Yeah, that line made me wince too. It's not "just code" when there's a community of users and maintainers of the open-source project. Even if it were closed-source and developed internally, experience developing software is more than knowing the code.
I cannot imagine why a company that depends on an OSS project doesn't own and use their own fork of it. Give back and get back and all the benefits of OSS; but the company should have its own codebase and own responsibility for it, to prevent problems like this or the host of others that keep arising.
The standard advice is that forking is a last resort if you can't upstream your contributions. Over the long term forking is usually more work than maintaining a good relationship with the project.
Gust was saving the company from some costs. Now, It seem the company is going to know the "Costs of intangibles" concept: Experience, trust, network are development multipliers.
This is a great story, told about Gust, with mucho gusto! There are so many underleveled people in organizations, and it's surprising how companies will shoot themselves in the foot over a few tens of thousands of dollars. And yet, not surprising.
Not surprising at all. Lots of companies like that: developers who only know how to develop, managers who only know how to manage, human resourcers who only know how to… resource. Lots of people who know the cost of everything and value of nothing.
Bear in mind too that the average employee, regardless of rank, is more concerned about what’s in their own best interests than what’s in the company’s. It’s only when you’re a director and major shareholder that these are one and the same, and even then you’re not magically immune to making really stupid decisions.
As for “Gust”, my sympathies are severely limited. He remained in a job where he knew his employers were taking the absolute piss out him long enough that he turned toxic himself. I get that changing jobs has its own set of costs and challenges, but thinking that your employer owes you for all your “loyalty” is a fool’s delusion. I’ve been in jobs where management’s been taking the piss while I’ve been burning out, and realizing that environment’s turning me toxic too I’ve walked.[1][2]
After all, my first obligation is to me and my health, and I’m no use to anyone when I fail to look after that. Too often computer geeks have a self-inflicted martyr complex, but you try telling them that their own worst enemy is themselves… (And, hey, fight me if you think I’m wrong.)
--
[1] After giving generous notice, mind, and tying up the work I’ve done there as best I can. After all, I see no need to burn bridges with others already digging perfectly good holes for themselves. Besides, as an employee I know that it’s their work, not mine; so why should I get myself emotionally twisted up in work I don’t own when even its owners don’t care that much?
[2] (Including that time when I was the management. I don’t stand my own shite either.)
>>> the average employee, regardless of rank, is more concerned about what’s in their own best interests than what’s in the company’s. It’s only when you’re a director and major shareholder that these are one and the same
Lol here. Directors got where they are by caring about themselves and/or by staying long enough that all superiors went away leaving the position vacant. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of the company.
I was a company director. Started the company, put in the major investment, brought in two other people I knew and trusted as fellow directors, and I still had to walk away 18 months later because all three of us—as first-time directors with more lofty ambition than hard, dirty experience—made a thorough cock of the business.
Glad I did it. Not happy about that particular outcome, but at least now I know it’s harder than it looks and some of the errors to avoid in future. And hopefully once I’ve finished dusting myself down I’ll be back up on another horse to try again.
It’s real easy to sit in the peanut gallery pontificating loudly. I’ve more respect for those who actually do it, even if they are assholes as people (but really, who isn’t?).
We don't know how long Gust stuck with the poor situation. Depending on the local job market, his family situation, etc, it might have been a reasonable option for him.
I stuck with a job where I was undervalued for about a year. I was more focussed on other parts of my life, and an easy job where I could coast when it was beneficial to me was useful.
(Straightforward example: Gust might have a partner in a less-flexible field. They agreed that the partner would spend 1-2 years looking for a good opportunity in a different state; once that was found Gust would quit and they'd move together.)
OP says 18 months and Gust was waiting for annual bonuses and stock to mature.
As you say, you chose to coast at your own job as a reasonable and fair response. You did the work you were contracted to do and got paid correspondingly. Yeah you’d have liked a promotion path to a more demanding and rewarding role, but that’s just not something your employeer needed/wanted.
Lots of jobs aren’t our perfect dream jobs. But I assume you started looking in the meantime, and when you did find a job which better fit your ambitions you moved on, and did so in a professional manner which ensures your own professional reputation stays intact.
Gust just burnt the world; took his own pain and paid it forward. Victim (partly self-made) becomes an abuser himself. Sorry, no, I’m going to call that.
