. You could really decide how you wanted to do it, and people got to know you a bit better.
When these things come up I just share work vulnerabilities like, "Yeah, that project I pushed for was a terrible idea in hindsight." Or "I'm really struggling with this project because I don't know if anyone cares about it".
That way I tick the participation box without making it therapy.
Yeah, I would just instinctively make something up. Maybe everyone else does that, too, how would any of us know?
I really don't like this trend of employers trying to act like we're all friends or one big happy family. It only serves to blur the very real boundaries of power in favor of the employer. Engaging with it in earnest feels like self-exploitation to me.
What you are experiencing is the symptom of working in a large company where no matter how well you perform, you can not significantly move the needle yourself.
Coupled with the fact that, as you yourself pointed out, there is a literal endless amount of work to do, forever. This is also due to the nature of the company being so big.
All companies always has work to do, and no one is ever «done», but in a giga-enterprise all meaningful deadlines and deliveries sort of tangentially rounds down to zero in terms of impact.
I almost burned out from this myself working in Microsoft. I was succeeding in my work by most metrics, but I am motivated more by my work being MEANINGFUL and having impact more than anything. That is almost impossible to achieve in any large enough company.
Jumped off to be a startup CTO and life started smiling again instantly.
Take time away from work, but not too much time. Comments such as «it takes years» can be true if you have ground yourself down to a nub, but trying (and being ok with failing) to do some work that lets you feel like you mean something and contribute back to society is an understated and important part of the healing process.
I think the author had unrealistic expectations from working at a large company.
He expected doing something meaningful that will change the world. He expected to be applauded like a hero for his efforts.
But things don't work like that.
If you work your ass out, don't expect more than a pat on the back. Managers won't care about your efforts, your mental state or your sleepless nights. They care about looking good in front of their superiors.
So it's better to do just that is expected for you, enough to get a good evaluation.
If you come out with a brilliant idea that might help the company a lot don't just do it. Find some allies in the higher hierarchy, explain to them what is their advantage, do a POC or MVP, then let the top management know in a public meeting. That way you get a lot of credits and applause for doing great things for the company and fighting the good fight.
Great blog, but reading it gave me deep secondhand anxiety and even exhaustion. It’s strikingly clear this person is a people pleaser to potentially unhealthy levels, maybe due to low self-esteem or something else, and it could be contributing to the depression. Legitimately, therapy might be the right call here. But on the positive side, they do seem like a good person who wants to build good things. That’s commendable.
These symptoms are a classic sign of burn out. One thing I notice in your writing is you’re very tied up in things having meaning and mattering in some specific way. This itself can lead to burnout because if everything must matter you must be emotionally invested in everything. But you can care without it mattering to you. You can do a good job without being totally invested in everything about it. You can love what you do without it having significance in every detail.
In a complex job with a fast pace, a fair amount of tech debt around every edge, a relentless pace of innovation happening, and - yes - growth, there’s too much to be invested in everything. It doesn’t have to matter that much. The parts you really care about, the craft and quality of your work, your relationships, mentoring and growing the people around you, seeing things get better one piece at a time, and a few things - they can matter. But everything can’t. And even those you have to at some very deep level realize don’t matter really.
Stripe doesn’t really exist in this world. It’s a shared fiction to help frame the interactions between you and a few people you actually interact with in a day. The real truth is the only thing that happens in your days is you type on a computer and talk to a few people. It actually doesn’t matter in any meaningful way what you typed or some higher purpose around humbling honesty or exothermic curiosity or PMEs or whatever stories we tell ourselves to create some sort of reality out of the fiction. The only important things you really do is how you shape the lives of the people you interact with, and how you shape your own life.
Burnout is hard. Adopt a daily meditation practice. Let your mind heal by letting go of meaning and practice enjoying the moment you’re in with whomever you’re with, but most especially yourself. The joy will come back faster the faster you let go of things needing to matter or have deeper meaning, especially when those things are a fiction like a company or a career or any of the other small and big lies we’ve been told and we reinforce to ourselves daily. I know I’ve been there man, and I know exactly - exactly - the sensations and experiences you describe. It gets better, but I think once you get there it never totally goes away and it’s easier to slip back.
