Ask HN: How Do You Psychologically Manage Being Thrown Around as an IC? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How Do You Psychologically Manage Being Thrown Around as an IC?

I've been through a few med and small fast growing companies companies. I always find eventually the need for "fast" causes priorities to make whiplash turns constantly.

As an IC I find it frustrating because I usually need a bit of ramp up time to understand what I'm doing and then invest a lot of time into working on something before being picked up and thrown into a different direction. Sometimes the directional change then being a 180 back to what you're doing, and you think to yourself "I just wasted a day investigating something for nothing".

I'm starting to notice signs of burn out in myself. What do you do to manage this? I know boundaries at work help, but in the 8 hours that you're in the madness what do you do?

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> I just wasted a day investigating something for nothing

Nah not for nothing, they paid you. If they want to pay you for dumb shit, that's on them.

You'll have to find a way to let go of the frustration though, that's the real problem here. I just try not to get caught up in what the business is doing, it's just a job, and their goals will never ever ever align with my own, so no point sweating it.

I work at a small company now. When my boss does something stupid, I tell so and why. Sometimes I need to change tact because that's what the business demands, but sometimes he's like huh you're right (generally for technical reasons, although the cognitive cost of task switching is real) and we stay the course. Either way it's nice to have somebody listen at least.

>> I just wasted a day investigating something for nothing

> Nah not for nothing, they paid you. If they want to pay you for dumb shit, that's on them.

Yep. Remember, you didn’t waste a day. Your manager did.

Or maybe no-one wasted time? Sometimes a sensible idea one day, becomes not sensible next day as more info becomes available, then the day after that, further info, or request from the ultimate payer of bills, emerges, meaning the original approach was right. We can't always see what are managers are doing. Sometimes they're getting messed around a lot more than us, thus justifying their extra pay. ;) As others have said, us devs get paid no matter what. I wonder if the OP has kids? Have they ever heard "I want to go to the park. No I don't want to go to the park. Well only if so-and-so is going too. But not if you force me to wear that coat. Hey, can we play a board game? Oh, why didn't you let me go out. That's so unfair" . Work is easy by comparison ;)

> Nah not for nothing, they paid you. If they want to pay you for dumb shit, that's on them.

This attitude right here is why so many developers burn out. Having money thrown your way is not proof you're doing the right thing, and thinking like that can really hurt you on the long term. We crave meaning and community and selling those out can have severe psychological consequences.

I have plenty of meaning and community outside of work. Unfortunately no one wants to pay me to do dumb shit at work, probably because I’m too expensive.

The problem with this mindset is that, in five or ten years, you'll be an seasoned expert in doing dumb shit. That's not an in demand skillset that will lead to career progression down the track.

You need to step back from the day-to-day and see if you are able to generate any meaningful accomplishments at the end of a month or a quarter. Things being a little random at a day level is okay if you are ultimately growing as an IC with projects / accomplishments that can help you for your next job or promotion.

People who are in constant PoC mode will eventually get burnt out and won’t get rewarded for it either. It’s a sign of poor management. See if you can work with your manager to create a set of quarterly goals to accomplish which are meaningful to the organisation. Unless your org is a very early stage startup, they should be able to do this. If not, time to find a new job or you’ll end up having wasted your time

Keep in mind that whatever you are doing day-to-day has value, even if it gets thrown away. Sometimes you need to build a feature so that people can see it, react to it, and realize it is not what is actually needed. That was not wasted work, it was research. If you are doing what the business is asking of you, your job is getting done, even if you are whip-lashing around and nothing you do actually sticks.

It can be frustrating, but it helps to think of yourself as more than someone who slings code... think of it as being someone who is helping to explore possibilities.

If you're seeing that your efforts are being wasted, then that means you're in a good spot to half-ass the solution. Use the other half for things you find meaningful to prevent burn-out.

Not sure if it applies to your situation, but I know the perspective helped me, that if you're neurodiverse (especially autistic) then "just let it go and accept you're being paid" was advice that _never_ helped me. I'm autistic. That's just not how my brain is wired to work. I needed different strategies to get to a better place.

Scaling how likely a given direction was to actually be implemented, then giving an appropriate amount of effort, helped a lot. Then I could spend my time on what I _should_ be doing. Like refactoring, learning new libraries, or just reading a book.

I hope it gets better for you.

Are you sure frustration is from you needing more time (ramp up to understand, go deeper ...etc.) or something else?

Perhaps you really dislike (micro)management and need more autonomy/ownership/control (or just input/participation from your end) over your time/approach/order-of-tasks?

And think/elaborate more on where this "wasted a day investigating something for nothing" is coming from.

Perhaps you're not understanding (or not even getting to hear/see) the whole picture on why "business thinks investigating that is worth one day of your salary"? Or maybe you know and disagree?

