
Y’all Ain’t Killing Me: The Rise of “Super Jobs.” - fabianhjr
http://theunderemployedlife.com/yall-aint-killing-rise-super-jobs/
======
johngalt
Ever been 'promoted' into a new role with only a small salary bump, and an
inability to hand off your old role to someone else?

Or perhaps you are a driven/smart person. Which management rewards by
increasingly spending your attention on various areas of the business that
need to be rescued, organized, straightened out. Yet management drags their
feet on any permanent changes which would prevent the fires from starting in
the first place. What begins as a rescue operation gradually becomes normal
practice. Over time agglomerating your responsibilities across various
critical areas.

Job postings like these are what happens after you leave.

~~~
diogenescynic
This is exactly what’s happening to me right now. I don’t know how to get off
the treadmill without changing jobs.

~~~
elyrly
change jobs in X years

~~~
diogenescynic
That’s what I’ve been telling myself. They just let my boss go, so I’m
tentatively waiting to see what happens. If the change doesn’t go in the right
direction, I’m getting out.

------
timoth3y
These kinds of jobs often point to an unhealthy co-dependency between non-
technical management and (usually) younger engineers.

Everyone wants to play the hero. The manager reporting to his boss about how
hard his team is working and how they will all pull together to solve the
problems, and the engineer feeding off the praise that he has saved the day
and that without his efforts all would have been lost.

It's just papering over a lack of planning on _everyone 's_ part, and it never
ends well.

The big salary bump is always just a quarter or two away. The engineer
eventually burns out and is replaced by a more naive individual, and the
vicious cycle begins again.

Sorry if I seem a bit pessimistic, yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine
who is a programmer in exactly this situation. I was telling him to get out
and find another job, but he was convinced that once he proves himself and
solves all these problems, he'll get a big raise and a large option grant. His
boss won't put that in writing of course, but he just really believes that
he'll be rewarded.

It breaks my heart.

~~~
chrisbennet
I think that most developer need to learn that lesson for themselves
unfortunately. If your lucky, you learn it early.

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
The cherry on the top about these job descriptions is usually at the end when
they're basically throwing a few peanuts in your general direction and
suggesting 'here, feed yourself and your family you bitch'. The only way
they're filling these positions is using desperate people, there is no other
way. If they actually paid 500,000 - 1 million some people might actually do
this for a set period of time, say 4-5 years and then at least be able to quit
with a house or something, but to do with for years on end living paycheck to
paycheck, that's almost hell.

------
CodeWriter23
I worked a place like this. These kinds of job descriptions betray unrealistic
expectations from management. In all likelihood what you'll find there is an
undocumented clusterfuck of a codebase with some serious design flaws. Limited
or non-existent access to your predecessor for questions about where key
elements like passwords, etc. are located. And by the time the 2 months it
takes to get your mind around it (if you're really good) expires, they'll be
ready to fire you for not meeting productivity expectations.

------
tomtimtall
I think the most important point to take from these super jobs is that if they
don’t value the individual responsibilities enough to hire a dedicated
employee to handle them, then they won’t value you, even if you manage to do
the job of two or three people almost perfectly.

------
HillaryBriss
bravo. this describes a very real trend in the job market. the term "super
job" is a useful handle.

i guess the post-2008 "super recession" emboldened all these companies to
demand "self-starting, high energy, ninja rock stars who thrive on chaos and
multitasking with no supervision" to fill all their "super jobs"

but now these same companies need to adjust to the tighter labor market.

~~~
prepend
Compliments are free and it seems to me that people who accept compliments as
currency don’t have the deep skill set and/or network to command high rates.

This job posting seems more like a small biz who wants a little bit of a bunch
of stuff and would bore 8 people. I used to love these jobs as they let me
develop new skills and test stuff out before finding a niche. It could be that
some maniac actually wants 80 hours/week. But more likely that they have a
bunch of it/dev stuff that together warrants a budget, but otherwise would be
outsourced to a BI monthly services firm or a SharePoint monthly services
firm.

~~~
rpwilcox
I bet it was a small business where someone ("Todd Packer") did all that stuff
once, when it was 3-8 people, a garage, and a bunch of leased equipment.

Now they're 50-100 people, Todd burned out, and they're trying to find another
Todd.

(Maybe Todd explicitly burnt out and everyone knew it, maybe Todd implicitly
burnt out, went job hunting and surprised everyone... I don't know! But that's
what it smells like to me).

Or maybe the CEO is trying to carve off their non-CEO duties. Okkkkkkkkkk....
but owning a company makes you motivated to work unsustainable hours, and...
it's unlikely you'll find a $40/hour contractor willing to give 40 hours/week
+ 40-50 hours "gotta get this done at all costs" free labor. Eventually that
contractor is going to run those numbers...

But, yes, disregarding all that stuff, superjobs are becoming a problem...

------
sharemywin
The worst part about those jobs is there's no time to find another one.

~~~
Kevguy
There's always time to find another job. For every hour of overtime you have
to do, spend an hour looking for a better job.

Yes, it is exhausting, but your future self will thank you.

------
xugo
"Have you finished developing the new feature yet ? Oh and here's my laptop,
it needs reinstalling. Do you know why my WebMail is showing my folders in a
different order than my Outlook ? You need to fix it."

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

------
rninion

      WLAN
    

That they've included this in their bullet points for a role intended to cover
enterprisey Microsoft-ish business application server admin and reporting is a
red flag.

That, and no indication that so many tasks shall be delegated to a team of
loyal underlings and minions. (hint: the minion is _you_ )

Also, " _Excel spreadsheet_ " expertise.

    
    
      ( ._.)

------
neilwilson
All a consequence of a regulatory system that allows fewer jobs than people
that want them.

Do that and competition drives a race to the bottom with all the benefits
flowing upwards to owners.

Can't be fixed until politics gets strong enough and brave enough to take on
corporatism.

------
naveen99
Just take the job and renegotiate salary once you are indispensable, no ?

~~~
wilde
If management is this bad at estimating the work involved, they’ll probably
underestimate retraining and just take the next sucker who comes along
instead.

~~~
HillaryBriss
yes. seen it happen. when management just doesn't get it, they think the
"super person" who just quit is easily replaceable.

and what happens next is: the remaining workers at the company compensate for
the inexperience of the newly hired person until such time as that new hire
truly _is_ a "super person."

that is, in effect, the remaining employees enable management to remain
clueless about this stuff until all of the wheels fall off the entire
operation.

------
HelloNurse
It can start small: project A is predicted to not be full time, so you are
also assigned to project B. But at the first obstacle (or the first wishful-
thinking based estimate or plan) you don't get enough done on either project,
overtime is needed, and it's your fault. Then project C takes the sales team
by surprise, and who's going to deliver it?

------
nickthemagicman
This is a hilarious job I saw today.

[https://denver.craigslist.org/sad/d/linux-network-admin-
jr/6...](https://denver.craigslist.org/sad/d/linux-network-admin-
jr/6586816439.html)

