
Dead End Jobs: Are You Suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? - LiveTheDream
http://www.chadfowler.com/2010/12/30/dead-end-jobs-are-you-suffering-from-stockholm-syndrome
======
SandB0x
Dead end jobs destroy transferable technical skills. I've witnessed miserable
scenes. Many people are stuck maintaining large pieces of poorly written
software. They forget how to actually program because their work involves very
little development, and becomes all about knowing how the specific piece of
software works (and the company's admin procedures) so that they can fight
fires and make minor changes.

Escape involves gathering the confidence and the determination for self study,
so that applying for another job is even a viable option. Skunk-works type
projects at work are strongly recommended.

~~~
patio11
I did three years of maintenance programming on a proprietary enterprise Java
Big Feaking Web App framework, fighting fires and making minor changes. I
learned more about engineering in those years than in college, first job, and
building two software businesses from scratch. Possibly combined. YMMV.

~~~
notJim
Writing and maintaining terribly-designed software is actually a really great
way to learn software design. It makes it so that when you read about a
technique or pattern, the application of that pattern is very real to you, in
the sense of "Oh, if we had done this on component X of product Z, it would
have prevent bugs like Y."

~~~
Periodic
Understanding what to avoid can be as valuable as having an idea of what
specifically to do. I feel like I'm learning a lot about the software
development and management fields where I am now, mostly because I'm starting
to realize why some things are so important as I learn about ways that the
system can be terribly inefficient even while following the letter of Best
Practices.

At least, I'm telling myself it's valuable experience so I can stick it out
for the next six months.

------
parfe
I'm in the process of cleaning up my resume to send out today.

* My responsibilities as a programmer have constantly been increasing. Every year I become the maintainer of more projects as others quit.

* We fired a sys admin and now I'm outright doing his job in addition to my own. Management was slow to get a job posting up and has not brought people in to interview. I feel like my breadth of abilities are being abused to save money. At this point I can't be a good programmer and a good sys admin.

* I asked to telecommute one day a week and the response was actually laughter. After speaking to someone high up the policy was changed and now I need to "Justify why it would be good for the department." Which is literally impossible. There is a key set of words I need to discover that would actually activate the policy, like it's a game or something. Now I'm questing for a new employer.

* I'm working with consultants from a Big Name Firm currently modernizing our X. These consultants send conflicting information and documents which aren't even internally consistent and then bill us while I work with them to clean up their bullshit. These people are earning 5x my pay and can't do their job. Then I was asked to work while I was on vacation this week to check up on the consultants progress. And sure enough they fucked up.

* Salaries are frozen even though we are profitable.

* A majority of my coworkers have no will to learn. I can dictate pseudo code to them to help with an issue and they will actually start typing the pseudo code into the editor and then be confused when it doesn't work. And a week later they will have a very similar issue with no ability to make the mental connection to the work done a week earlier.

Whew, nice to actually type all that out.

~~~
edw519
_"Justify why it would be good for the department." Which is literally
impossible. There is a key set of words I need to discover that would actually
activate the policy, like it's a game or something. Now I'm questing for a new
employer._

You just answered your own question:

key set of words = "Now I'm questing for a new employer."

