
I Knew a Programmer that Went Completely Insane (2013) - tim333
http://startingdotneprogramming.blogspot.com/2013/04/i-knew-programmer-that-went-completely.html
======
kitsune_
Rant incoming:

I've recently been involved in a project where I worked very long hours for
weeks in a row, including Saturdays and Sundays. One day I got the flu but I
ignored it. I stayed at work till 11:45pm. I was shaking uncontrollably when I
was walking home, I felt like dying. I took two days off but the flu stayed
with me for an entire fucking month and it was hell. Had some serious relapses
and felt like shit all the time.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, I finally feel better, but one day I got up
from the couch and had the most horrible attack of vertigo and dizziness. I
had to throw up hard, and the vertigo didn't go away. When I woke up the next
morning I thought I was better but the moment I got up from bed the same shit
happened. I went to the emergency with my gf and it turns out I have benign
paroxysmal positional vertigo. The doc managed to fix it with some positional
maneuvers, but I still feel a little bit disoriented from time to time.

I feel like this job is ruining my health.

Edit: Removed some personal info.

~~~
michaelochurch
Working through a flu (a real flu, not a cold) is _not_ a good idea. I've been
around Wall Street and startups for a long-ass time, so I know people who've
developed permanent anxiety/panic disorders from that. (March is a deadly
month. You have winter's flus and viruses combining with spring's mental
health risks.) Flu is usually mild, but it _is_ a potentially life-threatening
condition, i.e. not to be fucked around with.

You need to change jobs and get one that won't have you working unreasonable
hours. Any time other than now is too late.

~~~
stronglikedan
I find that if I try to work through a flu, I'll be sick for a week or two. If
I just go home and stay in bed, I get over it in a few days.

In the long run, it's much more productive to take care of yourself before
your work. No matter how productive you think you are being while sick, the
quality of your work is most likely suffering.

~~~
michaelochurch
Some companies have this horrible "PTO" pogrom (typo intentional) in which
sick days and vacation days are pooled. It wouldn't be so bad if there were a
sizable pool (say, 30 days) but usually, it's an excuse to present the company
as having ample vacation (15-20 days) while actually deducting sick days from
it. It means that a week-long illness will cut into your vacation.

Then you have this arrangement where people "work from home" (WFH) while
actually ill, just to avoid losing a PTO day. Then you need a manager who
understands the difference between sick WFH (don't hit him up, he might read
emails and type out a few replies and that's it) and real WFH (you can
actually expect that person to be working)-- and who, in addition, cares about
that distinction.

~~~
aestra
> ample vacation (15-20 days)

15-20 days is hardly "ample" vacation time.

~~~
michaelochurch
I agree but, by US standards, it's generous.

We are not a first world country anymore.

------
eterm
I had a glimpse into that "lack of recognition" recently when the company had
an AGM type thing for all employees.

We're fundamentally a software company, we fundamentally make some B2B
software, sell it, ship it, support it.

Despite being a software company, the development team, the whole development
office was a side note. It was clear from this event that the company as a
whole saw the development team as a marginal entry under R&D and actually that
it was support and sales who were the "real" business.

It made me realise quite sharply that even as a software company, we're not a
software company, we're a support company who happens to make a product to
support.

It goes a long way to explain why programmers don't always get the recognition
that they think they deserve. While you might see your core product as a piece
critical to the success of the company, others may barely notice it.

~~~
marcus_holmes
I had an exit interview with a software company like this. The CEO was a
marketing guy, and asked me why I was leaving after only a few months. I
explained that the salary they paid was pretty low compared to what I could
get elsewhere. He agreed and said they considered paying software developers
the market rate was too expensive and that they would prefer to have a high
turnover of devs rather than pay more. I pointed out that this was a short-
sighted policy for a software company to have, and he asked why. I explained
that the quality of their product would be lower than if they weren't
continually training new staff, and he was surprised that I thought that
developers had anything to do with the product. As far as he was concerned,
the product was produced by marketing, and the code was unrelated to it.

By far the most bizarre exit interview I'd had, but very genial and good-
natured for that.

Out of curiosity, I just checked out how they're going. And yes, they did have
>90% of the market, now down to 60% ish and dropping.

~~~
mathattack
If you left over pay, wouldn't you have known that a few months earlier when
you took the job ?

~~~
reboog711
I don't know the situation; but it is easier to get a job when you have a job.
People love the thrill of the chase and like the fact that you are choosing
them over your option. It can also be a factor that, if you are jobless,
people wonder why and that can work against you.

