Hacker News Reader

Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

If you have to write this post to vent because you are stuck in a job you can't afford to leave and you are scared you'll be fired if you raise these issues to management, then so be it, write the bloody post and I hope you feel better.

However in terms of practical changes, this post can neither benefit you nor anyone else. We all know about broken management cultures that this post describes, but none of those managers in question would do anything but become extremely defensive if confronted by a post like this (which they wouldn't be because they don't know what Hacker News or a technical blog is).

To the clueful neutral observer we have to weigh out whether management is really this clueless, or is the author a poor communicator full of sour grapes? Honestly it's 50/50, but I would probably be too nervous to ever hire someone who posted this vitriolic of prose publicly, it just comes off as unprofessional.

View on HN

Knowing the author personally and having worked at the same company with him (he left there a long time ago). I can say it is neither. It was among the most broken places I've worked. The author himself is a great communicator and technical lead.

Perhaps we should accept the shocking reality that there are really startups this awful to work for :)

Or we can just do the "downvote of denial"

I beg to differ. I know more than a few technical people in management positions who read Hacker News religiously. If confronted with this list by an employee, sure, they may react defensively. But if they come across it themselves, they may find a few pieces of "advice" on the list that they've been following unknowingly and decide to change their ways.

I severely doubt anyone actually doing any of these things would have the self-awareness required to realize they're doing them and stop doing them.

I still think it was a funny and informative blog post though.

Actually they may, if they only do some items. At least, they can wonder "wait a minute, why doesn't he like that?"

There are a few on there that people may be doing without realizing. For example:

    3. Interrupting people regularly for status updates.
    4. Falling into "doom loop" of rushing software dev.
    6. Changing communication tools regularly.
    10. Being overly stingy with hardware.
    14. Failing to deliver public praise.
    17. Being stingy with information.

Given enough naivete and inexperience, I can see a well-meaning and honest manager failing at some or all of these.

>We all know about broken management cultures that this post describes...

As a software developer, I've always coded alone. As an employee, I've always been a sales engineer. So the original post was actually very informative for me as I'm not familiar with the inner workings of a code development team nor the frustrations of its members.

> I would probably be too nervous to ever hire someone who posted this vitriolic of prose publicly, it just comes off as unprofessional.

I'd be curious then, about what you think about this? http://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/suboptimal-processes

(Disclaimer: this one is totally sour grapes. I left. Though I did learn afterwards, that this project was a significant net loss to the company.)

Yours seems constructive to me and I don't read it as unprofessional in any way.

After reflecting on the responses here and amazingly balanced upvotes and downvotes I've received (it's hovering between 2-4, but changing frequently), I think actually what's going on is that I'm just annoyed by the OA's particular strain of satire. I guess when I read this heavy handed yes-is-no satire it just makes me angry that the author isn't just giving it to me straight. Whereas great satire has a unique thought-invoking quality, this type just feels like an overdone trope.

You're assuming there's no utility in commiseration, which is false.

Some of these issues I see has being very, very difficult to communicate to a boss. Others I can relate to and have communicated to management before, especially about open office plans and estimates, with the response being that it is just the way things are.

I don't understand your strong negative reaction to this. The way I read it, it is pretty much a (very) dry humor piece in which anyone who has been working in software development for any amount of time is likely to recognize most of the points listed as being real things that happen (but hopefully not too many at the same job).

I'd get it if the piece were "21 Ways to Minimize Employee Retention, like my former manager John Q. Smith did at CompanyCo", but as just a list of silly shit management does, I don't know why you'd have a "no hire" level problem with it.

On the contrary, I love what I do and the company I work for. This has nothing to do with my employer.

sounds like you're an extrovert and the poster is introvert.

>However in terms of practical changes, this post can neither benefit you nor anyone else.

Your post can't benefit introverts the same way his can't extroverts like you.

Anyway, i'd argue that it isn't actually bad retention policies. They are actually quite good at retention. It is just that it retains the specific kind of employees, the ones that "learned to stop worrying and love ... err... it is actually enough just to stop worrying" (speaking from my personal experience - had worked and is currently working at such a place where the "not worrying" is the fundamental skill and the most of the current employees in the department have been here for 10+ years)

Nope, quite the opposite (at least the part about me). I'm the guy that loves & thrives on talking to people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com