That was a tough story. Unfortunately, everyone breaks something every now and again, and that impacts other projects negatively, which ends up with unexpected requests for assistance from colleagues, clients, or managers. However, there is a difference from a "request for assistance" and a "call-out"; it seems that the author was called out. Call-outs are never helpful and are always aggressive [1].
There are three important techniques I use to never end up in the author's shoes after I receive a call-out from a client, manager, or colleague. These tactics work phenomenally well for me, and perhaps they will help someone else. (I also don't want to say they would have fixed the author's problems, as I wasn't there; perhaps the nasty manager truly was just cruel.) However, I have good working relationships with people from other companies who my colleagues have described as "screamers", and on several occasions I have received thanks and complements from clients who have been nasty enough to drive other colleagues to quit. (I am nowhere near the most competent on my team, so this is not a talent problem.)
THE FIRST TECHNIQUE I use is admitting whether or not my actions leading up to the call-out are perfectly defensible. If the call-out is a response of a shortcut or non-conformance I took to cut corners, I immediately admit responsibility and acquiesce to helping, prioritizing them over my normal job duties. However, if I believe that any rational actor in my position would have mirrored my actions, or my actions are in lockstep with established process [2], I don't budge and instead demand escalation to the next-highest position in the chain. If they don't budge and continue to demand or call-out, I start requesting everything they say in writing and begin CCing my colleagues. If you can stand in front of the CEO and say "I did exactly what someone in my position should do, and will bet my position here on it", then you can stand in front of a dumb manager and imply the same thing.
In the case of this author, I do not think what they did was perfectly defensible. Managing a major rollout while simultaneously on-call for another team is the type of situation that demands immediate escalation to your line manager before any requests come in. It doesn't matter whether or not you get any support; you have to have rung the "I am totally f*cked for time" alarm bell way before any problems manifest. Other people don't care about your internal processes, they care about their project working.
THE SECOND TECHNIQUE (and my favorite) that I use is to always give the requester much more attention than their call-out implies. If they write a single, unhelpful sentence, I write back a structured paragraph with numbered questions for them. If they write a paragraph, I write back an indexed, multi-paragraph response with sources and links to other threads. If they go ballistic or are nakedly aggressive, I get on a call with them, record the whole thing in front of them, and offer to read transcripts later when they inevitably contradict themselves. [3]
In the case of the author, I do not think they overloaded the requester with attention. The author did not offer details on how they were "asking two engineers to at least give me steps to reproduce the problem", but I suspect that the message logs would not reveal prompt replying and large walls of useful structured text from the author. [4]
THE THIRD TECHNIQUE is to check in constantly with team members over how I handle problems. It is as simple as sending a DM with a screenshot of the message logs and asking "do you think I handled this correctly?" Despite the magnificence of human endeavor, work can still feel like a bunch of apes competing over berries--it's as much a big social status dance as it is a technical project. The more like your colleagues you can behave, the less likely you are to be singled out for non-compliance.
I had pretty similar story when I was at Apple, as an SRE. I haven't been in the company for long time, so just before he was making prep for putting me on PIP, handed my resignation, with a salary and title bump.
Sometimes you just join to a company thinking "It's X at the end of the day, how bad it could be?", from the first hand experience I can say it can be absolutely terrible. So if you directly interview with the team you're going to work with, like you do in Apple, and if you didn't feel like you would enjoy working with the people you saw in the loop, trust that feeling. It possibly tells you the truth.
I have to be honest, the authors story, even in their words, doesn’t sound like something that should normally put someone into a crying fit. Maybe it was more aggressive and mean-spirited than the author describes though, hard to say.
2 hours of badgering can do that. He was badgered in an open office for 2 hours.
I think the gist of the story is that the manager tried to force the SRE to break the codebase by downgrading an open source library- something that isn't ever really done at Google.
One of the company values I've encountered that's stuck with me is metal toughness. I see it as the ability to keep oneself and others levelheaded. It's not that the author had a lapse of it in the moment, but that they then thought it would be best to abandon their responsibilities by requesting a month of leave. It was something else's fault when they didn't make a meeting, missed changes that occurred while out, didn't know what to work on, etc.