So, depending on the situation, a job with low pay may be better than no job
at all.

~~~
rwallace
Maybe, but then you need to make sure you're actually working on improving
your situation: if you're in a crappy job, you should be quietly applying for
other jobs.

------
Nanzikambe
This isn't as uncommon as you might think, I've seen colleagues, particularly
those of the workaholic bent, crack - though not to this degree. A good friend
used to quite literally sleep in the office during crunch times. When
management pointed to him as the reference example for the rest of us, I left.
I feel guilty for doing so, he ended up taking several years off on disability
after his marriage ended, the founders successfully exited and the new owners
outsourced development.

Ultimately when you push yourself this hard, you're doing it wrong. Work to
live, not live to work. Life is far too short for that. As much as I love what
I do, I harbour no illusion that any of it is important enough to damage my
well being.

~~~
kamaal
Not all workaholics are same. Some know when to just take a break. What
happens with people like that is, they generally make great progress career
wise, take breaks when needed. Come back and again play hard.

I know a successful people who do that.

This isn't binary 'healthy long living easy takers' Vs 'Just to be dead
workaholics'. There are regions in between them where people do just fine.

~~~
Nanzikambe
A fair point, but in my book the "holic" in "workaholic" implies the inability
to do just what you describe. You're describing an effective worker.

------
at-fates-hands
It's interesting to note people have always been taught if you work hard,
you'll get ahead. This just isn't the case anymore, and this is a great
example.

This guy worked his ass off and how is he rewarded? By being given tighter
deadlines and more work. No promotion, no increase in pay. They just worked
him to death until he broke in glorious fashion.

I just won't accept this lifestyle anymore. When I leave on Friday, my laptop
and work phone stays off all weekend. When I leave the office, it takes an act
of congress to get me to crack my laptop and do extra work after hours. I've
seen it over and over again how it doesn't matter how hard you work, you need
to know someone to get promoted. Yeah, office politics suck, but if you don't
play the game and simply do your work and go home, you'll be a lot healthier
in the long run.

~~~
PLenz
Amen! I'm the same way - I know that I'll never climb the corporate ladder
this way, but it does mean that I have a happy home life - I actually get to
spend quality time with my wife, get to travel, tend my garden, and just be,
well, happy.

Isn't that the point of life?

~~~
_dark_matter_
It makes me really happy to see someone saying this on HN.

------
DanBC
Weirdly simplistic view of mental illness and an employer's responsibility to
their workforce.

"completely insane" normally refers to psychotic illness - a person cannot
distinguish their hallucinations or delusions from reality. This type of
illness is rare.

We do not reduce stress in the workplace to reduce the incidence of very rare
illness, although that's a useful side effect.

We reduce stress in the workplace to increase productivity and quality, and to
reduce the incidence of much more common stress related mental health
problems.

It is disappointing to see that a company chooses to fire a previously
productive employee because that employee had some time in hospital. It feels
like it is fine to do that if the employee had a mental health problem but
not, for example, cancer or a broken hip. (But maybe this is a bias of mine: I
just hear about the people with mental health problems?)

[1] I use "stress" to mean "bad stuff, over which you have little control". I
use "pressure" to mean "good stuff, that makes the job exciting and dynamic
and etc". What one person may find stressful another person may find enjoyable
pressure. re

~~~
Nanzikambe
> It feels like it is fine to do that if the employee had a mental health
> problem but not, for example, cancer or a broken hip.

It most certainly isn't. No idea where the guy in the article is, but anywhere
civilized a verifiabley sick employee, regardless of the nature of the
problem, that's fired should have some legal recourse.

~~~
gtufano
I think the same, but I suspect in the most (all?) of the USA sick employee
have no recourse when fired. I remember something about that (what to say to a
sick employee you're "involuntary separating with") in a course I had in
"Change Management" (what a polite thing to say instead of "Bloody
Restructuring") during my tenure as manager in a US multi-national company.

Which side of the "anywhere civilized" this places USA is a different problem,
open to debate, that seems most of US people don't think is something they
should fix (it's our business, btw, I'm not an US citizen, nor living in the
USA).

~~~
chimeracoder
Even if you are employed at-will, if you are fired for any of a number of
predefined reasons (age, sex, disability status, etc.), you have legal
recourse.

