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That's too long to stay at one company.
(Your own bugs come back to haunt you.)
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: That's too long to stay at one company.
(Your own bugs
come back to haunt you.)
Love it. 
.AK.
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 they have...
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I'm pretty happy. As I said in the thread earlier today, you can't expect everything to be peaches and cream, but you can expect the people you work with to be pleasant and fun, the company not to impose annoying bureaucracy or unreasonable management pressures, to treat people fairly and for the working environment to be good. If that's not the case in your company then it's perhaps time to think about moving on.
Experienced developers are still in demand so unlike most of the population we still have that choice.
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BobJanova wrote: Experienced developers are still in demand so unlike most of the population we still have that choice.
That and everything else in your post has convinced me at last. It really is time to move on.
Or as Popeye said: "This is all I can stand, I can stands no more!"
Thanks!
"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability!"
Ron White, Comedian
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You've got to figure out what the problem is. Sounds simple. But I spent more than 20 years running from jobs I didn't like, never QUITE being able to put my finger on what I didn't like about them. (With a couple easy exceptions.)
I'm definitely not "satisfied in my current position." But I've got a good grasp on what part of that is my own egomaniacal foolishness and what part is actually environmental.
Knowing where I want to get and figuring out how I'm going to get there, how long I have to suffer my current environment and make the best of it and what I'm going to get out of it makes ALL the difference in making a bad situation bearable.
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Good advice... Like I said, I love the work... I learn something new all the time, that's the best part.
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"If they'd just leave me alone so I could do what I DO." was one of my big ones.
Stated with callous honesty: "I'd get so much more work done if it weren't for the damn users."
That was something the big banks always had over the small shops. We had project managers and business analysts to keep the developers left alone. BUT that was at the cost of some world class institutionalized crazy.
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I guess we're left alone a little too much, there's no real control over who does what. There's organized chaos... and then there's what we're doing... disorganized chaos... 
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Sounds like the multiple-customer problem.
"Can't you just..." no.
"This should be easy" then you do it.
The peculiar reversal of easy things seeming impossible and impossible things seeming trivial to customers continues to blow my mind.
I had a big fight to finally get to the point where I could tell A that I was working on something for B and if A's project was really more important, that they'd have to get someone to decide that and get back to me.
They can't demand you take the responsibility for prioritizing (much less owning) what you do and don't do without giving you the authority to make the decision and dictate the priority. Otherwise that job is someone else's, like it is in my case.
"Give me the authority to tell people no and I'll sort ALL of this out in about 20 minutes."
"I can't do that."
"That's fine. Here's my task list with estimates. Sort it for me. I'll give everyone the bad news."
"but..."
"but what?"
*manager nods with resignation*
A bit more curt in the retelling, to be sure.
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AMEN!
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Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary of England during World War I, wrote in his memoirs that "Happiness consists of having all that one wants and none of what one does not want." This applies to one's work environment as well as anywhere else. Accordingly, the key to happiness at work has three components:
- Work at something you enjoy for its own sake;
- Establish adequately comfortable conditions in which to do it;
- Contrive to screen out irrelevancies, distractions, and intrusions.
In a corporate-employment setting, items 2 and 3 can be a challenge. Item 2 can sometimes be partially covered out of one's own pocket, but there are limits; few of us are willing (or able) to purchase our own cubicle furniture or computers. Item 3 is the toughest of the nuts by far.
Most dissatisfaction among software people arises from managerial and supervisory sources. It's not just schedule and deadline pressure, either. Managers and supervisors sometimes seem incapable of letting an engineer do his work without sticking all their appendages into it. They're "above" the lowly practitioner, they "think," and therefore have a right and a duty to perform frequent layings-on of their sacred hands to "ensure quality." That can drive just about anyone to despair, drink, or on occasion, violence.
I've come to regard the front-line supervisor -- i.e., he who directly supervises working engineers, and might well still be technically hands-on himself -- as the optimal spot for the solution to this problem. If he can be persuaded to fulfill three functions:
- Give his people clear and specific tasks to perform;
- Stay away from them as much as possible while they're working;
- Rigidly exclude all "higher-level" management from their work environment, except for "ceremonial" occasions scheduled well in advance;
...his engineers' working conditions can be brought as near to optimal as capital budgets permit.
Finding such a supervisor is not easy. He must be smart, humane, results-oriented, and very tough. For his engineers to retrain one who possesses the "raw material" but is not yet enlightened can be just as hard. But the alternatives are all unsatisfactory.