FWIW I don’t think burnout is the same as depression. I’ve felt both and burnout is different. It’s that loss of ability to engage - which overlaps with depression - but usually doesn’t come with the thoughts of hopeless despair and desire for life to be over. It’s just more of a deadness and inability to initiate what you think you should want to do but can’t, and it pervasively impacts everything.
I’ve seen this pattern repeated so many times that I feel like it can be generalized:
when your mental health collapses nothing else holds value, it really doesn’t matter if you achieved your dream job, got all the prestige and income you initially desired, being mentally healthy is the basis of the pyramid.
Something I learned based on that is to really prioritize it!
Even if someone considers their career to be everything, realize that spending some of your earnings seeking professional help (therapy) is even a cheap investment considering that if you break and have to quit, you’re going to lose hundreds of thousands, and to recover it will suck (I’ve heard of people trying to quit tech altogether after burning out)
Sneaking something else related to mental health: sleep should be #1 health wise, when you’re consistently not getting quality sleep for months, there’s nothing you can really do to get around that, it will eventually just break you (your body won’t care if you’re coping with coffe or exercising!)
Btw that’s great writing and I really appreciate your courage in sharing this!
I hope you’ll find your joy again.
Sorry for a probably unpopular opinion here, and let me generalize a bit: Gen Z all the way... (Saying this makes me feel a bit old, I guess I'm certainly am than the author).
On a serious note, in my book there are hints of perfectionism right from the start of the story (fonts dimming, wait 30 sec to join the meeting..). And too much fragility in personal attidudes. S/he is probably a relatively young idealistic person, early in the career. Such people often don't last long, if they can't change inside and take manager's or corporate shit. One needs at least some "fuck it" attitude to preserve one's dignity. Your performance review does not and cannot define you as a person. Else you're likely to end up disappointed and/or emotionally exhausted. And that's what I see here.
They idolized a company that is known for top-shelf engineering talent and, more importantly, brutally hard interviews...and they just got an opportunity to interview with them.
You have no idea what the interviewee will "no hire" them over, so you assume they want perfection because obviously. You're deathly afraid of making any mistakes because not getting the job you've been dreaming about for years is not an option, so spiraling straight into the ground after your first minor oops makes total sense.
Once you've gotten the dream job, you now have to work even harder to keep it because, shit, have you seen the engineering talent in this place? Getting a "failing" perf review from your management sends this anxiety into overdrive, so you work harder to prove your worth.
Some people barely last under these conditions. Others will gladly torch everything and everyone in their life to succeed, whatever that means.
There's a lot of comments on the "10% more vulnerable" part of the post in here that amount to "I just owe the company work hours, and they owe me money", and a strong aversion to showing anything resembling human connection going slightly further than "how are you", "fine". One commented even called the question by the manager "abuse", and suggested the manager should be fired.
But if on most days we're spending most of our time with these people, what do we gain from automatically disqualifying them from human connection just because they work at the same place as us?
And let's not pretend that the manager in this story forced anyone to do anything.
Ways I found that helped me the most dealing with this kind of situation:
- Refine your definition of what’s “meaningful”: anything that helps you, your colleagues, helps you to learn a new thing or simply allows you to create something beautiful can be meaningful; there’s a lot of meaning in giving a meal to someone starving, even though you’re not solving any big societal issue or being applauded by many for that single act.
- Don’t take people like the OP’s first manager too personally: with time you realize they’re generally not evil or terrible human beings, they’re just in a different mission. Usually they are also as lost as we are, trying to find meaning and recognition. Just lower the importance you give to them (if you’re really incompatible with their personalities) and focus on your work. If even then it becomes toxic, then move.
- Most importantly: reshape your relationship with work. Who you are and what you do are not necessarily the same thing. I don't like the advice of "slacking and collecting your pay check" (been there, you also feel shit after a while), but I think that going a bit to that direction helps to find balance.
