133
It is just corporate life, not you
A colleague of mine returned from a 4-week vacation yesterday. In that time, our boss left for a new company. Maybe 3 minutes was spent catching the colleague up on that before we all returned to our usual work.
When the boss left, there wasn't a lot of fanfare or discussion. He cleared out his office, we spent maybe a ...
77
I'm honestly surprised that you're surprised by this.
You essentially already have one foot out of the door - and have just given the team a month to get used to working without you. It might seem wasteful not to fully utilise a resource that's going to be there for another 7-8 months, and truth be told it is in my opinion. But that is easier said than done ...
44
You (and your manager) seem to be in urgent need for a proper management process.
What you must do do avoid just the scenario you mentioned:
Have a proper work plan.
Estimate the work before you actually start working on them.
Have a pre-decided acceptance criteria for each and every assignment.
Have scheduled review meetings.
Use a project management tool ...
32
My manager seems to think it will take time for me to deal with everything, and it's okay for him to explain me everything I need, and that I'm not really productive right now.
You seem to be in good company and management, most of the folks complains about just the opposite. You manager understands your situation and extending the help they can to bring ...
26
we have to work 6 days a week and ... stay late on top of that
We know from experience that this can end in two ways:
the work schedule returns to "normal values";
the employee leaves.
I know from my workplaces in 19 years. Also, the Internet is full of similar statements.
In a comment you said:
the manager thinks it's all a waste of time. Now we just ...
16
In a comment, you clarified your question as,
what options might exist to fix the short term outlook of the developers which is making its way into the code?
Rather than directly address the specific challenges you're describing (i.e. how to deal with your frustrating Scrum Master), I think it's more valuable to step back, zoom out, and consider a ...
16
Do I have to persevere, until I get to understand things better
Yes.
I have been developing software, as a freelancer for *cough* decades, and there is a point in every project, usually after 3 or 4 weeks, where I feel hopeless & think that I will never learn it. This passes every time, and knowing that helps me prevent depression/hopelessness.
It's ...
answered Dec 9 at 10:31
Mawg says reinstate Monica
9,3883 gold badges18 silver badges48 bronze badges
13
From the comments:
"Frankly, I don't wanna join this startup at all! The ONLY reason I
want their offer is so I can use it as leverage to drive up my
compensation in other companies. So I need a safe way of accepting
their offer (without signing anything), that I can later turn down."
This is an important piece of context that should have been in ...
12
Tell the truth, but be smart about it. Make sure that you don't blame, complain or judge. Make this about business results, not about your emotions.
Bad: "I wouldn't like working for ABC since they were dismissive of my ideas".
Good: "I'm concerned about the impact on my productivity if I were to work for ABC. I feel I operate best in open and ...
12
The behaviour of your colleagues is based on their incentives. Their incentives are set at a very high level.
I don't know what you're experience or place in the organisation is, but since you don't even have a say in the processed used for development, I dont think you occupy a place of significant organisational power. (And btw, you guys are doing the ...
11
This is office politics, stay away from it.
Clearly something is going on and you don't know what it is. It doesn't sound like there is anything to get for you by escalating it - especially as a contractor. Write your concerns to the PM to cover yourself against later blaming, but leave it at that.
The CTO
I'm assuming that the information actually made ...
11
Unless his fix is flawed you should thank him and move on. Even if the bug is in code you wrote, it's not really your bug nor is it your code. It is the company's code and the company's mission is to deploy that code without bugs. Your colleague is doing the company a favor by fixing bugs.
It's great that you want to be responsible for all code you ...
11
Your team needs to get organised better. Two people trying to fix the same problem is a waste of time. And the way you tell this story, it seems you don’t do code reviews - that’s something you ought to change.
Apart from that: The bug is fixed, so what is the problem?
10
Too much depends on personalities we don’t know to give a definite answer, but even if it’s deserved, being a jerk back rarely improves the situation.
Start with replacing “jerk” with “coworker” in your question. This establishes a baseline for how you should at least normally treat people. How you are viewed by others will be heavily influenced by how ...
9
It's awful.
