
Bored people quit (2011) - _qc3o
http://randsinrepose.com/archives/bored-people-quit/
======
nairteashop
> I've gone back and forth on whether managers should code and my opinion is:
> don't stop coding... Over time it means you'll have a harder time talking to
> engineers because you'll forget how they think and how they become bored.

For me, this is the money quote. Like rands, I've gone back and forth on this
over the years as well, but I do strongly believe that you cannot effectively
manage a team if you do not understand what it is that they do, at least at a
high level.

You don't need to be as good at coding as the engineers who work for you, but
you must know enough to empathize with them, and to help mediate dead-locked
discussions.

I'll admit that there are exceptions, and effective s/w managers who can't
code do exist, and I'll also admit that finding such managers is probably not
a scalable task, but I feel it's something that every company should strive
for.

~~~
BSousa
I'm borderline if managers should code or not, but as soon as you get to
manage a team, and the job doesn't require it, do stop coding!

It is not your job anymore, and if over the next 5-10 years you start having a
hard time talking to engineers, than maybe you weren't that good of a
programmer to matter. Frameworks change, but general programming knowledge
doesn't. Even if an engineer says something like "In rails 7, you can't splice
the header from the body of the message stream sent over airsockets" as an
excuse to not deliver and if you think it is important for the rest of the
project, you should easily check google to understand what is going on, but
you don't need to know rails 7!

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Once you stop programming, your skills will degrade like a musician who stops
practicing, you'll eventually forget what its like to be a programmer like a
parent forgets what its like to be a teenager. You'll lose your ability to
connect with programmers, but hopefully by that time you are managing managers
who manage programmers, or something like that.

Google can't fill these information gaps, and any manager who trusts Google
over their engineers is probably a toxic one at that.

~~~
BSousa
A musician will have his skill decline, but his appreciation and understanding
of music probably wont. I think this is the key point. Yes, after 10 years,
the manager won't be as able to code something in the project (nor should he)
but he won't just magically forget what O notation or graph theory is all
about.

I think a better analogy maybe coaching. Some coaches were players before
coaching, while others weren't, but their understanding of the sport isn't
linked to them actually playing the sport.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Not the same.

A coach would observe their players play everyday, and review their
performance quite directly. Their bodies are not able to do it anymore, but
they are "still in the game" so to speak. A bad development manager is often
never looking at their programmers' code (or if they do, they might not
understand it), only seeing and evaluating indirect results of their work.
Even a good dev manager is not looking at their programmers' code very much,
but at least they understand what is going on and are able to themselves in
their programmers' shoes.

Organizational "visibility" is why it is so important for programmers to
attend and speak up at meetings; the organization is incapable of valuing what
they do directly. Also, "managing up" is the secret to getting things done
with a non-coding boss.

~~~
BSousa
But that is exactly the point I'm trying to make. A coach won't be able to do
a dribble (soccer) or sprint for the header goal, the same way a manager
shouldn't be writing the unit tests or OAuth login, but both are involved in
their fields and don't magically forget the rules of the sport or what OOP is.

I'm not advocating that bad managers should learn through google, but if you
were a good developer and didn't program for 10 years, if the time came to
decide between TDD or BDD for the project (though that should be a Team Lead
or CTO job, not a PM) he should be able to brush up quickly. Maybe not decide
if you should use Shoulda or xUnit or whatever, but have a general picture of
what the developers they are managing are talking about.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
What do binary decision diagrams (BDDs) have to do with TDD (test driven
development)?

If this manager hasn't been doing development for 10 years, he is a lot cause.
But this doesn't have much to do with programming, just being involved in
building software. But in cases where their experience isn't fresh enough,
they will have a tendency to either be static (we will write our web project
in COBOL, because that is what I used to use dammit) or be very trendy to a
fault (I heard post modern node-oriented programming was hot, let's use that
for our compiler).

~~~
dragonwriter
> What do binary decision diagrams (BDDs) have to do with TDD (test driven
> development)?

In context, BDD = Behavior Driven Development [1], not Binary Decision
Diagrams.

[1] [http://dannorth.net/introducing-bdd/](http://dannorth.net/introducing-
bdd/)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Is that related to Brooks' behavior-oriented programming for controlling
robots?

------
austinz
I left my very first job because I, too, ended up bored and learning almost
nothing. But I do remember that I was too scared to bring it up, because I
thought there existed a possibility that the (very small) company might
preemptively let me go, which would have screwed me up quite a bit. The most
logical thing to do, in my mind, was to not let anyone know what I was
thinking until I had signed a new offer letter and was handing in my two
weeks' notice. Sort of like the prisoner's dilemma.

Was I wrong? (I hope I was wrong.) My manager was a great guy, and definitely
not unreasonable. But at least from my perspective at the time, the stakes
were so high. Was this just some stupid fear that doesn't actually reflect
what happens in real life?

~~~
JackMorgan
I've seen it happen: someone getting fired for pointing out how they'd like
more work and are bored.

I think you just have to leave with an offer in hand, saying politely no to
any counteroffers. But, always remember, move jobs like Tarzan, with one hand
in the next vine before letting go of the current one. (Have an offer before
letting _anyone_ know at your current job).

That being said, I encourage my employees to let me know if there is anything
I can do _before_ it gets to that point. I believe in letting people move
around between roles, jobs, and teams if it helps them engage better. But I'm
a pretty private guy about not being happy at work, so I'm not even sure I'd
take me up on it unless I framed it in such a way like "boy this other team is
doing some cool stuff, can I help out?"

Something about the asymmetrical power relationship makes me very careful to
not harm myself with my own actions: and having been fired once in a
humiliating way really opened my eyes to how bad things can go if the person
on the other end wants to be cruel.

------
legacy2013
This article really hits the nail on the head. my first job out of college I
was working for a big firm where I was bored. I kept getting told I was an
exceptional engineer and was on a fast track for becoming a senior engineer. I
was barely twenty two. I moved to a new job six months later where I was
constantly challenged and learning new things and I couldn't have been
happier.

