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Throwaway for obvious reasons

I work for a company belonging to Accenture.

I can only agree. Shareholders get +10%. Employees get nil.

It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation. Project manager promises everything the client asks for. Even if they know we cannot in any universe deliver this without massive overtime. At the same time they introduce new mandatory processes to follow costing additional time.

Performance management is a joke. Employee development non existent. Promotion and raises have nothing to do with performance. If managing directors do not like you, you are out of luck as they ultimately decided on your salary, promotion and bonuses.

I am still there because I can only switch jobs after Sept 2021 for private reasons.

After that it is jobhunting season.

If anyone is of the opinion that you do not deserve adequate pay, can be bullied by project managers or others - do yourself a favor and look for another company that does value you.

> Accenture

Large consulting firms seems to operate this way, being basically a pyramid with endless layers of non-programming "Enterprise Architect Solution Expert". I've had folks tell me explicitly when joining these firms post-grad that their goal was not to code in two years.

Any company that has to change its name to avoid bad publicity is not worth working for.

Can you give us additional info please?

Accenture used to be Arthur Anderson but changed the name as a result of the Enron scandal.

Ho-lee shiiiit. I wondered what happened to AA... now I know.

Accenture spun off of HP. Don't know what happened to AA.

You're thinking of Agilent. Also Accenture didn't change their name due to Enron. It happened before the scandal (so quite lucky for them!) Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting were involved in a legal tussle which required them to change their name... https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/08/business/worldbusiness/IH...

That’s just not true. Arthur Andersen originally spun off its consulting arm into “Andersen Consulting” under a global holding company. AA did accounting, AC consulting.

AC paid AA 15% of its profits every year. But AC was growing far faster than AA, so AA started growing another consulting arm, which was against the contract.

AC partners claimed contractual breach, and as part of the separation settlement had to change their name and distance themselves from the brand.

This was lucky given what happened with AA’s reputation later.

(Source: I worked there in that time period)

Correct. The separation did happen before the former parent was involved in the Enron scandal. Or at least before it became public.

Not that Accenture doesn't have enough scandals on their own. So they are by far not the clean guys in this tale.

I remember the German "Berateraffäre" just to state one example.

Here is another AC story for you: I worked at a bank in the late 90s, on a crunch y2k project that was instigated because AC knowingly installed a non-y2k compliant set of core systems in about 1997, and didn't pass on the vendor's warnings about y2k to the bank management.

The AC project (which ran about 93-97) went kinda rogue, the bank management lost control of the situation. The AC project managers kept bringing in more AC consultants and told the bank management not to worry, everything was good. They were heavily customizing a non-y2k version of the vendor's software, and the vendor warned project management that they were customizing this in ways that would prevent future support and patches, but AC project management covered this up.

Eventually the vendor contacted the bank CEO directly and said "what are you going to do about the y2k issue, we are concerned". CEO: "What y2k issue?"

The bank had to go live with what they had, fire and blacklist AC and burn tens of millions of $$ to re-start the project to deliver exactly the same thing, but using a y2k-compliant version as a starting point, and removing as much customization as possible so they could take future vendor patches.

Wow. That's ridiculous. Problem with non y2k version was exactly what? Just compatibility with year 2000 to be recognized as valid year? Thanks for replies all!

Arthur Anderson used to be one of the Big 5 accounting firms along with Deloitte and Touche, KPMG, Price Waterhouse and Ernst&Young.

I was briefly at an Indian subsidiary of EY(those days, the Big 5 weren’t allowed to operate by themselves without partnering with a local chartered accounting firm) because only certain firms could do bank audits and I wanted the experience at one if the Big 5. KPMG was known for its entertainment industry accounts. I picked E&Y for manufacturing and I think I ended up with an international cement conglomerate account. The Big 5 clearly decided who gets what industry. They operate like a cartel. They also had consulting divisions. AA after Enron simply focused solely on consulting and IT.

They are all ‘special’ kinds of hell. Just different flavors. AA/Enron scandal was a big deal and was the only talk for days and days and days.

Slightly dated.. 2018: https://riskmagazine.nl/article/2018-03-19-how-the-big-five-...

[..] Andersen was responsible for checking the accounting of energy company Enron. The energy company went down with great noise because of shoddy accounting. Trouble came for Andersen as they had approved this accounting. After learning the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun an investigation of Enron’s accounting, orders were given at Andersen to destroy thousands of documents and e-mail messages. These illegal acts resulted in a conviction, which made it impossible to act as a public accountant for American stock exchange funds. Andersen decided to hand in its licenses before the SEC would withdraw them.[..]

[..] On appeal for the destruction of the files, Andersen was acquitted and there was no formal objection to the continuation of the audit practice. However, almost all employees had left due to the obscure practices. The practice had changed hands and the name would always be linked to this scandal. The few employees that stayed, worked on litigation arising from past audits, as well as pension issues and few other matters. Also there still is another firm which reminds us of the existence Andersen, namely Accenture. Accenture started off as the consultancy part of Andersen, which split off just in time, before the scandal happened.[..]

