Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Who Wants to Be Fired?

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Share your information if you hate your job and you need some inspiration to bail

I moved 600 miles and started a Ph.D. in January of 2020. On paper it was a great decision as: I had worked with my boss (a great boss) for several years prior, I was comfortable with and excited about the subject matter, and I knew I would keep a remote internship through my graduate degree. What an ambitious 22 year-old me didn't see was that: long distance relationships are hard, not every university works the same way, and undergraduate research is not the same as graduate level research. I'm halfway through and all I can say is that I have not thrived here - and it's not for lack of trying. Every day is a 14-hour burnout and the older I get, the less often I can push that further. I wake up every day wondering who I will disappoint and for too long have put myself and my health last. Of course it's not practical to quit, nor is it practical to fire such a low-wage worker.

Graduate school is tough. Burnout is very possible. People come in thinking that it's basically continuation of undergrad (being asked "are you still in school? How's that going?").

It's a battle of endurance, not wits anymore. Things are hard, shit sucks. Find a support network with other graduate students, find new and creative ways to continue to be engaging (at one point in my PhD I was literally sitting on a camping chair with my laptop in the middle of the woods trying to write my thesis).

I am literally in my last year (hopefully) of my PhD and the final stretch is pretty much that. I was thriving earlier in my degree and right now I just want out. I wouldn't have survived so far if I didn't have my cohort of students and friends to support me (and for lack of a better reason, helping me complain a bit).

Don't work on the project more than you have to. Focus on what's important for your degree, the critical path. People will always want more from you the more you give. Take care of yourself first.

I always imagined a Ph.D. was about having a good idea and demonstrating your ability to develop it, defend it, and publish. What does a 14 hour day accomplish over 8? You're not pumping out widgets, right?

> the older I get, the less often I can push that further. I wake up every day wondering who I will disappoint and for too long have put myself and my health last. Of course it's not practical to quit, nor is it practical to fire such a low-wage worker.

You're...24, looking back at 22?

> What does a 14 hour day accomplish over 8? You're not pumping out widgets, right?

6 hours of teaching the courses your advisor doesn't teach, + conditioning to work for free for a predatory academic publisher.

> I always imagined a Ph.D. was about having a good idea and demonstrating your ability to develop it

My story back in grad school was most of the time I didn't know if I had a good idea. Sometime I kept doing the same stuff again and again hoping to get some new insight, sometime I tried pursuing different approaches only to throw it away a month later.

There's also the nagging feeling that you're not working hard enough when your peers are publishing left and right, which push you to work late into the night, at home, for trivial reasons.

In the end, I decided that grad school was not for me and got out with a Master Degree.

> I always imagined a Ph.D. was about having a good idea and demonstrating your ability to develop it, defend it, and publish. What does a 14 hour day accomplish over 8? You're not pumping out widgets, right?

My wife is currently doing a Ph.D., and yeah, maybe you go in thinking "I'm interested in this area, let me spend 5 years really exploring and developing it". Then reality hits. You are beholden to your advisor and switching advisors is very hard if not impossible depending on your situation. If your advisor has the funding for you to spend 5 years working on your interests and has the time to help you with it, great. But in reality, your job is to do whatever your advisor wants and this may or may not align with your own interests. On top of this, in addition to research, you've got classes, teaching duties and all sorts of other stuff that may or may not interest you, but has nothing to do with your primary research, yet still takes up much of your time.

Imagine you were to apply to a job in industry where you will have one boss for the next 5 years, get paid scraps, can't switch teams and if you quit the job two or three years in, you give up all of your progress. This is what a Ph.D. is. If you have a great advisor, it can be amazing. But a bad advisor can make it hell. And even in the best of circumstances, you have to deal with a lot of BS.

