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> It is completely unacceptable for a team leader to give their people time off

It is more unreasonable for the company to cancel already-given time off.

Because throwing the CTO under the bus is always career enhancing ...

That isn't throwing anyone under the bus. I've had literally that conversation and it went fine. If you're optimising for dev productivity, you let them take holidays and work them to a plan that lets them get a good night's sleep and some time to recover.

You literally had what conversation? You went over the CTOs head, to the CEO, problem got fixed, and your career stayed on track, and it was a company of > 5 people?

#1) That's a miracle.

#2) That's before we get to the actual situation.

It's December and work is due to the client in 1 month.

99 times out of 100, the CEO is going to decide you're an insubordinate loose cannon showing up inappropriately late to make confusing complaints about outsourcing decisions that were made 10 months ago.

Conversely, lets say you made a big stink about this 10 months ago, when the outsourcing decision was made. 999 times out of 1000, the CEO is going to assume you're an insubordinate loose cannon showing up inappropriately to make confusing complaints about outsourcing that are above your pay grade.

Hell is other people, and I find it very hard to believe you have extensive experience and can breezily handwave about "literally having that conversation", in any form. I can think of a reason why at every point in this entire story, the person complaining would be blamed. I don't think the outcome is great, I'd definitely be looking for other jobs, but again, 36 years old and every experience I've had everywhere is that these situations are bad news and you wanna avoid conflict, unless you have nothing to lose.

The "kick up a huge stink about people are working overtime and insist that the vendor be held to sane standards or project scopes reconsidered to fit in a normal work week schedule" one. I'm not sure where you're getting "went over the CTOs head" from; I never suggested doing that. It sounds like a stupid thing to do. You kick up a stink by talking to the CTO, 1:1. Or whoever you report to.

Ummm...let me think here:

Poster: Because throwing the CTO under the bus is always career enhancing ...

You: That isn't throwing anyone under the bus. I've literally had that conversation.

Me: What do you mean? You complained to the CEO about the CTO?

You can't "throw the CTO under the bus" when talking to the CTO, "throwing X under the bus" colloquially means "blame X for the problem when talking to authority figure Y"

That's why your comments are confusing.

The thread leading up to your comment is presupposing tattling on the CTO to some authority figure.

You were very terse and dismissive in your reply. Apparently you were trying to communicate "No, I was smart, I didn't talk to an authority figure", instead you said you've "literally had that conversation", which would further imply you tattled to a authority figure, and that you only wanted to disagree on whether this constituted throwing the CTO under the bus to the authority figure.

Should have thought one step further back: The weirdness comes in going from "a better play is to kick up a huge stink about people are working overtime and insist that the vendor be held to sane standards" to "throwing the CTO under the bus". The huge stink was kicked up with the CTO, so there never was any "throwing under the bus". It's your "Poster", the next commenter after OP, who introduced the confusion -- not OP (your "you"). HTH!

ETA, after looking up names: No, the thread up to then was not about "tattling to a [higher] authority figure". Poster roenxi was the OP, with "raising a huge stink". Then speedbird2 misunderstood that as "throwing under the bus", and you're for some reason taking that misunderstanding as defining what the thread was about.

He never said he goes to the CEO.

This story is about the CTO having a dumb idea and literally no one pushing back on the plan, with the only people suffering are the (relative) grunts. There's ways to respectively raise flags here.

The answer isn't to go to the CEO, the answer is to not be a drone-like yes-person.

So who do you have this conversation with if history has shown that yes people are the ones who stay close to CTO and others get filtered?

Be honest. Be kind. Be quick. Be brutal. Be thoughtful. Be diplomatic.

But be honest. Honesty will be a great adventure of your life. If you get punished for it, so be it. Those who punished you for no reason and for ill-will will receive their reward, even if you never see it happen.

>Those who punished you for no reason and for ill-will will receive their reward, even if you never see it happen.

Your comment sounds very nice.

However, when that punishment you receive is losing your job and you have to feed and house yourself (and maybe a family!), there is no solace to be had in they hypothetical divine justice you speak of.

I totally get where you're coming from. Sometimes we gotta just lay low. But at some point in your life, if you're always afraid of pushing back against demands because you're afraid of getting fired, its more of a "you" problem than a "them" problem.

Being honest is not easy. If it was, the world would probably have more honesty and truth in it.

If your fired for honesty, shake the dust from your feet, pick yourself up, and move forward with your life away from those tyrants. Will it suck? Yes, but only until you come out the other side.

The alternative, perpetually lieing to keep your job, letting those lies spread into the rest of your life, and eventually being caught in your web of lies, will suck much more, and there is no light at the end of that tunnel. Small lies turn into big lies, and some lies turn into several lies. Eventually, you will lose yourself in your lies.

And on top of that, now you were to one who perpetuated and invited evil to continue. You are the creature you wished to prevent by lieing in the first place.

