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When to Leave That First Tech Job
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Wilson has an interesting piece about a scenario all CompSci/Engineering students dread, getting a job out of college and having it quickly turn sour. He writes: 'The first layoff is tough. After bending over backward, after being a loyal employee, this is the reward? To summarize how I felt: Disillusioned.' He discusses warning signs you should look for in your own work environment that point toward "Getting out". An interesting read, especially for aspiring engineers or engineers out on their first job."
> After bending over backward, after being a loyal employee, this is the reward?
Hint: don't bend over backward.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I worked at Google. We had cubicles. Good thing this guy came along to tell me it wasn't a successful company or I never would have known.
Huh. I work at one successful company with plenty o' cubes, my girlfriend at a very successful company where practically no one below VP has an office. So, there's probably something more going on here.
First off, a small company, or a startup, has a hell of lot better things to do with its money than build offices for its employees. If it's not demonstrably benefiting the customer, it's not worth the investment.
Second, yes, cubes do allow more noise in, and yes, it can sometimes be a problem. But the root cause is usually not the absence of a door and ceiling: it's the lack of self-discipline that causes some folks to holler back and forth over cube walls, and it's the lack of an ability to focus that causes some folks to be distracted by any conversation in earshot. As engineers, we shouldn't be paid big bucks just because we can crank out good software under ideal working conditions. We should be able to do quality work under less than ideal conditions, and we should have enough discipline to not create those conditions for others.
Now, if your company doesn't recognize that excessive noise is a distraction and a productivity killer, then that might be a good reason to leave. But at the end of the day, demanding complete quiet and isolation is a prima donna attitude. Learning to filter out minor distractions is achievable, and greatly increases the range of places you'll be able to be productive in. That will only help you in the long run.
He only graduated from college one year ago. What does he know?
You're in the tech field.
At all times you should have 20+ people you could call to have a resume on the right desk the next day. Network (the people kind). Then network more.
You are in a place where job turnover is worse then at McDonalds. Outsourcing, cutbacks, takeovers by another company, etc. Your job is about as safe as a house below sea level in New Orleans - you WILL lose it, just a matter of time.
So plan ahead.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
I'm going to nitpick a bit at the article's first point: as much as we may dislike cubicles, a blanket statement like "working in cubicles is the sure sign that you're not working for a successful company" is... well, a sure sign that the article's author hasn't worked at many companies. I've worked at some very successful companies with cubicles (my current one is arguably the world's most successful network equipment manufacturer), and more than one small, dismal and unfortunate place without.
I don't want to imply that happiness on the job is overrated, but very few of us can claim to be happy all, or even nearly all, of the time with our work--even the self-employed. For most of us, a significant chunk of whatever our given job is involves Sadly Boring Shit. Drudge work, waiting for work, paperwork about waiting for drudge work.
Do look out for warning signs about when to quit your job, sure. But make sure those aren't just signs of a bad day (or week, or even month). And if at all possible, get the next job before you quit the crappy one.
If you don't do that, make sure you're prepared for unemployment. Try to follow all the standard cliche advice: have enough money to live on for six months. (This means figuring out what your minimum outflow--housing, food, gas, utilities, other debt payments--is per month. A whole lot of people I know have no idea what this is.) You can expect to spend a month looking for work for every $10K of salary in the range you're looking for (I know people who've spent a lot less, yes, but I also know people who've spent well past that time)
This kid graduated in the spring of '04 and, only 15 months later, is complaining about the IT industry? Get in line. Or rearrange your priorities. I think the college kids of today - or young people in general - think they are "entitled" to a nice job, nice pay, organized management, etc. Ha! Welcome to the real "Real World."
He's complaining about cubicles??? I recall one time a client (the president and the head of technology) came to visit us and they commented that it's too quiet in the office. They said that they wanted to hear and see people talking, discussing, and creating new ideas, etc. Sorry, kid, but you don't get a shiny office straight out of college, or even ever in life. He's got his expectations way, way, way too high. (I wonder if this carries over in his interpersonal relationships, or not, with the fairer sex.)