The one thing that immediately pissed me off was you doing something awesome, then having management attack you for reason X, where X attacks everything but the results. The reason never really matters, the real reason is that you threatened them in some manner and they need to justify their job.
Honestly, I would have just quit at that point. You're a saint for staying any longer.
This sounds like an absolutely terrible company to work for.
> Still more time passed and then came the depression. I found myself increasingly demotivated in all aspects of my life. I could hardly even muster the energy to play video games (my usual haunt). Some evenings I would literally sit and stare at a wall. My sleep went to shit.
I'm sorry for that. I went through something similar and I managed to bounce back up but it took longer than I anticipated. Years, not months.
Not sure if this helps someone, but I joined a new German company a few months ago, the type of company that has a great culture and everyone wants to work for (when I announced it on Linkedin my stats increased and I received a lot of invitations).
Anyway, on-boarding was awful and codebase is terrible. For the first four months I have been struggling, suferring, getting frustrated, and everything impacting my life outside work (weekends, sleeping, etc)
Then I realized. This is just a job. What is the worst it could happen? Getting fired and these people thinking I'm an idiot? I can live with that. I won't probably meet them again (perks of remote) and I could find another job down the line. And that helped me.
What you do at work and how are you seen at work, as long as you are responsible, shouldn't be that important. Leave it at work and try to enjoy your life. Don't carry it with you, especially when it is a position where you don't have much control.
Reading this, I do get the impression that the Partially Meets Expectation was given to get more work out of this guy. It's the worst kind of manipulation - spinning something that was an unqualified success into a "failure." Especially because the boss clearly already had an internal narrative, and it sounds like they cherry-picked feedback from coworkers to support that narrative.
Having had something somewhat similar happen in the past, it seems like this is common at high-growth tech companies. Everyone pretends to be your friend, and there are definitely some genuine people, but getting ahead is clearly number 1.
This is a great post and I'm glad the author was able to share it.
I feel like I had a similar experience. Start working at a new job, hustle for several years, get promoted, projects do well, then ended up feeling bored and unexcited. Not exactly burnt out, but burnt out on the current pattern of life. I quit and moved to another country.
I don't know if the author is "burnt out" or not. This is a privileged take, but sometimes it feels like a full time job is a leash. Life becomes so defined by your job it can feel suffocating. You can take a few weeks off, but a few weeks a year is hardly enough to have your own life.
I quit trying to find meaning in my work long time ago. And work never depresses me. I work to have food on the table for me and my family. That is enough of a motivation.
If I want to do something meaningful, I either work on a personal project or contribute to one, outside work.
> The tech I build protects well-being and promotes human flourishing. Tech should never exploit weaknesses no matter how well intentioned.
That's from the "values" section of the website under the "Tech as a tool" subsection. How does working for Stripe fit with this value?
As a mere user of "tech", and a concerned observer of what I perceive to be its negative effects on society around me the last 5-10 years, it feels impossible to deny that the main drivers of the tech space haven't been "protecting well-being" and "promoting human flourishing", rather the opposite, and often rather brutally.
The article leaves the question unanswered of what actually led to the depression, and I'm left wondering if the author explored that question specifically. Perhaps Stripe aren't building technology that promotes human flourishing, and perhaps the author's core values were clashing with the reality of a modern tech company.
Sleep is a definite signal. If you've eliminated diet, medication, and personal relationships (tough one) as causes, you're left with professional obligations.
Note too that "chronic fatigue" is NOT "lack of sleep".
The brain fog is the net resultant of the body being in a constant "fight or flight" mode for too long. Psychologically, you've been doing WWI "trench warfare".
Thanks for this writeup. I hope the author recovers soon.
