The three year myth
green.spacedino.net118 points by surprisetalk 4 days ago
118 points by surprisetalk 4 days ago
On one hand there are places that will look out for job-hoppers so the 3yr rule is good. But for promotions, job-hopping is the best strategy.
The part people don't talk about much is the toll it takes on you when you switch jobs. It's like moving but worse. It's not like switching your wardrobe or something, it's a very drastic and intense change.
There really is no hard-and-fast rule with these things, you just have to figure out your industry, country, region and other details and determine what is best.
An advice I could have used earlier myself is the whole networking and building contacts thing. This is both internally and in your industry. There is literally nothing more important for your career than being likeable and building a reputation. Whether it's a promotion, better pay, or landing a better gig, focus on that as a priority.
In case what I'm saying isn't clear: be the biggest butt-kissing sycophant possible, and never be negative or disagree unless you're very confident that's absolutely what's expected of you by the right people. You don't get paid for how hard you work, you get paid for how valued you are. I think that's a bit obvious, but what many miss is that it isn't how valuable you are for the company that matters, it isn't even how valuable you are to your team, or to delivering some goal that matters. What matters is how valuable you are to individuals. Competency matters, but only as a 2nd or 3rd point of order. It matters how well you're liked, but also how good you are at improving how well-liked others are.
Sometimes there just aren't any opportunities where you are, nothing can be done about that other than jumping ship. However, expecting to be promoted, or paid more because of "the rules", that doesn't work well in real life.
Losing your job sucks. Typically, there is no silver lining. I’ve been laid off 2x and those were both among the worst experiences of my life.
> rawness is an excellent time to reflect on what went right and what I could've done better, before the brain starts coping with the trauma of the event in question.
But that isn’t what he’s done in the essay. I don’t think he’s doing an honest assessment of what he could have done better. Rather there’s a thin patina of “I should have realized . . .” and then a litany of complaints about the company. And the complaints about the company are the same usual ones that everyone makes. I HAVE BEEN THERE. I HAVE MADE THEM TOO.
But I would advise, in six months in a year when you’re in a new job, to take a HARD look at yourself. Try not to cast people as villains and thus can be a learning experience.
Disagree. I lost my job once from a toxic workplace. I did not realize at the time, but it really was, because of poor leadership. I immediately got a job at an excellent place that set up my future career. Had I not been laid off, I would have missed this opportunity. Every change is an opportunity, whether instigated by you or not. My advice now to my young self: Don't stay anywhere if you don't get promoted within 2-3 years UNLESS the place has an excellent culture.
If losing your job is traumatic, I’d suggest reviewing your relationship with employers and employment in general. It’s not a stable situation, and there is no social aspect in reality. It’s an accounting decision.
Employment is almost always exploitation on one side or the other, with the best case being mutual exploitation.
Employment inherently involves paying less for your work than it is worth. In an ideal situation, in exchange you get access to tools at a cost less than they cost to access on your own.
It’s inherently violent on some level. Ending violence shouldn’t be traumatic.
I challenge you to think about the implications of if you were right.
If employment is violence, we should end it. But then almost everybody would die.
If paying for labor is violence, paying for a product is violence. Nobody should be allowed to buy or sell (or trade). But then everybody would die.
In a good economic transaction, whether purchase of product or labor, both parties end up happy with what they got out of the transaction. What is your time not working worth to you? If that value is higher than the money you get paid for your time and labor, then quit. Nobody is forcing you to work. But then, if you don’t have anything to eat, the value of your empty time might decrease in your own judgment. You might think, actually, I’ve got an excess of time and energy, and I’ve got a need for money and food.
I think it’s a pretty sweet deal to be able to work and get paid. Not violence.
I’m not saying that violence is bad. Farming is violence. Mining is violence. It’s a compromise we make. But ending a session of it shouldn’t be traumatic.
And yes, in many cases it’s a win/win. Without farming, many animals would have been hunted to extinction. Instead, they are amongst the most numerous on the planet, but that isn’t much consolation for the march to the slaughterhouse.
Sacrifices are made. Compromises are accepted. Often, it’s good. Often it’s exploitation. Often it is perhaps worse than slavery, and often it is a path to relative wealth.
It shouldn’t be part of one’s identity or sense of worth, to be a really exploitable person, even if it’s to your own advantage at times.
That employment is exploitation is evidenced by profits. Employment is a commodity. Any business expects to get more value out of a commodity. Not to break even.
> If employment is violence, we should end it. But then almost everybody would die.
Everyone would die? Are you assuming that employment gets eliminated and nothing is replaced by it?
Anyone who is against the employment relation wants something different. Not something farcical like voluntary self-elimination.
Can you accept that two parties can make an exchange that leaves them both better off? If you can’t accept that, there’s no real point in any further discussion.
Being told you no longer have the ability to provide for yourself is also violence, especially when the onus on finding a new means of provision is 100% up to you.
That is nice but my bills still need to be paid.
I’ve been on both sides of the table for decades. I try to find ways to bind incentives from either side so that they are better aligned, but it’s always exploitative in one way or another. It’s just suboptimal. Perhaps employee owned businesses are the solution.
> If losing your job is traumatic, I’d suggest reviewing your relationship with employers and employment in general.
This is a rather clueless and ignorant opinion to have. Your job is what pays your mortgage/rent and your bills, and it's a key factor in where you chose to live. Your job has a fundamental impact in your personal life and your family's experience.
Once you are fired, odds are your life will change radically. And not on your terms.