Ownership thinking is another value that's stuck with me. It's easy to blame 'Terrible Manager' (or more generally, someone/something else) but perhaps there are some things that the author could have done differently.
I will set the victim blaming aside. In these cases, the best thing to do always is - fire your manager. Find yourself a new boss and absolutely ignore "company values" sociopaths.
So yes this is the easy way, but wouldn't this also help the vicious circle to continue? Would this let bad managers to push out people whenever they feel like they are challenged to manage or just as they like it, successfully everytime ? Toxic culture thrives on that and I don't think it stays contained in the company(ies) people are pushed out from.
I think we are hearing more and more managers put people in PIP or other manage-out tools as a retaliation and everyone suggests to apply other jobs when there is a confrontation. Well, when all the companies share the toxic management culture it will be too late ask the culture to change, won't be? I believe more people should stand their ground when they face unfairness, hostility and/or bad management for some more time as they can afford. Making bad managers life easier does not solve the bigger or growing problem. It won't change as long as they go away silently and conveniently.
The issue is that companies are setup to protect themselves in every way possible, and they will do that. I worked on an abusive team and raised blatant harassment to my skip.
They ignored it, so I slowly worked my way up the chain to the head of engineering. I was given all the support in the world, and then suddenly let go and told to pound sand. My lawyer said that I could fight it for settlement but it would not be worth the investment to do so.
During that time I learned many others quit in the same office as me. The only impactful thing I could do was post a negative review on Glassdoor, and tell people 1-1 about my horrible experience. I ended up going from a midsized company to FAANG, and my career is better from it.
It was slightly worse than this. The head of HR was going to cull my office of abusive team members, but they themselves were fired before they could do that. This was before I joined. I reached out and they were willing to speak with the head of engineering about the history of harassment, but my company refused.
I also had a direct line with the founder, who in onboarding gives a two hour spiel how this will be the greatest company to work at, because their number one priority is employee experience. They ghosted me and several other senior members when we tried to raise concerns with them.
My best guess is that, they were seeking to be acquired and did not want to risk any drama which might impact their valuation. About a year after, they were acquired by a company with shitty terms for employees.
I think that employees should prioritize themselves first, if the company won’t do that. To your point though, this is a flawed system.
Perhaps the next wave of startups will clue into this. I think it would be a huge competitive advantage if done right. Creating a safe and productive work environment can help people to flourish.
The issue to me is companies are not perfect machines and letting machines chewing up human beings is an issue that humans beings can address and solve. I think more people should stand up when they face unfairness, regardless of they face it or somebody nearby, also communicate and help each other. I don't think when people have accept their fate and go to the next job, they are relieved and not bringing the emotional baggage. People (ideally) should be changing jobs for a change or a new challenge, or better pay or things appealing them more in a new job, not escape from another.
Engineers are emotionally tied to our work. I think we all want to be considered smart and capable at our jobs. It’s why micromanaging and overworking can lead to negative productivity. The very notion of “toughing it out” and grinding out a task you dislike doesn’t work well. Unless you want the bare minimum delivered by someone who is going to quit soon.
The exact moment you get put on any such "plan", it is time to cut your losses and move on to someplace that might appreciate you better. Start interviewing immediately. Maybe claim some vacation time for it. Chances are you will get a raise out of it. Maybe a signing bonus.
Although they always claim that, after the "plan" is over, you will not be dinged for having been on it, that is just not true. (The only exception is when whoever put you on it gets fired.) So, forever after you will have this crap on your record. Nobody will care how fair it was. But, when you leave the company, it is completely left behind.
You cannot prove anything to an employer, and you don't owe them anything. There are a zillion other places that desperately need your skills. Finding and onboarding somebody to replace you will cost them most of your annual salary, so making things unpleasant and unfair for you is monumentally stupid of them. HR is absolutely not your friend; their main job is to protect the company from lawsuits, mainly by collecting dirt on anybody who could make things unpleasant.