>If your fired for honesty, shake the dust from your feet, pick yourself up, and move forward with your life away from those tyrants. Will it suck? Yes, but only until you come out the other side.

If the "will it suck" = struggling to feed yourself or your kids, I feel like you are massively downplaying the "suck" part.

In a perfect world, I agree with everything you said. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so sometimes you have to be a bit more realistic.

And, realistically, I would rather lie and keep my job than be honest and have to explain to my wife that we get to choose between electricity and eating.

If you would get fired for being honest, then yes, go home to your wife, tell her you lost your job, and you'll find a better job. If you are a dependable worker, you'll find a job. And being honest isn't an acceptable reason to avoid unemployment.

Having said that, being honest isn't being stupid. It doesn't mean you can't have another job already lined up when you hand in your notice because you realized your employer doesn't like truth. Or that you need to always be blunt. Honesty is about being firm snd diplomatic.

In an alternative world, would you like to lie so much that you begin cheating on your spouse? After all, it starts with one small lie. And that your kids never trust you when they are older because they know how much you lied to them?

And that job interviews go poorly because they already know the previous lies at your previous employer?

I generally agree with what you're saying, and I've lived it, but the examples are a touch extreme and muddy the message.

I left Google after 6 years by carefully, over months, thinking through what was happening, what my limits was, what I'd do next, and whether I could show senior leadership at the company and my division was aligned with me, even if immediate leadership was acting like it didn't matter and playing games and never talked directly.

Regardless, people are awful, people who previously over-the-top treated me like I walked on water and we needed to get the project done by any means necessary, treated me like I was having a sudden mental health issue by not finding a magical way to force someone who had found 1000 reasons to delay and not compromise.

I don't know that I'll ever work _for_ someone else again, and even with A) my full knowledge going in and B) support from professional mentors in the company and mental health professionals, it's taken me almost a year to get back to 90% okay with the world. There's no karma here, they stayed there getting checks.

I agree with your point, and have lived it, but I think you are doing yourself and others a disservice by painting in such stark absolutist terms.

I wouldn't be able to make the decision to accept leaving without numerous previous decisions to bite my tongue and vest.

>In an alternative world, would you like to lie so much that you begin cheating on your spouse? After all, it starts with one small lie. And that your kids never trust you when they are older because they know how much you lied to them?

And that job interviews go poorly because they already know the previous lies at your previous employer?

These are absolutely wild examples that share so little relation to the conversation that I am actually left a bit confused and unsure how to respond.

I'm trying to figure out where you are getting this "go above the CTO's head to the CEO" situation from the message you are replying to?

I am not the person you are replying to, but I've definitely made a stink my boss about my people being overworked. If the person from the original article went to the CTO and said "look, my people need a week off, but we will still have the software delivered on schedule", that would have been the right solution, not lying to your boss.

A: Because throwing the CTO under the bus is always career enhancing ...

B: That isn't throwing anyone under the bus. I've literally had that conversation.

This led me to believe B had a literal conversation where a literal CTO was not-literally thrown "under the bus", meaning "authority figure was told the CTO was to blame for $X". Authority figure for a CTO is generally CEO.

> This led me to believe B had a literal conversation where a literal CTO was not-literally thrown "under the bus", meaning "authority figure was told the CTO was to blame for $X". Authority figure for a CTO is generally CEO.

Yeah, that whole scenario was made-up by you or speedbird2, or both in unison. You read words that weren't there. Here's what the thread really said:

ronxio: Raise a huge stink.

speedbird2: Throwing the CTO under the bus!

ronxio again: That isn't throwing anyone under the bus. I've literally had that conversation.

ronxio never said the huge stink was raised with anyone else than the CTO. speedbird2 doesn't get to define the terms of ronxio's anecdote; that's not how it works.

Then you risk with CTO saying "no, we just can't afford it."

And then it feels like they might more actively look into that.

sometimes you burn the CTO but you better make sure you brought ample firewood because guys at top can take some serious heat before melting and most low levels underestimate the amount of firewood it takes resulting in getting roasted by the leader instead.

Once I worked for a company that had an ex-googler on the board who tried to act as CTO. Eventually I tried desperately to throw that person under the bus but the CEO bizarrely moved the bus around instead of letting the bad influence on the company take a hit.

Took a year of trying, then I left and one of the other two developers did as well. Would have stayed for longer if they payed me more which I made very clear, but they were stingy, adding like ten percent to an already pretty low salary and presenting it as such an effort on their part.

The team leader reports to the CTO. The team only reports to the team leader. Therefore, it's perfectly acceptable for the team leader to give their people the time off, and even lie about it, since it didn't affect performance.

The part you are missing here is that the work was already done and none of that progress was shared with management. After all what would they do? Accelerate the project!

Stick it to the man when they try to get others to work harder to glorify themselves. Weak bastards.