Many states have their own protections as well - a common one is sexual
orientation.

~~~
aestra
>Many states have their own protections as well - a common one is sexual
orientation.

Sexual orientation is protected federally as well.

In 2011 and 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that job
discrimination against Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender individuals
classified as a form of sex discrimination and thus violated Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"The EEOC has held that discrimination against an individual because that
person is transgender (also known as gender identity discrimination) is
discrimination because of sex and therefore is covered under Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. See Macy v. Department of Justice, EEOC Appeal No.
0120120821 (April 20, 2012),
[http://www.eeoc.gov/decisions/0120120821%20Macy%20v%20DOJ%20...](http://www.eeoc.gov/decisions/0120120821%20Macy%20v%20DOJ%20ATF.txt).
The Commission has also found that claims by lesbian, gay, and bisexual
individuals alleging sex-stereotyping state a sex discrimination claim under
Title VII. See Veretto v. U.S. Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0120110873
(July 1, 2011); Castello v. U.S. Postal Service, EEOC Request No. 0520110649
(Dec. 20, 2011),
[http://www.eeoc.gov/decisions/0520110649.txt."](http://www.eeoc.gov/decisions/0520110649.txt.")

[http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/otherprotections.cfm](http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/otherprotections.cfm)

------
aestra
>I was the one that the company sent to visit him in the hospital to check on
him after his breakdown.

What a horrible and terrible breech of the employee's privacy. The employee
has a right to privacy in the hospital and not having his coworkers "checking
up" on him. If he was collecting disability, he should have his doctor
communicate with HR/someone who handles the claims and HR needs to keep their
mouth shut to others. I spent an extended time sick and a bunch of that time
was in and out of the hospital and I would have been awfully pissed, really
really pissed, if my boss or coworkers showed up to "check in on me." That was
my private time to suffer in peace, I was disheveled, suffering, and in pain
and the last person I wanted to see was my boss/coworker. I was collecting
disability through my employer and my doctors filled out the appropriate forms
and faxed them in to the HR person who handled medical claims. I informed my
boss when I would be coming back to work when I knew and was cleared by my
doctor. My doctor had to sign another form permitting me to return to work, so
I called my boss once that form was faxed into HR. If they needed to know
if/about when he was coming back, they could have called and asked if there
was a time the employee would be back to work without asking details of his
illness or progression. Sending someone to "check up" on him was terribly
inappropriate and was possibly a violation of the law.

Furthermore, the author also doesn't have any idea what caused the illness,
don't assume it was caused by working too hard. There could have been no cause
at all, or the employee could have had a history of acute psychotic episodes
for all the author knows.

------
channikhabra
This scared the hell of me. I am on my first programming assignment ever,
putting extra efforts to do it quick and do it well. I am working on it for
like 16 hours a day and in 3 days have brought it to level which was expected
to be in 15 days. I made it 18 hours yesterday thanks to the comments like
"phenomenal work" from my employer/mentor.

Side effects? My head is feeling numb. It's the same feeling as you have when
sitting crossed legs and your feet go 'sleep', when you can't feel you have
feet and there's no feeling of pain on pinching them. Also I am finding it
harder and harder to think deep. I could collect great level of detail
earlier, but now I feel like my head is refusing to think. I thought it was
just another level of boredom as I haven't seen daylight for last 3 days. I
thought my brain is behaving strange because it's tuning itself for more
optimal performance. But F __k performance, I didn 't realize things can get
as wrong as the OP says.

~~~
pgeorgi
The main issue with doing work in 3 days that was scheduled for 15 under such
circumstances is that your employer will start to expect such performance -
and you might get a worse treatment for performing "normally" than your
coworkers who never excelled (but weren't particularily unproductive either).

This doesn't mean that you should never put in some extra hours and work
miracles when the situation is clearly improved by doing so, but be careful
about the expectations you set. They might come to haunt you.