You should refrain from commenting on things you know nothing about. In occasions such as these, you are clearly both talking out of sheer ignorance and downplaying someone else's traumatic experiences.
Perhaps it is unwise to leave your wellbeing and security entirely up to someone who has no incentive to care about the outcome? But, idk, you do you.
I think they are saying you should look at the employment relationship more generally and see that this holds across the board.
It’s more like a woman breaking up with a man and someone else says “realize that all men are pigs”.
I've been told to wait for a pay increase/promotion twice. And I got it both times (luckily). The time periods were only a few months or a year each time.
I think it's a judgement call but making such a long-out promise like 3 years in the tech industry is a huge red flag. Even at one year you should be skeptical and asking how/why as the author suggests.
Being told you have to wait until the next pay review cycle, is normal. It’s how a business with healthy and defined processes should operate.
But you should only be waiting at most a year. If you get told “wait 2+ years” then that’s usually a sign that they’ve already decided you’re not eligible (for whatever reasons they decide) but don’t want to be candid with you.
If you get told to wait for any duration beyond the next pay review cycle, then take that as a sign that you’re not going to progress under the current regime.
Can I get an exception of it was a terrible fiscal year?
Take the startup situation:
We were unprofitable year 1, we were break even year 2. Year 3 we look to repay investors and begin fun times. Year 4, fun times.
I suppose I can think of enough exceptions that I reject the theory the original OP posted.
There are obviously going to be exceptions. Every rules has that. Hear why I said “usually a sign” rather than “it’s a guarantee with out any exceptions”.
But to take your startup example, they generally short on base salary with the hope that you score big when the company sells / floats. Which is a very different scenario to saying “we aren’t going to pay you more because we are unprofitable”.
Also, if a regular (ie non-startup) business isn’t profitable and are then freezing wages as a result, then that’s another good indicator to update your CV. You might be lucky to get a decent severance package, but even if you do, you’ll still want that CV updated.
So my advice stands.
> It’s how a business with healthy and defined processes should operate.
That sounds like bullshit. Why?
Because it shows the company has processes in place for economic planning, with budget allocation, and all the other systems and checks that are meant to ensure stability and profitability.
That’s not to say that businesses with these processes defined can’t still be total shitshows. But the ones that don’t have those processes are more likely to be shitshows.
This is exactly my experience (and I've been doing this fo 20 years now). Saw it on every job I had. The usual bs is "we are developing new performance and grows framework" "promotions will happen on next cycle" "we are reorganizing now" "we want to add more transparency" etc. But somehow they always know who to call when shit hit th fan. Don't fall for it. Look for another job once you see this. Looking for new job nowadays take a while and it's better to be employed during this process.
I like the other employment 3 year problem.
In this the company fills jobs with keen but cheap young people to save money. These people work hard, get experience and take qualifications. Three years later you have a cohort of young people with excellent CVs and qualifications above their peers... that the company can't afford to pay the market rate for! Then it loses a whole cohort of great staff.
I suspect many companies factor in that young people are the most likely to churn, so don't expend much effort retaining them
Theres some false dichotomies here. Not getting a promotion might not be as intentional as the author seems to believe. Often orgs are slow to change and headcount is one of those hard to challenge issues.
100% agree with the timing point, often the promotion has very little to do with what is within your control.
As a hiring manager who’s worked at various different scales of organisation, I think the original article is a fair warning.
Headcount doesn’t take 2+ years to resolve. Even in heavily bureaucratic organisations, it’s a few months at worst.
Organisation wide restructures can take years and changes to departmental structure can be suspended while the org restructure happens, barring any unusual and typically director approved circumstances (like scoring major new project with a key client).But any employee would be well aware of such restructures and client projects.
Changes to pay will typically be postponed until the next pay review cycle. So could be up to a year. But if it’s longer then that’s typically a sign that your manager (or above) has already vetoed any such pay increase and they’re not being truthful with you about it.
Ultimately, if you get told to wait 2 years and the reasons are not “company wide restructuring” then there’s some shadow politics going on and you should definitely be reviewing your job prospects. And if there is a company wide restructure happening, then you should also be updating your CV just in case too.
If you get told to wait 3 years the just assume it’s never going to happen. Because you can guarantee even if your management has the best of intentions, priorities will shift multiple times within those 3 years.
You've got the causality a bit off here. A promotion is always intentional: somebody with power has to actively decide that getting you promoted will advance their interests.
Not getting promoted, on the other hand, is the default state of affairs. Are they doing work above their level? Will they keep doing it even if they don't get the promotion? Great, then there's no need to promote, move onto the next thing or person.
One of the notable things about FAANG processes that I've observed from my friends there is that roles and processes are mechanized[0]. Individuals are placed like precision robotics in a bigger machine. This kind of structure means that you have a defined process for promotion or pay raises and you know what your role is. In fact, one might even posit that the ability for these large organizations to create a machine to extract surplus from labour in a systematic fashion is the reason for their success.
For most people, this is wonderful. Knowing what you will be valued for is very useful. It says "do the things that are useful to us" and "stop doing the things that are useless to us" and tells you "these are the things that are useful and those are the things that are not useful". At their scale, rare errors in the process will inevitably show up, but smaller companies often have these errors at higher rates. All that to say, success often comes from identifying what is useful to the organization and what is not, and then what is useful and what is not to the person who has control over one's role in the organization.
In mechanized organizations, this should be easier. In unmechanized organizations, one's skill at this will dominate one's technical skill at determining success. But it's just a skill, and if you cannot find a way to train it, the easiest workaround is to ask the person making the decision: "if I wanted it in 3 months, what would I have to do?".
