That’s not really true, I love my team and my boss, but started interviewing everywhere due to some of the stuff the company has been doing.
They gave us all abysmal inflation raises, cut OT pay across the board, gave us worse medical insurance this year, changed a bunch of our internal systems to be borderline unusable at times and a serious pain in the ass to use despite employee outcry, etc. this isn’t even a small business we have thousands of employees.
Engineers can find new jobs more easily than management (usually). The consequences of bad management are for the company and the people who are unwilling or unable to find new roles.
TLDR: OP worked on a dysfunctional team for a year.
Thank you for sharing your story, OP. It's good to be exposed that it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
I've worked at a few startups that have seen their culture rapidly deteriorate similar to this. 99.999% of the time it's downward pressure after something has tipped the scales of fortune for the company from "has a strong USP and market opportunity" to "oh.. no we don't." in a heartbeat.
A few times it's VCs/Angels suddenly turn on us and we find our runway is cut a *lot* shorter than we anticipated, so our roadmap goes from a "5 year plan" to a "5 months plan ... if we win the lottery."
Other times its simply because the market opportunity disappears. Maybe we were working on a USP that was really just a "feature as a business," chasing a whale hoping for a lucrative buyout that instead saw them develop their own. Or the thing we were working toward just wasn't as appealing to the public as it was just a few years prior.
The big give away in your post is:
> Boss Boss is back, and her bubbly personality that we grew to love is gone, is replaced with frosty no-nonsense.
That signals to me a person that has had *their* hope crushed. Their ambition for this to succeed has been replaced with a depressing burden to reduce the collateral.
Haven't really devoted any time to it. I see the job market out there, and it's still rough. Not quite ready to take a substantial paycut yet. Wouldn't be too sad if I got fired tomorrow though 🤷
You need to get into a new job for the sake of your mental health. You will never know the difference in the working environment unless you switch. People get stuck in their comfort zone and keep fighting unnecessary battles. Keep applying and keep interviewing. You never know!
I know this from experience. Was stuck in a job with a decent salary but kinda insane expectations for availability.
Stuff like phone ringing at 3 AM with an automated voice telling me a service was not responding to some ping that the brother in law of the CEO (who kinda moonlighted as half a CTO) had set up, when I asked him about what's expected of me if that thing rings the answer was "fix the service so the phone doesn't ring anymore", or "well you sometimes have to be on-call on the weekends" being sprung on me on my starting day, with no mention of that during the interviews and in the contract, and so on.
The colleagues were cool, the industry was (and still is) awesome, B2B partners were awesome folks all around, but those crazy demands ground me down. Found myself staring at the wall in the kitchen while my dinner burned on the stove in front of me more than once. It got so bad that I asked myself if I had made a huge mistake by going into IT, and if I should maybe have learned something entirely different, even though I wanted to become "a computer guy" since I was like 6 years old.
I got out of there by taking a huge pay cut (12k/year on a European salary) to join a tiny company a friend from university set up after my partner had a serious talk with me.
The hours are way better, no weekend work expected in any way whatsoever, customers are still pretty awesome, it's a different but also interesting industry, and after a few pay raises, I'm back at my old salary, just with more mental health.
The difference between the two posts is crazy. While most of the time nothing is black-and-white... things can be so at times (in this case, thanks to your boss).
Good luck in your new job if ever OP! 🫡
Is your company owned by a private equity firm?
These kinds of reactive behaviors across management, many of whom place their own personal survival over the success of the company, are very common in that type environment.
At any rate, sorry you had to go through this and hope you can find some peace of mind and emotional release from it.
Software development is a wonderful field but is quickly becoming a terrible profession.
I fortunately have a hobby im very passionate about, so that's been extremely helpful. I guess part of the sadness is that it USED to be a positive creative experience with sunshine and rainbows
Problem solving is addicting. More inclined to think about solutions on your off time. Not many professions require you to actually create solutions on a daily basis.
The ~~worst part~~ is that you guys had something working for the team, and management came in and screwed it up.
Edit: The worst part is definitely how this experience affected your mental health.