And in particular, learn to say "No". It doesn't make you "friends", like
cutting 12 days off the schedule (and by the way, if your work is billed by
days, that's actually a problem), but it's one helpful tool to keep your
sanity.

~~~
saalweachter
Also note that when you do 15 days of work in three 16+ hour days, what you've
actually done is do 15 days of scheduled work in 6-7 days by being smart and
competent, and then compressed those 6-7 days into three by being stupid and
anxious to fit in.

Quit while you're ahead. If you can cut project times in half while working 8
hours a day, you probably shouldn't kill yourself working 16+ hours a day to
quarter them. Halving is impressive enough.

------
DanielBMarkham
I've known a few programmers who have been institutionalized.

Many places that hire programmers abuse them terribly. One of my goals in life
is to do something about the terrible way most developers are treated.

However, I've also known a few people who, when diagnosed with
serious/terminal illness, chose to continue working through that until the
end. These are people who made conscious choices to do the thing they love
right up until the end -- even if by working it shortens their life.

Finally, let's not forget that programming attracts the aspies -- the people
able to do something terribly unnatural: sit in front of a glowing rectangle
and type for hours on end solving abstract mental puzzles.

Stories like this one push all the Millennial buttons. Don't sacrifice your
life for something as silly as work! Don't let the system abuse you! Take care
of yourself first!

These are all good and true things. But it's also true that people have the
right (I'd argue obligation) to find something in their pathetically short
existence that's more important than they are. Not every unhealthy decision is
a poor one. We're not just put on this planet to exist.

~~~
tekalon
My husband is an aspie, and he still burns out. No matter the project (School,
work, freelance, etc), he still has to pace himself. He currently has some
sort of flu due to burning himself out on a project class. He was doing
something he enjoyed, but the professor was rediculous on project timelines
and expectations and the whole class is suffering from it. If anything,
because he is an aspie, he has a lower tolerance for burnout.

------
thejosh
Previous discussion (guess you got this off reddit yesterday):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575144)