And yes, management is dumb in some areas, but really, really, really smart in the one area that counts - longevity. If a project fails, management doesn't get the can. They find the "problem" in I.T. and fire them. They can always shift the blame, pass the buck, and fudge the bottom line. The question to ask is how can you stay on managements' good side? Time to put your pride aside and learn how to suck up.
Personal growth is something you do on your own time not on company's time. They ain't paying ya to discover your inner calling.
Compensation & Overtime has been ruled null & void by the the greater supply of IT people. We are interchangeable. If you don't like and tell that to management they'll find a replacement for you, not pay you more. Every programmer thinks he's the hot shit. Don't let that get to your head. You're not.
I think this kid needs to growing up to do. It's funny because the older guys at the office just smile when I complain. It's the "been there, done that" experience that you learn as you grow older.
You should think of yourself as somewhat of a free agent, not totally unlike a professional athlete. Money is the bottom line with any company and is independent of the behaviour of anyone in the company. Even employers "who put their money where their mouth is" are helpless if the money just isn't there for whatever reason.
So while your boss may be the nicest guy in the world able to inspire the troops through any adversity, if the money ever runs out then the troops will die, period. And blaming the employer is pointless, even if they deserve it. You have to think "I'm in this situation...how do I get out of it and if possible, how do I guard against it in the future". Let others waste time and energy whining. You can join in later...after you get your new job.
Some people may read this and think I have a totally self-centered attitude...and that'd be true to an extent. However it doesn't mean that you have to become a callous asshole. You can still be a nice, moral person. However, being nice doesn't mean you're a naive pushover. You have a duty to look out for yourself.
We're still in the growing pains of a new era in the American/Global economy where getting a job doesn't mean you can retire there if you so choose. Let this layoff be a wakeup call.
I have been in the workforce for more than twenty years. The great majority of jobs I've had have been cubicle based, from insurance to several technology companies to bioscience. There's a pretty darn good solution to the noise problem. It's called 'being quiet'. As long as the walls are reasonably high (I've seen extremely short cubicles, which don't work well), and your coworkers are polite, it's a great way to get a lot of work done.
Offices are expensive. If you're THAT bothered by distractions, you can buy huge jars of very good foam earplugs for like $8 at your local drugstore. You don't need to hear everything going on around you. You don't need to see it either. Wear earplugs for a few weeks. Realize how little you're missing by not paying attention to everything around you. Soon, you'll likely develop virtual earplugs that will serve you just as well, and cost nothing.
Demanding that your employer provide the workforce with offices is saying "I require that you quadruple your rent to suit me." It is very, very unlikely that you are that much better than everyone else, nearly all of whom work just fine in cubes.
Your complaints about poor management, though, are spot-on. That is the telltale of a bad company. If you realize that the management is dumb, get the hell out.
THAT'S your sign, not cubicles.
Great point. The cubicle backlash is a tad extreme and the idea of being always happy at your job is probably getting too much airplay. You CAN be happy working in a cubicle and you can be miserable working in a job with an office.
Also, chances are, you're not working at Adobe or Microsoft, so you may need to realistically redefine what the employer has to provide for you to be "happy"...or you need to get a job at Adobe or Microsoft. Just because you boss doesn't let you bring your dog into the office, it may turn out that you can live with that concession if you try.
You make several other excellent points in a post worthy of a +5 insightful.
who could possibly so %^#$@#%@ stupid, that he would build a system that needs to be up !25/8!(yes that is meant as 25 hours a day, 8 days a week) on a software that hasnt been proven to be stable for years in a row ? you CANT have a failure in plant with the software. enough can already go wrong without it.
You know, for someone who really seems to hate 'stupid', you are making a pretty big assumption. Just because they were writing sortware for the nuclear power industry, doesn't mean that they were writing reactor control systems. I mean, the nuclear power industry needs infrastructure databases like any other businuess.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I have a burning desire to verbally bludgeon the author of this article, but instead I'll give a brief outline of my thoughts.
.NET is highly untested and nuclear power plants are the zenith of mission critical. If any nuclear power plants adopt .NET to run their plant, I'm moving to the moon.