Be sure to collect contact information from everybody you respect around you before you go. Nobody wants to continue working for a crap manager. Just because they haven't complained to you doesn't mean they like it any better than you do. They might even be on a "plan" themselves. You can get bonuses for recruiting them into your new place.
You can totally ignore any "non-compete" contract you might have signed when you started; just send them a note saying than now that you are not employed there anymore, you are terminating your participation in it. Unless they are still paying you, they have no standing to complain. (But do check with a lawyer on this.) You also have absolutely no obligation to participate in an "exit interview"; it is very rare that you can get any benefit from one. Complaining in one about your last manager can do no good; quitting says all they will be able to hear.
If you have documentation of violations of HR policies, you can sue them after you leave, for having driven you out. It will never go to court; they will settle, instead. Finally: Google is Big Evil; leaving Google is unalloyed Good.
Every mistake I have ever made in my career was not moving on when I should have.
People aren't machines. Productivity in the workplace doesn't translate to productivity in life, but managers would like you to think so, and because jobs are directly tied to your livelihood (with medical insurance and money to pay for food and shelter), it's easy to buy into the premise that if "you suck at your job, it means you suck at life".
The author moved to a new city to start a new life and perspective, which was a personal choice to make themselves happy. That's great! But then small pressures began to happen:
> manager at the new job didn't work out
> power dynamics with the team lead forcing a 'special, one-time' transfer
> having to deal with a new manager due to a reorg
> OKRs that placed significant pressures to get optimistic deliveries, being on call with a secondary team
> Wanting to join the Google protest, and then being threatened by management with being fired for taking PTO to join the protest effort
> Raised concerns about manager's behavior with on-call stuff to HR, only for HR to sit everyone down and have the manager chide the author about the tone of voice, which is completely irrelevant.
> finding out later that the manager blocked the author's potential transfer to another team where the author could have been successful
> Low bonus and no stock refreshments due to only meeting expectations, with no hope of getting a better rating because manager hates the author
Going through all that, I can definitely emphasize with the author feeling down. All that artificial pressure for what? Everyone saying not to abandon job duties, or that the author took on too much... Isn't Agile supposed to solve that? You define units of work, then spread them out to sprints. And Google does do Agile, I looked it up. If we say it's because each manager does Agile different, well then we shouldn't be blaming the author, we should be blaming the manager for not assigning work properly. Yet the author feels responsible and overwhelmed, which is ridiculous.
All the mental and physical stress is directly sourced from the job itself, and needlessly too. Jobs don't have to be this way, but it is, and it's everywhere. And the worst part is, the end result was... nothing. The author tried to remedy the situation with HR, but ultimately was forced to change jobs, and the manager is still at Google bullying others. It's great that the author found their place at Meta, but how many others weren't so lucky? And, why do we, as engineers, even tolerate such a toxic environment in the first place? Everything listed above is toxic to the core, and can heavily affect mental health.
Jobs should enable you to live a life that you want to live, to experience the things you want to experience. Jobs shouldn't be able to bully you into thinking you're a worthless person because that's just your boss making you work harder to make the boss look better, and to make your employer richer at your expense. We should not tolerate bullies, we need to back each other up and help each other. It's the only way forward for any of us.
> > Wanting to join the Google protest, and then being threatened by management with being fired for taking PTO to join the protest effort
I read that as the author wanting to not come into the office through the protest. They wanted to work from home instead and only requested PTO for it after getting pushback because of Google's ridiculous hostility to working from home.
So here you made me think for a moment if I was being inconsistent, but no, I don't think so.
You see, my employment _is_ with Meta now, and was with Google before — it never was with Alphabet, of which Google is a fully owned subsidiary of.
I think the distinction makes sense, among other things because with few exceptions, going from one Alphabet subsidiary to another requires a full interview cycle, not just a transfer request.
I wish I worked in a big tech company instead of healthcare. I get more harm inflicted on me everyday than this guy experienced over the entire story. Your lives are pretty good.