You may get an answer that was untrue 3 months later, but you just shrank your timeline in a way that is much more meaningful, and perhaps more likely is that you'll either get an unrealistic timeline (which is useful signal), or you will hit it and get what you wanted (which is also desirable).
0: A classic example of this is that no one can "get you into Google/Facebook/whatever". This reveals the other non-obvious purpose of their interview process besides quality-control of hires: quality-control and rules compliance on interviewers.
> A classic example of this is that no one can "get you into Google/Facebook/whatever".
That is so not true.
Care to offer an explanation?
It used to be that a referral from a current employee was a big plus and would allow the applicant to get directly to onsite interviews. Not sure how it works now.
If you ask for a raise and they say “maybe in two to three years” thats simply a polite no.
> “you know the world outside is hostile to job seekers and a steady paycheck beats the unemployment line”
You can search for a new job while employed. Unless you are stuck on an underwater submarine playing hide-and-seek you can always fire off a few inquiries.
I am doing that but I also got annoyed by recruiters or HR or whoever that was in last 2 inquiries I sent out.
They would call me out of the blue in the middle of the day expecting I pick up and have time to talk with them like I would be jobless person waiting for them to call. I didn’t pick up at all because I was busy.
Earlier I remember I would get an email to at least give me heads up they will contact me next week or something. It was also quite common recruiters were calling me at the end of the day.
For those last ones I got an email saying they were calling. I replied they can try on a day where I don’t have meetings and best time - they never replied to email or tried to call….
I don’t expect it should be all about me, but my idea is that small email saves everyone’s time.
You actually get phone calls from recruiters? All my initial interactions with them have invariably been over email, LinkedIn, etc. Been that way for many years now.
With a mentality like that no, you’re not going to get another job.
Job seeking while you’re employed means you have to subjugate the needs of your current employer. When an opportunity calls? You pick up the phone!
You’re the kind of person who is so dedicated to your job that you will have to lose it and then be unemployed before you get a new one. That is absolutely ok. Job seeking while employed takes a ton of energy and might not be worth it to you. Don’t bother then.
Well the point is I am not looking. I have a nice job. But in case there is something worth jumping the ship I will.
I don't think signaling that you're disloyal to where you work is a good way of landing a new job.
You don’t think answering the phone when a prospective employer calls is a good way of landing a new job?
I know someone who has used this trick to get a pay rise whilst not looking for work.
You wait until your boss is in earshot, get someone to ring you and the walk quickly away from your desk saying "yes, yes I'm still interested... Just a sec".
It might make your boss actually consider the reality of replacing you.
I'm sorry that just comes across as unprofessional, weak and passive aggressive. If someone started doing that on my team I'd take it as part of the case against them not a reason to fight to keep them. Also presumably that's in ear shot of other team members, it's disruptive to team morale. If you are serious about looking elsewhere, make it clear you want to stay but xyz is making you consider other options. Do it in private with the right people. Or say nothing at all.
> You can search for a new job while employed. Unless you are stuck on an underwater submarine playing hide-and-seek you can always fire off a few inquiries.
Technically you can, but there are recruiters who tag you as unreliable and a mercenary for trying to jump ship. I had the displeasure of interviewing with a hiring manager who seemed to have booked an interview just to criticize the audacity of an applicant for having applied to their open position while still employed. I'm talking about a tone such as presenting gems such as "how can I defend your application to other hiring managers" and "why would we invest in you if you're likely to switch roles in two years".
Except the first one, every job I’ve ever had, I’ve found while holding another job. No one has ever commented about it. And from the other side of the table, it also seems fine to me if a candidate has a job.
I think if you regularly change jobs more than every two years or if 15 years into your career you have never held a job longer than 4 years, that might be a flag go some recruiters/companies.
But the hiring manager in your post sounds highly abnormal. Switching jobs while you have a job is absolutely the norm.
I’ve seen too many recruiters who barely lasted 2 years at their last few positions.
Meh. Just walk out of that interview. Seriously. Ditch that place immediately.
Smart places know that the people they want to hire are the kind of people who already have jobs. A place that doesn't know that is going to hire the kind of people who are currently unemployed. They get people who have fewer options. And they tend to treat them less well, because they have fewer options.
in some fields, you must look for your next job while you are employed.. because the competition is so harsh that others only consider those currently employed in that field.. low level executives, some specialized Master's degrees..
source: California
That's not a polite no. That's more a passive-aggressive no. ("Passive aggressive" may not be quite right, but it's something in the neighborhood, and I'm not coming up with better words.) It's "no, but we don't have the honesty to just tell you no".
Exactly. A lot of this reads as a coping story about losing a job. If you were laid off, chances are you weren't valuable enough. Pure layoffs happen. But from my experience useful employees almost never get let go. Doesnt mean theyre bad, just they weren't productive in the organization.
Another thing I will note is that most startups start w very little formal process. If someone wants a promotion you can just do it. But w more people you need to manage expectations. If you start dolling out promotions ad hoc, others will try to ask. And most employees are just mediocre and its difficult to be upfront w them and tell them. So it opens up the floodgates of requests
Not true at all, having seen the other side. In a large enough organization, entire divisions will be cut if a product is missing. Sometimes productive people are on the wrong product that gets slashed to maintenance mode, or they have the wrong manager. Sometimes deep cuts are necessary because the product is failing and a productive person on a growth initiative is cut for subject matter expertise in the core product that will allow maintenance mode to continue. Sometimes tenure is rewarded. Sometimes directors don't see the full story because the managers can't be told of the layoff.