> As for “Gust”, my sympathies are severely limited. He remained in a job where he knew his employers were taking the absolute piss out him long enough that he turned toxic himself. I get that changing jobs has its own set of costs and challenges, but thinking that your employer owes you for all your “loyalty” is a fool’s delusion. I’ve been in jobs where management’s been taking the piss while I’ve been burning out, and realizing that environment’s turning me toxic too I’ve walked.[1][2]
Why the lack of sympathy? We don't know from the article how long Gust's been in the industry; this could have been his first experience with a company so dysfunctional. I think you may have missed this bit as well:
> Gust waited until annual bonuses and stock payouts cleared, and served his notice.
Sounds like he remained precisely as long as he needed to once the scales fell from his eyes.
> As for “Gust”, my sympathies are severely limited. He remained in a job where he knew his employers were taking the absolute piss out him long enough that he turned toxic himself.
What? Do you realize you're attacking the guy for breaking out of the toxic relationship? And do you realize you're attacking the guy for refusing further abusive requests directed at him by the same guys with a long track record of abuse?
Let's try to be serious: there is exactly zero issues to point at Gust's actions. He was subjected to abuse, he packed his bags and left, and when subjected to further abuse after his resignation he simply rejected it. End of story.
And using profanity does not make someone as bad a participant than employers abusing their employees as described in the article.
A toxic relationship that Gust tolerated for 18 months, which turned him toxic too. Fine, so he was just treading water till his own bonuses cleared, but that was his choice.
He was contracted and paid to do a certain job, and ended up doing a different, harder job which presumably wasn’t in his contract and for which he wasn’t being paid. That was his choice. I know, geeks are bad at saying “no”, but work-to-rule is a thing for a reason, and you don’t have to be a douche about it; unfailingly, excruciatingly polite is its own weapon too.
And then Gust turned various independent OSS projects toxic as well, even though his fight was not theirs. And the people they’re chucking abusing at now are not the abusive management who used Gust as their personal doormat, but ordinary employees down in the trenches just trying to do their own jobs.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the “subjected to further abuse after his resignation” from; there’s nothing in the article about that.
Nobody comes out of this one looking good, except for OP, who is just trying to do his job as best he can. His post is tagged “unprofessional-behavior” and he’s not wrong about that.
And Gust hasn’t done himself any favors either if/when that reputation follows him to future jobs. I get that he’s angry and burnt out and that’s leading him to make poor decisions—been there, done that—but like I say, if you don’t look after yourself you’re no good to anyone. I know I wouldn’t want to hire someone coming off the back of that shitshow lest they bring all their toxic baggage with them and infect my business too.
I understand Gust, cos there’s a bit of Gust in many of us, but he chose to take the abuse far longer than I would have before cutting my losses and getting out. And much of that abuse was ultimately self-inflicted because he chose to let himself be taken for a ride (because geeks love to be Helpful), instead of apologizing profusely that he was not qualified, competent, nor contracted to do work so far out of his job description. And sad to say the world is full of people (at all social and professional levels) who’ll be happy to take good-willed naive suckers for everything they’re worth (hell, just look at US politics!).
But the moment Gust turned abusive himself—boom, whatever sympathies I had for him as another fallible human being are done, and I’ve no interest in fellow geeks crafting a Robin Hood narrative just because it pleases them to do so.
This comment is toxic. I get that you're angry and burnt out and that’s leading you to make poor decisions—been there, done that—but like I say, if you don’t look after yourself you’re no good to anyone.
Whatever sympathies I had for you as another fallible human being are done.
> A toxic relationship that Gust tolerated for 18 months, which turned him toxic too. Fine, so he was just treading water till his own bonuses cleared, but that was his choice.
You're desperately trying to blame the victim for some reason.
Your desperation is such that somehow you've tried to spin the victim getting paid for his work according to his contract as somehow a failing.
> (...) That was his choice.
Victim blaming aside, it's rather odd that you're trying to bash the victim for "choices" like doing his job and getting paid for his work and not being subjected to abuse.
It sounds like somehow you believe people don't have the right to think for themselves, to not tolerate abuse and disrespect, and have their best-interests in mind.
I'm done with your comment, frankly. I won't read any more of it. I don't believe anything of value can come out of this absurd line of reason that sounds like a sociopath bashing his victims for the inconvenience they created by stopping being abused. This is not a reasonable conversation that reasonable adults have, and for this reason I'm out.
You think that’s abuse? Go and read stories of Domestic Violence, where the victims are too terrified to leave for the completely justified fear of being murdered.
Gust chose to take management’s shit. He chose to take their shit for money. He chose to make himself a “victim”, when he could have walked out of that toxic environment at any time with no repercussion.
