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Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

by throwarayes on 10/18/22, 1:32 PM with 285 comments

• by mattw2121 on 10/18/22, 1:49 PM

  I had a situation once where we had a minor re-org and I ended up with a new manager. Literally day one, he made an attempt to change everyone's role. We were a team of developers and business analysts. He decided that everyone would become both and spend 50% of their time on each activity. Not sure why he thought this was a good idea, but he did.

  After he announced it, I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know that he was the boss and I'd do my best to accomplish anything he assigned me. I also let him know that the business analyst duties didn't fit well with my skillset and that I would very likely struggle to produce output. We had a good, honest conversation about the situation and I ended up staying 100% as a developer. In the end he was happy and I was happy.

  Why am I telling you? It's that I've learned it better to communicate and hopefully work things out then just pack up and head to another place.

• by ldjkfkdsjnv on 10/18/22, 1:58 PM

  Personally I think the concept of growth is a scam to get people to work harder for less. You can certainly grow your skill set, but intelligent people can rise to the occasion in most jobs. Including CEO/Director/High level decision making jobs.

  Everytime I have received some insultingly low offer from a startup, they start talking about "growth", "what I can own", "wearing many hats". Meanwhile, the founder is sitting on some 40% equity grant.

• by theincredulousk on 10/18/22, 3:12 PM

  There is a leadership book called "First Break all the Rules - What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently". It's data driven by a large meta-survey and research project.

  One of the conclusions was that, essentially, the normal instinct with Performance Management to focus on improving weaknesses is wrong and leads to sub-optimal outcomes. The best managers actually doubled down on each individuals strengths, and simply accepted weaknesses as something to be smoothed out to the minimally acceptable level. (e.g. someone may not be "good with people", but they can't be openly hostile with co-workers.) Instead the manager would look for another employee which had that weakness as a strength, and manage responsibilities appropriately.

  It speaks exactly to what was wrong in OP's experience.

• by ajmurmann on 10/18/22, 2:17 PM

  This is extra dangerous because it can result in you losing confidence which can lead to you developing patterns that make it seem like you are falling which in turn feeds a downward spiral. This older HBR article on "Set up to fail syndrome" should be read by everyone who is a manager or feels like they are struggling: https://hbr.org/1998/03/the-set-up-to-fail-syndrome

• by exabrial on 10/18/22, 1:49 PM

  I would approach this with a dose of humility. I used to think I had it all figured out too; now, older me realizes how ignorant I was and surprised how tolerant management was of my flagrant pomposity.

• by nscalf on 10/18/22, 2:42 PM

  The real problem here is that hiring is a giant pain for both sides. In an ideal world, you would quickly quit that job and hop to another. If you didn't do that, they would quickly hire you and both sides would move on without much stress. But changing jobs/employees is a big deal involved insurance, retirement funds, dozens of hours of interviews over many weeks, etc.

  My advice for anyone in this spot is to quit quickly. I've left a number of jobs within the first month because it was an obvious bad fit. They likely weren't happy about it, but we'd all be miserable after 6+ months of me not performing how I know I can. Don't be sentimental about the work that went into getting the job, just go find a good fit.

• by makz on 10/18/22, 2:04 PM

  Been there. I had very strong technical skills and was well known in the organization for that. Changed jobs on the promise I would work on projects using those skills.

  In reality they wanted me to do change management, negotiate budgets, negotiate dates, coordinate projects, make power point decks…

  Because of my excellent track record delivering technical stuff they expected great results from me doing this new stuff. I couldn’t deliver it as they wanted. “You must grow and become a leader, that’s the path forward” they kept telling me. In the end it didn’t work and I left.

  Now I’m in a new team and they expect me again to become a leader but this time it’s different, it is truly a technical leadership and I hope this time it will be different.

• by mylons on 10/18/22, 1:49 PM

  I think people put way too much focus on growth. Trying to scale the corporate ladder is really starting to seem like getting a PhD and trying to be a professor. There aren’t enough director or C level jobs for everyone, but most of us are compelled to join the rat race to try and get one.