I’ve only seen tenure rewarded by below-market compensation.
Except for one case where a lowly guy eventually became the vice president because he out lasted (in lean times) everyone who was promoted ahead.
> But from my experience useful employees almost never get let go.
This is probably very anecdotal but I've seen entire divisions gone, hundreds of people in a flash. It's not just about what you do but also where you are in the company. Obviously this is more true in huge corporations.
> If you were laid off, chances are you weren't valuable enough. Pure layoffs happen. But from my experience useful employees almost never get let go.
I completely disagree, I’ve been on teams where the best players were let go because organizational changes.
As a matter of fact, I’m currently on a team where one of our best performing, well loved, cross team contributors was let go during Christmas for what I can only classify as politics. It was a company wide RiF and our manager protested, but he was in the target region. I honestly would have put myself or others on the chopping block first, as I don’t contribute half as much and get pad substantially more.
> But from my experience useful employees almost never get let go.
Maybe if the mythical homo economicus is making the layoff decisions.
If your co-workers are getting promotions and raises and you are not, its a you problem. If someone else is getting credit for your work, its a you problem. Given your claims of impeccable work, we are only left to assume its a personality issue.
Its not to say its fair or right, but life is a popularity contest, whether we like it or not. More likeable people get more things, sometimes undeservingly so.
In the zero-interest rate economy, it was easy for early to mid-career engineers with average skill to switch to a company that paid them 20%+ more money. I did it myself multiple times.
The current economy and AI have turned the tables. Even today, waiting for three years is pushing it for most folks, but understandable. Career growth is being decimated across the industry, and opportunities simply aren't there anymore like they used to be. You can be dedicated and above average, but you are still stuck in the same industry as everyone else.
For anybody that is interested in a clinical psychologist's take, here is mine…
This article triggers an overwhelming feeling that something is missing in the story. Of course, being fired is genuinely painful, and the author's emotional state is understandable. But I think there is a much better way to understand this situation that would be beneficial to the author. Please note that this is just a guess, and in reality, I would explore if this is a good fit for both reality and what the person is capable of talking about, and quickly back off if not both were true. This is just an exercise in hypothesis building that accompanies every meeting i have with a client, and initial theories are often wrong.
First is the defense mechanism of abstract answers. I once asked a girl why she stole from her mother AGAIN, and she responded, "I try to get back up, but I fall down." This is a deflection and a non-answer. This author does the corporate version of that. Instead of saying, "I struggled to read the room," they describe "The Three-Year Myth."
There is the bitterness here that often accompanies the wound to professional identity. The author literally tells us they are smarter than their boss, harder working than their peers, and more ethical than the company. The easiest explanation is to blame failure on the system being rigged against good people. This might be a coping mechanism, but it might also hinder personal growth.
Then there is the claim that the author didn't know why they were fired. However, i think they tell us exactly why in the hardware paragraph. Look at the what the author describes… a senior director presented a vision to a customer. The author (without checking with the director) proposed a totally different architecture because they "read the requirements line by line" (implying the director didn't). The author received a formal warning.
The author’s Interpretation is "My timing was perfect for the market, but poor for the systems of power." (I was too smart/right, and they were threatened). That might hold some truth, but its not implausible that the author undermined senior leadership, embarrassed the company regarding a client commitment, and likely communicated it with arrogance ("no AI summaries here!" as he writes).
And receiving a formal warning is an extremely serious signal. To frame a formal HR warning as simply timing being inconvenient to power that be, shows a near-total lack of accountability. There is zero reflection on how they advocated for their ideas. The author claims, "I'm literally not built for competition so much as cooperation," yet their anecdotes describe them fighting against cost centers and trying to override directors.
The self-reflection that does appear is careful and limited. The author admits to being "naturally helpful and cooperative" and bad at "game theory" but these are virtues reframed as vulnerabilities. "I'm too good and too cooperative for this corrupt world" isn't really self-criticism. The one moment that approaches genuine insight "I need to expand into leadership skills" is immediately followed by blaming stakeholders who "blocked change at all costs." The OCD mention functions similarly and it explains the overanalysis as a feature, not something that might be creating friction with colleagues.
This is someone who likely has high technical intelligence but problems with soft skills. They prioritized being technically right over being effective, and when the social consequences arrived (the warning, the firing), they built a defensive wall of abstraction to avoid seeing their own role in the fall.
A proper question is WHY has this happened repeatedly and in multiple roles, across multiple organizations, with the same pattern? The author even acknowledges this but thinks the answer is "I keep falling for the same trap." I think it would be more helpful to ask, "Why do I keep creating the same dynamic?"
> And receiving a formal warning is an extremely serious signal.
To be nitpicky, the article doesn't say 'formal warning,' just 'warning.' That could have been anything from a gentle let-down to a reprimand.
That being said, I think your broader point is reasonably true: the author frames the 'political games' of promotion as a regrettable necessity rather than a job requirement beyond the juniormost levels. Despite their self-description as helpful and cooperative, they disdain the dyadic sport of cooperatively making their boss look good.
That's not to say that one should submit to base exploitation, of course, but there's a fine art to understanding the constraints and incentives of others and working with (and often within) that framework.
A second skill is being able to separate the person from the position, to maintain friendly or at least respectful personal relationships with people who might be professional adversaries at the moment. This is harder, but if professional hostility reads as personal contempt that will definitely destroy one's social weight in an organization.