Or is it happening so much that it's basically constantly being bumped between such tasks?

Anyway - I wouldn't necessarily listen to the "you're still getting paid so who cares" advice crowd...

I believe such stuff is like cilantro/coriander.

For some of us that don't have specific genes mutations - that stuff actually smells/tastes like dish soap.

And while some people can just clock in and collect the paycheck - others are wired differently.

So really spend more time on zeroing in on what exactly is (de) motivating for you.

Find a better org. This is a symptom of poor management.

Totally agree with this. It's a sign that what you're working on is just one of what will be a series of half-baked ideas, pivots, etc. as random stuff is being thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Find yourself a job on a profitable / cash cow product and you won't have this problem.

How I mentally cope with this is:

I get paid regardless of what I'm working on. If management asks me to shift gears (which they do, often) its because that's the most valuable thing for me to do at that time. At the end of the day, my goal is to provide value to the company.

Does it suck. Yes. But its part of my current job.

I've worked at other places where this happens much less often as well, such places do exist.

There is a lot of solid advice in this thread. It all depends on your specific situation:

* Sometimes the answer is to go work for a better boss. Someone who does constant 180s is impossible to work with.

* Sometimes it helps to learn more about business (I recommend "Lean Startup"). You'll understand the rationale for the changes.

* It might help to learn how to present/guide to options, like a consultant (I recommend "Secrets of Consulting" by Gerry Weinberg). "Do nothing" is usually a very solid option, and you have to educate your boss about it.

* You're always in control of energy/timing. Sometimes you can slow-roll a bad initiative and see if it goes away. Sometimes you can work like crazy to get a good initiative completed so that "its done already and can't be rolled back".

* You may be able to piggyback necessary work onto questionable work. So that if the core feature is canceled, you've "cemented" some small unrelated improvements in the codebase

Sounds like ad-hoc lack of product/program/project management, a lack of setting customer boundaries, and manager/team lead backing you up. Also, startups do involve and sometimes need the flexibility to experiment, so not all effort will be used in the final thing. Plus, be aware not to keep it clean and proper because deferring crap too long leads to culture of tech debt that never goes away, it just gets worse geometrically and slows everything down until it's a singularly consuming 100% of bandwidth... and then so much for "worry about it later".

I will reply from the point of view of the manager assuming good intentions. They either know what you currently working on and believe that the newer item is more important, that's why they throw you around or they aren't aware of what you are currently working on and just reacting to a urgent ask from seniors. You can inform them of what you are doing currently why is it important and then let them decide which item is higher priority. If the priority of the newer item is truly higher you changing context is worth it.

This question made me laugh from painful recognition... can't wait to hear what others have to offer.

I've mainly taken a mindset of extreme uninvestment, not that I'm not working hard or interested in the problems put before me, but I'm very uninvested in the work going anywhere or anything happening with what I do. This was very hard to learn after running my own companies where I essentially needed the opposite mindset.

Keep your head down.

Do your work.

Find your allies.

Right now you are learning to work under pressure. Don't take it personal. Someone above you is cracking and there is not much you can do about that.

I think this is the nature of software dev to a certain extent, and other than organising your git commits and stuff in such a way that makes it easy to backtrack, the standard anti-burnout approach (plenty of exercise, enough vacations etc) applies IMHO

Try and reframe those 8 hours of "wasted time investigating" as an opportunity to:

- learn something

- explore different parts of the codebase

- think about new/different problems to solve

...and try and enjoy the ride.

Small companies do tend to thrash around, but it's pretty unavoidable and often can be a small companies competitive advantage. Doesn't make it any easier, I appreciate.

To me, much of what you describe sounds like the nature of creative work. Painters sketch, bands rehearse, athletes practice, and there is no academy award for fewest takes in a feature film.

Creative work is enjoyed by embracing the messy process. Frustrations and all. Only assembly lines are repetitive and solving hard problems feels like hard work because it is.

The good side of creative work is it is mostly not boring. Therefore you don’t have to make up high standards to have something interesting to do.

Do whatever it is that will make you the kind of person other people want to work with again. That’s what being on a team is all about.

Hard work feels like work. And it feels hard. Good luck.

You can't. Better not to work at big corp. I did that for 16 years and everyday I was miserable. High performer, always but big stress. I had chronic back pain.

One day, I simply quit and started my business. We are doing $200k in MRR now with two of us. Business is mix of software and physical store.

My suggestion is to work on and for yourself.

Disclosure: Not a finance or health advise

That sounds like the dream. I just need to think of any idea like that

That's a risky way to do it. Start something on the side and get it going generating positive cash (validated) before jumping ship. Not doing so risks bankruptcy and lots more stress.

Ideas aren't profitable, only that which is shipped and paid for by customers is.

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