• by jmartrican on 10/18/22, 2:02 PM

  One of my problems is that I like to write code. Specifically novel code. But the places I work at really want me to just do regular CRUD work and glue work (use other people's code and avoid novel code). How do I find companies that write their own cool new code? Maybe coding teams get broken down into such small teams that there is only room for CRUD and glue and novel code gets too risky when trying to deliver use value at every sprint.

• by yrgulation on 10/18/22, 1:57 PM

  > It's important to know when your strengths are fundamentally misaligned with your job, boss, etc and leave ASAP. Don't try to force yourself to fit into it for the sake of "growth".

  Spot on. Also remember your “boss” is not your owner. Nor are they all knowing. If the “boss” doesnt meet your requirements change the “boss”. It goes both ways.

• by Consultant32452 on 10/18/22, 2:47 PM

  At my last FTE job I started straight telling my boss that I had no growth goals for myself, that I was one of the most productive members of the team and was quite happy to stay where I was at since I didn't desire any promotions or anything. He worked with me to put some unmeasurable goals like team building or whatever so that the review checkbox could be checked. The one thing people rarely try is brutal honesty.

  It sounds like OP is getting on the verge of the brutal honesty and part of that is acknowledging the actual assigned work makes them miserable. That's fine, and if you can't be moved to a better fitting role then it's time to go.

  Another alternative approach is to not care about your work reviews, as long as you're not getting fired, and look for your growth outside your 9-5 job. For the 9-5 think of it as just a tool to pay the bills while you do what you want to do. Performing at around the halfway mark compared to the rest of the team is good enough to not get fired. Use your new-found time, mental energy, etc. to focus on whatever personal or professional goals you want. That's how I started my business and it's going great.

• by trynewideas on 10/19/22, 12:45 AM

  I ran into this at a job. The manager who hired me left a few months in, and the new manager was hellbent on painting me into a corner by having me train to do things I wasn't really experienced with or well suited to doing. The goal was to avoid having to spend money on an engineer by training a non-engineer - me - to do engineering work.

  After three years, in my last performance review with that manager, they told me to consider whether I really wanted to stay with the company in a nudge to get me to quit. I really did want to stay at the company, though, so I got on the company's internal job board and applied for a transfer to an open role in another department.

  After those three years without a raise above cost of living or any consideration for a promotion, within a year in the new role I got promoted and a performance raise. After two years the company gave me an award, performance bonus, and another promotion at an offsite. I'd gone so deep into the self-loathing hole with my previous manager that I didn't even know work _could_ be like that, anywhere, much less at the same company working with many of the same people.

  The new role wasn't even all that different - I still spent more than half my time doing the kind of work I'd expected to do when I joined the company, and even spent a significant chunk working across groups with the same people from my previous team. I was just under a different manager who, instead of trying to warp me into a different version of myself, quickly recognized what I was already good at, found what value that could bring to their team, and set me loose on it. I took off like a rocket.

  As a nice side effect, I didn't lose vesting on my options and benefits, even if the options ended up being worthless.

• by akudha on 10/18/22, 2:54 PM

  Generally speaking, making major changes in our character/passions/work etc just to please someone is not sustainable, this is true in both personal and work lives. I am facing something similar, but from a family member.

  In my previous job, I was asked to do QA work. I have never done QA work before - I don't mind doing it, but I didn't want to do only front end (color, pixel etc) QA work. Needless to day, it didn't work out for me and for my manager.

  The best thing to do in such scenarios is to just leave, if that is an option. Especially in professional situations. I have had a lot of jobs in my life - some good, some bad, some super bad. The only thing that was common in ALL these jobs was this - nobody gave a fuck about anyone else, beyond using them to get stuff done. Yes, most people are polite and nice - that doesn't mean they care about you or anyone else. This is not bitterness speaking, this is just the reality. So the best thing to do, is just leave and find a better job

• by cableshaft on 10/18/22, 2:39 PM

  I think it's possible to 'grow' in something you don't care about or are not necessarily your core strengths.

  Like I never had much interest in DevOps, but previous jobs have put me in a situation where I had to learn it and although I sucked at it at first, I got better at it, and since it seems to have become almost an unescapable part of a full-stack web developer's job nowadays.