Some of the situations feel familiar to my experience in other companies, so here's some advice to younger folks, which took me some time to grasp:
- Communication with the manager is critical. Better to overcommunicate than undercommunicate. It's a natural tendency for curious folks to do "side quests" and while you were supposed to work on X, you noticed that you can improve Y which in your opinion is more important. At the very least, drop your manager a Slack message like "hey, I was supposed to work on X but I have an idea about Y which can bring more benefit, I will take N hours/days to dig into that if that's ok with you" and see what's their response (also make sure to time constrain it to avoid getting sidetracked for too long). I was definitely burned by this in prev job: I shipped some nice things but I was supposed to work on something else which I didn't do, and each time my manager mentioned this (i.e. N months later in performance evaluation), I knew it was correct for him to point it out, but it made me feel bad.
- In bigtech the work happens in quarters. If you're unhappy about things you work on currently, take some time to prepare the work items you do want to work on, and seed your manager's mind before next quarter planning about things you DO want to work on, why, how is the impact and so on.
- When feeling overwhelmed with too many things on your plate, talk to your manager to dispatch some responsibilities to other team members. Don't be the messiah who needs to fix everything by yourself silently and burn out.
- For candidates: When doing interviews, you absolutely should do everything to streamline things and avoid distractions. Most likely use JS or Python for coding. Probably avoid TS, definitely avoid C++. It's too easy to get lost fighting the compiler or "reinventing the world" with languages like C/C++. You won't get extra points for going uphill, but you will get minus points for not finishing.
Big tech is very much a function of your team and manager. Any job is a function first of your manager, second of your team, third of your ability and fourth of your project. I always select teams in that way, within a company and outside, and this has been incredibly helpful.
Stripe is a great place to work in some ways but judging from the writeup they had a ton of context switching preventing their productivity and the needs of the team didn’t align with what they did best. I’ve seen this feedback many times in many jobs.
I’ve been there myself! No doubt this person will find something exciting in no time.
Apropos of nothing as interviewers we do not put any weight on your submitting solutions after the window closes because we have to evaluate candidates consistently for business and legal reasons. We can’t give one person extra time because that’s not applying a consistent bar. Smaller companies may be more flexible but big tech won’t be. On the plus side big tech knows interviews are often a function of luck and setting and will generally always invite you to apply again without prejudice a few months later.
Being in a position to recover by getting bored and hacking on stuff you’re passionate about without pressure is something we’re really lucky to have, and I always try to do this between jobs.
Hitting a wall sucks, and FAANG style tech companies know how to hurl their engineers (and their management) straight towards it.
I'm glad you got out. Gotta look out for you, always; (most) companies sure as shit won't.
Unrelated, but if OP is here, about this:
> Things were moving rather smoothly despite my sweat soaked armpits. I silently resented my wife’s decision to unilaterally give up anti-perspirant due to chemicals.
Check out Arm and Hammer's Essentials deodorants. They don't contain aluminum and smell great despite being all natural. I switched to this deodorant after noticing that Mitchum deodorants were staining the pits of my shirts.
[+] [-] DeathArrow|1 year ago|reply
I'd rather not have my manager forcing me to do group therapy. I owe the company some work hours and they own me money.
If I want to have personal relations with someone from my work, befriend somebody, share personal things, that is my choice. My personal life is not the company business.
Of course I wouldn't say all that to the manager, but 'I'll put him on the list of people I should be careful about, and fake some confessions.
[+] [-] cpursley|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wkjagt|1 year ago|reply
This comment: "I'd rather not have my manager forcing me to do group therapy."
How did "if you’re comfortable" become "forcing me", and "try and be 10% more vulnerable" become "group therapy"?
[+] [-] Aurornis|1 year ago|reply
I thought he was a weird outlier, but I joined an invite-only Slack for management a while ago where I’d estimate 1/4 of the topics in the #1-on-1s channel are from managers trying to psychoanalyze their team or act as therapists. The good news is that the Slack is very good about correcting these people about their role and what is appropriate for work. The bad news is that these new managers are getting the idea from somewhere that they need to be some type of therapist and patriarch of the team. It feels like a weird iteration of new-age management philosophies that breed in B-list business books and social media like LinkedIn.