547 points by null_ptr 332 days ago | flag | comments

~~~
tim333
Ah, yeah. Sorry - didn't realise it was up already.

------
arca_vorago
Just like the good ol office space quote, to me this is about incentive. I
have PTSD from my combat time in the Corps, and when I got out I determined to
never work so hard for so little ever again. I have since been a part of 3
startups (current employer included), and I continually see the issue where C
levels like to do C level things and offer little to no incentive for actual
productive employee's to continue to be so. I think there is a
miscommunication in the American social business contract that is more
exaggerated these days and that is where these problems start.

It goes like this:

C-Guy: I work 80 hours a week, and have for X years.. (implying worker A
should too)

Worker A: I get paid salary, and no matter how hard I work I don't get
anything other than state-mandated overtime pay.

C-Guy: Well if you worked harder and produced more value to company you might
get a bonus or incentive Y.

(This is where the misunderstanding comes into play)

Worker A: I'm not going to kill myself on verbal half-assed promises of maybe
bonuses. Honestly I'm getting underpaid as it is (startup culture ftl) and my
time is worth more than you are paying me.

The problem is the idea of vague half promised incentives that aren't on paper
and aren't easily legally enforceable. Hence, and entire section of the work
force who might be able to do great things doesn't.

I forgot the other jab the C-level gives:

C-Level: We are working to benefit humanity and doing great work! Isn't that
incentive enough?

------
not_paul_graham
This is true outside of programming too.

I work at an engineering consultancy and I was highly motivated to "prove my
worth" going in. I shipped like crazy on my job in the initial few days. X
numbers of procedures written, Y number of proposals evaluated, Z number of
reports generated where X, Y, and Z were much higher than average. It was
mostly to see how much I could get done, and I was getting a lot done.
Initially my boss was happy but then more work kept piling up on my desk
because I could obviously get this work done while some of my co-workers
continued to work at snail's pace. I don't fault them because they obviously
knew that it was better just to do the minimum amount of work to not raise
questions and then chill in the break room or just catching up on each other's
lives.

Anyway long story short I learned that unless it is a make or break situation
where the upside is written in a contract, it is just better to coast along
when working at MegaCorps (I can't comment on startups as I haven't worked at
one).

On another note, one of the things we do is we train and certify people. This
is a high volume service and most companies want certificates for each
individual that they contract with us for a training. One of my co-workers
used to manually copy fields such as ; FirstName, LastName, NameOfTraining,
DateofAttendence, Validity, NameOfCompany, NameOfTrainer, CertificateNo, etc.
from an Excel file for each individual on to a word document and then hit
print. She would do this 100 times if there were 100 attendees who were
trained. It was her full time job because it was so time consuming. All I had
to do was setup MailMerge on MS Word that took data from Excel and generated
all the certificates in one batch to reduce her full time job to 10 minutes.
Obviously I need to switch companies soon lest I go crazy too.

------
mathattack
I've known a couple people who have gone insane to varying degrees. All were
hard workers.

One was a grad student with schizophrenic tendencies, who just lost it after
Phd quals.

Another was a coworker who had a nervous breakdown at a client site after too
many trips.

Another was a grad student who had false views of grandeur after stopping his
medicine.

Another threatened violence on the entire company after being let go.

Other than hoping that I'm not the common link... But - I think it's more than
just "Working too hard." Working beyond your capacity isn't good, but there
are other things at work too. Many focused geniuses have autistic-like
symptoms. The mind has a lot of complex chemistry. "Just work less" doesn't
solve it, any more than "Just cheer up" won't help someone that's clinically
depressed.

My heart is out to the people on this thread who shared painful stories.

------
scarmig
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the Redbull fridge at midnight looking for an
angry fix,

nodejs hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to DynamoDB in the
machinery of the cloud,

who runway and hungry and hollow-eyed and high sat up staring at the
supernatural luminescence of terminal illness floating across the tops of
Macbooks contemplating scale,

who bared their brains to Apple under Jobs and saw cross-compiled apps
staggering on tenant servers illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating funding
and Techcrunch tragedy among the scholars of more,

who fled from the academies to publish obscene odes to Mammon in the windows
of the user's skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in
wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall...

------
digita88
I know a lead developer who would complain to me about his team's problems.
Basically "I don't care about your problem, just do your work - I don't care
if you have an addiction, if you have family problems...". He also made a note
to never work with software developers because "they are all crazy". Needless
to say, the guy snapped over an issue is now no longer talking to me.

On another issue, I had a line manager that I had to report to. He was very
"non-technical", for example in my last discussion with him after I quit I had
to do some handover documents. He thought that because an API is "very
technical" (does not even attempt to understand what an API is) it should be
relegated to staff member who he deemed would be "technical enough" to work
with APIs (this staff member was a freakin Director!!). Whenever he requested
something from me, or makes some sort of demand (which makes sense, as he was
a line manager) I used to get -very- angry to the point that I would
physically freeze up out of anger and this is the first workplace where it's
happened. Eventually, I gave my notice to quit.

Sometimes you can't choose your leads or managers, but you can choose how you
react!! Don't leave it too late.

------
jheriko
Having been through some 'nightmare' crunches myself i do feel some sympathy.
However, it is cautious sympathy because this guy chose freely to do this and
made the situation for himself.

The fact that he was too weak of character or naive to deal with the situation
is entirely his own fault and not something that should be respected or
sympathised with too heavily... otherwise the message is that this behaviour
is acceptable and that there is nothing wrong with putting yourself in a
situation where others will have to pay for your mistakes...

Perhaps whats worse is that these situations arise typically because owners,
managers etc. make mistakes - and instead of solving it with their skills they
simply fob off their responsibility onto their underlings - who end up
carrying their dead weight.

Leadership is a two way thing. When your leaders fail you don't be afraid to
chastise them - especially if you are going to work hard to cover for their
failings. Ultimately they will never get booted out or otherwise penalised in
these situations unless /you/ make it obvious that they are failing.

------
ironhide
I worked at a shop where one developer committed suicide, 2 other developers
had mental breakdowns, and another tech manager developed serious medical
issues. Some other suffered silently from alcohol and drug addiction. I can't
tell you home many marriages went under.

To say we have to consider and appreciate the lives and well being of
technical professionals is an understatement.