Boohoo. What is the point of your comment, people are allowed to feel how they feel. Holding contempt for someone because they are expressing work difficulties is no reason to shame them.
Same impression. I work in a tiny healthcare tech startup and work closely with practitioners who do the good work in hospitals. I get this person had a crappy work experience fixing bugs in code, but being pampered with two-week stress leaves while making serious money and having the option to pick up something else up at the drop of a hat, that doesn’t sound like a very big violin
I don’t understand why this story is worth the amount of text written.
I’ll save you some time: the author pushed code that had a bug that caused issues for some people. They didn’t show a sense of urgency, or at least the people around them didn’t think they were on it, which got communicated to their manager. At this point manager is feeling the fire and decides to sort of take over putting pressure on the author. Manager and author have a communication style mismatch, and seems like author has not earned the trust of manager. 2hs later the stress made the author cry.
Overall, the author failed to handle the expectations of people around them, the stress made them cry.
In the end, a learning experience for the author.
We’ve all gone through this and it’s a lesson of how to handle other’s expectations.
False: the author pushed code that triggered a bug in some non-production code somewhere. The person who complained about that, a full week later, did not identify where or what, but the manager badgered the author for hours demanding something be done, with no hint of what or how.
There are plenty of bad managers. Companies could recognize them by people seeking to leave their group, but generally don't.
37 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 91.1 ms ] threadThere are three important techniques I use to never end up in the author's shoes after I receive a call-out from a client, manager, or colleague. These tactics work phenomenally well for me, and perhaps they will help someone else. (I also don't want to say they would have fixed the author's problems, as I wasn't there; perhaps the nasty manager truly was just cruel.) However, I have good working relationships with people from other companies who my colleagues have described as "screamers", and on several occasions I have received thanks and complements from clients who have been nasty enough to drive other colleagues to quit. (I am nowhere near the most competent on my team, so this is not a talent problem.)
THE FIRST TECHNIQUE I use is admitting whether or not my actions leading up to the call-out are perfectly defensible. If the call-out is a response of a shortcut or non-conformance I took to cut corners, I immediately admit responsibility and acquiesce to helping, prioritizing them over my normal job duties. However, if I believe that any rational actor in my position would have mirrored my actions, or my actions are in lockstep with established process [2], I don't budge and instead demand escalation to the next-highest position in the chain. If they don't budge and continue to demand or call-out, I start requesting everything they say in writing and begin CCing my colleagues. If you can stand in front of the CEO and say "I did exactly what someone in my position should do, and will bet my position here on it", then you can stand in front of a dumb manager and imply the same thing.
In the case of this author, I do not think what they did was perfectly defensible. Managing a major rollout while simultaneously on-call for another team is the type of situation that demands immediate escalation to your line manager before any requests come in. It doesn't matter whether or not you get any support; you have to have rung the "I am totally f*cked for time" alarm bell way before any problems manifest. Other people don't care about your internal processes, they care about their project working.
THE SECOND TECHNIQUE (and my favorite) that I use is to always give the requester much more attention than their call-out implies. If they write a single, unhelpful sentence, I write back a structured paragraph with numbered questions for them. If they write a paragraph, I write back an indexed, multi-paragraph response with sources and links to other threads. If they go ballistic or are nakedly aggressive, I get on a call with them, record the whole thing in front of them, and offer to read transcripts later when they inevitably contradict themselves. [3]
In the case of the author, I do not think they overloaded the requester with attention. The author did not offer details on how they were "asking two engineers to at least give me steps to reproduce the problem", but I suspect that the message logs would not reveal prompt replying and large walls of useful structured text from the author. [4]
THE THIRD TECHNIQUE is to check in constantly with team members over how I handle problems. It is as simple as sending a DM with a screenshot of the message logs and asking "do you think I handled this correctly?" Despite the magnificence of human endeavor, work can still feel like a bunch of apes competing over berries--it's as much a big social status dance as it is a technical project. The more like your colleagues you can behave, the less likely you are to be singled out for non-compliance.