[+] [-] serial_dev|1 year ago|reply
It could be just me enjoying remote work, but I am not looking to be friends with them 4000 km away. I’m too old for this, I know all my work friendships faded away in a couple of years and even in those years we focused on work and chat about career.
Don’t force me to share personal things with everyone. I’ll share it if I feel like it with the ones that I feel like it.
[+] [-] tegling|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Aeolun|1 year ago|reply
I find it strange that the same people that ask you “How are you doing?” Without expecting an answer, are so into this kinda fake buddy buddy thing.
[+] [-] porter|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] christophilus|1 year ago|reply
“Whoo. OK. I’ve never talked about this, but here goes. When I was 12 I used a Hello Kitty doll to kill a man. Wow. Feels great to finally get that off my chest.”
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|1 year ago|reply
I'm a parent. You can probably pretty easily infer what my greatest fear is.
Would I share that? Fuck no! Not only am I not particularly willing to get that intimate with a bunch of strangers, I also don't want to be a huge fucking downer. What I do want is to recognize that while you can speed-run friendship & bonding to some degree, it's fucking inappropriate to try to do so at work. It's work. I'll make friends if I make friends, but otherwise I'm out at 5, physically, mentally and emotionally.
[+] [-] soneca|1 year ago|reply
It was the author and colleagues that decided to overstate, and seemingly did not regret. Groups of humans sometimes have connections like these, whatever the environment they are in.
I am sure other similar meeting with the same prompt only generated people saying they have two cats, they I am anxious about learning a new programming language or that they do not quite understand Stripe business model
[+] [-] sbochins|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mywacaday|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] namaria|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] superultra|1 year ago|reply
That attitude is a liability at work and I’ve learned the hard way.
We’ve all heard the phrase don’t shit where you eat. In modern workplace cadence that means don’t use your workplace as your source of therapy or friends or certainly family.
The way we present yourselves at work has to intrinsically be a performance because that’s how money works.
Find another place to express emotions and thoughts and find friends. That place should not be the workplace.
[+] [-] Tainnor|1 year ago|reply
All the best to the author of the post, hopefully they can find more meaningful work.
[+] [-] insane_dreamer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ruthmarx|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|1 year ago|reply
A team isn’t a family. A company isn’t a family.
[+] [-] thdhhghgbhy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 946789987649|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] d0gsg0w00f|1 year ago|reply
That way I tick the participation box without making it therapy.
[+] [-] dabeeeenster|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] varispeed|1 year ago|reply
I would have reported manager to HR for this and if they didn't take action I would take company to tribunal.
This is pure simple coercion into sharing personal data that then other workers could use against you.
I can't see the world where sharing personal stuff at work is ever appropriate, let alone be subjected to peer pressure to share it.
[+] [-] rdtsc|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] neilv|1 year ago|reply
Both reasonable.
> and fake some confessions.
Could you find some other way to handle it, without lying?
[+] [-] SergeAx|1 year ago|reply
So it seems to me that it was voluntary, right? You could be okay sharing nothing, author felt better going proposed path.
[+] [-] scruple|1 year ago|reply
I really don't like this trend of employers trying to act like we're all friends or one big happy family. It only serves to blur the very real boundaries of power in favor of the employer. Engaging with it in earnest feels like self-exploitation to me.
[+] [-] nvarsj|1 year ago|reply
I get they are trying to create a sense of psychological safety for people, but this is a bit much.
[+] [-] NotAnOtter|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] olivermuty|1 year ago|reply
Coupled with the fact that, as you yourself pointed out, there is a literal endless amount of work to do, forever. This is also due to the nature of the company being so big.
All companies always has work to do, and no one is ever «done», but in a giga-enterprise all meaningful deadlines and deliveries sort of tangentially rounds down to zero in terms of impact.
I almost burned out from this myself working in Microsoft. I was succeeding in my work by most metrics, but I am motivated more by my work being MEANINGFUL and having impact more than anything. That is almost impossible to achieve in any large enough company.