better key set of words = "I quit."

~~~
parfe
Oh I was well aware what I should say once my "not having to drive is akin to
a small raise" was shot down as "being good for you, not for the department"

I don't want to bluff though, so at this point I'm just moving on. If I'm
required to throw a tantrum and threaten to quit to get what I want I'm happy
to find work elsewhere.

Oh, and I just remembered. The only training we were ever offered came in an
excel spreadsheet with over 1000 courses offered by some training firm.

We were told to email back "Three of four choices" and if there was enough
interest in one of the courses it would be paid for. There was no possible way
for any single course to be chosen definitively by the staff with so many
choices.

But at least management got to feel good about "offering training, but there
wasn't enough interest."

------
jakevoytko
I just left a job that afflicts Stockholm Syndrome on employees. Thankfully as
a systems programmer in a research firm, I avoided the worst of it, but most
people weren't so lucky. Here are some management behaviors that were
effective:

 _Never thank people for finishing something on time, on budget, and to the
project specifications. Instead, heap attention on those who finish in an all-
nighter that ends in the final demo._ Heroic measures are sometimes necessary
and deserve reward, but being part of the process is a big red flag.

 _Never set expectations or milestones, just expect the project to be finished
on the due date._ This had an interesting effect on the work pace. Due to
Parkinson's Law, individual workers finish days before the deadline, but
that's not enough time to test integration. Major problems are discovered
late, and everyone works ridiculous hours to fix it. Thank everyone for making
it work at the last minute, rinse and repeat!

 _Tell employees to work weekends and nights for projects that could be
unnecessary. Make these individual efforts to maximize the time one person
wastes._ When burning the candle on both ends, it's satisfying when you're
done and the work was needed. After all, you took on the impossible, and here
it is! But when days or weeks of your life are thrown away with a laugh, you
would find another job if you actually had the time.

The Perceived Threats were the Bad Things that would happen if our demos
failed. Funding lines would dry up, the company would be in trouble, etc. So
everyone pitched together to keep the system going. Everyone became so focused
that they stopped realizing that it could be done another way.

~~~
sophacles
A couple others I've witnessed:

 _Ideas only go down_ When employees tell you of actually useful innovations
to a product do NOT agree it is a good idea. Mention that it is cute they are
trying, and pretend to forget about it. In 3-6 months have a VP flash
brilliance and push that innovation down from the top. All employee protests
of "I have been pushing for this for months" are to be stonewalled, possibly
with discipline.

 _Permanent emergency mode_ VP or CEO comes down to the dev team in a panic at
least once a week handwringing about how "OMG we're fucked if we don't fix
this" Complaints of "its been crunch time for a year" are met with replies
about other duties as assigned, how if they just did their job this wouldn't
be necessary, and company solvency.

 _Praise only the shitty employees_ Never ever ever praise the employees who
solve a problem. Actively deride the employees who consistently solve
problems, deliver results and so on. This triggers a "what am I doing wrong"
response in them, and gets them working even harder.

 _Keep the situation confusing_ Give employees a set of tasks today and have
them undo that same set of tasks tomorrow. In a week, do it over. Half way
through a day, come down and demand something at top priority, then raise hell
at the end of the day that they didn't finish the work you preempted w/ a top
priority request.

 _rules!_ (this one works quite well in the food service industry) - impose
rules that almost make sense at slow times, but which add unnecessary process
and overhead. Insist on these rules being followed strictly during the busiest
times. If the plebes find ways to speed up the process that is still with in
the rules and has the same effect, begin the firings. Double down if the
process reduces tips or rate of sales for the business. (It turns out most
employees want to make you money, even waitstaff).

 _Find ways to keep your employees cash-poor_ Make them pay out of pocket and
have very slow reimbursement procedures. Delay paychecks or even sneakier,
have "problems" with direct deposit. The net effect is employees with less
liquid money than they might otherwise have... helping get them into that nice
trapped state.

~~~
president
Funny, the company I just got out followed all of those points. Many
"emergency fix this" moments and "problems" processing checks. Often times,
paychecks were lower than they were supposed to be.

Glad I'm out..

------
tobtoh
If you liked the article, you should also read this blog post: "How to keep
someone with you forever" - <http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html>

It's written from the opposite point of view and goes into more details - ie
if you were a manager, you can do X, Y and Z to encourage Stockholm Syndrome
and keep your employees emotionally bound to you. It's a pretty scary 'how-to'
guide!

~~~
LiveTheDream
The additional reading links at the end are also interesting and relevant[1].
Also, this strip illustrates a horrible example of an abusive workplace[2].