~~~
dlhavema
i have a similar story, my first real company after college was a great place
when i started, and then it seriously stagnated... i stayed 5 years in all,
but in the last year i had no active project, just minor maintenance tasks...
people were also getting laid off left and right as well..

------
NAFV_P
> _The reality is that someone is going to tell you they’re bored quietly and
> when you least expect it. They’ll tell you halfway through your 1:1 and they
> won’t use the word bored. They’ll say something innocuous like, “…and I
> really don’t know what to do next,” and you’re going to blow right by the
> most important thing they’ve said in a while because you’re worried about
> your next meeting._

I see a parallel between this quote and a supervisor or co-worker stating some
other co-worker "doesn't understand", which when translated to cold, honest
English becomes:

"[co-worker] is antagonistic, aggressive, rude and stubborn. I do not want to
confront [co-worker] regarding this issue because I want to avoid the
hostility that will be thrown back at me, you will have to deal with [co-
worker]'s hostile behaviour all by yourself because I am a stinking coward and
want to brush this problem under the carpet."

------
karlmdavis
His post from today, "The Diving Save" [1], is also quite relevant to this:
how do you keep someone, once they've started to check out?

[1] [http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-diving-
save/](http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-diving-save/)

~~~
Bahamut
One way is to give more interesting work and/or work that is a natural
possible progression in the employee's career. That technique helped my
company woo me over into staying, along with a modest salary bump (although I
was seeking much more - career progression mattered a lot to me).

From a personal perspective - I've turned to the quit mentality due to boredom
after my first job after not having enough to do, and at my second job I
converted over after immense deadline pressure for half a year when combined
with significant underpayment (extreme frustration).

The best pre-emptor would be to be proactive in addressing these problems. If
your company is exerting too much pressure on developers, then you probably
did a poor job hiring enough employees or incentivizing them enough - I'm
looking your way startups.

~~~
jecxjo
> If your company is exerting too much pressure on developers, then you
> probably did a poor job hiring enough employees or incentivizing them enough

I've noticed this to be a huge issue when it comes to large companies who try
to defend the situation saying we are "lean" and reduce forces by "cutting the
fat." I'm currently in a situation where I've become "The Guy" for two entire
product lines and its gotten to the point where they keep tempting me with
"You'll be on Next Generation SOON". But soon, in my eyes, will never come
because I'm a single Engineer maintaining hundreds of thousands of lines of
code, code that deals with an OS no one else uses, in build environments no
one else uses.

What I use to think of as job security has become a pill that induced boredom.

------
jecxjo
As with everyone else, after reading I've realized I'm extremely bored at my
current situation. The one thing I'm having difficulty taking away from it all
is what to do about it. I work for a big company, been here for a decade, have
become "The Guy" for two major product lines and have never really had a Team.
In a decade I've done two...yes two projects. Each one all written by me,
application code, kernel drivers, building a root file system. Hundreds upon
hundreds of hours generating thousands and thousands of lines of code. I'm
bored because I'm given a project and because they will not fund additional
heads (I'd love just one but really should have 3 or 4) these projects take
3-5 years to complete. The beginning is interesting but after a few months it
comes down to "Implement these 200 API calls" which gets old really really
fast.

At a startup there are tons of tasks to get done and not enough people so you
can easily jump from one area of the company to another. Your manager can say
"Joe is getting board doing X, but Y needs to be done and its completely
different." But what do you do when your job doesn't have other areas for you
to jump to? We have different areas of the business but at this point I'd have
to take a demotion to move...or become a manager and not code anymore.

I guess I've got more of a gripe than an actual comment. And I know a lot of
people post about startups and small companies where change can actually
occur. Sucks that I have to give up stability to get interesting work.

------
asdfologist
Seems pretty on target, though it may be too late by the time you notice a
change in their daily routine (the first bullet point), as this may indicate
that they've already begun going on interviews. Perhaps it's better instead to
ask the employees periodically for their feedback, rather than wait until you
notice a bad sign.

~~~
ogreyonder
And when they give you their feedback, listen. They may only tell you once.

~~~
Spearchucker
Or, if they worry about getting laid off, they may not tell you at all.

~~~
a3n
Yep, lots of people work for little people at BigCo.

------
afhdshufdufdo
Agree with this post, but would go further: if someone feels that they are not
contributing in a way commensurate with what they _think_ they should be able
to contribute, then the reason- whether they are bored or not, and it is their
fault, or someone else's, or no one's fault- they will be unhappy. Challenging
is not as important as fulfilling.

------
digita88
My problem in my old job was due to boredom. But it was more than that - I was
bored and management didn't really take heed of what was wrong despite the
feedback that I have been giving at my annual performance review (where I did
extremely well) and monthly meetings with the line manager. Even if I had the
education and work experience with certain projects, politics ("X's department
is doing that") and That's-not-your-day job-isms" got in the way. So in the
end, I got bored and quit.

------
jokoon
I'm so bored I've been unemployed all my life