Sorry to hear that. That sounds very tough. One thing that I did not anticipate is that people bring all sorts of misconceptions of grad schools onto me as a grad student. I take three classes in a semester and people think that is easy (because undergrads take five, of course). I have a flexible schedule, and somehow that makes people think I am less busy (flexible != have time). I look at people working 996 jobs and sometimes I envy them (not having to cook, at least having 1 or 2 hours truly free after 9pm etc.), even though I really should not for many reasons. Partially it is my fault (who does not love a bit of self-destructive tendencies...), but also I just wish people can relate to me just a bit more.

All these hiring threads today make it feel like a sports off-season. Everyone is good just not on the right team/role, and it almost feels like ‘trading’ workers or signing as a free-agent is the shakeup people are seeking.

Was looking at dusty bakers stats the other night and he played professionally for 30 years, took 7 years off and started coaching. 15 years of coaching later and he’s in the World Series.

I looked at my profession like that and I realize I’m on the cusp of retirement, but only from the physical tool that my body can’t handle anymore. I see all the new kids around me with no purpose, no way and I think about what an effective leader could do for them. Someone that could hone their skills into excellence. I realized that my time as an engineer is nearing an end and I need to get some coaching skills under my belt and then lead a team to the promised land.

Like 50 said, get rich or die trying

Are you accepting mentees?

Some people, like me, might actually be bad.

Oh don’t be so hard on yourself, I’d like to introduce you to an asshole that would have been more useful not writing a single line of code than all the code he wrote on Adderral.

Here is a related question: has anyone ever been fired from a FAANG company? I am a high performer at one and am so stressed out I often dream of being fired, and assume there is some sort of severance.

I have been. AMA.

Yes, there was a severance of sorts - They gave me about a month "off" at the end where I was technically employed but no longer there. I took this as an option instead of going on a PIP, after my boss had literally given me nothing to do for a quarter. Before that, things had been great - Exceeds expectations or better on every review until my team was dissolved under me and I had to find a new team on short notice.

Interesting. The option to go on a PIP or leave the company for pseudo-severance is something I had heard of before, but a month sounds short.

You only ever had positive reviews in the formal cycle? That is a real shame.

I think I had a quarter of "meets expectations" as the last review cycle I completed - As my team was dissolving. It was ~ the start of next review cycle when I was asked to leave.

Did they expect you to find another team during the quarter of no work?

Was finding another team ever offered as an option (other than on a PIP)?

No, in fact - Transferring to another team was discouraged, because I was "under-preforming".

Unless you're getting laid off or fired for some sort of abuse, from my understanding of big companies, you're likely to get a bad review or two before you get put on an performance improvement plan, and only then get fired.

I don't have any real knowledge about severances, but there's usually something for the first round of layoffs, and you might have an option of taking your PIP timeframe without being in the office, like the sibling poster mentioned.

Suffered from severe depression, performance tanked, went on a pip at Google, failed it (deservedly) and was given a few months paid notice. I don't blame them, it was a long time where I wasn't performing. Found a new job, started exercising, thrived since.

I passed my PIP at Google then they managed me out anyway. If your manager wants you gone and is giving you bad reviews to achieve it then you don't have a lot of options.

(I succeeded in my PIP goals so they were forced to rate me Meets Expectations for that period. But after that if you get another Needs Improvement they can fire you without another PIP, so guess what. When I was sure this was going to happen, I quit because I had another job lined up (thanks to the timescale on which PIPs play out) and I like being able to say I wasn't fired. They had no problem letting me stay long enough to collect my quarterly vesting, but I'm curious how much money I left on the table nevertheless.)

Basically what I did - it was easier to take another job and take a month off than deal with a) a manager that didn't like me and b) a coworker who I'd had a side project fail with after I realized he was actually trying to get in my pants. (The latter may have had something to do with the former)

Not a FAANG company, but lots of others. 1 or two weeks pay, then employment insurance if you have it.

I've never worked at FAANG but have at a Fortune 500 and now work at a company with < 500 people.