A) This was your fisrt job. If you truly feel you can judge everything about the working world from your first job, you're shallow, incompetent and pathetic.
B) If you think succesful companies don't have cubicles, you're in for a very rude awakening when you get jobs #2 and #3, etc.
C) You were working for a startup. You should have demanded a very lucrative stock package. Most startups (and I really need to stress most--ask the SBA) fail! That's a risk you take and the stock package is the payoff if the comapny succeeds.
D)
Hey Chris, if you're expetations are this high for your first job, I pity you. You've got a long way to go and a great many things to learn.
--James
As the semester's end finally hit, I realized something. I was going to need a job, and I hadn't even started looking. Then, almost on cue, the phone rang.
The article's author should consider himself fortunate to have landed a job without even looking for one. The next time around, when he actually puts some effort into finding a job at a good company instead of taking whatever falls into his lap, maybe he'll actually have a job he enjoys at a company that treats him right.
Care to elaborate what "top company" you work for, so that I don't apply there, given what the colleagues and the employee selection process appear to be like? Are you one of their "smartest Comp Sci" grads? Does your job require computer science skills, but not manners?
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
I work for a university so I see it all the time, the undergrad that thinks that their degree (and no real experience) should net them a great, high paying job in a low stress environment where they get what they want. Well, those that chase the numbers, usually end up getting screwed. No suprise, if you are fresh out of university with no experience, you aren't worth a whole lot at that point. Takes more time before you have the skills and experience to back up a big salary.
Guy strikes me as one of those. Ok, so maybe he really did get in a bad situation but his gripes scream of lack of experience. Cubicles are not always bad, maybe even not often. Personally, I wouldn't want an office at my current job. If we were all in offices, it would just make shit much harder and necessitate twice weekly staff meetings. As is, with us all in one room, we just talk as needed. If you are busy, you put your headphones on and people leave you alone. If not, you listen. Maybe people are talking about something that relates to you.
Not saying that's the case at all companies but to pretend cubicles are universally bad is stupid.
Same thing with the management gripe. On the surface it's some valid stuff, but tech people often get too caught up in thinking management is stupid. Well guess what? Just because they don't agree with you, doesn't make them dumb. There are realities in business that most tech people don't deal with. If your boss is good, you won't have to. However that doesn't mean they aren't there and that they don't have to be dealt with. Just because they have a different view than you, or won't do what you want doesn't make them stupid.
I mean I'd really like to spend about a million dollars upgrading labs in our department. That would be enough for all the top of the line hardware, software, desks, presentation equipment, etc that I'd like to have. However my boss would not be stupid for telling me no if I asked. Would it improve the education of our students? No question, and that is our prime goal here, it would be our product if we were a business. However it's not at all cost effective, nor within the amount of money available to us. Each year our group requests several hundred thousands of dollars for upgrades, and we never get near that much. However, we don't cry about management not supporting us. They want to know what we'd like, and we tell them. They weigh that, and decide based off of our resources what we can afford to get.
It's valuable to know when to leave a company but "when you work in a cube" and "when you and your boss disagree" aren't valid times. Also, when you are new to the market, espically wiht no work experience, consider lower pay. I'm ot saying lowball yourself, but look at what's offered. Often people who hire newbies for insane saliries are doing so because their expecations are unrealistic, much like yours. Realise that you aren't worth a ton and find someone who understands that. If you find a good place, you'll be given realistic tasks to your skills, chances to learn and grow, and people who know what's going on to guide you.
Cubicles are indeed the massive suck. But
TFA missed an important point on my list though.
Death By Meeting
If you find yourself in a repetitive slew of non-technical (read: sales and marketing) meetings filled with the scum of the earth (ok, maybe only if you work at a law firm), and you aren't either (a) some sort of S&M liason or (b) upper-management, something is very very nordically decomposed.
On the contrary. I have a house, a wife and two kids to feed and take care of, and I applaud you for being determined giving them top priority. That means standing firm when management keeps asking for more.
I've heard colleagues regret putting their work at #1, only to be surprised when their spose says she was leaving tomorrow.