Jumped off to be a startup CTO and life started smiling again instantly.
Take time away from work, but not too much time. Comments such as «it takes years» can be true if you have ground yourself down to a nub, but trying (and being ok with failing) to do some work that lets you feel like you mean something and contribute back to society is an understated and important part of the healing process.
Good luck!
[+] [-] DeathArrow|1 year ago|reply
He expected doing something meaningful that will change the world. He expected to be applauded like a hero for his efforts.
But things don't work like that.
If you work your ass out, don't expect more than a pat on the back. Managers won't care about your efforts, your mental state or your sleepless nights. They care about looking good in front of their superiors.
So it's better to do just that is expected for you, enough to get a good evaluation.
If you come out with a brilliant idea that might help the company a lot don't just do it. Find some allies in the higher hierarchy, explain to them what is their advantage, do a POC or MVP, then let the top management know in a public meeting. That way you get a lot of credits and applause for doing great things for the company and fighting the good fight.
[+] [-] abc-1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fnordpiglet|1 year ago|reply
In a complex job with a fast pace, a fair amount of tech debt around every edge, a relentless pace of innovation happening, and - yes - growth, there’s too much to be invested in everything. It doesn’t have to matter that much. The parts you really care about, the craft and quality of your work, your relationships, mentoring and growing the people around you, seeing things get better one piece at a time, and a few things - they can matter. But everything can’t. And even those you have to at some very deep level realize don’t matter really.
Stripe doesn’t really exist in this world. It’s a shared fiction to help frame the interactions between you and a few people you actually interact with in a day. The real truth is the only thing that happens in your days is you type on a computer and talk to a few people. It actually doesn’t matter in any meaningful way what you typed or some higher purpose around humbling honesty or exothermic curiosity or PMEs or whatever stories we tell ourselves to create some sort of reality out of the fiction. The only important things you really do is how you shape the lives of the people you interact with, and how you shape your own life.
Burnout is hard. Adopt a daily meditation practice. Let your mind heal by letting go of meaning and practice enjoying the moment you’re in with whomever you’re with, but most especially yourself. The joy will come back faster the faster you let go of things needing to matter or have deeper meaning, especially when those things are a fiction like a company or a career or any of the other small and big lies we’ve been told and we reinforce to ourselves daily. I know I’ve been there man, and I know exactly - exactly - the sensations and experiences you describe. It gets better, but I think once you get there it never totally goes away and it’s easier to slip back.
FWIW I don’t think burnout is the same as depression. I’ve felt both and burnout is different. It’s that loss of ability to engage - which overlaps with depression - but usually doesn’t come with the thoughts of hopeless despair and desire for life to be over. It’s just more of a deadness and inability to initiate what you think you should want to do but can’t, and it pervasively impacts everything.
It gets better.
[+] [-] guitheengineer|1 year ago|reply
when your mental health collapses nothing else holds value, it really doesn’t matter if you achieved your dream job, got all the prestige and income you initially desired, being mentally healthy is the basis of the pyramid.
Something I learned based on that is to really prioritize it!
Even if someone considers their career to be everything, realize that spending some of your earnings seeking professional help (therapy) is even a cheap investment considering that if you break and have to quit, you’re going to lose hundreds of thousands, and to recover it will suck (I’ve heard of people trying to quit tech altogether after burning out)
Sneaking something else related to mental health: sleep should be #1 health wise, when you’re consistently not getting quality sleep for months, there’s nothing you can really do to get around that, it will eventually just break you (your body won’t care if you’re coping with coffe or exercising!)
Btw that’s great writing and I really appreciate your courage in sharing this! I hope you’ll find your joy again.
[+] [-] mndgs|1 year ago|reply
On a serious note, in my book there are hints of perfectionism right from the start of the story (fonts dimming, wait 30 sec to join the meeting..). And too much fragility in personal attidudes. S/he is probably a relatively young idealistic person, early in the career. Such people often don't last long, if they can't change inside and take manager's or corporate shit. One needs at least some "fuck it" attitude to preserve one's dignity. Your performance review does not and cannot define you as a person. Else you're likely to end up disappointed and/or emotionally exhausted. And that's what I see here.