[1]
[http://www.liberatedthinking.com/data/Library/SATANISM/Satan...](http://www.liberatedthinking.com/data/Library/SATANISM/Satanic%20Bible/AirVII%20Not%20All%20Vampires%20Suck%20Blood!.htm)

[2] <http://bigbigtruck.deviantart.com/gallery/9680890#/d24ih85>

------
MrFoof
I've been mindful of this since my teenage years, which is why I swore to
myself a few things before I had even turned 16:

* If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it.

* Fear of failure is a great motivator. When you quit without having another opportunity already lined up, you have a lot of obvious motivation to find a new job since your income is $0. I've found it easier than lulling myself into complacency by continuing to get my income from the source I hate.

* Don't just zig, zag. I've been programming professionally for 12 years. Eventually I will stop, at the very least from being bored. Honestly, I want to work on Formula 1 cars, preferably before I'm 40. One day I'll stop building massive data engines for finance, and instead work on bleeding edge race car engines for racing teams. In the next 18 months I'm working on chasing another crazy dream successfully enough to have the option to walk away from big finance research.

It's difficult to describe my mindset about this, and being a ruthless, very
self-critical perfectionist probably helps tremendously. I always joke that
it's my mission in life to prove everyone else wrong.

The one that is hardest to follow is the first. For instance, I've never
completely struck it out on my own, and have always worked for startups run by
other people. My solution was to create a business that could be successfully
run by myself, with no help from anyone. That's in the works... but in the
meantime, I'm at another startup.

~~~
artmageddon
Reading your post, I feel like you're me, except I haven't worked at startups.
Addressing your first two points:

* If I don't like a situation, I will leave it. After all, the easiest way to change your environment is to escape it.

I feel conflicted with this one. While what you say is true I can't help but
feel, when I try to apply to certain situations in life, like I'm quitting...
or that I'd beat myself up for "being a quitter who didn't try hard enough to
make things better" at a particular job or relationship or something of the
sort. There's something to be said about the potential payoff relative to the
amount of effort involved in making things better, of course.

Your second point is something I've been personally stuck in for awhile,
mostly given the economic downturn and seeing friends go unemployed for quite
a long time. Still, I probably have to make that jump sooner or later.

~~~
GrooveStomp
I understand your point, but I think it might not always be possible to
improve the work situation enough to justify staying there. I think it's
always worthwhile to give it a try and see how much change you can effect, but
there is a practical limit.

As far as unemployment - I only know of one friend who is currently
unemployed, and that's by choice! Not that this is indicative of North America
as a whole; but it does reflect what I've heard others say in regards to there
always being good jobs available for good people who are skilled.

~~~
artmageddon
Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I talked about the potential payoff.
I certainly have skills and a decent resume, but have had trouble getting
interviews my way.

------
edw519
I once worked at a company that managed to pull off all four conditions with
one brilliant but devious hack: The warehouse uniform was a t-shirt imprinted
with, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

 _Perceived Threat_

This implied that problems were the workers' fault, not the boss's. Subtle,
but effective.

 _Small Kindness_

Believe it or not, many people were actually glad to be given their own
t-shirt by the boss.

 _Isolation from Other Perspectives_

 _Everyone_ had the same t-shirt. Eventually, what started out as a joke
became the accepted condition.

 _Perceived Inability to Escape_

There was never any doubt who was in control. Resistance was futile.

~~~
encoderer
Oh yes, I recently escaped from a company like this. I'm not afraid to name
names: ClickBooth.com, a Sarasota company in the affiliate marketing space.

Myself and other programmers that once worked there all feel so grateful, we
all get together on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out.

Here's a funny anecodote. They were having a hard time finding new developers.
About 9 months ago, if you look through my HN posts, I posted to a "Who Is
Hiring" thread. I mentioned a few of the cool things about working at
Clickbooth and put my work email address in my post.

The next day I was called into my managers office. The HR woman saw my HN
post. She was upset. For some reason. Still don't understand why, exactly. But
it's not "my place" to post these things, I was told. And I should go delete
my post. And my manager, he played the "good cop" routine... "I talked to the
CEO and I'm not going to pursue this further." Oh, really? How lucky of me.
You won't discipline me for, ya know, going above and beyond and trying to
attract good developers to the team. Oh, gee, thank you sir, so much, for your
kindness.