So--if you can always a...
Sometimes you just join to a company thinking "It's X at the end of the day, how bad it could be?", from the first hand experience I can say it can be absolutely terrible. So if you directly interview with the team you're going to work with, like you do in Apple, and if you didn't feel like you would enjoy working with the people you saw in the loop, trust that feeling. It possibly tells you the truth.
I think the gist of the story is that the manager tried to force the SRE to break the codebase by downgrading an open source library- something that isn't ever really done at Google.
One of the company values I've encountered that's stuck with me is metal toughness. I see it as the ability to keep oneself and others levelheaded. It's not that the author had a lapse of it in the moment, but that they then thought it would be best to abandon their responsibilities by requesting a month of leave. It was something else's fault when they didn't make a meeting, missed changes that occurred while out, didn't know what to work on, etc.
Ownership thinking is another value that's stuck with me. It's easy to blame 'Terrible Manager' (or more generally, someone/something else) but perhaps there are some things that the author could have done differently.
I will set the victim blaming aside. In these cases, the best thing to do always is - fire your manager. Find yourself a new boss and absolutely ignore "company values" sociopaths.
I think we are hearing more and more managers put people in PIP or other manage-out tools as a retaliation and everyone suggests to apply other jobs when there is a confrontation. Well, when all the companies share the toxic management culture it will be too late ask the culture to change, won't be? I believe more people should stand their ground when they face unfairness, hostility and/or bad management for some more time as they can afford. Making bad managers life easier does not solve the bigger or growing problem. It won't change as long as they go away silently and conveniently.
They ignored it, so I slowly worked my way up the chain to the head of engineering. I was given all the support in the world, and then suddenly let go and told to pound sand. My lawyer said that I could fight it for settlement but it would not be worth the investment to do so.
During that time I learned many others quit in the same office as me. The only impactful thing I could do was post a negative review on Glassdoor, and tell people 1-1 about my horrible experience. I ended up going from a midsized company to FAANG, and my career is better from it.
It was slightly worse than this. The head of HR was going to cull my office of abusive team members, but they themselves were fired before they could do that. This was before I joined. I reached out and they were willing to speak with the head of engineering about the history of harassment, but my company refused.
I also had a direct line with the founder, who in onboarding gives a two hour spiel how this will be the greatest company to work at, because their number one priority is employee experience. They ghosted me and several other senior members when we tried to raise concerns with them.
My best guess is that, they were seeking to be acquired and did not want to risk any drama which might impact their valuation. About a year after, they were acquired by a company with shitty terms for employees.
I think that employees should prioritize themselves first, if the company won’t do that. To your point though, this is a flawed system.
Perhaps the next wave of startups will clue into this. I think it would be a huge competitive advantage if done right. Creating a safe and productive work environment can help people to flourish.
I refuse to put that company on my resume.
The exact moment you get put on any such "plan", it is time to cut your losses and move on to someplace that might appreciate you better. Start interviewing immediately. Maybe claim some vacation time for it. Chances are you will get a raise out of it. Maybe a signing bonus.
Although they always claim that, after the "plan" is over, you will not be dinged for having been on it, that is just not true. (The only exception is when whoever put you on it gets fired.) So, forever after you will have this crap on your record. Nobody will care how fair it was. But, when you leave the company, it is completely left behind.
You cannot prove anything to an employer, and you don't owe them anything. There are a zillion other places that desperately need your skills. Finding and onboarding somebody to replace you will cost them most of your annual salary, so making things unpleasant and unfair for you is monumentally stupid of them. HR is absolutely not your friend; their main job is to protect the company from lawsuits, mainly by collecting dirt on anybody who could make things unpleasant.
Be sure to collect contact information from everybody you respect around you before you go. Nobody wants to continue working for a crap manager. Just because they haven't complained to you doesn't mean they like it any better than you do. They might even be on a "plan" themselves. You can get bonuses for recruiting them into your new place.