~~~
zequel
Worked at EA? Another game shop? Curious.

~~~
ironhide
Not a game shop. It was a dotcom.

------
epx
I've had a weird episode in a job. Pressure was immense and the boss had the
nice habit of calling everybody Friday evening or just before an extended
holiday to berate everybody's work, threat to close the branch etc.

Everybody sat tight because the business was lucrative and expected to find
the gold pot at the end of the rainbow, you know. I resisted about 1.5 years.

At April 21, 2003 I began to tremble and it wouldn't go. At April 30 evening,
the boss did the usual show like clockwork (May 1 is holiday here) and then I
quit. (Funny how I remember days, even the hours, of this episode.)

Any kind of contact or just passing by the street where the business was
located, the trembling resurfaced. Was a hard lesson about how you bump your
limit, damage is done and you don't see it coming.

Other people continued to work there under God-knows-what medication. They
kind of improved the treatment of people after I quit, to the point of
forbidding the boss of going to developer's room. But no developer got rich,
either. Empty promises.

------
Beltiras
I snapped at a coworker the other day. Yelled at him and threw him out of the
office.

My mother is dying from brain cancer, my wife was ill (had emergency surgery
on the weekend), getting stuck with the scutwork of integrating code from a
frontend designer that's leaving (I'm usually tasked with backend/devops).

It was not a day I was in the mood for a prank.

------
eplanit
True, succinct wisdom by the author: "It may be hard to swallow but the extra
effort and hours that you put into your job as a software developer does not
usually amount to someone higher up thinking you should run the company. It
has been my experience that good producers are more likely to be asked to
continue to produce.".

------
yeukhon
There is a period people feel angry and sad when they lose the things they
cherish the most at that present moment, e.g. power and reputation. The only
thing you can do is to let them rage a bit verbally, send in people to check
him, take him out for a few meals. I don't know if this is a law or not, but
release him after three months looks like a good gesture.

I used to do this in the past. I would stay in my research lab overnight like
every once or twice a week. even if I went home I would continue to work on my
project. I did that probably because I wasn't very competent. I knew little
but I had an image of what I wanted to accomplish. I had a picture of how the
project should turn out to be. I had a high expectation for myself and I
wanted to amuse me and other people. But being incompetent, I couldn't waste
time so pushed myself very hard.

------
lbacaj
I think most people are even ashamed/afraid to admit they put in too many
hours. The stigma of being exposed as against the norm scares people.

Their employer may find out; that's where the shame stems from. I think a lot
of us feel working too many hours is bad. Except for critical times, like 1-5%
of the time at most, but most of us will never admit to it because of that
stigma.

I was offered a great role recently but turned it down because the employer
explained that most guys here bring their laptops home and work weekends and
the actual work hours are 8 - 6:30 pm. The role had full paid benefits and an
awesome salary.

I am not lazy by any means in fact I am extremely self motivated but there is
a threshold and like most people are saying on here the quality begins to dip
beyond that threshold and your health starts to get affected.

------
goatforce5
(I've posted versions of this before...)

Someone I knew at a quasi-government organisation went to their boss to ask
for more staff and/or more money because they were being overworked and had
far too much to do in to a 40 hour week. Employee was told there was no money
in the budget for staff/raises, but he'd have his official hours cut to 4 days
a week on his same yearly salary, therefore he was getting a 20% bonus. 20%!
Wow!

He still had the same amount of 40+ hours work to do, so the net result was
exactly nothing.

He went back to his desk and was found a short time later slashing his wrists.

He spent some time in the local psych ward and once he was medicated and on an
even keel he went back to work, but was never the same again. He just kinda
pottered around in his own heavily medicated haze and not doing much of
anything.

------
n1ghtmare_
I was working on a project recently (in fact I still am sort of), staying late
(really late) working ... and working. At first it was ok, but doing 3 weeks
in a row with no weekend and very little break in between (the occasional game
session here and there) really got to me. I remember one night I was sitting
in the office I looked out of the window (gorgeous view - 35th floor in a sky-
scaper in Abu Dhabi) and I just started crying. I had a massive breakdown.
I've had panic attacks for the next 2-3 weeks almost daily. Just to clarify, I
love coding, I'm coding in my free time, I enjoy it more than anything. This
being HN, I'm sure a lot of people can relate.

------
quackerhacker
This story seems very familiar...the fact that it's trending again on HN,
leads me to believe that some of us devs must relate with the coder that lost
it.

I can _strongly_ relate with the programmer. With the wealth of knowledge that
I as a coder possess, it is still disappointing when I constantly crunch
numbers, design a structure, or spend what feels like an eternity on a
project, only to be stuck on a simple fix.

I envy the ignorant _seriously_ and those who can accept things for face
value. I over analyze everything and am critical of anything. One of the sweet
blisses I have is to read HN to take a mental break from coding.

------
yiedyie
Still doesn't answer to questions like this:
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/163954/are-
th...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/163954/are-there-
studies-on-what-programming-does-to-the-brain)

------
alien3d
so sad.i always push my junior do some sport like bowling or badminton. i not
believer of agile or extream programming which push programmer to the limit.it
part or senior developer or manager to manage their staff.

------
mikemee
Back in the 80s, I was one of those bright-eyed smart young things that went
to work for a startup as a developer. Before I knew it, I had a team of
developers working for me, and we were all working 80-100 hours / week. At
first it was fun. We enjoyed the work and each others company. We cranked out
code. We laughed at, and with, the sales people as they tried to make the
first big sale that "just needed one more feature".

And then, as their (very young) manager, I realized that we were all being
royally abused by the company. I don't recall what the trigger was, but the
light bulb went off.

I started telling people to go home at 8pm. I urged them to "take weekends
off".

A few months later I was ask to resign ... or to open a new office for the
company in another country. (Never mind that productivity had gone up and
people were _way_ happier - the CEO loved that people were working all night
and weekends and was royally pissed off that they no longer were).

I wish I'd had this to read back then:
[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/). I encourage every engineer to work
through it slowly. And Michael O'Church has great practical advice.

Having worked in several startups since, and a couple of big companies too, I
have a few takeaways that might help newer engineers:

* predictability trumps productivity - if you tell management it will be done by Friday, have it done by Friday. Don't promise them Tuesday and pull an all nighter to do it, and then miss by a day. Pad by a day or two to allow for the inevitable. If you get done early, use it to catch up on your personal work projects (exploring new tools, cleaning up that code from last week, helping out a co-worker). As a manager of engineers, I came to appreciate the (seemingly) slower but more predictable performers, as well as the rockstar miracle workers -- and they usually got paid the same.

* make managers choose what you work on, don't just do it all (they're paid to choose!) - The most useful scheduling / workload trick I learned was to always have handy a list of all the things expected of me. So, when big boss comes over and says "Hey, I know you're busy, but is there any chance you can squeeze in XYZ for me?", you can say, "Sure, I'd LOVE to Mr Big Boss. Which of the following should I push to next week: project A, B or C?" Nine out of ten times, XYZ is less important than what you're already doing and Big Boss will (honestly) re-think and move on. (The sleazy ones will try and find another patsy, so watch to see what they do next so you can calibrate accordingly).

* find a life & validation outside your workplace. When you enjoy your work and your colleagues, it's easy to make that your life. Resist, for fear of living at work. It can be good for a while, but it becomes a rut and you can easily be abused. It's better to find something outside that will forcibly pull you away and give you perspective. Find a sport, form a band, take up a new hobby. Anything that gives you a compelling reason to be out of the office.

* take vacations a week or more at a time. Don't let them expire unused. Don't take them as pay. Get out of town. Go see family. Go skiing/biking/sailing/hiking. Do a course. It will give you perspective and you'll come back to work renewed and a little more clear-eyed.

I see I've rambled on... My meta point is:

Life is short, don't be someone's patsy.

------
ChrisAntaki
> Later he spoke about how the effort he put into the company should have
> given him more respect and a better position.

He was free to find another job, or create one. I hope he bounces back...