> The OCD mention functions similarly and it explains the overanalysis as a feature, not something that might be creating friction with colleagues.
Because it is both and this is a very classic problem for neurodivergent people.
As a ADHD person I could very much relate. My pattern recognition allows me to see connections and structure where neurotypical people only see chaos. I am often three, four, five steps ahead and can see potential problems and solutions so much earlier.
Of course this doesn't help. If I point these things out, I will only be met with resistance regardless if I happen to be right later on or not.
So really the best solution is to just shut up. Let them catch up eventually. It just feels so isolating and frustrating. Not only do I have to mask the deficits that ADHD gives me but also my talents.
I think this is the core issue here. OP is hated and discriminated for their OCD. Corporations are not equipped harness the talents of people that think differently. They are not a "culture fit".
I don't really have a solution. Yes you can learn to mask and play the game but that is also not healthy in the long term.
I find that there is a big difference between how people that use the fact that they are "A perfectionist OCD person".
Some wield it at a weapon. Some use it as an excuse. Some start with the assumption that it can be harness into something good. And some beat them self up over it uses it to degrade them self.
I think its most helpful to view it as a "know thy self" data point, and not make it someone else problem, but use it as information as to what is ones own challenges that must be kept in check. And if one is relay good, use it for something productive.
> not make it someone else problem
A great way for cultivating internalized self hatred and burn out.
You approach isn't wrong per se and might be the right one for some people. Some people need to be told to take more personal responsibility
But other people take too much personal responsibility already and only blame themselves and need to be told that they have a disability and it is their right to ask for accessibility and help. That the world is part of the problem.
So it depends.
The people to who take too much responsibility are not the one that "makes it other peoples problem", unless they are suffering from a dependent personality disorder.
And even then, consider rearranging what you just said in your reply. You are saying: You have to make it someone else problem to avoid self hatred and burnout.
There is a difference in relying and getting support from people, and being a jackass.
> My pattern recognition allows me to see connections and structure where neurotypical people only see chaos. I am often three, four, five steps ahead and can see potential problems and solutions so much earlier.
A little humility would probably help a lot. Your post is already blaming everyone else for not listening to you. This isn't really about you thinking differently.
Oh I am sorry for highlighting one of the side effects of my crippling disability.
I did not even present it as an advantage but as something that causes feelings of isolation but I guess I am bragging about it and need more humility.
My brain's filtering function is defect. Where neurotypical people see one or two possible solution my brain automatically comes up with ten which is great for creativity but also paralyzing. Where neurotypical people can easily control their focus I can't.
Now I do think people that present their ADHD as a superpower are full of shit but I think it is fair to point out that some of the aspects could also be strengths if the structure I work with would allow them to be strengths. I think that is very fair to criticize.
I assure you that a significant chunk of my energy is spend every day in adjusting my communication to the needs of neurotypical people and always second guessing myself and improving how I do that. It just sucks that they get quite angry if I ever suggested they adjust their communication just a tiny bit for my sake.
Neither ADHD nor OCD have anything to do with communication style, 'being five steps ahead,' or patterns of interpersonal friction. The only symptom that remotely fits here is impulsive speech, and that's sporadic, it doesn't produce a consistent pattern of seeing yourself as above your colleagues, and its not related to the content style of the speech.
This is something i see allot of. People project what they want onto their pet diagnosis, without knowing what the diagnosis actually is. And god know what people mean when they say neurodevergent these days. The only thing i know for certain is that it never maps on to anything from real spectrum disorders.
OCD is ritualistic and compulsive behavior, often performed to decrease a negative feeling. It has nothing to do with anything described in the article or this thread. What does fit the described behavior — rigidity, perfectionism, a need to do things the 'correct' way regardless of social cost — is OCPD, which is something completely different. And there is another diagnosis that is blindingly obvious but i want call it out here.
There should also be noted that there are plenty of extremely smart people who don't end up in this pattern. If you're looking for myths, start with the myth of the troubled genius.
And a gift of seeing all possible solutions obviously doesn't extend to the interpersonal friction you're describing. The person you're replying to tried to point this out, and tried to communicate that you are missing something about the situation. I doubt it's the first time someone has. This reply is itself an example that just confirms the hypothesis: Someone offered feedback, and instead of sitting with it, you defended, reframed, and redirected blame outward. That's exactly the pattern I described.
> I don't really have a solution.
The trick is to be the Oracle of Delphi, not Cassandra.
Make the prediction once, with politeness and humility, and preferably in enough company that your opinion is noted even if (when) it is overridden. Use it as an opportunity to be seen as wise, not just smart.
Then, keep contingency plans. When the problem manifests, have a solution ready as best you can given your limited position. Even when it's too late to avoid the whole problem, you might be able to limit the blast radius. Again, be public but polite about it, and most importantly never say "I told you so" or otherwise appear smug.
You want to cultivate the reputation of "the person who is right but easy to work with, and who always has your back in a pinch."
I'd push back gently on 'just shut up' as the solution. In my experience, people like you are usually CORRECT about the problem, and the anger and annoyance is well funded. It can be annoyance with the bad architecture, the wasteful meetings, the dysfunctional team dynamics. But you are falling into the same pattern as the author... Where it breaks down is treating 'being right' as the end of the job. Figuring out how to get others to see what you see, that's the actual unsolved problem, and it is more often than not solvable. Giving up on it means real problems stay unfixed, which helps nobody. If you channel the energy into solving what annoys you, in a productive way, you make both your life and your team better.