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Judging a job _only_ by the money ("I personally believe the time to leave that first tech job is when you can find another job that pays significantly more") is IMHO a case of literally not seeing the forest for the trees.
Money is a means, not an end. You can't eat money, you can't get much entertainment out of just looking at a bunch of 100$ bills, etc. The question is what you can do with them to improve your life quality, not the number alone, like some screwed-up game score.
And before you lash back with "well, duh, with more money you can buy more stuff and be happier", no, that's still not getting it.
Yeah, you can buy a bigger plasma TV or some high-end stereo or whatever, but if you end up in a job where an asshole demands your presence there 14 hours a day, and occasionally that you bring a sleeping bag and don't leave until he sees some program ready (yes, I've actually seen such an asshole)... you won't actually have the _time_ to actually _use_ those. You'll just have time to eat and flop into bed.
Additionally, let's talk about happiness on the whole. Even if money could buy some happiness, it's not a linear scale. Twice the money doesn't make you twice as happy. So you gain, what? Maybe 5% extra happiness in those 4-5 hours at home. If the price to pay is anywhere between 8 and 14 hours of pure hell at work, I'd say on the average you're actually worse off.
Guarding against the future? Hah. I'll tell you what's more likely to happen, because I personally know people who chose to work for an asshole for a lot more pay. You know how much they've saved for the future? Well, one was telling me at the end of last week that he's some $2000 in debt... right after salary day. (And that's not counting the debts for his car, the house, etc.)
Welcome to the deathtrap of consumerism. See, most people who try too hard to believe that success is measured in money alone, and that more money can literally buy happiness... end up literally trying to buy it. Or failing that, trying to convince themselves that theirs is the right way. ("Hey, look how much stuff I can buy with that money! Of course it's worth it! Why, that's what success is all about!")
The guy I was mentioning above, we're good friends, so I hear about it each time he gets a raise or a promotion. Also when he buys new stuff. Guess what? Each raise was followed by an even bigger increase in how much he spends. Each time he'll just get a bigger car, a bigger computer, then military-grade IR goggles for when he goes fishing, then now a bigger house in a whole other (more fashionable) town. (Just in case those 12 hours a day at the office weren't enough, now he'll also spend an extra 2 hours commuting.)
Those in turn just dig the trap deeper. Now with all those monthly payments and being in debt he _has_ to keep at it.
So what did he _really_ get out of it? Well, from where I stand, it looks like he's got $2000 debt, plus the loans for the car and house, and some 12 hours a day of high stress. Now with the extra commuting, he only gets to see his infant son briefly before going to sleep, and on weekends. Yeah, way to go.
My advice? Forget it. I've saved a lot more on a lesser wage. Not falling into the "money is everything, and consumerism is the way to show it off" trap tends to have that effect.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Everyone cuts the schedule. If they didn't reduce the schedule from 8 to 6 days then they wouldn't be "productive". Get over yourself and learn to pad everything by the necessary 25% to 30% in time so that when they cut it out it's still attainable. But make sure it looks like a struggle doing it. If you get on schedule without massive OT then they cut goes from 25% to 35% to 45% and so on. One company I worked at they had a 75% fluff to every number just to survive all the management cuts that will come along during the budget reviews."
No, not everyone. Only PHBs act like that. If the company you work for has to do all that charade, and you _still_ end up with massive overtime, you've just told me you have a complete idiot for a boss. And let me get back to one particular management idiocy there:
"If they didn't reduce the schedule from 8 to 6 days then they wouldn't be "productive"."
No. Measuring productivity like that has got to count as not just clueless, downright surrelistic lack of clue. And let me give you just one reason why.
In this job everything can be done in 1001 ways, and about 900 of them are bad shortcuts. They involve write-only code, lack of testing, and generally just hoping that the quickest and dirtiest and most unmaintainable hack will just work on the first try. If you cut someone's time by 25% you've just told them to take such a bad shortcut.