I cannot stress enough that the new manager's plan is to ensure that the company is vulnerable to the exact disaster it just experienced, which the company almost certainly is trying to actively prevent from happening again, at a time when the company is likely to be most attentive to these issues and severe responses will be least expensive. It'...
answered Nov 22 at 23:24
Upper_Case-Stop Harming Monica
5,6481 gold badge17 silver badges25 bronze badges
9
Simple: you don't. Especially as a consultant (it may be helpful to mentally translate this in your mind to what it means: a non-employee, a temp worker, expendable), trying to throw clients under the bus rarely ends in your favor.
You should state the issues factually, without emotion, and without attempting to blame someone specific. Any reasonably ...
9
As I understand, his behavior is very intentional, and multi-dimensional. You cannot really fix it by yourself without help from a third party.
I think that you should ask for advice from your manager. Make it simple:
Hello (boss). I need some advice from you. The situation is ... (and you describe what you told us).
He might ask you some questions, and ...
9
First of all, make sure you are approaching them in a official capacity, not just as a colleague-met-next-to-watercooler person.
Couple of steps, when you are working as an adviser for a team which is not directly being managed by your superior:
Ensue your manager and the manager of other team is aware of your involvement.
Document everything, all ...
9
Have a talk with your own manager.
Explain what you've learned about their technical problem.
Explain what solution they're currently pursuing.
Explain what solution you have in mind.
Tell him that the impression you get is that they're not open to different solutions than they're currently pursuing.
Now ask your manager how to proceed. His job as a ...
9
The point of software development is to develop working software that has value.
"Coding to the spec" and "not willing to drag others along" are not valued attributes. Half-finished features have no value. Features blindly coded to a bad spec have no value.
If you're given a spec that has problems and you're the only one who realizes that, your ...
9
Talk to your employer, and see what's possible!
Normally I would advise against soliciting private information to your new employer, but in this case, it should not harm to discuss possibilities with them. As I see it, you can not really lose anything here.
Worst case, they can't do anything to help you. You can still decide if you want to stay and let ...
8
I would call the hiring company immediately and tell them what the situation is. You haven't accepted the position. You haven't seen the contract. The recruiting company cannot accept a job offer on your behalf. You would prefer to make a decision once other interviews are done, and you would need to see the contract and sign it yourself.
If that is a ...
8
As a software engineer, is a feasible plan to alternate two years of
working with one year of sabbatical?
I imagine it's possible to find a company that wouldn't need you around for a year at a time every third year. I personally don't know of any, though.
In your comment you seem to now indicate that you would work for a company for two years, then quit ...
8
While it’s understood to not be as deep or long-term as a marriage, your job is still a collection of relationships. So try this situation out on other relationships. If your new husband (congratulations!) left for a few weeks and told you that he was planning on divorcing you in eight months, how would that impact your interaction with him? Yes, the ...
8
This is perfectly normal
Most companies want to cast a wide net without incurring large expenses. You cannot do that with in-person interviews as that either limits the available people to those within driving distance or requires the company to spend a lot of money on airline tickets and hotels.
For most of my jobs, the interviews have been 100% remote ...
7
Getting to the gist of the question:
What is the better career strategy? Stay at one company long term or switch often to get higher pay.
There is no one strategy to rule them all. It really depends on your end goal. If you want a higher salary, generally switching jobs laterally is your best bet. Companies tend to offer new hires higher salaries to ...
6
Given that you have answered all the questions truthfully, and did not intentionally hide / withheld information, you don't need to be worried. If you were not asked / expected to reveal any particular information, you don't need to provide it.
Just give it a couple more days. Check back same time next week, if you don't get to hear in the meantime.
6
It seems to me like you're playing a losing hand:
your manager doesn't feel he has the political capital to push for
change (which right off the bat is a red flag that he's there to
simply enforce the status quo)
the higher-ups don't understand that their ship is headed toward
disaster (another red flag)
the scrum master has no idea that the work he is ...
6
Saudi Arabia specific answer
I'm assuming you are a migrant worker since you aren't a manager and it would be very unusual for a Saudi national to be treated this way. Unfortunately this is normal and part of the working culture, workers come from abroad and are often pushed to their limits for as long as they can take it. The pay is very good but there is ...
6
On the other hand I don't want a project which could be referred as bad code or something like that (even though I believe it isn't such).
So which is it?
Everyone is insecure about their work. And everyone understands that old work doesn't represent ones' current level of knowledge. Leave it up. If they ask you about it, you can always suggest ways it ...
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