  Also I haven't cared much about the domains of several companies I've been hired for or clients I've been put to work for as a consultant (like I actively tried to avoid the insurance and finance industry, and ended up doing work for both). Hasn't stopped me from learning that anyway, and I can follow along (mostly) with our client when they talk about wealth management concepts now, when I was totally lost in those conversations when I first started.

  And at a previous job I knew nothing about developing phone systems, but did a little work here and there, and eventually became the department's 'phone systems expert' as I became the only person left in the department that knew enough about those systems as people transferred or left. I handled the role just fine until I left for another job. I don't do anything with phone systems now, but I do have a better understanding of how networks work because of that job, which has been useful.

  It is an opportunity cost, though. I have lost some of my other skills because of time spent in these roles. Like I think I'd have trouble going back into video game development after spending so much time out of it, at least at the level of seniority that I would kind of need in order to get sort of in the ballpark of the salary I'm currently making.

  I'm still making games in my spare time, but I don't have a ton of free time anymore, so progress has been slow and the games I've been working on have been tiny in comparison.

• by MonkeyMalarky on 10/18/22, 1:46 PM

  If you put yourself in your managers shoes, what are the demands and most important goals that need to be achieved? Sometimes the reality of the situation is less than perfect and you can't personally blame them for it. I've seen backend developers forced to do UI work when they absolutely did not want to and our manager was very blunt about the fact that we didn't have the resources to get a FE developer, or even the need for one full time so "tough luck". After that conversation, the BE dev. did the mature thing and got on with it.

• by dahart on 10/18/22, 3:00 PM

  That sounds very frustrating and while I see comments suggesting to try harder, leaving probably is the right thing to do.

  > I have a very different vision for my role

  This is the critical piece, and I’m not asking for detail, but the details here are everything and it would be interesting to hear both sides of this mismatch in expectation.

  That said, let’s not forget that a job is where we trade our time to spend doing something the company wants in return for money. This is complicated, but we can’t necessarily expect to have our own vision for our role, we can only seek out roles that fit us and hope that it’s an environment that either allows our vision or matches it. Some managers want people to build their own vision, and some don’t. Even though the best people and the strongest growth comes from people who do have their own vision and take initiative to change things, there’s also a ton of work out there where the company just needs something specific done, and that something might not be what you want.

  BTW, from experience, a lot of this still mostly true even if you run your own startup; we just trade time for something the customer wants, and it often isn’t what we’d rather be doing.

  > With all humility I admit it may be me that failed.

  If it’s not a fit, then it’s not your failure. Go find a better fit! Good luck!

• by wing-_-nuts on 10/18/22, 2:55 PM

  Let me guess, your boss tried to force you into a lead / staff / management role?

  Same thing happened to me. As I've gotten older management has been been more insistent on me taking a 'leadership' role. What they don't tell you is this is 2x the work (and the sort of work you hate the most) for ~ 10% more pay.

  10% is the carrot. The stick is that they start telling you you're 'top of band' for a sr dev and that they can't give you raises going forward despite meeting and exceeding expectations. That particular shoe hasn't dropped just yet, but when it does, I might have to make some hard choices to keep my career moving forward.

• by cluse on 10/28/22, 4:37 PM

  The tone of this thread is so unrelatable to me. I feel like the total opposite of the sentiment in this thread. I want to work in a place that pushes me to do better and fulfill my potential. I know that's hard, because true learning is almost always uncomfortable and feels like work. But in most jobs throughout my career, my experience is of feeling stifled and asphyxiated. In practice, many times when I've tried to "grow" in my role, the reaction from my colleagues was negative and I got the sense that I didn't belong there, that I was stepping on people's toes, that overworked people felt insulted or threatened rather than relieved by my offer to take on tiny pieces of their responsibilities. Things have gotten better now that I'm in my 30s and better at standing up for myself, but I'm still in an uphill battle just to be included in conversations. As someone who is passionate about technology, I want to answer questions like, "What's the hardest thing I can do?" or "What's the most awesome thing I can make?" or "What's the biggest positive impact that I can have?" And then I feel jealous when I read this thread because I wish I had a tenth as much support as some of these people have. I wish I had a manager who wanted me to grow too much!