The major difference I see is large corporations have a certain amount of randomness where entire products will get cancelled (its not just Google), internal re-orgs, appease the shareholders layoffs, or political in-fighting happens and someone "wins" and people get let go.

At a smaller company in an engineering dept of ~150 you know what most teams do and might know someone on each team. There is less random acts of large company that occur. Sure if business is bad, stuff is going to happen but that is usually something you can see coming.

Not sure yet. I just started a new job and I’m not sure if I’ll make it past the probationary period or if I’ll even want to.

It was a mistake to take it, with some alarming red flags from the very beginning, during the interview process, but I took it because I wasn’t getting many appealing options, and felt the money would be worth it. It was also moderately different than what I’d done in that last and would have a higher career value (in terms of work done, tech used, skills gain) than any of my prior work.

I’m sure I’ll perform fine technically, but culturally, I picked up on some concerns from day one and by day two I already saw them start to manifest. I figure in a month or two I’ll be able to tell whether I’m likely to be pushed out or not. I could start the job hunting process again now, but the results were pretty bad a month or two ago and it’ll just add more logistical problems. I’m already a bit stressed and unable to sleep with is just furthering the issues.

I’m just burnt out from the career in general. All the options available to me suck in one way or another. In my dreams, I’d just quit and go back to school, or even less realistic disappear and bounce arounds and travel while I figure things out, but both of those are financial suicide and would likely land me homeless without a fat paycheck backing them up.

I want to be fired… from a canon into a brick wall

Hey man, you alright? If you need to talk about stuff anonymously, confidentially and unjudged, feel free to reach out to me, you can find contact info in my profile. :)

same here...

Same.

First year of the pandemic I was job-less and filled all that time with being out in the nature, studying (programming) and working on my side projects. Then I got my first junior position about six months ago, and now I am struggle with not having time or energy to do my own things anymore. Maybe the answer isn't working 40 hours? But even then, those 8hrs at home or at the office just don't sit right with me. I really do want to quit my job, get back to being in the nature, learning more about programming/CS and just working on side projects as I please. But that is not paying the bill, and I don't have that much of a buffer. I think I may take a 6-month breather though to re-orientate myself.

I can definitely relate to this. In addition to just paying the bills in the present, there’s a pressure to be financially secure in the future. This equates to making more now, and the only means I’ve found of making more now have a soul-sucking effect, especially compared to side projects and time in nature.

I’m mindful of how fleeting life is, and I wonder whether the focus on wealth accumulation is worthwhile. Perhaps I’m just lazy though!

My company got acquired and I was praying to be laid off and to get some severance. It didn’t happen.

My company was acquired and everyone got a bonus to stay but myself. I was expecting to get fired but it hasn't happened yet either.

I'm working for two clients at this time. One of them is absolutely awesome, but pays very little (media prod). The other one pays top dollar but is terrible (used computer business - booooring). If only I could switch them around. Or find a business who is doing something humanitary, or at the very least inspiring. I'm an old hacker who knows almost everything there is to know about tech. Hire me!

> I'm an old hacker who knows almost everything there is to know about tech

From one hacker to another, don't say/display this "I know everything" attitude publicly or in interviews with companies/clients as it easily comes off as arrogant.

I hate my job.

I've never gotten this from your previous comments.

Well done on retaining some of the love, despite.

Sarcasm?

16 days...

(MAY 2021) Several months of casual conversations up until August 2021, on and off, very friendly and inviting tone all around. The leader seemed genuinely caring and nice. Had an interview take-home assignment before that, almost aced it with basically two small details that I missed, in an otherwise superbly executed homework project. Everybody was very happy and seemed genuinely excited to work with me (and the rest of the team is still asking when I will work with them to this day).

Eventually started at mid-September and I was a given a greenfield project extremely far away from what we talked that I'll work on. The "project" is basically "bootstrap a new side business for the CEO, by hopping on a crypto hype train"; happily I don't do everything there but everything on the backend and day-to-day Ops is 100% on me (at least the leader re-provisioned the servers when it was needed... once).