I didn't mean to rant for so long, but boy, it feels good.

~~~
va_coder
Thanks for the post.

Anybody know if there is a good place on the Web where people can be honest
about what it's like to work at specific companies?

~~~
kenjackson
glassdoor.com is probably the most popular I know of. There's also vault.com.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Glassdoor weirds me out a bit from the other side.

It's a little unsettling going there the day after a round of interviews and
basically reading a description of what it was like to be interviewed by me.
No names, but I can definitely identify myself and some other co-workers by
the questions we asked candidates.

~~~
pavel_lishin
A little weird, but getting good feedback on your performance sounds like it
would be pretty nice to me. I mean, it might not feel great, but at least
you'd know what needs improvement.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It wasn't feedback so much as it felt...disconnected and impersonal. The
candidates didn't offer opinions, just descriptions of the interview flow
(number of interviewers, how it was structured) and the types of questions
asked. It felt like I was reading a transcript of a wiretap or something.

------
Hoff
You can become mentally locked into a programming language or development
tools or an operating system, or to particular approaches to solving problems,
too.

Learning something entirely new is more work, as is spending your own money on
this given employers can tend to avoid funding career-unrelated tools and
learning.

Corporations themselves can become locked into products and solutions and
businesses.

Counterintuitively, there can be value in the _bungee boss_ approach in
countering this syndrome; of a policy of periodic and scheduled managerial
evictions with business reviews and a review of the bosses, and of
institutionalizing _some_ instability within organizational management. A
Darwinian policy of up or out; where each middle-tier and upper-level bosses
are treated as and measured akin to a self-contained CEO and sales rep, and
where each is going to be promoted or pushed out.

~~~
njonsson
Agreed. I spent several years shackled to the Microsoft tool chain, exhibiting
multiple symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. I'm grateful to be free.

------
jimfl
The modern corporate structure has evolved to exploit this dynamic, so it
ought to come as no shock that most everyone here has experienced it. In fact,
my guess is that more than half of HNers who think positively about their
current position will eventually look back upon it with feelings of having
been manipulated in this way.

Even shops that style themselves as non-traditional will adopt this corporate
body plan as they grow, because the new directors and officers have had "best
practices" ingrained in them.

One term specifically stands out throughout my career: if you are told by the
company that you are "empowered," then you're not.

~~~
yuhong
>Even shops that style themselves as non-traditional will adopt this corporate
body plan as they grow, because the new directors and officers have had "best
practices" ingrained in them.

Any idea how to solve this?

------
tgflynn
Doesn't this situation describe about 3/4 of the working age US population ?

I find it ironic that a nation where freedom is supposedly so highly valued
accepts relegating most of its people to corporate slavery.

~~~
kongqiu
Exactly. At my last corporate job, there were a few extreme libertarians who
would rail against "big government taking away our freedoms" at the drop of a
hat -- but these same guys would meekly submit to all of the 1984-esque
corporate BS (swiping a badge 9 times to get to your desk, weekly 'IT
Security' reminders that your every action is being logged, surveillance
cameras everywhere...

------
comxo
Like some here, I recently escaped a company which pulled off these four
condition on every employee in every dept. Am not ashamed to name and shame
them either. ComXo, a Slough UK, based umbrella company with call2.com,
buttontel.com and multivoice.com brands under them. Here's the deal....

"We run a tight ship, everyone has to be in at 9am" ... The employer had one
person he believed is the cream for the week and their given top
spot...everyone else is treated like dead wood for the next week or two.
Percieved threat of getting fired if you were the dead wood, and some did...to
our amazement..this kept the rest quiet, head down, trying utmost not to get
noticed!

Small Kindness...This was amazingly executed. The employer introduced an great
bonus scheme and got you to agree to it and the job/project delivery based on
it. The scheme is known as "MBO"

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_objectives>).