Yeah, the management are excretable scum wholly deserving of strychnine in their guacamole, and let’s hope they all go to prison someday for dirty double-dealing, but the only power they had over Gust was whatever power Gust gave them. Now I’ve got sympathy for that, cos I know all about bad judgement born from loss of perspective, and the mistakes and damage we can do to ourselves from that.
But then Gust chose to recruit his personal army for revenge, dragging others into his mess, and that is wrong.
So, sorry, but sympathy seeking self-martyrdom is up there with the messianic martinetism and barely concealed resentments in the grand hall of nerd dysfunctions and follies. Maybe if y’all got a broader experience of real life and all its people you might develop a more balanced sense of perspective. Because if you cannot tell if you’re being abusive yourself—which is what Gust was by the time OP wrote about it—then you’re part of the problem as well. And I can speak from first-hand there as well.
Gust wants to believe he’s the wronged party, and you want to believe that as well, because weaving that narrative suits you both. But the only truly wronged people I see here are OP and those OSS project developers, who Gust is now using and abusing just as his [belatedly] ex-management used and abused him; to serve himself.
Rule #1 of being a good person: knowing when you’re being a bad person yourself.
It couldn’t have been more precisely tuned to generate outrage, I agree. And yet I’ve seen almost exactly this situation play out before. In my case it was a storage company who didn’t appreciate the senior engineer who worked with all the SAN providers. Whoops!
This is dangerously close to the "but isn't it crazy that I could have believed it?" fallacy or, more broadly, justifying making up stories to push an agenda because it's "spiritually equivalent" to a real one. Please don't. Truth still matters.
Trust in notalwaysright.com/all to suck up even more of your life than the orange site already does. Also, clientsfromhell.net and askamanager.org. And I’m certain the Daily WTF, Acts of Gord, and BOFH need zero introduction here. Good luck in trying to distinguish if it’s day or night—never mind what’s true or false—by the time you’re done with that little lot!
> Perhaps I'm too cynical now, but to me this post reads as a troll trying to get a rise out of people.
Might be. I don't know.
What I do know is that once I had a job where my supervisor was highly abusive to the point she criticized me for having left the office during an afternoon due to a close relative dying. This was a research job, where the closest milestone was scheduled to be in 3 months.
In that job I had a fixed-term employment contract structured in a way which it was automatically extended for 6 months when it expired. Thus I waited out my contract, looked for another job and presented my resignation. Well, that didn't sat well with my supervisor. She started complaining that we had work to do and I couldn't just leave because I owed her at least six to eight months work. Even though she was aware I was no longer an employee, mind you. She demanded I continued working for her in spite of the resignation while a) not being paid, and b) while working another full-time job. She even demanded (not asked, demanded) that I should ask my new employer for a 1 year delay so that I could continue doing her work.
Well, I left anyway and still she continued trying to contact me periodically about stuff at the job up to a year or two after I left. I'm talking about stuff from high level technical issues to passwords to an old windows 7 desktop that was sitting around.
So, I personally don't see Gust's story as outlandish.
I disagree a bit with how this was answered there, mainly:
- Some people think relationships with OSS teams are just about asking for "free support" which couldn't be further from the truth. Rather, it has to be built and it involves more giving than asking
- If Gust vented about his relationship, it was certainly not in an email/mailing list setting, and still I consider this a "maybe if" not a certain if. It depends on the personal relationship he had with the maintainers.
To be honest, if they screwed me as they did Gust, I probably would have arson-ed the whole office, not only did they screw him, they also claim to have a right to steal his buddies code?
This is one of the good examples why the US has a trust problem among all it's inhabitants, constantly getting screwed by anybody, especially by the companies.
Sad mentality, really...
If this were a sales team they’d be expecting the guy to take his Rolodex. Unfortunately many developers seem to treat themselves and their peers as commodities.
Asking a developer community how to follow up after screwing up a developer! That ought to be ironically funny. I think I can relate with Gust more, than the company
35 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 76.9 ms ] threadI think I found the root cause problem here ...
good on Gust.
I cannot imagine why a company that depends on an OSS project doesn't own and use their own fork of it. Give back and get back and all the benefits of OSS; but the company should have its own codebase and own responsibility for it, to prevent problems like this or the host of others that keep arising.
Currently, they can reach the contributors at least...
Bear in mind too that the average employee, regardless of rank, is more concerned about what’s in their own best interests than what’s in the company’s. It’s only when you’re a director and major shareholder that these are one and the same, and even then you’re not magically immune to making really stupid decisions.
