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Comment by mathgladiator | Hacker News Reader

So, recently I achieved happiness because I just don't care about the job anymore. I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead. I got a Meets-Most, and I've never been happier.

I'm writing my final proposal as one final swing at the bat and the title is "XYZ or Bust" where either I get buy-in or I'm leaving. I've never felt better in my entire career.

This is made possible because I'm old enough with enough assets that I can quit and retire, so now it is time to leverage the positives.

From reading this, it is clear the team he is on is toxic. The key to not being on-call all the time is not answering the call unless you in rotation. It's hard to do for sure.

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This is one of the main reasons companies love hiring 20-29 yo people. They work their ass off because that is all they know, as well has having the time to do it. Once people hit 35-50 people realize there are more things to life.

The problem with the kids is they are still cutting their teeth in many aspects. I worked on a core product of a very large tech company on my last run. This wasn’t my first rodeo either. I happened to build most of the product our team owned. There were many disciplines involved and trying to get other experts to evolve was a never ending battle in a losing war. I won’t go into all the glory and failure or how things made it to where they were today. Despite an income that was quite silly I had to walk away. I can still run circles around people half my age, but I can hold the hill for so long. Many of the other old guard went the same route.

“Notice you’ve been missing a lot of work recently, Peter?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”

“It’s not that I’m lazy, I just don’t care.”

“Sounds like someone’s got a case of the Mondays.”

>> This is made possible because I'm old enough with enough assets that I can quit and retire

This is the life changing part.

> So, recently I achieved happiness because I just don't care about the job anymore. I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead. I got a Meets-Most, and I've never been happier.

You can't do that! Hey, come back here! You're not allowed to do that! Can you hear me? Get back over here, don't walk away. Don't keep walking away. Stop!

Perhaps... but I think companies like FB also get (total guess) thousands of resumes per day. So, for every engineer that walks away, many more are knocking at the door.

So, I think in management's eyes, very very very few people are irreplaceable.

People who are good, and can successfully signal that in the job hunt process have tons of options. So yes, everyone is replaceable, but it takes time and money to do it. Someone having a weird attitude toward the performance management system may not be a good enough reason to replace them if they get the job done. Hiring a new person may be more of a headache for the manager.

That's not true at all where I am. Yes, I can post on twitter and get tons of CVs, but most applicants aren't that good. I may only want to interview 40% of the candidates I get, and I would really only want to hire about 1 in 5 people I interview. Interviewing takes time. Then after that, onboarding people on the job takes time too, it can take people several months to become effective on the job. Skilled, effective employees that you get along with are not easy to replace.

Everything you said about most applicants not being hireable, and the amount of time needed for onboarding, etc. is true.

And yet, from where I sit, it's not obvious that managers (at multiple companies) show that they care that much. I think the exception was when I was at a startup, but I think that was due to combination of two reasons: The amazing manager, and the fact replacing a specialist on our team was even harder.

Disclaimer: My views are my own.

If you're hiring in tech and 40% of applicants are worthy of an interview then that's amazing. It's closer to 10% in my experience.

Never underestimate the effectiveness of total denial. You can hire in people who are barely competent to hold a pair of scissors. Sure they'll erode and ultimately destroy whatever technical edifice you've built this far. But by the time your ability, as a manager, to put a positive spin on the most abject of failure comes to an end, you'll have moved on to an even higher paying job at another FAANG, or retired.

Look at any failed multi-decade war waged by any unbeatable superpower past or present to see the highest levels of military and civilian command employ these exact same methods to build careers so successful that they'll be immortalized in statues for centuries after their deaths :)

That might just help explain certain recent events...

Absolutely not true. Big Tech is struggling to hire - which is why the offer packages are so fat now.

Big tech is struggling to hire in a situation of its own making, by making the interview process so awful, and not caring about retention.

Maybe. But my point is that the fat pay packages are not because big tech has a lot of money. Rather, they are running out of supply for the kind of engineers they would like to hire. It's a demand supply thing. If big tech found it easy to hire, they would pay half of what they do now. Their primary expense is salary for software engineers.

It's also because big tech has a lot of money. Many other companies can't afford to pay those salaries, and they would if they could.

I wouldn't lay retention entirely at the feet of big tech. Yes, there is changing jobs to get a bigger pay bump than staying but that's been true to greater or lesser degrees in a lot of places for a very long time.

But what's also been true for a very long time is that, outside of some of the older larger companies, Silicon Valley has normed job tenures for a lot of people that would seem ludicrously short most other places and would, in fact, possibly make those people unhireable.

At a previous company I asked to be a Conscientious Objector from the performance review process as I was just going to get an On Target rating anyway (I did).

(Not retired yet, I knew I was quitting a week or two later. Amazingly my boss was surprised when I gave my notice …).

> I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead. I got a Meets-Most, and I've never been happier.

Can't recommend this enough. I've nearly always opted-out of performance review dance. Just don't do it. In most companies I get pushback to do it but then they give up and it doesn't matter at all. Still get my promotions.

This is less crazy than it sounds. Any half-decent manager would read your poem, laugh, and write a fair and accurate review.

> I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead.

It's not just the brazenness of the act, it's the fact you made your defiance into art that I really respect.

Here is the poem:

  I will not do this PSC.
  There is a future that I foresee.
  No longer shall I bend the knee
  to this process called PSC.

This is the way

  Oh oh oh oh oh
  Now I can bring you in
  Warm or cold
  I'll get paid either way
  (Oh oh oh oh)
  It might not buy me happiness
  But it might just ease my pain
  (Oh oh oh oh)
  'Cause it's hard to live
  This life alone
  But it's all I've ever known

As a fellow (ex)FBer who absolutely abhorred PSC, I applaud you, sir.

As a former manager at said company, I would absolutely hate you for making my PSC hell-period even more hellish, as I would still be on the hook for delivering your packet under incredibly unrealistic timelines. Won't somebody think of the managers! ;)

Every time I think that I don't want to do my optional self-review I decide to do it anyway -- because I want to make my manager's life easier.

>I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead. I got a Meets-Most

i don't even care to write anything. They aren't going to fire me - there is so much manure to shovel that somebody got to do it and after 30 years i do it very reliably (and i don't care whether i'm doing it here or at some other place, whereis our department has huge challenges hiring people in US). And i'm not promotable anyway.

>The key to not being on-call all the time is not answering the call unless you in rotation.

additional trick - to not go into rotation too, at least until it is really core nature of the business that you was aware about when coming onboard.

>enough assets that I can quit and retire

unfortunately not there yet. Yet it doesn't really matter much as long as there is a demand for tech labor.

That sounds like apathy to me. I think in this industry we have way more opportunities to find meaning to be content with zoning out 40 hours a week.

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