> Where it breaks down is treating 'being right' as the end of the job.
I ask myself many times a day, 'do I want to be right or effective?'
It's very interesting to read this, because it's exactly the vibe I got too.
... personal psychology aside (btw somehow i have never seen anyone taking on the top-winners but anyway)
but what i see, organisational-health-wise, is a way-too-long and totally broken communication chain. A Director presents a vision and does not communicate it to related/interested internal parties, someone on the floor invents something or develops something by the spec and does not show a preliminary versions / check ground / seek feedback while in-process, and how many levels in-between those, just one - or more - doing nothing to facilitate the information flow?
> "Why do I keep creating the same dynamic?"
add, in that same sort of corporative jungle..
Honestly, I think your hypothesis betrays a naïveté on how corporations actually function. How much time have you spent working in a technical capacity at a mid or large size corporation?
I've worked for 25+ years in mid and large size corporations, including IBM, Google, and other places (so a pretty large gamut of cultures and behaviors), and i think it's exactly right, FWIW.
For example - there is little to no understanding presented by the OP as to the actual perspectives of others - IE giving factual examples of what happened, and how this made OP view the other person's perspective. Instead, you get exactly one side of a story, without really any facts, and then a cartoon caricatures they are presenting as the other side (also without any real facts). What is the actual example of what the other side of any of these stories did that is being used to back up these perspectives?
The post you are responding to points this (and other things) out , in a fairly kind way, and it's totally right to do so.
FWIW - i'll point you did a variant of the same behavior OP did- you say it betrays someone as being naieve, but provide no examples that actually back this up (IE what facts and examples do you have that make you believe it is naieve), and then sort of try to place the burden of them to prove you wrong by asking how long they worked at corporations?
This is nowhere near as bad an example as what OP did, but I would offer, similar to the post you responded to - it is much more effective and helpful if, rather than sort of try to paint someone else with your feelings, instead provide your experience and why it made you agree or disagree with what they wrote.
That is actually helpful in understanding your perspective on the situation, and enables folks to have a real discussion about it.
Some. I was CTO of a mid-sized firm (~$30M revenue) and have sat on the board of two hospital psychiatric units. Granted, I'm in Norway, so office politics may differ.
But let me ask you the reverse: How much time have you spent helping people actually improve themselves? Because in my experience, the single biggest obstacle to professional growth isn't corporate politics, it's the lengths people will go to protect their ego from accountability. And focusing on systemic injustice is a destructive patterns I've seen in both the clinic and in the workplace.
So if you think Im naive with regards to office politics you might be right... But what if you are naive with regrades the psychology of defense mechanisms?
Et tu, ChatGPT?
No, just me. As you can see from my long history I always took the time ever so often to comment in-depth on stuff i care about on HN, since its the place with the most interesting spread of content for me, and the place with the highest chance of getting interesting responses. I do admit that i use AI for spell-correction, but that sucks since it peppers my grammar with EM (—), which is obviously makes people suspect it pure AI. And i have to re-edit it to remove them to avoid comments like this. But its just me...
My last acquisition they tried to convince us to give every employee a "slightly lower" salary coming in so they could "get a raise sooner".
I was like WTF are you trying to pull. If you know you'll give them the raise then pay them that now.
Reading this article reminds me of all the advice in university on the importance of soft skills. The OP sounds like a competent technical worker but lacked the soft skills to secure his position.
All organizations have a consensus that guides it's decision. While heavily skewed towards leadership, even the consensus of the lowest hierarchy worker is important.
From what I saw in TFA, OP correctly identified that there was a need for FinOps but did not do the work to get buy in from the organisation. Even though I find it absolutely tedious and sickening. Some amount of politicking is inevitable for survival.
There's also a corollary to this: if the organization does not recognize some work as needed or useful, you could well be actively wasting your time putting effort into it. There might be a good reason the company doesn't care that you just don't see, and leadership could be (at best) confused about why you would spend time on it.
Given enough soft skills, you can persuade your boss that what you are doing is important, and help him/her represent the department as uncovering and proactively addressing an important issue. Ideally it should align well with the boss's boss agenda.
For sure, but sometimes what you or I think should be important really isn't in the grand scheme of things. An example could be focusing on cost or efficiency - generally very reasonable things to care about - but if all a company cares about right now is growth at all costs, then that focus would be wrong. This can happen - the company leadership might see a market that they absolutely must enter and be dominant in no matter the cost. That may not filter down well 3-4 layers of management; so the soft skill in that instance would be in sussing out what several layers of management above you actually care about and surfacing to them things that align with those concerns.
> On your way out the door, you hear the rumors: someone else did your thing years after you showed yours off. They got the credit, the bonus, the promotion, the recognition. They're a Senior now, or a Lead, or a Director, or a VP.
If it actually went down like this, that's pretty horrible, and that someone else is a grifter. Very harmful for any organization in the long run, because that behavior will be applied to anyone who's "ripe to be taken advantage of" (from his point of view), burning them out of the way.
That is, if they were aware that you made the thing that they picked up later. Though I wonder why the original didn't go through. The other person pushed harder for it to go through, or showed it off with a different sort of demo? Or was it a different sort of technical implementation / design?
>grifter blatantly naming ,the part you mention was under timing section I guess the grifter didn't just copy paste what our guy did. it did have more impact and well timed
> blatantly naming
Not sure if you mean that I'm being hostile for no reason towards this 'someone else'. The second section in my original post is the big conditional.
