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Comment by mattgreenrocks | Hacker News Reader

> I would set everything else aside. I wouldn't look at my emails. I wouldn't have any meetings. I wouldn't do anything for the podcast. Just music. It allowed some space for my brain to get bored.

I feel creatively dead, but mostly only at work. Never have enough time/space to let things just settle down, it seems like.

This might be why I still resist management stuff: I dislike accepting responsibility for the problems of the org because I know they will eat up more time and energy than any accompanying pay increase. And then I get resentful because I'm supposed to be the one holding things together.

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My 2c—I went ahead and took the pay increase and added responsibility, then used it as an excuse to only do the most impactful thing possible at any given time. Leads to telling people “no” a lot, but also less stress.

Only do what only you can do.

I thought I must have written that myself in some kind of fugue state. I'm in the same boat.

What I find strange about it, is that I'm the opposite outside of work. Life life is just great, I'm improving at sports and learning new things in my side projects.

But at work I feel like I've got writers block. Any progress is super hard earned.

I’m jealous as hell. I can only improve when given a list of tasks and a carrot/stick. Tried for decades to figure out how to self impose and have not had luck yet!

This may dampen my claims a little, but I roller skate (inline) and play tennis. And I wouldn't say I'm great at either, so maybe it's just because there's a lot of clear air above me that I'm able to make noticeable improvements.

However, I've needed a target in order to make those improvements. For roller skating it was skating backwards, and for tennis it was changing (correcting) my forehand grip.

With tennis it's been 12+ months of inconsistent hitting (including losing a grand final game 0-9 playing almost the worst tennis of my life) before I really started consistently being "better". There was a valley separating where I was from where I wanted to be, the depths of which had to be trudged through.

With inlines it was one of those situations where it feels like no progress is being made for a long time and then it all clicks quite suddenly. It took me about 18 months to go from tentatively rolling backwards after pushing off from the wall to can satisfactorily speed skate backwards.

Gotta have a target, gotta commit to crossing the valley.

Welcome to the rat race. Just wait until you get the responsibilities of a manager anyway without the pay increase! Might as well fight for that title...

Is it really so inevitable? I sure hope not. Unless I get a meaningful amount of real autonomy, I am not cut out for management. Fortunately, any vague promises I've ever been given for more managerial roles have not actually materialized. I want to say no if they ever do.

It's not, at least not from my experience, but you have to be vocal about what you want.

I was offered a managerial position multiple times and declined it every time saying that it would be a loss for both myself and the company. I'm way more useful in an individual contributor role and a better way to leverage my experience would be to be a cross-team IC and help on the more demanding projects/initiatives.

Eventually, after being vocal about it for a while and actively helping other teams with parts of the system they didn't have experience with, that's what I got. The bad part is that most challenging work often ends up in my lap. The good part is that most challenging work ends up in my lap.

Eeh, at some point, a nepotic Manager will move resources around in a way that an IC (should be manager) will be banging head on the railing with a question why am I not calling the shots.

and often thats when you know it's time to look for a new manager (inside or outside). Most folks with competency to solve hard problems have options

Unless this kind of dysfunctional management style burns you out. The you’re dying a little every day at work and don’t have the energy or ability to look for other work.

I’ve seen this happen so many times in my career it’s not even funny.

A colleague of mine is stuck in this, tried to fight it all his life. Then they fired half the org and expected the survivors to self manage in the it ruins without the knowledge of the fired predecessors. And so he is in meetings every day as they manage the recovering. Hardly gets to code..

Work is what you make of it, you can definitely prove yourself to be competent and valuable while not becoming critical. Just be respected enough to get your yearly raise/bonus, survive layoffs and get future referrals and recommendations. Not super complicated really.

Oh you mean a chunk of the 0.1% budget set aside to be distributed across the department for salary “increases”?

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