> It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation

Is this still a thing as a developer in the western world?

If any of my managers proposed this, I would laugh, then say "ah wait, you're serious?", and then laugh some more.

What are you supposed to do if your employment contract says you’re exempt (meaning no overtime pay)?

I think this is a case of culture clash between USA, where "overtime exempt" is a thing, and most of Europe, where it is required to be paid (of course, there are cases where people end up being pressured... or like me, forgot to log the overtime hours despite secretary going around with the sheet).

Of course that only applies to people working on employment contracts, not those who got seduced by "B2B" :|

It’s supposed to work both ways - I work 60 hours this week with the implicit understanding that I work 20 next week. Sure, I don’t get OT pay, but I can abide by that as long as it all balances out to 2000 hours at the end of the year.

That said, the abuse of the exemption system is arguably a pandemic in the US.

The problem is that unlike with proper overtime protection, it's just an implicit understanding that is in no way guaranteed.

Overtime laws generally allow taking the hours worked back as PTO. The only thing is that usually there are limits to avoid running everyone ragged with no end.

I have a very simple philosophy `no pay no work`. It is about having self respect.

'If you're good at something, never do it for free'

I even had to look for what it means to "be exempt".

> Exempt employees stand in contrast to non-exempt employees, which are paid minimum wage and overtime above the standard 40-hour workweek.

Wow if I had heard this in a random bar discussion I would called it complete and utter bullshit. The more I read HN the more it feels like being a worker in the US is like riding a horse through the wild west; anything can happen.

In my country the overtime pay is mandatory by law and it is also constrained to be a minimum of 75% more than the normal wage.

Btw it is also mandatory to enjoy your (minimum of) 23 days of holidays per year; no exchanging for other perks or money, like some comment mentions above.

FYI, it goes both ways. An exempt employee chooses their own hours. If the company tries to dock them for working less they'd immediately become non-exempt.

> If the company tries to dock them for working less they'd immediately become non-exempt.

This is false. First, the relevant rule that is kind of like that is the “salary basis” rule, which doesn't apply to all exempt employees; for instance, it does not apply to “Computer professionals who are paid on an hourly basis at a rate not less than $27.63 per hour.”

Second, even for exempt employees subject to the salary basis test, they can be subject to workplace conduct rules requiring a set schedule and be subject to disciplinary dock for failing to comply with that conduct rule. The structure of the dock needs to make sense as a disciplinary dock and not be a de facto shift to non-salary pay, but there is absolutely no rule in US federal labor law that “an exempt employee chooses their own hours”.

Are you sure?

This department of labor letter seems to state otherwise

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/2006...

> Are you sure?

Yes.

> This department of labor letter seems to state otherwise

That letter doesn't deal with even the question of what effects the status of exempt employees, since it deals with rules applicable to, and I quote from the letter itself, “salaried non-exempt employees.”

Even so, while it finds the specific conduct being addressed was prohibited, it articulates a rule similar to the one I discuss for exempt employees subject to the salary basis test, stating that, “an employer may take a disciplinary deduction from an employee’s salary for willful absences or tardiness or for infractions of major work rules.”

But the employer chooses what needs to be done and the time frame for completion. You can choose whatever hours will let you complete the assigned work. Just complete it or you're fired.

From my contract, there is no overtime pay. Overtime has to be given as free time within a specific amount of time after the overtime occurred.

But for any rolling period of x timeunits (don't want to be too specific obviously) I have a specific amount of hours of overtime that the company doesn't need to compensate in free time. In my case this is ~20% of my regular time in ever rolling period.

But up to a maximum amount of overtime hours per year. This max amount is short of 10% of my yearly hours.

So in the end I have to accept about 10% overtime just already compensated with my contract.

No overtime payment specified in mine, either. The usual thing is to "fall back" to what the law says, and that's what I've seen mostly everywhere. Maybe in other sectors this is negotiated differently, though; apart from the grounds laid by law, a set of sector-specific collective agreements might have been set up in the past for different sectors, further improving or detailing their particular work conditions.

Overall, workers are given a lot more protection than what I feel there is in the US, and that percolates into the common culture and the expectations. Then we get surprised when seeing what happens in other places :-) (both ways)

> The more I read HN the more it feels like being a worker in the US is like riding a horse through the wild west; anything can happen.

The term for this is “at will employment” and in most started it is the default law.

Meaning that your employment can be terminated by the employer for any reason or no reason at all, without notice.

As in, security coming to your desk and escorting you through the door.

Look it up.

Don’t work overtime?

Look for another job. Developers have enough leverage in the job market that there's no need to put up with bad working conditions unless they want to.

Wow, Great List! The last one (juniors calling the shots) really hit home; when I worked in <automobile industry>, I was ultimately standing on the shoulder of midgets.