~~~
Nanzikambe
> He was free to find another job, or create one.

Easy to say, but not how we work, the more you commit the more difficult it is
to extricate yourself. This holds true of everything I can think of at the
moment: jobs, relationships, gambling and addiction.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
> the more you commit the more difficult it is to extricate yourself

Well said. We commit, and we become invested.

------
D9u
Some of us come back from our twisted versions of personal hell...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Aloha!

------
crusso
I knew a guy who had a similar breakdown because of personal life issues.

Should the take-away be to not have a personal life?

What a silly article and a silly reason to not just take personal
responsibility for the work-life balance that you choose.

~~~
StavrosK
I knew a guy who overdosed on pills and died. Should the take-away be to not
overdose on pills?

Yes, yes it should. Overworking is bad, don't do it. Having a shitty personal
life is bad too, try not to do that either.

~~~
crusso
"overworking" is the new boogeyman.

Rather than encouraging people to make deliberate, healthy choices to find a
work-life balance that achieves the goals they want to achieve, we see
simplistic articles like this trying to pin someone's (very possibly) pre-
existing mental health issues on their work life as though everyone needs to
take more vacation.

Working hard has its place in the path of people who want business success.

~~~
mcv
WTF? This article is exactly about making healthy choices and work-life
balance. You make it sound like overworking and vacation have nothing to do
with healthy choices and work-life balance.

------
mantrax
"Despite being well treated and paid, for his hard work, he was still looked
at as just a worker that produced well. He was never considered to be a key
player in the company."

He was right. He should've been recognized as a key player. But the idea that
being seen as a key player in the company requires you to be higher in the
hierarchy is a fallacy.

The art of good company structure is keeping the hierarchy relatively flat
(not non-existent, but still relatively flat), so hierarchy does not become
the de-facto tool for "recognition" of an employee. There was no reason this
programmer shouldn't have gotten more respect (during decision making) and
more money even than his direct boss, but staying in the position he's in,
where he's contributing his best.

Apple's infamous "top 100" meetings pick 100 of the most influential people in
the company for a secret retreat. They're not selected by hierarchy. They're
selected by their individual contributions. There's a lot of wisdom in that
way of doing things.

And a side note about mental conditions. It's easy to say "oh he was probably
unstable anyway", but that's bullshit. Every one of you "stable" people have a
breaking point. Every one of you. Environmental stress is a huge factor
affecting our mental health. So if this happens at your company, don't look
for external excuses. Look around yourself, identify the causes, fix them.