[+] [-] nunez|1 year ago|reply
They idolized a company that is known for top-shelf engineering talent and, more importantly, brutally hard interviews...and they just got an opportunity to interview with them.
You have no idea what the interviewee will "no hire" them over, so you assume they want perfection because obviously. You're deathly afraid of making any mistakes because not getting the job you've been dreaming about for years is not an option, so spiraling straight into the ground after your first minor oops makes total sense.
Once you've gotten the dream job, you now have to work even harder to keep it because, shit, have you seen the engineering talent in this place? Getting a "failing" perf review from your management sends this anxiety into overdrive, so you work harder to prove your worth.
Some people barely last under these conditions. Others will gladly torch everything and everyone in their life to succeed, whatever that means.
[+] [-] wkjagt|1 year ago|reply
But if on most days we're spending most of our time with these people, what do we gain from automatically disqualifying them from human connection just because they work at the same place as us?
And let's not pretend that the manager in this story forced anyone to do anything.
[+] [-] pammf|1 year ago|reply
- Refine your definition of what’s “meaningful”: anything that helps you, your colleagues, helps you to learn a new thing or simply allows you to create something beautiful can be meaningful; there’s a lot of meaning in giving a meal to someone starving, even though you’re not solving any big societal issue or being applauded by many for that single act.
- Don’t take people like the OP’s first manager too personally: with time you realize they’re generally not evil or terrible human beings, they’re just in a different mission. Usually they are also as lost as we are, trying to find meaning and recognition. Just lower the importance you give to them (if you’re really incompatible with their personalities) and focus on your work. If even then it becomes toxic, then move.
- Most importantly: reshape your relationship with work. Who you are and what you do are not necessarily the same thing. I don't like the advice of "slacking and collecting your pay check" (been there, you also feel shit after a while), but I think that going a bit to that direction helps to find balance.
[+] [-] silisili|1 year ago|reply
The one thing that immediately pissed me off was you doing something awesome, then having management attack you for reason X, where X attacks everything but the results. The reason never really matters, the real reason is that you threatened them in some manner and they need to justify their job.
Honestly, I would have just quit at that point. You're a saint for staying any longer.
This sounds like an absolutely terrible company to work for.
[+] [-] hu3|1 year ago|reply
I'm sorry for that. I went through something similar and I managed to bounce back up but it took longer than I anticipated. Years, not months.
Be gentle with yourself and forgive yourself.
[+] [-] 101008|1 year ago|reply
Anyway, on-boarding was awful and codebase is terrible. For the first four months I have been struggling, suferring, getting frustrated, and everything impacting my life outside work (weekends, sleeping, etc)
Then I realized. This is just a job. What is the worst it could happen? Getting fired and these people thinking I'm an idiot? I can live with that. I won't probably meet them again (perks of remote) and I could find another job down the line. And that helped me.
What you do at work and how are you seen at work, as long as you are responsible, shouldn't be that important. Leave it at work and try to enjoy your life. Don't carry it with you, especially when it is a position where you don't have much control.
[+] [-] dlevine|1 year ago|reply
Having had something somewhat similar happen in the past, it seems like this is common at high-growth tech companies. Everyone pretends to be your friend, and there are definitely some genuine people, but getting ahead is clearly number 1.
[+] [-] yellow_lead|1 year ago|reply
I feel like I had a similar experience. Start working at a new job, hustle for several years, get promoted, projects do well, then ended up feeling bored and unexcited. Not exactly burnt out, but burnt out on the current pattern of life. I quit and moved to another country.
I don't know if the author is "burnt out" or not. This is a privileged take, but sometimes it feels like a full time job is a leash. Life becomes so defined by your job it can feel suffocating. You can take a few weeks off, but a few weeks a year is hardly enough to have your own life.