The worse part? As a CS grad, I knew how to do better, but: nobody with the power to change things understood how or why what I was suggesting was better(!).

I've long thought about this afterward, and concluded it's that 'my world' (which includes a lot of experience, and facility with Math) required me to study a lot and learn a lot; and these 'coders' simply did not have the background to understand what I was trying to teach them. I would have had to fill in several semesters in order to get my points across. Yes, I left. (And yes I tried simplifying - but that only goes so far.)

It's very prevalent in this industry. Newbies cost less and there is usually a lot of mundane work that needs doing, so they comprise the majority of any average team. Even more so in established or mid-size companies where the sudden expansion or huge existing base necessitates a lot of grunt work. Sadly, there is also a trend of managers bending over backwards to please newbies (otherwise the hiring pipeline is thought to dry up; also, it's easier to hand out raises that appear larger if pay is lower) which exacerbates the situation.

I'm curious, what kind of things did you learn in your cs curriculum that applies to that job, and the other coders didn't have?

I'll precise I'm not being sarcastic, genuinely curious. My math background could be better and I'm planning on improving that, but it would be for personal satisfaction as it's not hurting my work (legal tech). But maybe it is, you don't know what you don't know.

Sounds like you're an algorithms guy, and the other coders didn't have the background needed for understanding their use?

I'm self taught, and for many years didn't know about algorithms, big-O notation, and similar. You can do a lot of stuff without that knowledge, but there are definitely some areas that require it.

Just to add to the list. Keep a paper trail of all communications between you and your line management or any other colleague. Especially abusive communications. It will look really bad when you read these out aloud at a HR meeting for them.

Hiring Newbies to call the shots becoming a cost saving pillar that eroded work culture at Boeing is one of those things that indirectly contributed to the recent debacle.

Is a bean counter still heading Boeing? Technology companies really need to be run by technologists first, businessmen second. It's fine to have a COO handle the nitty-gritty of running the company, but the vision and culture need to be set by a technical person and should be very technology-focused in general.

>The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do your job, but don't kill yourself over it. Work-life balance is king.

I dunno - I worked hard, especially early in my career and people noticing lead to four new jobs, two of which included substantial pay/benefit raises. Then again more than a bit of that hard work was on cross-organizational teams; I wasn't acting solely in my direct organizational unit.

So hard work can pay off if you are doing it somewhere it is visible by others. Getting involved in working groups outside of your company, even if you have to do it after hours, is a great way to network and help others notice your work ethic.

I see far too many people who burrow into their current organization and then just bitch about it without doing something about it. If people can't see you they won't be able to recognize your work.

This isn't directed at you but just a general observation - if you don't like your current organization, get proactive and do something about it. I have little sympathy for people who just complain without doing anything.

Agree. Not always easy to be rewarded within a company. However, others will notice you do good work (assuming you can make it visible) and they’ll be a great resource when seeking next positions.

> Nobody notices

This is a common problem. It doesn't work to do great work and expect others to notice. You've got to promote yourself and your work. Nobody is going to do it for you.

A good manager should.

You'll be much happier with the career results of taking care of this yourself rather than waiting for someone else to do it.

I've seen too many people become embittered waiting for someone else.

I upvoted both this and the parent.

Without much experience in the industry, I would say that both perspectives are important:

The person most invested in your success is you, so leverage that and promote yourself.

But you absolutely deserve management and teammates who celebrate your accomplishments and help you get rewarded for them.

Discrimination and prejudice also affect this—it’s probably hard to advocate for yourself if your management just doesn’t believe you’re capable for some reason—but I’ve generally found solace in the synthesis of both attitudes.

Fight for yourself, but find people who fight with you. Maybe put it like this: if you yourself were a people manager, wouldn’t you want to advocate for your reports?

This is generally true, however in a toxic workplace being effective might set you as a target for doomed projects or envy - even sabotage. You may see people getting promoted by threatening to leave rather than doing good work. You can't assume good intent in every situation sadly.

When I switched to a different team a year ago, I talked with my ex-manager and asked what he considers be strengths and weaknesses. I found the answer quite funny because it was a random sample of mostly minor things. It showed my that my manager has actually no clue what I'm doing all day. He is a nice guy and wants to be a good manager but that is harder than it looks.

His biggest criticism was that 20 months earlier, I skipped him and addressed his bosses boss for some bureaucratic thing. I find that argument reasonable but it showed me that he was not aware of the full context. Either I never explained it to him or he forgot. The context is: At that time I was in a special two week task-force team where his bosses boss was officially involved as Scrum Master. As such he was officially responsible for impediments. The impediment was: We either get this bureaucracy thing out of the way today or I'm unable to participate in the task-force anymore. Given the urgency and him being our Scrum Master, I found skipping levels the right thing to do.

This why the stereotypical sociopath go-getter/politican/evil-business man claim credit for everything, all the time, and blames everyone else for any failure.

This just convinced me to look for another job ASAP.

It's fun because sometimes all of your points are true at once :)