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Comment by bigfatkitten | Hacker News Reader

> Not asking for pity, but being a manager has a heavy emotional toll if you have even the slightest bit of empathy that I don't think most ICs appreciate fully.

I've been a manager, and I've also been a volunteer firefighter for many years. I've seen a lot of things no person should see.

My relatively brief stint in management kept me awake at night more than the shotgun vs face suicide, or fatal motor vehicle accidents that I attended in the same period. I think it was because the fate of those people was well out of my hands, but the livelihood of my direct reports was not.

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you sound like a very empathetic person. But hear me out - at end of the day, it's all just business. I was let go on Thursday, 1 hour before end of shift, in a 60 seconds zoom call. Got told that core team is working hands on in the office, has high velocity, and me being remote is slowing them down. I strongly suspect it was also about the fact that this week they had me work on a project I haven't touched yet, and I got no support to set the dev env properly even. So I was developing blind, while also working overtime to push changes to backend I joined to work on. My wife just lost a kid, this was first job I had in 8 months, just started on new year. We are in small debt. I worked from 6 in the afternoon to 5 in the morning (timezone difference) to output a lot, so they keep me and raise my rate. Company raised 16mm but they're still startup, yknow. So when push comes to shove you get let go without them asking about any of that, or concern themself with it. CEO almost bitterly thanked me for working with them and notified me my contact is over and that's it, hung up and left to work on their launch. Team didn't even notice I m gone. I still went to coworking space today to send CVs because I didn't have heart to tell wife we are cooked again. But look, it happened before, I chose to do this job. I'll deal with the fallout, find new one. It is O.K., I'm not entitled to anyone's pitty. Like I said, that is the risk of business. As manager you cannot set rules of the company. And even if you could, sometimes you still need to make hard decisions. You're not a rock in the stream they can latch on, you are another man floating downstream. Don't lose sleep.

> it's all just business

People use those as magic words to absolve people of responsibility, humanity, and guilt. Nothing about 'business' mitigates those, IMO. Why would it?

I think it's laziness and irresponsibility to just elminiate essential requirements and responsibilities because you don't want to put in the effort.

At the same time, the risks of 'business' are affordable to some people: They can get another job, can afford the layoff, etc. But for many people, especially in the US with a poor workers comp situation for very many people and where health care, housing, education, and nutrition (for many) depend on income, it's not affordable.

I wouldn't call them magic words to absolve people of responsibility, but rather a cliche name for situations like that. Of course you can have ethical business, I mean business ethics were first class we had in economy. But in real world you WILL get bulldozed sooner or later by "it's just business". Read the geravis principle. It's not condoning, it's observing.

> in real world

Another cliche or magic word is 'reality' - as in, 'my point is reality' and therefore anything that disagrees must be fantastical. It's also the old rhetorical tactic of claiming inevitability.

The reality is that everyone acts with ethics; it's a matter of degree: businesses don't murder people, for example. Another reality is that we make reality the way we want it; to say we can't make it otherwise is simply to fold.

As much as I loved matrix I still can't bend the spoon or be my own boss.

I don't quite understand your point. It's not about bending spoons, but about the arrogance of certainty.

And why not be your own boss? It might take some work to get there, but I think the most important requirement for being your own boss is the drive and adaptability to overcome all the challenges.

I'm very sorry to hear that. I hope you'll find new, better work soon. Where I work, we do not have any open positions I'm aware of at the moment. But if you like we can connect. I'm trying to start my own start-up rn. But can't promise anything.

Good luck with your product! Don't forget to update profile with info about it

In addition to me being terrible at not taking my reports personal problems home with me, what did me in was pouring large amounts of time and effort in getting people to improve (e.g. if they were on a PIP, but just in general as well), and that effort not being reciprocated.

It was a great learning experience and fun track to be on, but I'm a happy IC again.

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