The objectives were set, one/two meetings take place and then you got a nice
tidy sum, around 8% of the total bonus...then the scheme was shutdown, your
locked in to the project, otherwise...see perceived threat above!

Isolation from other perspectives - provided you met the project deadline, did
the utmost to killoff the competition to be the "cream" mentioned about, you
were in with a chance to be IT / Sales / product (you name the dept)
manager.....keep waiting.....the perception was..."we dont need an manager, we
do a great job without one". The employer is the manager for all depts, have
you heard such tosh!

Perceived inability to escape - Majority was told, they could never get paid
as well as they do there, the jobs easy and "you" make it difficult, all you
have to do is A, B and C, we have to do D, E and F-Z..your lucky! They even
went as far saying how would they cope without you...praise that were simply
words to keep some staff working till 9PM when they would refuse to pay a
penny over the 9-5 allocated!

Myself and other ex-employees all feel extremely grateful, we all get together
on a regular basis and feel so lucky to have gotten out when we did too! We
were only lauging last week when we found they were using their own employees
to advertise their services on youtube (try serching for "comxo"), amazing
what they got their employee to do in the name of the company!

Sorry for the long rant.

------
johnohara
While Stockholm Syndrome may be the observable result, the underlying emotion
is fear.

Addressing one's fear is a shared part of the human condition. Which may be
why we admire those who act, persevere, and succeed.

------
tsbaron
A poor economy doesn't help either. I think part of the fear is not being able
to find other work to pay the bills so many of us settle for the current
situation... or work on startups on the side!

~~~
meterplech
Yeah- the threat is very real for people underwater on their mortages, with
huge student loans, or about to put kids through college. It definitely is an
awful position to be in, but a lot of people are forced to do this to make
ends meet. It's not just psychological disorder.

~~~
Volscio
It's also tough for people who are actually not in much debt, aren't
underwater, aren't in financial stress. Because they can only make do with a
few months unemployed. That's a small margin for
failure/experimentation/following your "passion".

~~~
tsbaron
Whatever happened to the American Dream? These scenarios certainly don't sound
like it. A lot of Americans (if not a majority) are in a similar situation.

~~~
artmageddon
"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in
it." -George Carlin

------
adolph
A wider look at similar ground is "The Gervais Principle." [1]

1\. [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/)

~~~
va_coder
That's totally worth reading

------
varjag
So, to summarise, S.S. type of jobs can be ones that provide:

\- occasional bonuses

\- competitive salary

\- great tech to play with

\- high status within the company that you might lose if not keep up

Now, the question is, does that really sound like a terrible job environment
to you? Where one is supposed to go from there? Entrepreneurship? Consulting?
Cause actual salaried jobs don't get any much better than that.

~~~
pyre
I don't think that those things all necessarily combine. For example, you
could hate everything about the job, but be afraid to leave because the
benefits package is good. There is also the chance that you haven't 'shopped
around enough' and think that the benefits package is better than it actually
is.

E.g. my employer was touting that our healthcare costs are ~$300/month less
than the 'industry average' (though they didn't state _which_ industry they
think that we are in -- it's not cut-and-dry like 'financial services' or
something). Someone that I know left the company for a ~$30K/year increase in
salary. The difference in benefits payments does not out-weigh the salary
difference, but if you're focusing too much on something like 'competitive
salary package' you may not have the whole picture. [Obviously it's more
nuanced that this, because different healthcare packages have different levels
of coverage too, but this is just a simple example off the top of my head
where focussing too much on the micro can cause you to miss the macro.]

------
dev_jim
I don't know why anyone would put up with this nonsense. The market for tech
is amazing right now and has been for years. It's inexcusable that anyone
worth their salt should feel trapped in a dead-end job.

~~~
rdrimmie
I think imposter syndrome (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>)
contributes, and a grim view of prospects combined with lack of knowledge on
how to find jobs. If all you're doing is reading monster.com postings or
whatever then the majority of jobs postings that are out there are terribly
written and deeply discouraging.