> I guess the grifter didn't just copy paste what our guy did. it did have more impact and well time
This is more than likely correct.
Either way, I do think it's grifter behavior to not mention/include anyone else who was involved in the project if you pick it up halfway through. Unless the code (or whatever else) is actually bad, and you have to do extra work to redo it. And, if you are actually aware who even worked on the project to begin with.
But it very well might've been a case where some higher up passed the project off to another programmer (months/years later) with no malicious intent whatsoever, and the programmer just did the thing as requested. Or a myriad of other explanations.
> I was given a warning because said proposal was (unknowingly) opposed to a Senior Director's vision, one they'd already presented to the customer prior to seeking my input and neglected to mention when I reached out. My timing was perfect for the market, but poor for the systems of power within the organization.
I feel like there's two paths you can take in your career: corporate stooge, or productive worker. The corporate stooge will be more capitalistically rewarded, because businesses aren't optimized for productivity or quality, they're optimized for capitalistic rewards.
There was an article recently about dating apps and their inherently contradictory incentives. They're incentivized to keep you on the app, which means getting you kinda good matches, but not so good that you stop needing the app. The business world seems to be nothing but these contradictions, and it seems our choices are to learn to take this Kafkaesque fully into our internal model of the world, or give up and accept that we'll be disposed of every few years, despite keeping some part of the company's heart beating (a part some exec will one day gleefuly rip out of their own metaphorical chest so as to drive up price immediately before acquisition or something).
> I was given a warning because said proposal was (unknowingly) opposed to a Senior Director's vision
Warning? Wtf. Even if knowingly opposed, you pay this dino to provide expertise not lick your ego. I'd start looking at that moment... bigger red flag than promotion delay.
> Your performance review is solid, of course, your deliverables unimpeachable, but something begins to feel increasingly off. Your colleagues are in more meetings, but your task list only grows longer. Your progress on said project is appreciated by your boss and team, maybe even your boss' boss, but never really recognized.
Managers sabotage talented employees: https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/what-drives-ma...
I have to somewhat disagree, but the details matter a lot.
If you insist on seeking the absolute top pay for the work and want to always be on the cutting edge in a fast-paced environment, sure the advice in the blog post is correct.
If you instead take 80% of the pay and pick a place to work that's more slow and steady, the traditional advice starts to make sense again. The key thing is you must have strong and unique skills with the experience to match that the business actually values. You need to bust your ass just as hard as if you were working for 100% of the pay. If they didn't think they were getting a good deal they wouldn't keep you. Simple as that.
I do agree it shouldn't take 3 years though. It should be more like getting promoted every year for the first 3 to 5 years and then you either settle in for the long haul (believe me this really is what a traditional employer wants most!), or decide that you're bored and move on. It's your choice. Definitely, if there's no promotion after the first couple of years I would worry that I'm not what they were looking for after all.
There is no myth. You just have to truly know your worth and not overplay your hand. Knowing your worth is ABSOLUTELY NOT about milking every last drop like a desperate loser. I thought we would have learned this by now after the death of hustle culture. It's a lot like dating. This is just the unspoken compromise everyone assumes you're already aware of.
I'm surprised this kind of article still resonates and gets posted on HN.
> You just have to truly know your worth and not overplay your hand.
This is super hard for a lot of people to hear, but nearly everyone is replaceable. There are a lot of smart people who work hard - that's table stakes in many high paying jobs.
One of the things I liked about playing sports both team and individual is there's little room to hide. At the end of the day you know exactly where you stand, and your ego has to accept that and either get better or be happy with your spot.
[dead]
> The pink slip comes as a total surprise. It always comes as a surprise. You did everything you were told, even waited patiently like you were asked. You trusted the organization to reward you in turn - and now you've lost your job.
Your reward is your paycheck. On Friday night, the balance anyone owes anyone is zero.
You didn’t “trust” them at all. They had no further obligations to you, nor you to them. You seem to have invented obligations that don’t exist.
The fact that so many companies operate this way is really depressing. I want to work with people I trust to have some genuine respect for my future, personally or career wise.
There is nothing more destructive than talking to people daily, having a good working relationship with them, and then randomly getting laid off with no warning or explanation. Years of positive interactions go up in smoke overnight, because the company couldn’t bother to treat you like a human with needs, and instead act as if you’re just a mercenary.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about budgetary or performance issues that lead to layoffs. I mean when you’ve done good work for a company for years, then out of the blue, get a meeting request for a Friday afternoon.
It makes for a cold, mercenary world that I want no part of.
Not all companies operate like this, but many large ones do. Smaller chops can have exactly the kind of culture that you describe, but they're also quite often hard to find as they tend to have some stable business and long employee retention, it's unlikely you will find them at the same time you're looking for a job.
Yeah I am lucky enough to be in a company with a solid culture now.
I definitely think you need to avoid companies with 1) large turnover, 2) investor-driven growth metrics, and 3) a hostile or passive approach to company self-criticism.
Like the guy in the article, I have found that companies which hand-wave away legitimately good ideas or criticism in favor of some vague “strategy” reason tend to be untrustworthy. Well-run companies want to improve themselves, even if they don’t have the resources to make that improvement quickly.
It is also a good way, if one doesn't care about the whole company going to shit. The onboarding cost and experience cost of letting someone with multiple years of experience go can be huge. There might even never be someone able to really replace that person.
> The fact that so many companies operate this way is really depressing. I want to work with people I trust to have some genuine respect for my future, personally or career wise.
I disagree. It’s not depressing, it’s business. Treating people as if they are business professionals is showing them respect. This is why we negotiate salary.