~~~
kamaal
>>Apple's infamous "top 100" meetings pick 100 of the most influential people
in the company for a secret retreat.

A thing I can assure you those "top 100" people are people whose managers
would have fought hard to be nominated as the top people, and are not
necessarily the actual top people.

This is a big problem in big corporations. Your manager needs to play
Godfather to you, else no matter who you are or what your contributions are,
you are screwed.

~~~
mantrax
You know, cynicism doesn't count as insight nor evidence in my book.

~~~
sentenza
Huh? If your manager dislikes you, consciously or subconsciously, you are
screwed. I didn't know that was controversial.

This is how humans work, regardless of whether we like it or not.

It doesn't mean, however, that it is impossible to get the 100 most
influential people in the company together. It just means that you can't do so
by relying on the existing company hierarchy.

The easiest way is to randomly draw 10000 employees, then give them the
opportunity to anonymously declare which employee they consider the most
influential within their branch/location.

Top 100 voted "go to Disneyland".

------
teemo_cute
I like to view software developers as artists. Artists that are inspired,
happy, and well-rested produce wonderful works of art.

Software development has been dehumanized for so long. It's time for a
positive change.

I believe that when man and technology is in harmony great things will happen.

~~~
acoomans
Agree.

------
michaelochurch
The problem with software engineers is that they embrace Cluelessness. Read up
on the MacLeod hierarchy. Venkatesh Rao's series is a great place to start:
[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/) . You can also read the series I began
last February: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/gervais-
princ...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/gervais-principle-
questioned-macleods-hierarchy-the-technocrat-and-vc-startups/) . Those'll take
a few hours.

The MacLeod pyramid has bare-minimum players (Losers) at the bottom. They
aren't really losers in the sense of being undesirable or weak; they know
employment is a losing proposition and commit minimally (rational
disengagement). In the middle are the overeager Clueless, destined for middle
management but rarely able to cross the barrier (effort thermocline, which is
where jobs transition from getting harder as one moves up to getting easier)
between them and the cynical, politically savvy but rarely eager executives.
At the top are the Sociopaths who are openly out for personal gain. Again,
Sociopaths aren't all bad (the label is more negative than what it describes)
but what they are is self-interested and insubordinate. They won't put the
organization's interests above theirs, and why should they?

The Clueless tier is the worst place to be, because you become the company's
true janitors. You're always cleaning up the messes made by the bare-minimum
players below you and the self-interested, capricious gods of industry above
you. It leads to overwork and burnout (which can be the first step toward
cluefulness and cynicism). You eat buttloads of a pie you don't especially
like (even if you once did, in moderation) and the prize for winning the pie-
eating contest is... more of that same pie.

Software culture embraces the culture of the middle tier (the Clueless).
Startup cults are even worse. They hire specifically to maintain certain
illusions, and exclude people who might contradict those (i.e. over-40
engineers who might say, "I've been here before" when a death march begins or
a ridiculous executive promise, never to be delivered, is made to motivate
people to sacrifice their health.) The real reason these cultish startups
discriminate on age and gender is that they don't want to let in people who
have the perspective to call the execs out on their bullshit.

Some people, steeped in middle-class eagerness and Cluelessness, struggle with
the cognitive dissonance that hits when they realize that (a) there are no
adults over adults-- something people've desired for thousands of years, so
much as to make them up out of vapor and call them "gods"\-- and (b) no
organization is a meritocracy and advancement is _always_ political. It's not
"who you know" over "what you know". It's what you _have_ over those other two
things. Knowing people isn't enough. What can you _do_ for (or to) people?
Rather than acknowledge the ugly truth, they plow into their work (heads in
sand) hoping the ugliness will go away. It never does. It starts to look like
a context-driven case of OCD ("I have to get this done and it has to be
perfect"). For some, it leads to exactly this.

~~~
icu
Excellent post and links, thank you very much for commenting!

------
__itall
Now I can say "I know a programmer who knew a programmer who went completely
insane."