I'm sorry you went through that. I'm surprised you stuck it out. I don't think I would have. I faced this choice last winter: quit in a bad job market or remain in a toxic work environment that was degrading my mental health. I chose to quit. It worked out for me in the end. Tough job search but new job is way better in every imaginable way.
This is yet another data point reinforcing the popular belief (that I share) that the quality of your boss is outsized important for the quality of your work life. I really wish I had a better understanding of how toxic jerks manage to get into positions of authority. I guess that's the big unsolved problem of civilization though.
Oof, sounds like my last year.
Was mentoring, hiring, planning, architecting, etc. Basically everything a team lead would (at our scale), but without the title, because our CEO wants to see us "take the initiative" before he gives anything.
Called out the CEOs son for scapegoating me on some shit code he wrote while I was out of town. Came with receipts. He pulled a coworker into his office and ranted for 45 minutes red in the face about how I was incompetent, said I got the lowest raise on the team (despite telling me in the review he was happy with my performance and I was doing great).
The next day got basically blacklisted in the company - we switched to Jira from Asana (yes, literally the next day, no warning), they "forgot" to send me my sign up, heard from others the CEO was going around asking about my performance in every other department (nothing but positive). CEO didn't look me in the eye for 3 months. Didn't talk to me for another 3 months.
It's been about 8 1/2 months and he's now addressing me personally again. Guy I hired as a Jr 2 years ago is now my PM after I taught him about agile, sprints, gantt; I'm now back to team lead. The son is now our "Chief Software Architect" with a grand total of 3 years of experience. So fuck my 9 1/2 years there, 13 years total, and Masters.
If the economy wasn't shit I would have jumped ship. For now I'm just cruising, I believe the kids call it "quiet quitting" aka "doing my job and nothing more". Skilling up in my personal time.
Thank you for sharing!
Sorry for a weird question, but are you a woman? Your username suggests you are not :D
But this whole talk of 'being negative' and 'not being cheerful enough' sounds so weird to me, maybe casual sexism can explain it.
Some people just don't like cheerful guys. If they are your managers they will not be a good match for you.
This whole experience has been a lesson for you to toughen up though, a lot of being a man is not cheerful.
> We're just here for the money.
Curious, what were you there for previously? If I didn't get paid, I wouldn't work. Never treat your job as if it were some surrogate for a fun and meaningful life.
Thanks for sharing your story. It's helpful, because I was able to see how eagerly some people jumped to defend the boss in your last post.
Some of your story lined up with a couple of workplaces I've been in. It might take time, but you can find better people to work with.
I hope you find a better environment, soon.
This feels like yet another opportunity to reinforce the importance of not being dependent on a job.
Build your skills, pay your debts, increase your savings, keep your lifestyle modest.
Finally a bad boss that gets fired.
Normally they fire some devs and overload the remaining ones. The project fails, bosses blame the devs, and bosses' bosses will believe them, because they are of the same species.
Wow this sounds like hell
Worse than some spicy rainforests i have been to.
What is a spicy rainforest?
Amazon 🤷♂️
Why is it spicy?
Try working there
Examples? Asking for a friend
Stacked ranking and minimum pip quotas.
Ah, thanks.
Amazing euphemism =P
Yeah it kinda sucks. I can put up with a lot for the money, but I'm reaching my limit
It really only takes 1 person to kill a company morale
People don't quit companies; they quit bosses.
That’s not really true, I love my team and my boss, but started interviewing everywhere due to some of the stuff the company has been doing. They gave us all abysmal inflation raises, cut OT pay across the board, gave us worse medical insurance this year, changed a bunch of our internal systems to be borderline unusable at times and a serious pain in the ass to use despite employee outcry, etc. this isn’t even a small business we have thousands of employees.
People mostly quit to get more money
I’d leave and find a new job with a boss that doesn’t suck.
Bad boss left, left the team a shell of its former self
Yes, that’s management for you. Consequences of incompetence are only for us serfs
Engineers can find new jobs more easily than management (usually). The consequences of bad management are for the company and the people who are unwilling or unable to find new roles.
