Ask HN: Have you ever been called slow? How did you react?

I've started in a company ~5 months ago and I'm sensing a growing impatience from our manager and team/tech leads.

The company adopts an agile methodology (on paper) and seems to expect things will just magically become faster. There are adhoc requests all the time and no filtering.

I'm a new hire trying to master the software stack (a lot of pieces are new to me even with 10+ years in the industry).

This combined with my usual desire to understand what I'm doing, seems to give an impression that I'm slow. In reality, I think my team members have only a shallow understanding of what they do, can't plan long term and, not of their fault, are used to a follow-the-tutorial-and-get-it-done approach. I can't really fault them but this has created a lot of technical debt (which makes my job even harder).

Any tips? I'd like to stay longer and make a lasting impact here but, of course, I could just quit... that wouldn't be ideal.

2 comments

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lostmymind66 7y ago ↗

It will be very difficult to fight company culture. You will either need to go with the flow or management and team leads will find a way to replace you.

Sometimes being the best programmer isn't what's wanted at a company.

I'm in the same boat: I'm working with legacy code and some new technology and I don't have much time during the day to learn anything in depth (and management just wants me to get things done).

Especially as a new hire, it's better just to figure out how to get your job done and worry about the details later.

bradknowles 7y ago ↗

I feel that I’m slow sometimes, and people ask what they can do to help.

Sometimes I feel like I want to respond with “just shoot me?”

But then I always remember that I live in Austin, and this is a place that still vividly remembers being the home of the first major school shooting incident, back on August 1st, 1966 (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_sh...).

I don’t know that I have any answers for you, but if you feel that the people at your place of employment are actively seeking to destroy you because they perceive you as slow, then I would say that is not a place I would want to waste a single additional nanosecond at.