• by dougmwne on 10/18/22, 2:55 PM

  Yes, you are learning to discard the HR corp bullshit and face reality. Humans are flawed, humans can’t do everything equally well, humans get sick and hurt. And more than anything, humans are a product of their environment. Great outcomes come from great environments, poor outcomes come from poor environments.

  We have a tendency to take all the blame onto ourselves. We have a society that tells you to take personal responsibility for everything from your career success to saving the planet. But fact is that if the ship is sinking you will go down too.

  Find a better boat. It is the most powerful thing you can do in life.

• by tibbon on 10/18/22, 2:47 PM

  At various points, I've thought who my manager is doesn't matter. I'm the same person, and I'll have strong output and progress either way.

  But then I got a great manager with a great manager over him. Suddenly, I knew what it was like to be supported properly. For the first time in over 10 years things clicked and made sense.

  Turns out, mediocre managers do have a real impact on me.

• by _greim_ on 10/18/22, 3:01 PM

  This resonates with me as a programmer who has refused the management path. However, I also think that the more experienced one becomes, and the more influence one wields in the org, the more gaps in one's skillset are amplified. So, grudgingly, I admit that with age and experience comes a certain expedience in learning to not completely suck at things that are outside of my normal areas of strength. As long as my boss understands that I may never be stellar at those things.

• by cntainer on 10/18/22, 2:00 PM

  Does anyone in the team understand what you bring to the table? Is your contribution key to the team's success? If that's the case then the others could serve as promoters for your case in front of the boss who apparently doesn't see or appreciate this.

  But if this is not the case then maybe your current skill set is not a good match to what is currently needed. I don't know, maybe someone else is already covering the things that you say you bring to the table, or the team's activity and goals are just a bad fit for you specifically.

  > because I'm being forced to be something I'm not

  Many managers see this as trying to help you grow, by getting you outside your comfort zone. In the end it's your choice if you want to play along or find a team/boss that makes better use of your contribution.

• by neogodless on 10/18/22, 4:16 PM

  Author Marcus Buckingham has a series of books about this.

  https://www.marcusbuckingham.com/books/

  It's been a good decade since I read some of these, but I recall that there is often a focus of "eliminating" weaknesses instead of avoiding them and focusing on strengths. But his interviews led him to believe the opposite is best - just work around weaknesses, but put most of your effort into expanding upon strengths.

  EDIT: See this was mentioned already - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33248487

• by cplusplusfellow on 10/18/22, 2:49 PM

  I completely understand this sentiment and I've been there. I was at a job that paid me extraordinarily well (particularly with my stock grants). Yet I was constantly on call, having to respond to hundreds of requests in the #ask-foo channel, and constantly servicing inbound chore tasks. My skills are in algorithmic and low level engineering.

  Ultimately a move was what made my life better.

• by binhex on 10/18/22, 1:52 PM

  Something that took me way to long to figure out: know when it's time to leave a job.

• by lowbloodsugar on 10/18/22, 5:54 PM

  Hey, Tiger, your golf is great! Really off the charts. But your basketball scores are terrible. We're putting you on a performance improvement plan, and if we don't see major improvement in your basketball then we'll have to let you go.

• by meristem on 10/18/22, 2:21 PM

  There is research that supports your experience and conclusions. See Clifton Strengthsfinder, based on Gallup's research. The gist is: build on your superpowers instead of on the qualities you are less strong.

• by away271828 on 10/18/22, 2:51 PM

  >I've tried to fit myself into what she needs like a square peg in a round hole. I have a very different vision for my role, and a specific understanding of how my strengths contribute to our team.

  It happens and it's not necessarily anyone's fault. A new manager comes in with different views of what work needs to be done and what doesn't. For whatever reason maybe transferring internally is hard right now for whatever reason or maybe there just aren't other roles internally that excit you.

  (What I have seen though is managers who come in, make changes in roles, and really try to hang onto headcount even if some of that headcount is people they wouldn't have hired. That's on them.)

  Depending on a lot of factors maybe it makes sense to hang on for a while. But, at the end of the day, if you're in a job you don't really care for and don't really have the background for--especially if you're supposedly very senior--that's just not a stable or good situation.

• by aynyc on 10/18/22, 3:06 PM

  It seems to me that your boss was more than understanding. Coaching and long runway. I'm glad you see the realty as it is and not go into passive-aggressive mode.