As for “Gust”, my sympathies are severely limited. He remained in a job where he knew his employers were taking the absolute piss out him long enough that he turned toxic himself. I get that changing jobs has its own set of costs and challenges, but thinking that your employer owes you for all your “loyalty” is a fool’s delusion. I’ve been in jobs where management’s been taking the piss while I’ve been burning out, and realizing that environment’s turning me toxic too I’ve walked.[1][2]
After all, my first obligation is to me and my health, and I’m no use to anyone when I fail to look after that. Too often computer geeks have a self-inflicted martyr complex, but you try telling them that their own worst enemy is themselves… (And, hey, fight me if you think I’m wrong.)
--
[1] After giving generous notice, mind, and tying up the work I’ve done there as best I can. After all, I see no need to burn bridges with others already digging perfectly good holes for themselves. Besides, as an employee I know that it’s their work, not mine; so why should I get myself emotionally twisted up in work I don’t own when even its owners don’t care that much?
[2] (Including that time when I was the management. I don’t stand my own shite either.)
Lol here. Directors got where they are by caring about themselves and/or by staying long enough that all superiors went away leaving the position vacant. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of the company.
Glad I did it. Not happy about that particular outcome, but at least now I know it’s harder than it looks and some of the errors to avoid in future. And hopefully once I’ve finished dusting myself down I’ll be back up on another horse to try again.
It’s real easy to sit in the peanut gallery pontificating loudly. I’ve more respect for those who actually do it, even if they are assholes as people (but really, who isn’t?).
I stuck with a job where I was undervalued for about a year. I was more focussed on other parts of my life, and an easy job where I could coast when it was beneficial to me was useful.
(Straightforward example: Gust might have a partner in a less-flexible field. They agreed that the partner would spend 1-2 years looking for a good opportunity in a different state; once that was found Gust would quit and they'd move together.)
As you say, you chose to coast at your own job as a reasonable and fair response. You did the work you were contracted to do and got paid correspondingly. Yeah you’d have liked a promotion path to a more demanding and rewarding role, but that’s just not something your employeer needed/wanted.
Lots of jobs aren’t our perfect dream jobs. But I assume you started looking in the meantime, and when you did find a job which better fit your ambitions you moved on, and did so in a professional manner which ensures your own professional reputation stays intact.
Gust just burnt the world; took his own pain and paid it forward. Victim (partly self-made) becomes an abuser himself. Sorry, no, I’m going to call that.
Why the lack of sympathy? We don't know from the article how long Gust's been in the industry; this could have been his first experience with a company so dysfunctional. I think you may have missed this bit as well:
> Gust waited until annual bonuses and stock payouts cleared, and served his notice.
Sounds like he remained precisely as long as he needed to once the scales fell from his eyes.
What? Do you realize you're attacking the guy for breaking out of the toxic relationship? And do you realize you're attacking the guy for refusing further abusive requests directed at him by the same guys with a long track record of abuse?
Let's try to be serious: there is exactly zero issues to point at Gust's actions. He was subjected to abuse, he packed his bags and left, and when subjected to further abuse after his resignation he simply rejected it. End of story.
And using profanity does not make someone as bad a participant than employers abusing their employees as described in the article.
He was contracted and paid to do a certain job, and ended up doing a different, harder job which presumably wasn’t in his contract and for which he wasn’t being paid. That was his choice. I know, geeks are bad at saying “no”, but work-to-rule is a thing for a reason, and you don’t have to be a douche about it; unfailingly, excruciatingly polite is its own weapon too.
And then Gust turned various independent OSS projects toxic as well, even though his fight was not theirs. And the people they’re chucking abusing at now are not the abusive management who used Gust as their personal doormat, but ordinary employees down in the trenches just trying to do their own jobs.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the “subjected to further abuse after his resignation” from; there’s nothing in the article about that.
Nobody comes out of this one looking good, except for OP, who is just trying to do his job as best he can. His post is tagged “unprofessional-behavior” and he’s not wrong about that.
And Gust hasn’t done himself any favors either if/when that reputation follows him to future jobs. I get that he’s angry and burnt out and that’s leading him to make poor decisions—been there, done that—but like I say, if you don’t look after yourself you’re no good to anyone. I know I wouldn’t want to hire someone coming off the back of that shitshow lest they bring all their toxic baggage with them and infect my business too.