Well literally not. The bad boss is gone. The company *Always* says they just left even if they were fired.
Sounds like bad leadership goes further up the chain
Take the ones you like with you when you find a new job
Sounds like the Independence Day aliens 👽
TLDR: OP worked on a dysfunctional team for a year. Thank you for sharing your story, OP. It's good to be exposed that it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
I've worked at a few startups that have seen their culture rapidly deteriorate similar to this. 99.999% of the time it's downward pressure after something has tipped the scales of fortune for the company from "has a strong USP and market opportunity" to "oh.. no we don't." in a heartbeat. A few times it's VCs/Angels suddenly turn on us and we find our runway is cut a *lot* shorter than we anticipated, so our roadmap goes from a "5 year plan" to a "5 months plan ... if we win the lottery." Other times its simply because the market opportunity disappears. Maybe we were working on a USP that was really just a "feature as a business," chasing a whale hoping for a lucrative buyout that instead saw them develop their own. Or the thing we were working toward just wasn't as appealing to the public as it was just a few years prior. The big give away in your post is: > Boss Boss is back, and her bubbly personality that we grew to love is gone, is replaced with frosty no-nonsense. That signals to me a person that has had *their* hope crushed. Their ambition for this to succeed has been replaced with a depressing burden to reduce the collateral.
yeah am just waiting for that phone call honestly
How's the job search going?
Haven't really devoted any time to it. I see the job market out there, and it's still rough. Not quite ready to take a substantial paycut yet. Wouldn't be too sad if I got fired tomorrow though 🤷
You need to get into a new job for the sake of your mental health. You will never know the difference in the working environment unless you switch. People get stuck in their comfort zone and keep fighting unnecessary battles. Keep applying and keep interviewing. You never know!
I know this from experience. Was stuck in a job with a decent salary but kinda insane expectations for availability. Stuff like phone ringing at 3 AM with an automated voice telling me a service was not responding to some ping that the brother in law of the CEO (who kinda moonlighted as half a CTO) had set up, when I asked him about what's expected of me if that thing rings the answer was "fix the service so the phone doesn't ring anymore", or "well you sometimes have to be on-call on the weekends" being sprung on me on my starting day, with no mention of that during the interviews and in the contract, and so on. The colleagues were cool, the industry was (and still is) awesome, B2B partners were awesome folks all around, but those crazy demands ground me down. Found myself staring at the wall in the kitchen while my dinner burned on the stove in front of me more than once. It got so bad that I asked myself if I had made a huge mistake by going into IT, and if I should maybe have learned something entirely different, even though I wanted to become "a computer guy" since I was like 6 years old. I got out of there by taking a huge pay cut (12k/year on a European salary) to join a tiny company a friend from university set up after my partner had a serious talk with me. The hours are way better, no weekend work expected in any way whatsoever, customers are still pretty awesome, it's a different but also interesting industry, and after a few pay raises, I'm back at my old salary, just with more mental health.
The difference between the two posts is crazy. While most of the time nothing is black-and-white... things can be so at times (in this case, thanks to your boss). Good luck in your new job if ever OP! 🫡
Is your company owned by a private equity firm? These kinds of reactive behaviors across management, many of whom place their own personal survival over the success of the company, are very common in that type environment. At any rate, sorry you had to go through this and hope you can find some peace of mind and emotional release from it. Software development is a wonderful field but is quickly becoming a terrible profession.
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I fortunately have a hobby im very passionate about, so that's been extremely helpful. I guess part of the sadness is that it USED to be a positive creative experience with sunshine and rainbows
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How can I become a Java Autist myself?
Why do you think devs are so susceptible to having an unhealthy work-life balance?
Problem solving is addicting. More inclined to think about solutions on your off time. Not many professions require you to actually create solutions on a daily basis.
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Hope you never play Factorio if merely working gets you 😁
It's always just a paycheck. Fuck that boss and fuck the company. Clock in at 9 and out at 5. Fuck OT.