  I disagree that growth can only come from strength. Like many coders, I was bad at communications, particularly in public speaking space. My boss needed an engineer that can present work at company meetings, he basically tasked me (mainly because I knew the system and business very well). It was 6 months of absolute terror as some of you might know. In the end, I succeeded. I learned more than about me than before, while my technical skills didn't improve, my soft skill improved leaps and bounds. My career also has improved significantly.

  What I'm trying to say is, change is hard, especially if it impact the core of who you are. But like everything else in life, stepping out of your comfort zone is important for growth if that's something you desire.

• by bulldog13 on 10/18/22, 1:46 PM

  Could you be more specific ?

  Like if your weakness is poor communication leading towards unintentional hostility to coworkers or inability to prioritize work, that weakness is probably worth be developed.

• by throwawaymaths on 10/19/22, 12:56 AM

  Completely agree. I'm basically in the same situation at work now. I got islanded on a side project (systems dashboard) and am completely inessential except for political reasons, and for a while I had the worst kind of supervisor -- someone superficially nice but constantly changes the sw contract on you so you keep getting screwed over (it's awful getting the "hi friend" greeting every morning while having a knife stabbed into your career). Now he stepped down from group leader and got replaced by an management hired from the outside that is injecting chaos and has poor Technical judgement. Meanwhile the codebase that's underneath me is spiralling out of control, has very few tests, etc.

  I'm only sticking around in the hopes of transferring to another department where my friend is the group leader.

• by le-hu on 10/31/22, 5:28 PM

  well why dont you just quit? I would quit after two weeks of such drama, all of my friends would do the same.

• by daneel_w on 10/18/22, 2:28 PM

  A few years ago there was a similar phase at my current employment. Someone with a key position in the product team, who had become the primary conductor of the developers, attached an excessive importance to "delivering results" to her higher-ups. This manifested in a desire to stack up as many Jira tickets as possible in the "deployed" column between the releases that the product team digested into result summaries/breakdowns. I'm not sure how the pressure to show progress made it into the everyday concerns of me and the other developers, but for a period we regularly made up small contrived "problems" - nonsensically technical Jira tickets that nobody in the product team would ever bother to deconstruct - in order to produce enough "results".

• by giantg2 on 10/18/22, 2:04 PM

  My skills have deteriorated too. Mismanagement and poor company policies have created a lot of inefficiency and sapped my morale. I'm just coasting. I figure the disappointment, frustration, etc is present in any alternative job anyways.

• by Move37 on 10/18/22, 1:47 PM

  I fully agree. Growth can only happen if the context is set right.

  I would even argue that is why some bigger firms such as stripe have a rotation model where you can explore new jobs and positions within the company.

  Have you told your boss about how you feel?

• by jpz on 10/18/22, 1:46 PM

  Sounds like a bad fit - find something new. Learn in a new place and experience. If the pattern follows you around, maybe start to look inwardly at whether your bringing the same problems from place to place.

  You can’t escape yourself..,

• by alexfromapex on 10/18/22, 5:32 PM

  This almost always comes from a bad manager. I think our industry needs to hold managers more accountable to growing their subordinates in the direction of their careers they want. If they can't, they shouldn't be managers, it's really that simple. Some may argue that personal growth is not important to the business but in reality it is because if the employees don't feel like they're growing then they leave and it costs money in churn. Look at how much Amazon's churn is costing them, it's in the billions of dollars.

• by gorbachev on 10/18/22, 2:04 PM

  A competent manager would recognize you're not a good fit for whatever it is that she needs, and would help you find another role in the same company, and if not available outside of the company.

• by paul7986 on 10/18/22, 2:26 PM

  Wow that sounds like a lot of stress and if you're looking to climb a corporate ladder and that stress is worth continue to work in tech at such places where the environment feels competitive.

  If you want to work in tech yet have little stress work in government IT.

  Personally I could never work at places like meta, amazon, google and other places where you are under a heat lamp and those around u are too. Of course there's more money but for me the stress (affects health hugely) isn't worth it!

