Comment by slownews45 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slownews45 | Hacker News Reader

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Goodness. Susan Fowler - you read her reflection on working at Uber (she left, found a different position). Hard not to be 100% in her corner. At least for me!

This though - what? Are all software engineers like this guy? He's been there pretty recently 2019.

The whole thing with having a family / kids and atlassian is now facing a class action?

When I was young I slept in a HAMMOCK while working at the office. I now have a family. And yes, it is harder to get promoted, simply because I have less interest in working 90 hour work weeks! The guy took parental leave during his career growth (and was only there a bit before). I mean, your job is kept for you, but you are also looking to get promoted while not there?

Unlimited PTO is garbage. It means in consultation with your bosses and subject to their continued happiness and needs of company you can take time off. Reality is you get unequal usage - it's actually not FAIR, the nice person is to scared, the abuser abuses it until they run the risk of getting fired. Just do normal PTO plans folks so folks KNOW they have a right to their 4-6 weeks! I think unlimited PTO is the worst thing. This is not an atlassian thing though.

Hard to believe there is not more to this story just given the style of this guys writing.

My own piece of advice? Quit and get a better job. These companies don't deserve you. Why waste time on them? Every time I've done that (once) it was the best decision I made (ever). And if you think all managers are crap, become a consultant.

>When I was young I slept in a HAMMOCK while working at the office. I now have a family. And yes, it is harder to get promoted, simply because I have less interest in working 90 hour work weeks!

Honestly, that sounds awful. As an European I am always amazed at this American mentality. I would never ever work more than 40 hours a week as an employee. Even that I consider too much for a healthy life and I aim at ~30 hours a week. I would never agreed to be called in the middle of the night, because there is a production outage in a company I don't own. I would never lose a good night sleep over such company. I will put in my hours for the salary we have agreed on and that's it, I don't care. Americans have been collectively brainwashed into thinking that the corporations give a shit about them and that the success of the corporation is also the success of its employees. Especially in our field, given the shortage of qualified engineers, why should I care? You don't want me, you won't promote me? Fine, I will talk to the next recruiter in the long line that is pilling up in my inbox.

This is uniquely american for sure. I've slept with a pager next to me, and wouldn't even go more than 5 minutes from my computer if on call. That said, it is a bit uniquely american to get paid the way folks do in some cases. And when you are young and working with friends, yeah, you do it here.

But this idea that it's illegal to promote someone working that kind of crazy number of hours instead of the guy who is gone on parental leave? I'm not sure about that. My understanding was your job had to preserved while on leave (fair), but not that you had to be promoted at same rate.

You wouldn't work 41 hours a week if it netted you an extra mil a year?

People work longer hours because they either enjoy it or they think it'll net them more money or both.

If you don't care about that that's fine, but to call everyone brainwashed is ridiculous. When the difference between working a little and working a lot is the difference between 6 figures and 7 figures of comp, you bet your ass that many will choose the latter.

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