I understand Gust, cos there’s a bit of Gust in many of us, but he chose to take the abuse far longer than I would have before cutting my losses and getting out. And much of that abuse was ultimately self-inflicted because he chose to let himself be taken for a ride (because geeks love to be Helpful), instead of apologizing profusely that he was not qualified, competent, nor contracted to do work so far out of his job description. And sad to say the world is full of people (at all social and professional levels) who’ll be happy to take good-willed naive suckers for everything they’re worth (hell, just look at US politics!).
But the moment Gust turned abusive himself—boom, whatever sympathies I had for him as another fallible human being are done, and I’ve no interest in fellow geeks crafting a Robin Hood narrative just because it pleases them to do so.
Whatever sympathies I had for you as another fallible human being are done.
You're desperately trying to blame the victim for some reason.
Your desperation is such that somehow you've tried to spin the victim getting paid for his work according to his contract as somehow a failing.
> (...) That was his choice.
Victim blaming aside, it's rather odd that you're trying to bash the victim for "choices" like doing his job and getting paid for his work and not being subjected to abuse.
It sounds like somehow you believe people don't have the right to think for themselves, to not tolerate abuse and disrespect, and have their best-interests in mind.
I'm done with your comment, frankly. I won't read any more of it. I don't believe anything of value can come out of this absurd line of reason that sounds like a sociopath bashing his victims for the inconvenience they created by stopping being abused. This is not a reasonable conversation that reasonable adults have, and for this reason I'm out.
Gust chose to take management’s shit. He chose to take their shit for money. He chose to make himself a “victim”, when he could have walked out of that toxic environment at any time with no repercussion.
Yeah, the management are excretable scum wholly deserving of strychnine in their guacamole, and let’s hope they all go to prison someday for dirty double-dealing, but the only power they had over Gust was whatever power Gust gave them. Now I’ve got sympathy for that, cos I know all about bad judgement born from loss of perspective, and the mistakes and damage we can do to ourselves from that.
But then Gust chose to recruit his personal army for revenge, dragging others into his mess, and that is wrong.
So, sorry, but sympathy seeking self-martyrdom is up there with the messianic martinetism and barely concealed resentments in the grand hall of nerd dysfunctions and follies. Maybe if y’all got a broader experience of real life and all its people you might develop a more balanced sense of perspective. Because if you cannot tell if you’re being abusive yourself—which is what Gust was by the time OP wrote about it—then you’re part of the problem as well. And I can speak from first-hand there as well.
Gust wants to believe he’s the wronged party, and you want to believe that as well, because weaving that narrative suits you both. But the only truly wronged people I see here are OP and those OSS project developers, who Gust is now using and abusing just as his [belatedly] ex-management used and abused him; to serve himself.
Rule #1 of being a good person: knowing when you’re being a bad person yourself.
https://notalwaysright.com/engineering-a-problem/61642/
Trust in notalwaysright.com/all to suck up even more of your life than the orange site already does. Also, clientsfromhell.net and askamanager.org. And I’m certain the Daily WTF, Acts of Gord, and BOFH need zero introduction here. Good luck in trying to distinguish if it’s day or night—never mind what’s true or false—by the time you’re done with that little lot!
Some mention about Code of Conduct type stuff would have added another good outrage angle.
Might be. I don't know.
What I do know is that once I had a job where my supervisor was highly abusive to the point she criticized me for having left the office during an afternoon due to a close relative dying. This was a research job, where the closest milestone was scheduled to be in 3 months.
In that job I had a fixed-term employment contract structured in a way which it was automatically extended for 6 months when it expired. Thus I waited out my contract, looked for another job and presented my resignation. Well, that didn't sat well with my supervisor. She started complaining that we had work to do and I couldn't just leave because I owed her at least six to eight months work. Even though she was aware I was no longer an employee, mind you. She demanded I continued working for her in spite of the resignation while a) not being paid, and b) while working another full-time job. She even demanded (not asked, demanded) that I should ask my new employer for a 1 year delay so that I could continue doing her work.
Well, I left anyway and still she continued trying to contact me periodically about stuff at the job up to a year or two after I left. I'm talking about stuff from high level technical issues to passwords to an old windows 7 desktop that was sitting around.
So, I personally don't see Gust's story as outlandish.
- Some people think relationships with OSS teams are just about asking for "free support" which couldn't be further from the truth. Rather, it has to be built and it involves more giving than asking
- If Gust vented about his relationship, it was certainly not in an email/mailing list setting, and still I consider this a "maybe if" not a certain if. It depends on the personal relationship he had with the maintainers.