• by quickthrower2 on 10/18/22, 10:48 PM

  > Well I just want to say, the industry has an obsession with "growth" in performance reviews. But the reality is that growth only works when you build on someone's strengths. Trying to ask someone to grow by changing who they fundamentally are, leads to withdrawal, stagnation, and anti-growth. I'm actually getting worse at my job, not better, because I'm being forced to be something I'm not. It's depressing, draining, and frustrating. I can't be who I fundamentally am in my role.

  I totally agree with this. What poor companies do is try to force you into a process no matter what. The process is king and if you don't fit it, get out.

  What they should do is go grab a coffee with you and ask you what your desires are on a regular basis. And even to some extent make the company strategy malleable to this (across all staff). That is if employee churn is an issue, which of course it is because hiring is a big hassle!

  Obviously the more people in the company, the more standardization of process you need. You may have less need for certain roles that are jacks of all trades and need specialist squads. But there should be always room for asking staff what they ideally want and trying to get them closer to that.

• by IntFee588 on 10/18/22, 3:21 PM

  > But the reality is that growth only works when you build on someone's strengths.

  Respectfully disagree. Growth comes from going beyond what you're comfortable with.

  Also not sure this is "ungrowth" and more a general misallocation of human capital. Good bosses are proactive, yes, but that doesn't mean randomly messing with team dynamics and roles like you're a chemist trying to find the philosopher's stone.

• by brailsafe on 10/19/22, 8:47 AM

  Nice message. After being fired from like 6 jobs or something, I've tried to emphasize this vocally. I have abysmal short term memory, miserable sleep management, and I lose track of calendar stuff and different task tracking systems easily. But I can code, and I can communicate pretty well. So I try to emphasize this if it comes up. I deeply suck at managing communication in support requests with customers, and expecting me to be as good anyone else will just be telling me to start looking for another job, because I'll try and burn myself out only to fail. If it's absolutely crucial I never miss a meeting, as dumb as it is, I'm going to miss some here and then.

  I like trying to get better at the things I've discovered some way to get progress at, but I hate trying to push myself to try and be perfect at something I can't.

• by spaetzleesser on 10/18/22, 5:45 PM

  I am in a similar situation. I have to write and review requirements and other docs in a system with the worst usability and stability I have ever seen. Every little thing you do turns into a massive ordeal because there is always something that doesn’t work right. So I am spending an enormous amount of energy and time just figuring out the quieks of the system. Everybody who has to work with it hates it.

  In the last few months I have basically neglected my regular job which is to be a team lead and architect. Other people have picked up the slack to some degree but I feel more and more that my tech skills are going downhill because I am dealing with a software system that shouldn’t ever have been bought.

  This is becoming a real career problem. I am learning “skills” that are totally useless in any sane company and neglecting the skills that can get you a good job.

• by whateveracct on 10/18/22, 6:22 PM

  I'm over "growth"-oriented performance reviews generally. At my current job, we have them every 6mo + minor "check-ins" in between.

  I'm pretty high up the IC chain (the leveling guide even says my level is a natural place for someone to be at for a long time/indefinitely). And I'm not interested in the next level. More, I'm not interested in growing professionally anymore.

  That's not to say I'm not gonna keep solving problems and learning new things. But at this point, I'd just like to be Very Good at What I Do for the next years.

  I'm busy growing personally on many axes anyways. But they aren't useful to my employer. But I only have so much "self-improvement" juice to give.

• by jtwebman on 10/18/22, 3:05 PM

  I think this really depends on what they are asking you to do. If part of the job is say writing documentation, moving and documenting your work with Jira tickets, report progress, or helping your team accomplish the sprint then maybe you need to build those skills to at least be ok at it. If it is to manage people or move up in job title then I would agree maybe that isn't something you should try for. You were not very specific on the details.

  Also growth isn't always just building on strengths. It is also knowing where you are short on skill and learning more to at least do that skill ok and then maybe delicate or trade tasks with someone that is better at it. It is about understanding yourself.

• by noufalibrahim on 10/19/22, 8:13 AM

  It's the job of a manager to understand how to "grow" an employee. It's the job of the employee to convey that in a sensible way to the manager. That's what one on ones are for.

  One of two things will emerge. The employee has strengths which can be used to benefit both parties (employer and employee) and can be grown which creates a career path. Or the employees strengths are of no use to the company and they part ways amicably.