~~~
cake
Any advice on what could be better than reading monster.com ? (genuinely
interested)

~~~
rdrimmie
Meeting people. It's not easy and it's not fast, but if you can find an
interesting and relevant meetup, or user group or some-such you can start
talking to people doing interesting things.

Local technology associations are also good sources. I'm in Waterloo, where
there are organizations like Communitech (<http://communitech.ca>) and
Canada's Tech Triangle (<http://techtriangle.com>) that offer social events
and whatnot. Also, if you're really bored or motivated, you can go through
their membership lists checking out all the companies in the area and see if
they're doing interesting things.

Look for Camp events in your area too. DemoCamps, StartupCamps, BarCamps,
FooCamps, yadda yadda.

------
narrator
I was starting to feel like I was in a dead end job a couple years back and
then I started programming like I wanted to quit but leave the company in a
good position. I automated everything. All of a sudden I had copious amounts
of spare time to work on interesting projects and the business started growing
rapidly as we were able to scale easily to larger operations and add more
revenue with fewer mistakes and more customer satisfaction. I kept up the same
pattern, and a couple years later the company is doing better than ever, I've
gotten raises, etc. I've also been able to move-on from boring maintenance to
new projects as the old stuff practically runs itself.

Moral of the story is, if you are getting bored you're probably not automating
enough or making tools to let non-tech people do most day to day stuff. If
your management has a problem with that, or prevents you from doing that, then
you should move on.

------
sp4rki
The author should add "Founder's or CEO's promises of grandeur, huge exits,
and unbelievable equity". I'm currently leaving for greener pastures (after
three years), but this is so common in our industry that it's not even funny.
If you're promised fame, fortune, equity, and power, and in two or three years
you're not at least one step closer to those goals - you're being played. Over
confident founders with delusions about how great their idea really is are the
life force of said Stockholm Syndrome for employees.

------
pilom
My wife read this over my shoulder and said it is extremely accurate for teach
for America. They not only make you love your employer, but feel like a
terrible person for quitting.

~~~
100k
Obligatory: "Teach for America Chews Up, Spits Out Another Ethnic-Studies
Major"

[http://www.theonion.com/articles/teach-for-america-chews-
up-...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/teach-for-america-chews-up-spits-out-
another-ethni,1293/)

------
raghava
_> >Perceived threat_

Put in place a procedure to rate people in a relative fashion, and link this
to benefits and compensation. Make hard slabs in percentage for each rating
(excellent 10%, good 25%, average 50%, below average - rest). Does not matter
if there is a team full of awesome wonderful guys, someone is going to get
rated as 'below average'; and in a team comprising mostly of below average
guys, many still end up getting 'excellent'/'good'.

 _> >Small kindness_

Boast of world-class infrastructure, gym, sprawling campus. This would trump
the fact that BigCo pays less than industry average, or the abysmal type of
work involved.

 _> >Isolation from other perspectives_

Again, the cult of personality and culture vacuum as mentioned in the post.
And a lot of make-believe thrown in. And Goebbels style propaganda to instill
that "all's well" notion, worked out masterfully. Not many within this BigCo
would know that the tools of the trade are, or the best practices, or even the
options in terms of technology.

 _> >Perceived inability to escape_

In case of few places I know, this is not just perceived, it would be a hard
fact and reality. Maintaining legacy VB code, spending an average of 6 months
on every sort of technology (without mastering anything), and being an excel
warrior aren't really great on resumes (except of course when applying for
BigCo, that is).

"Institutionalization" is the word that many of my colleagues use to convey
the feeling. :(

------
stagas
Living in a society where you have to pay taxes and obey the law, matches the
Stockholm Syndrome characteristics. Society, the political system and its
forces (police, army) is the abuser that threatens if you don't pay your
bills, taxes etc., isolates us from different perspectives, occasionally shows
a little kindness, and it's seamingly impossible to escape that situation.