A few days ago the leader hinted that they'll try to hire new programmers soon and that I'll have to evaluate them. I don't even know if I will last this one last week of the project and he thinks I'll tolerate even further departures from my agreed-upon responsibilities!

The red flags are piling up.

On the other hand I was told that most of the people responsible for communicating with me on this project were extremely busy and had a lot on their plate in the personal sense as well... which is fine and I can relate because it happened with me in the past, but that has lead to me wasting part of the time on the project just thrashing around and trying to figure out WTF was I supposed to do exactly.

One other team member reached out yesterday and we had a very pleasant chat where he apologized for me being practically isolated in a new company... not to mention left with a huge responsibility on my lap to boot. And he kept reassuring me that the rest of the work in the company is nothing like this one project. I see no reason why he'd lie to me but who knows.

But I feel the damage has been done already. Plus I am not 20 year old anymore; you can't just tempt me with nice words and "team spirit". The money I get is on the mid-high end for EU but still far from enough for that level of stress.

...And I have an offer waiting for me, right now, for 2.3x the money, with a much more exciting (for me) work in the projects.

What's really saddening to me, and what disarmed me and made me grind my teeth but still push through, is that I was crystal clear that I wanted a more chill position, working on products with clear vision, clear requirements, and want to be given time to achieve excellence in my technical work (bonus points for the fact that technical excellence really does help the company's core products, by the way; I was told that by the leader and the other devs). I was promised all that and then... was practically thrown at a startup project with non-negotiable deadline, and with almost zero communication. My leader was routinely taking 5-6 days before answering anything I asked on Slack.

I can forget but I find myself unable to forgive. And I am not even sure I want to work on the originally agreed upon projects (just one week from now) anymore. I've been at this for almost 2 months and I am already severely burned out.

Because let's face it, if the company routinely conflates "senior dev" with "technical cofounder", "semi project lead", "interviewer", "ops" AND "anything and everything else we can think of", that's basically an abuse of my trust. Again, I was crystal clear about what I want in a job. I was being a professional and did not, in any form, try to force my way in through lies. I did quite the opposite!

I don't mind that such companies exist. And there are plenty of people who even thrive in these conditions. But I severely object to being lied to when I specifically didn't want to work in one!

I don't even care if they scan HN and find this thread and recognize me. Pfeh. They'll just give me one final small nudge that I need before I tell them to eff off.

Any advice or observations, guys / girls?

Take the other job offer you said you have, give your notice, and if they give you an exit interview don't go into detail just tell them this didn't turn out to be what you were expecting and you got a different offer that is more in line with what you want.

> just tell them this didn't turn out to be what you were expecting

I suppose my ego is getting in the way here; I really want to tell them how they have done goofed up but I also learned that such feedback is, 99% of the time, unwanted, so I believe your advice is better than what I originally thought I'll do. Thank you.

Any time. I've been there and it's a sucky situation. I understand it's tempting to give them a piece of your mind, but I've found that taking the high road helps.

The problem is you giving honest and brutal feedback feels good in the moment but you never know when any connections you have will come in useful in the future, and if you will burn those connections with your feedback.

You don't stand to gain much by being honest on your way out, but there's a possibility of losing out if you are. So take the high road.

This advice is spot on, never, under any circumstances say more in an exit interview than some blithe meaningless words. "I'm looking for a new challenge", "I want to change career direction", etc. Nothing will come of you bitching about the company to the company, period.

Take the other offer and run

If you have a competing offer at 2.3x current money, just take it.

Yep, I am gravitating towards that.

I never got the point of this thread, doesn't it overlap perfectly with 'who wants to be hired' i.e 'I want a different job'? What's the difference?

You may need an excuse to leave. A kick in the pants, so to speak.

I'm not sure either, and I posted it! Didn't expect it to take off.

Mlabs | Haskell / Haskell Developer / | Remote | Full-time, https://mlabs.city/

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