  This is the sensible way to product growth and trying to shoehorn someone into an unsuitable position is damaging to the company and the employee.

• by lloydatkinson on 10/18/22, 4:18 PM

  Sorry to hear you're going through this. I can definitely understand some of where you are coming from too. Earlier in the year I wrote a bunch of stuff as work was making me fed up and very low. It's doing the same again now so I'm rereading what I wrote. Sometimes writing things down can release a bit of mental pressure.

  https://www.lloydatkinson.net/posts/2022/my-thoughts-on-what...

• by Msw242 on 10/18/22, 1:48 PM

  It's important to look out for yourself and your career

  I'm a founder at a small company, and the current environment has us stagnating a bit

  My biggest fear is that our best contributors go elsewhere because we aren't able to fully enable their growth here right now

  I've lucked out in terms of how loyal my team is, but loyalty only goes so far, and the business has an obligation to enable the careers of it's contributors

  Basically just saying, there are two sides to every deal and if you're not thriving due to environment, you have a responsibility to yourself to find an environment where you will thrive

• by pkaler on 10/18/22, 2:02 PM

  This is an interesting topic. I suspect you are being vague for privacy. But is it possible to get some more context?

  What do you think your strengths are? Which strengths does the manager want you to grow?

• by nohankyou on 10/18/22, 3:28 PM

  I think too many people lean on 'strengths' instead of realizing that you could be putting effort to improve your 'opportunities'. Growth is about making yourself better at things you aren't naturally good at, not staying in your safe zone doing the same exact things just because it's easier for you that way.

  This is how I hire, I look for people willing to adapt and learn, because our field changes constantly you have to be able and willing to adapt to it. That may not be comfortable.

• by Taylor_OD on 10/18/22, 3:06 PM

  I was a pretty mid to lower performer in my last role. Now I'm a top performer. A lot of times its just how your work is valued and the support you may/may not have.

• by mustafabisic1 on 10/18/22, 4:57 PM

  Reminds me of a company I had the most fun working for.

  One of the basic principle was you can only be world-class in your natural strengths.

  Some of others were: - Try to ask why as less as possible as it's getting your rationalisations and emotional most of the time - Ask what might I do differently instead - Risk, trust, honesty triangle - These need to be equal at all times for teams to be effective - Never judge and never say bad/good. Works/doesn't work are alternatives

• by Izmaki on 10/18/22, 2:37 PM

  You and I are in a similar train if not actually the same train. My last day at my current position is end of the month - next month I will take up the same position at a competitor who created the job position because they have a need, not because upper mgmt said they had to (as with my current). I'm happy for you that you too found your final destination on the train towards nowhere. I wish you the best, oh familiar stranger. :)

  Yours truely, A dude on your train.

• by Bhurn00985 on 10/18/22, 2:56 PM

  > With all humility I admit it may be me that failed

  Always remember failure has no inherent meaning, it only has the meaning we attach to it. This can be a liberating realization.

• by nuancebydefault on 10/18/22, 8:37 PM

  Very relatable to what happened in my previous job. Thing is... you try and try to do your best to grow so that you fit in. Every evening thinking, man it was hard, what can i change, how can i be more efficient, how can i pick up that skill faster, learn faster such that they will be content. Until you finally realize, this job/boss is not for me. Search/find another one. MUCH happier.

• by danielmarkbruce on 10/19/22, 8:27 PM

  It's hard to realize this until you try something and suck at it.

  It's especially hard if you've basically been good at the things you have done in life, not realizing you either got lucky choosing things you were good at, just tended to be drawn to things you were good at without realizing why, or got jobs at things because others realized the good match...

• by testbjjl on 10/18/22, 1:50 PM

  The finality with which you describe your experience leaves little room for understanding a wider range of perspectives, doesn’t consider room for misunderstanding or the chance that you’re simply wrong in your view of underlying events. For me, that’s the growth that’s missing from this anecdote. It seems unlikely you will be happy in your next role given this perspective.

• by adave on 10/18/22, 10:56 PM

  Wow you just summed up my current situation except i didn't do any of the coaching and went quiet and stopped interacting much. It sucks that management has such an impact on their devs and there is no one to check this. Imo senior engineers should push for change but they wont as its easy to fool/manage an ignorant manager.