[+] [-] DeathArrow|1 year ago|reply
I quit trying to find meaning in my work long time ago. And work never depresses me. I work to have food on the table for me and my family. That is enough of a motivation.
If I want to do something meaningful, I either work on a personal project or contribute to one, outside work.
[+] [-] sourcepluck|1 year ago|reply
That's from the "values" section of the website under the "Tech as a tool" subsection. How does working for Stripe fit with this value?
As a mere user of "tech", and a concerned observer of what I perceive to be its negative effects on society around me the last 5-10 years, it feels impossible to deny that the main drivers of the tech space haven't been "protecting well-being" and "promoting human flourishing", rather the opposite, and often rather brutally.
The article leaves the question unanswered of what actually led to the depression, and I'm left wondering if the author explored that question specifically. Perhaps Stripe aren't building technology that promotes human flourishing, and perhaps the author's core values were clashing with the reality of a modern tech company.
[+] [-] calmbonsai|1 year ago|reply
Note too that "chronic fatigue" is NOT "lack of sleep".
The brain fog is the net resultant of the body being in a constant "fight or flight" mode for too long. Psychologically, you've been doing WWI "trench warfare".
[+] [-] jakub_g|1 year ago|reply
Some of the situations feel familiar to my experience in other companies, so here's some advice to younger folks, which took me some time to grasp:
- Communication with the manager is critical. Better to overcommunicate than undercommunicate. It's a natural tendency for curious folks to do "side quests" and while you were supposed to work on X, you noticed that you can improve Y which in your opinion is more important. At the very least, drop your manager a Slack message like "hey, I was supposed to work on X but I have an idea about Y which can bring more benefit, I will take N hours/days to dig into that if that's ok with you" and see what's their response (also make sure to time constrain it to avoid getting sidetracked for too long). I was definitely burned by this in prev job: I shipped some nice things but I was supposed to work on something else which I didn't do, and each time my manager mentioned this (i.e. N months later in performance evaluation), I knew it was correct for him to point it out, but it made me feel bad.
- In bigtech the work happens in quarters. If you're unhappy about things you work on currently, take some time to prepare the work items you do want to work on, and seed your manager's mind before next quarter planning about things you DO want to work on, why, how is the impact and so on.
- When feeling overwhelmed with too many things on your plate, talk to your manager to dispatch some responsibilities to other team members. Don't be the messiah who needs to fix everything by yourself silently and burn out.
- For candidates: When doing interviews, you absolutely should do everything to streamline things and avoid distractions. Most likely use JS or Python for coding. Probably avoid TS, definitely avoid C++. It's too easy to get lost fighting the compiler or "reinventing the world" with languages like C/C++. You won't get extra points for going uphill, but you will get minus points for not finishing.
[+] [-] arcticbull|1 year ago|reply
Stripe is a great place to work in some ways but judging from the writeup they had a ton of context switching preventing their productivity and the needs of the team didn’t align with what they did best. I’ve seen this feedback many times in many jobs.
I’ve been there myself! No doubt this person will find something exciting in no time.
Apropos of nothing as interviewers we do not put any weight on your submitting solutions after the window closes because we have to evaluate candidates consistently for business and legal reasons. We can’t give one person extra time because that’s not applying a consistent bar. Smaller companies may be more flexible but big tech won’t be. On the plus side big tech knows interviews are often a function of luck and setting and will generally always invite you to apply again without prejudice a few months later.
Being in a position to recover by getting bored and hacking on stuff you’re passionate about without pressure is something we’re really lucky to have, and I always try to do this between jobs.
[+] [-] nunez|1 year ago|reply
I'm glad you got out. Gotta look out for you, always; (most) companies sure as shit won't.
Unrelated, but if OP is here, about this:
> Things were moving rather smoothly despite my sweat soaked armpits. I silently resented my wife’s decision to unilaterally give up anti-perspirant due to chemicals.
Check out Arm and Hammer's Essentials deodorants. They don't contain aluminum and smell great despite being all natural. I switched to this deodorant after noticing that Mitchum deodorants were staining the pits of my shirts.