(Separately: your coworkers treating you as a business professional is in no way a lack of respect for your future or your career.)
It’s passive aggressive and unprofessional to think that you are somehow owed something additional and undefined after your paycheck is paid and options assigned.
I enjoy business relationships specifically BECAUSE the obligations of each party are formally documented. Nobody can legitimately be mad when everyone does what the contract says, because everyone read it before signing and everyone voluntarily signed it. There’s even a clause in there that explicitly states that the contract is the full and complete agreement between the parties and supersedes all other agreements, written or verbal.
They’re not joking when they put that in. The cake is a lie.
Nobody has to guess at what is expected of them. It’s written down. Contrast Aunt Judy giving you socks for Christmas: does this mean you owe her a birthday present? At what age does it change? It’s all so fuzzy and context-specific and people are so cagey about giving firm answers about what the rules (and there ARE rules) actually are.
Business has none of that. It’s great.
> It’s not depressing, it’s business.
That's exactly what GP said.
If that's your jam, great! It certainly isn't mine either. Indeed, my theory is that the world is going to shit because of doing business like that. Where's the humanity in that? We're not automatons.
The jokes on you if you think the written piece of paper means anything.
I think the joke might be on you if you end up in court arguing over whether that piece of paper means anything.
We are human, therefore business contracts are subordinate to the touchy feely stuff. Contracts are made solely as a last resort for when trust and communication fail, as they sometimes do. The idea of business as a machine with deterministic rules is not universal.
Yeah, this is a cold attitude and it’s also not somehow inherent to business. It’s a reflection of the decaying social fabric of American business culture. Wanting to work in a place with some civility and decency isn’t passive aggressive.
Having that opinion 50 years ago would get you fired from any company immediately. Because social mores were less eroded then.
When Aunt Judy gives me a gift, I try to get her one too. It’s not a transaction I need to keep in my head, worrying if I owe her something. That sounds like an extremely depressing way to interact with other people.
Pretending that there aren’t unwritten social rules around gift giving and obligation is disingenuous. There ARE rules and there are consequences for not following them. It isn’t about a transaction, it’s about the expectations placed on participants by others in the system.
It’s not depressing at all, it’s how our society works. Most people have no problem intuiting most of these unwritten rules, or are quietly taught by their parents or relatives.
The point wasn’t about transactions, but about whether or not the rules of the system are written down and accessible or not. Both social circumstances have rules.
If you come at it from the idea that businesspeople are cold and unfeeling sharks, and that everything is a transaction, then naturally you would think it’s sad and depressing that someone must apply rules in the workplace and rules in other social settings too. But that’s a vast oversimplification that misses the point: that business professionals carrying out a task directly and efficiently is neither cold nor unfeeling, nor is it some portent of a decaying social fabric. It’s simply professionalism.
Most working people aren’t professionals and have no desire to be, so it comes across as hostile and insensitive, but it’s not.
It’s perfectly possible to be professional and not come off in the way you’re describing as desirable.
In fact, acting in the way you’re describing is itself a negative social rule that will lose someone business opportunities. Because people with value that don’t want to operate in a coldly transactional environment will be turned off by it.
“I don’t owe you anything other than money for the task you’re doing,” is a good way to eliminate a sizable portion of potential high-quality employees.
The further up the economic chain you get, and the more relationship or service oriented the work is, the more important this becomes.
It doesn’t make you seem professional, it just makes you seem like a difficult person to deal with, and thus someone to avoid.
This is not about employer vs employee and job security. In fact, the post mentions that there could be good reasons for layoffs. What the post highlights is -
1. Trust - When an employer tells the employee something and then ignores it - then a truth based culture gives in to cynicism. Communications in the company become suspect. Even when there are win-win situations, where cooperation could lead to positive outcomes for both management and workers, a lack of trust means the company cant execute.
Also, this will affect communications with customers and shareholders.
2. Regardless of being right, the author is helping others in similar situations, who can adjust their expectations.
3. The post isn't so much about company vs employee, but competing factions within the company, who are invested in alternative tools/proposals. Promotion is used as a means of making one's faction stronger. This need not be for the benefit of the company or customers. Lobbying will also, of course, affect truth.
Factions might be inevitable (and there can even be good reasons - people genuinely have differences of opinion). But, if the company has good leaders, they will prevent this from erupting into a strong zero-sum conflicts which drown other goals - company's profits, promoting competent people, a culture of trust.
I agree, which is why all that garbage that we are supposed to regurgitate during interviews about wanting to save the world, or why this company is so interesting, in reality it is a meaningless theather.
We sell our work, they give us a paycheck, done, lets not make it more than it is.
Precisely! It’s easier and simpler for everyone involved if we stop pretending a simple money transaction is something other than a simple money transaction.
This is one of the reasons I do contracting: the social expectations around vendors are very different than those around employees.
there r companies that scale 100x in 3 years
If you aren't scaling yourself as much then you're moving too slow
I love this and will make it my motto. Scale yourself 100x every 3 years, or you're too slow. If I manage to keep it up roughly 11 years I will finally achieve planet scale.
I am now eager to see your track record and how did you personally scale 100x in last 3 years (or ~1 000 000x in last decade)
you are insane. only 0.01% of companies are like that GLOBALLY. And no: they are not even winning on the long run
Oddly enough, this is just the American Dream under exponential growth. "Someday you'll be rich as well" is just weaponized hope, and folks that follow GP's advice gobble it up because it's aspirational.