The difference is we get to choose who's the abuser going to be.

------
belhassen
SS is phenomenon of structural deficiency, not contextual input.

some will have SS in their job, in their affective life, in their intellectual
life. others will use their job, their affective life, their intellectual life
to achieve beyond. and sometime they ll even use SS of the first.

Nicolas

------
donaq
_If you work for BigCo, you learn to do things The BigCo way._

Apologies for going off on a tangent, but this sort of jumped out at me. Is
this consistent? Shouldn't it be either

a) ... do things the BigCo way.

or

b) ... do things The BigCo Way.

Native is not my English tongue, so I just want to make sure. :p

~~~
SteveC
It depends if the name of the company name is "The BigCo" or just "BigCo", but
as he referred to it as BigCo just before then it would seem to be a mistake.

~~~
donaq
Ah, thanks for the clarification.

------
Periodic
I don't enjoy my current job. However, as soon as I mentioned quitting after
six months to my family and friends they reacted uniformly negatively. "You
can't do that, it wouldn't be respectful to the people who hired you." "You'll
make (friend who recommended and vouched for you) look bad." "It will look
really bad on your resume to only have a job for six months."

It was enough to break my determination to quit and now I find myself looking
for a new job much more casually. I have dreams about changing things from the
inside. Let's see how long that lasts...

~~~
cookiecaper
I've never had a job that lasted longer than six months. Some employers think
it's weird but I don't really mind. Just one job that didn't last doesn't look
so bad, just say "We just didn't mesh well", or something like that. There's
no reason to let your friends scare you about that -- again, almost everything
I've done professionally has had the universal disapproval of family and
friends, and it's not that big of a deal. If you're unhappy, blow it; your
family and friends aren't the people stuck sitting around hating their life
all day every weekday. When I worked a "real job", I would always hate how
short the weekend was, and spend most of Sunday in dread anticipating Monday's
return to the death world of the office.

------
ntraft
I thought this was a great comment from the original article (comment #18):
"We’re lucky as software developers, even if we’re moderately good we have a
lot of options, the pay is good, it’s not the same for many others in other
industries. If I broached this subject with friends who are not software
developers they’d tell me I’m a bigot and I should be happy with what I have."

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mkramlich
This is one of the reasons I prefer contracting/consulting. I feel like much
more of a free/non-enslaved human being than I was before. I'm not totally
"free", in that I still have to do things for others, follow external rule
systems, I have to obey physical laws, etc. but I am more free than before.
Closer to a state of bliss, as they say.

------
geovedi
_Please stop wasting your precious time._

yep, i'm senselessly stuck in bad job situation. lol

------
julius_geezer
There was a very good piece on this posted to HN this fall. Wish I could
remember the source...

------
checoivan
I'm printing this and pasting it in my bathroom's mirror.

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aheilbut
The same might be said for grad school...

~~~
stevenbedrick
"It's not just a job... it's an indenture!"

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maeon3
Amazing, I never thought if that way. This notion really explains some
phenomenon that I've seen. Coworkers I knew drove themselves insane
programming themselves to death for someone they didn't even like. Leading
those individuals to suicide to escape. It never occurred to them that they
could change jobs. Stockholm Syndrome definitely affects programmers. If I
catch anyone doing this again I'm blowing the whistle.

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hysterix
I remember working at a very large, technically oriented company.

After it was discovered I had actual development skills, I was asked to work
on a project in my off time without any extra compensation for it.

They pretty much wanted me to go home after a full days work, and put in more
work to develop a system for them, totally unpaid.

Later that month I gave my two weeks.

~~~
ecounysis
Why did you give two weeks as opposed to just boxing up your stuff and letting
them know you were done? Would they have shown you the same courtesy?

~~~
hysterix
No probably not. At the time though I thought I needed to use them as a
reference.

I made good friends with my boss though, so I probably could have used him as
a reference and quit without the two weeks.

------
yuhong
I know. Fear-based top-down command and control is fundamentally flawed.