You can totally ignore any "non-compete" contract you might have signed when you started; just send them a note saying than now that you are not employed there anymore, you are terminating your participation in it. Unless they are still paying you, they have no standing to complain. (But do check with a lawyer on this.) You also have absolutely no obligation to participate in an "exit interview"; it is very rare that you can get any benefit from one. Complaining in one about your last manager can do no good; quitting says all they will be able to hear.
If you have documentation of violations of HR policies, you can sue them after you leave, for having driven you out. It will never go to court; they will settle, instead. Finally: Google is Big Evil; leaving Google is unalloyed Good.
Every mistake I have ever made in my career was not moving on when I should have.
The author moved to a new city to start a new life and perspective, which was a personal choice to make themselves happy. That's great! But then small pressures began to happen:
> manager at the new job didn't work out
> power dynamics with the team lead forcing a 'special, one-time' transfer
> having to deal with a new manager due to a reorg
> OKRs that placed significant pressures to get optimistic deliveries, being on call with a secondary team
> Wanting to join the Google protest, and then being threatened by management with being fired for taking PTO to join the protest effort
> Raised concerns about manager's behavior with on-call stuff to HR, only for HR to sit everyone down and have the manager chide the author about the tone of voice, which is completely irrelevant.
> finding out later that the manager blocked the author's potential transfer to another team where the author could have been successful
> Low bonus and no stock refreshments due to only meeting expectations, with no hope of getting a better rating because manager hates the author
Going through all that, I can definitely emphasize with the author feeling down. All that artificial pressure for what? Everyone saying not to abandon job duties, or that the author took on too much... Isn't Agile supposed to solve that? You define units of work, then spread them out to sprints. And Google does do Agile, I looked it up. If we say it's because each manager does Agile different, well then we shouldn't be blaming the author, we should be blaming the manager for not assigning work properly. Yet the author feels responsible and overwhelmed, which is ridiculous.
All the mental and physical stress is directly sourced from the job itself, and needlessly too. Jobs don't have to be this way, but it is, and it's everywhere. And the worst part is, the end result was... nothing. The author tried to remedy the situation with HR, but ultimately was forced to change jobs, and the manager is still at Google bullying others. It's great that the author found their place at Meta, but how many others weren't so lucky? And, why do we, as engineers, even tolerate such a toxic environment in the first place? Everything listed above is toxic to the core, and can heavily affect mental health.
Jobs should enable you to live a life that you want to live, to experience the things you want to experience. Jobs shouldn't be able to bully you into thinking you're a worthless person because that's just your boss making you work harder to make the boss look better, and to make your employer richer at your expense. We should not tolerate bullies, we need to back each other up and help each other. It's the only way forward for any of us.
I read that as the author wanting to not come into the office through the protest. They wanted to work from home instead and only requested PTO for it after getting pushback because of Google's ridiculous hostility to working from home.
You can't let anyone push into your life because if you give them 1% they'll shoot for 100%.
See the last two years. Take three things, give back two. Take four things, give back three. Suddenly, everything is different.
You see, my employment _is_ with Meta now, and was with Google before — it never was with Alphabet, of which Google is a fully owned subsidiary of.
I think the distinction makes sense, among other things because with few exceptions, going from one Alphabet subsidiary to another requires a full interview cycle, not just a transfer request.
The correct response is not to criticize people who demand respect, it is to act to get respect yourself.
I’ll save you some time: the author pushed code that had a bug that caused issues for some people. They didn’t show a sense of urgency, or at least the people around them didn’t think they were on it, which got communicated to their manager. At this point manager is feeling the fire and decides to sort of take over putting pressure on the author. Manager and author have a communication style mismatch, and seems like author has not earned the trust of manager. 2hs later the stress made the author cry.
Overall, the author failed to handle the expectations of people around them, the stress made them cry.
In the end, a learning experience for the author.
We’ve all gone through this and it’s a lesson of how to handle other’s expectations.
There are plenty of bad managers. Companies could recognize them by people seeking to leave their group, but generally don't.