The result isn't just bad unmaintainable code (which _will_ bite you in the ass when you want to make a v2.0), and not only just buggy, but it might blow the deadline even worse. Debugging bad code takes a lot longer, and debugging (in one form or another) is what you do some 90% of the time. A shortcut that's nearly impossible to debug, and nearly impossible to change into something else (e.g., when debugging says that your very choice of algorithm was wrong) will likely take longer to be ready.
Or it may never be ready. Someone I know is still stuck in a project that should have been finished in the last quarter of _2002_. But yeah, they were always under pressure, so they skipped testing almost completely until the end of 2004, they always fixed bugs via the quickest hack that can sorta work, never had time to figure out a _consistent_ way to implement that spec, or to get a good spec out of the client for that matter, and so on.
Having to add fluff to justify the deadline wrangling game, again, adds complexity and adds places where bad shortcuts will bite you in the ass.
So that kind of approach "productivity" just means making a bad product.
A product's architecture and the allocated time should involve understanding the pros and cons of each approach. That's what design is all about: making an informed choice, and knowing the price you pay for that choice. (And there will _always_ be a price to pay. In some cases it will just be much smaller than the gains.) Replacing it with a sad game in which management pats just themselves on the back for imposing an arbitrary 25% to 75% without even asking what's the effect, is pretty much _the_ nemesis of any kind of good design.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
He said he disliked cubicals because they background noise was distracting, couldn't get into the "zone", couldn't do the "quality work"; but I heard, he has a lack of focus, and that is a sign and symptom of burnout and depression.
Depression limits focus and creativity, which will make any job more difficult, which leads to more depression; when little shit starts to bothers you, maybe its time to look at the comp package and use one or two of those sick days for mental health.
Everybody is going to go through a sitsuational depressions/burn-outs, and the first time is going to be a real whammy, after you've learned how you react to it and develope some compensitory behaviours it easy to nip it in the bud before its too self-reinforcing for self-help.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'm going to nitpick a bit at the article's first point: as much as we may dislike cubicles, a blanket statement like "working in cubicles is the sure sign that you're not working for a successful company" is... well, a sure sign that the article's author hasn't worked at many companies. I've worked at some very successful companies with cubicles (my current one is arguably the world's most successful network equipment manufacturer), and more than one small, dismal and unfortunate place without.
Agreed. I've worked for some truly craptastic companies where everyone had their own office. I've also worked for several Fortune 500 companies where everyone except directors on up had cubicles. It has nothing to do with the success of the company whatsoever.
You didn't happen to work for a paper company in Slough did you?
(parts of this previously posted by me)
The social contract is broken irretrievably, and we all need to adapt to the new reality. The new reality is, don't get too comfortable, keep the resume up to date, and move on the minute things are the slightest bit fishy. Some signs to look for:
o No more free pens in the stockroom, now the admin hands them out one by one and makes you sign for them.
o An all-company memorandum from the CEO shows up suddenly, responding to hallway rumors or soft-pedaling bad news.
o The perennial blame game between Sales, Marketing, and Engineering stops simmering and comes to a full boil in the hallway.
o A top executive (any top executive) leaves mysteriously.
o Sales guys start leaving (more than one is big trouble)
o "The Board" starts poking around and introducing themselves to people.
o A routine purchase request for equipment is turned down, regardless of justifications presented.
o There is an odd new emphasis on collections activity.
o "Investors" start showing up for tours of the engineering department.
o The annual customer conference is canceled or postponed.
o A delivery date is moved forward inexplicably, without consulting the engineers on the project.
o It is impossible to get a reasonable explanation from your boss for a clearly unreasonable situation or request.
o You are asked to stop work and "document" your project at a time that seems inappropriate and wrong.
o You are asked to sign any document "acknowledging" your equity position (if any), when it should be abundantly clear what your equity position is.
One small way to protect yourself (and to acquire information about the company's activities that they would not normally share with you) is to take advantage of any stock purchase plan (real stock, not options) put forward, and buy a few shares (preferably as few as possible). This will at least make you privy to the legal documents around acquisition scenarios and so on.
But the best way to protect yourself is to get the resume engine revved up the minute you see the warning signs above. No need to delay. Get the hell out.