• by soheil on 10/18/22, 2:42 PM

  The beginning stages of change can feel very frustrating and you may even see things getting worse before they get any better. The key to growth is sticking with it and going through the difficult times specially when things get tough.

  Now if she's being a jerk and forcing you into a corner by learning things you don't want to then leave immediately.

• by arandr0x on 10/19/22, 1:18 PM

  I've left 3 teams over this, and as a manager would encourage my people to try other teams if they feel ours isn't a growth direction.

  Sometimes jobs change on you too. One position used to be for you, and now they need someone different. You should almost never strive to become that someone different.

• by zuzuleinen on 10/18/22, 3:09 PM

  You reminded me about a big company I used to work where they had these personal development plans. They were insisting on people to do them, but the allocated time was mostly "on paper". The consequence of that was that people started to pick small/trivial goals just to show something in reviews.

• by SoftTalker on 10/18/22, 5:30 PM

  1. The person who signs your paycheck (or the digital equivalent) is the one who gets to decide what your job is and what they need you to do.

  2. If it's not a fit, it's not a personal indictment. Move on. Not everything you do in life works out. However, if this happens over and over, it might be you.

• by hluska on 10/18/22, 5:32 PM

  I’m sorry you’ve been going through something traumatic. My email is in my profile - reach out if you need.

  But just in case you need to hear this, I don’t know you but I believe in you. It takes a lot of skill to write something tactically useful when you’re in the deep end of shit pool. You’ve got this.

• by luis_cho on 10/18/22, 6:50 PM

  I don't know if you know the concept of degrowth

  https://www.amazon.com/Case-Degrowth-Giorgos-Kallis/dp/15095...

• by qwertyzxcvmnbvw on 10/18/22, 2:07 PM

  Thanks man. I needed to hear that.

• by danesparza on 10/18/22, 2:13 PM

  This is great advice. Thanks for saying this out loud. Performance improvement is just as much about finding the right position to grow in as much as it is growing in that position.

  The world needs a happy version of you. Everybody benefits then.

• by dolongbien on 10/19/22, 2:45 AM

  "assuming I’m the problem", I think I'm doing the same. Unfortunately, I'm not the one who willing to speak up, I'm suffering because I have no choice at the moment. I'll quit soon.

• by MrWiffles on 10/18/22, 5:25 PM

  Thank you for posting this. This actually speaks to me on a number of levels and is somewhat...cathartic. This has happened to me. I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone.

  So, again, thank you for posting this.

• by abrax3141 on 10/18/22, 2:54 PM

  This simple equation will change your life:

        n=((y-1920)-a)/(0.25*a)
  

  where y is the current year (e.g., 2022), a is your age in years, and n is the number of careers you have ahead of you.

  Quit!

• by trilobyte on 10/19/22, 10:13 PM

  I'm kind of wondering if we work together and talked about this on Tuesday with each other. If so, as I said when we talked, this is the right mindset.

• by guynamedloren on 10/19/22, 4:26 AM

  I’ve been there, it’s miserable, but I hadn’t framed it exactly in these terms.

  This is well articulated and certain something many of us can relate to. Thanks for writing this.

• by satellites on 10/18/22, 2:59 PM

  Thanks for posting. I happen to be putting in my notice today at my current role, and this helps validate my reasons for leaving.

• by spookierookie on 10/18/22, 2:44 PM

  Thanks for sharing.

  Agree 100% btw.

• by grepLeigh on 10/18/22, 2:16 PM

  Always be earning or learning, ideally both.

• by honkler on 10/18/22, 1:45 PM

  1. Make BS metrics/goals

  2. Achieve them

  3. ??

  4. Profit

• by totalZero on 10/19/22, 3:51 PM

  I'm not sure that it's possible to lose skills in this way unless they completely fall out of practice. Seems like a situation where you learn that you won't grow in a particular way can only lead to a better understanding of the narrow path to fulfilling growth and development.

  Just my viewpoint though.

• by beckingz on 10/18/22, 2:43 PM

  Quit your job!

  Softskills.audio

• by russiasux on 10/20/22, 1:56 AM

  +1 from me.