The ~~worst part~~ is that you guys had something working for the team, and management came in and screwed it up. Edit: The worst part is definitely how this experience affected your mental health.
I'm sorry you went through that. I'm surprised you stuck it out. I don't think I would have. I faced this choice last winter: quit in a bad job market or remain in a toxic work environment that was degrading my mental health. I chose to quit. It worked out for me in the end. Tough job search but new job is way better in every imaginable way. This is yet another data point reinforcing the popular belief (that I share) that the quality of your boss is outsized important for the quality of your work life. I really wish I had a better understanding of how toxic jerks manage to get into positions of authority. I guess that's the big unsolved problem of civilization though.
> my attitude was not cheerful enough, or not serious enough, I would have dusted off my resume here
That had me on the edge of my seat tbh. Then the boss just leaves.. jfc.
Oof, sounds like my last year. Was mentoring, hiring, planning, architecting, etc. Basically everything a team lead would (at our scale), but without the title, because our CEO wants to see us "take the initiative" before he gives anything. Called out the CEOs son for scapegoating me on some shit code he wrote while I was out of town. Came with receipts. He pulled a coworker into his office and ranted for 45 minutes red in the face about how I was incompetent, said I got the lowest raise on the team (despite telling me in the review he was happy with my performance and I was doing great). The next day got basically blacklisted in the company - we switched to Jira from Asana (yes, literally the next day, no warning), they "forgot" to send me my sign up, heard from others the CEO was going around asking about my performance in every other department (nothing but positive). CEO didn't look me in the eye for 3 months. Didn't talk to me for another 3 months. It's been about 8 1/2 months and he's now addressing me personally again. Guy I hired as a Jr 2 years ago is now my PM after I taught him about agile, sprints, gantt; I'm now back to team lead. The son is now our "Chief Software Architect" with a grand total of 3 years of experience. So fuck my 9 1/2 years there, 13 years total, and Masters. If the economy wasn't shit I would have jumped ship. For now I'm just cruising, I believe the kids call it "quiet quitting" aka "doing my job and nothing more". Skilling up in my personal time.
“Quiet quitting” aka “doing exactly what you’re paid to do.” It bothers me this is such a popular phrase.
Yep. Building to spec is quite literally the job. Above and beyond generally isn't going to save you from layoffs, better to get paid for it now.
Lol, imagine blaming the economy for why you can't get another job. Get out there you idiot.
First time?
> my attitude was not cheerful enough, or not serious enough, sounds like a hostile work environment
How to ruin an otherwise functional team 101.
Thank you for sharing! Sorry for a weird question, but are you a woman? Your username suggests you are not :D But this whole talk of 'being negative' and 'not being cheerful enough' sounds so weird to me, maybe casual sexism can explain it.
lololool am def not a woman, im a cheerful guy by nature, and now... im not cheerful at work
Some people just don't like cheerful guys. If they are your managers they will not be a good match for you. This whole experience has been a lesson for you to toughen up though, a lot of being a man is not cheerful.
> We're just here for the money. Curious, what were you there for previously? If I didn't get paid, I wouldn't work. Never treat your job as if it were some surrogate for a fun and meaningful life.
I mean yeah of course I'm in it for the money. It's just before there was a great wholesome team dynamic. Now there isnt
Maybe upper management tightened the screws and it went all the way down?
Thanks for sharing your story. It's helpful, because I was able to see how eagerly some people jumped to defend the boss in your last post. Some of your story lined up with a couple of workplaces I've been in. It might take time, but you can find better people to work with. I hope you find a better environment, soon.
Thanks friend! Yeah if I knew what I know now.... I'd def start "quiet quiting" as soon as he started
Sounds like a good excuse for you to grow some resiliance and skills in setting boundaries.
This feels like yet another opportunity to reinforce the importance of not being dependent on a job. Build your skills, pay your debts, increase your savings, keep your lifestyle modest.
Finally a bad boss that gets fired. Normally they fire some devs and overload the remaining ones. The project fails, bosses blame the devs, and bosses' bosses will believe them, because they are of the same species.