Ask HN: What aspect of your profession you dislike the most?

[ZuckMusk]

For experienced professionals here who plan to retire or have already retired or have lots of experience under the belt. What things about your career or profession do you dislike.

Tell us your profession,year of experience,country (if you don't mind)

There are no right or wrong answers to this question. Fell free to share your honest opinion.

[CM30]

Well, as someone working as a web developer, I dislike how clueless management tend to be about organising the work and planning out projects. I rarely if ever see a company where things are planned out properly and people actually know what they need, so we end up seeing a ton of projects eithe run over time/budget or fall apart as the core idea changes completely, or because the design was seemingly created in a silo somewhere with no idea whether the setup considered was actually plausible with the current system architecture and tech stack.

If there's an organisation where the designers and developers work side by side with the customers to figure out what they actually need and get to build a well structured system that solves everyone's problems in the way it's intended to... well it's clearly rarer than hen's teeth.

For a bonus, as a semi freelance journalist/writer, I'd say the aspect I dislike most with that field is how bad most people in the industry are at actually researching the stories they're writing about. You could tell some of the tech press that the next Apple device is powered by a legion of hamsters running on tiny treadmills, and I'd wager you'd somehow see a few of them take it as gospel.

[mbrain]

I hate that developers are inventing their own "patterns" to look cool, they keep overengineering even the product doesn't have the PMF yet and you can't say that is stupid because you have to be professional.

[cranberryturkey]

The interview process in tech is horrible.

[hnthrowaway0328]

Data engineer, 6 years, Canada.

Really hate it because it's too close to business stakeholders. It's rare to find a niche that is called Big Data Developer.

[nrdxp]

Do I have to be retiring?

The worst thing about my profession is the historical ignorance, willful dishonesty, egotism and shear cowardice of individuals who have far too much influence over the rest of society to be any of these things.

Guess what I do?

[bhag2066 → nrdxp]

Lawyer / legal professional

[giantg2 → nrdxp]

Politician? Corporate executive?

[ZuckMusk → nrdxp]

Academia?? Professor??

[sloaken]

Inheriting other peoples UNDOCUMENTED code / project.

[cratermoon]

The white male college graduates, usually of the neoliberal/libertarian persuasion, who earnestly believe in meritocracy. The ones who truly that their abilities got them where they are and that they are better than those who don't share the same accomplishments.

[giantg2 → cratermoon]

I don't know that we need to get do demographic on this one. I know plenty of non-male and non-white people who arrogantly beileve in true meritocracy.

On a side note, I also hate the people who play the game - focusing on politics to get ahead resulting in them eventually being inept in their leadership positions.

And in general the state of management/leadership training as well as performance evaluations are abysmal.