I try to be such a supervisor. It often demands more humility than I naturally possess. That highly unappreciated and increasingly rare virtue might well be the critical factor -- and can anyone sincerely say he's sufficiently humble?
Don't all answer -- or laugh -- at once, now.
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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Fran Porretto wrote: Contrive to screen out irrelevancies, distractions, and intrusions.
Think that's the one we're definitely lacking here... 
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I used to be humble. But it's not realistic. Or practical. Many managers are like wolves. They won't respect you if you're humble.
But let's get to some important aspects of the problem that hasn't been discussed yet:
1. Most managers are technically illiterate and thus not really competent to manage technical people.
2. Many (some?) developers are technically gifted and/or brilliant and managers have no clue on how to handle them nicely and use them effectively and productively.
- The heart of this matter could be said to really be: "How can a person much less intelligent than you adequately manage you?" Or..."Life is hard when you work for people that are much less intelligent and creative than yourself."
3. Corporate work environments stink.
I could elaborate on each...But let's see if any of these strike a resonance with any of you first.
- Grant
Cary Grant "Swimming with Cinderblocks" Anderson
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I always work to change the environment for the better. I would try that before I just left. Some suggestions are:
1) work on a motto that you repeat often, and hope others follow. One of ours was "Every Day, make something better"
2) Learn to redirect the disgruntled conversations. Using improv techniques, say YES and redirect. Example: (John walks in and starts his morning rant... Reply: John, I agree things have not been perfect, and I want to find more joy in my work and working with you... Can we leave the past in the past and focus on 3 great things. First, we have jobs doing what we like. Second, we get to choose how awesome of a job we do every day, and third, we get a choice to focus on the past and feel miserable or the future and help each other learn and have a good time... Which of those 3 would help you feel better about being here, and help me be more productive and enjoy this job more?)
3) Step Up. Add something FUN to the Culture. I once brought in Karate Blocking sticks (big foam on bats), and we called them Feature Sticks... (Threatening to beat people for coming up with new features, and the occasional beating did take place. Quite funny because it did not hurt, but it let us express frustration).
Honestly, wherever you go, there you are. Make a difference while you are there.
I found that simply finding a POSITIVE way to talk about it with the people around me. People at my level, below AND above. Little things like sitting down with an antagonist and saying "Nothing personal, but I LIKED YOU BETTER when you did not complain all the time. Is there anything I can do to help you get back there?"
And if all that fails, move on, knowing you did your best... Life is WAY TOO SHORT to suffer through it. I am one of the luckiest people in the world because I get PAID to do what I would probably do for free!
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Kudos for the positivity you bring to the table... I would love to work with people like that. 
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Only you can know what's important to you. Identify the things which ungruntle you, and decide if
a) they are something you can possibly hope to remedy and
b) they are a dealbreaker for you.
If your answers are no and yes, you oughta move on.
To answer your question, at this point, I'm partially gruntled. I'm fortunate enough to work with an excellent product owner-type person, and I largely manage/direct/implement our project with him.
However, that has its stresses too and isn't for everyone.
From the outside looking in, it seems as if our other projects are chaos. I don't feel we have particularly good management at any level--more of the "who's yelling loudest" approach to prioritization rather than cogent analysis of problems.
I'm not at the point of "I want to GTFO", but maybe I should start poking around. IDK.
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before I became self employed I don't think I ever worked at any place where there wasn't disgruntled employee's
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Hopefully you're using a fake name for this, unless you don't care if your employer sees it.
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Nine years with my current company. I've seen it go from 40 people sitting at a large bench in a single room to 200+ people in a six story office building. It's had ups and downs and it wouldn't be my first choice of industry but the single thing that makes this job stand out is that the company is highly profitable.
That translates to perks, bonuses, a very positive environment and long term retention of the really good people.
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Mars Red and Spica Blue [^]
Not quite as spectacular as some of the images presented; nevertheless, the view, itself, is breathtaking.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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Mark, thanks so much for this fascinating series of posts; I've come to look forward to seeing a photo every day. I really like the photo of Mars and Spica against background of (winter-time ?) trees; in fact, I've written to the photographer asking him for a quote on licensing the picture on a web-site.
“Use the word 'cybernetics,' Norbert, because nobody knows what it means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments.” Claude Shannon (Information Theory scientist): letter to Norbert Weiner of M.I.T., circa 1940
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Do you suppose that's a "long" exposure? A few dozen seconds or so (otherwise there'd be "trails")? Otherwise how'd the photog get the brightness?
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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ahmed zahmed wrote: Otherwise how'd the photog get the brightness?
A very large flash...
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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