Ask HN: How to do the bare minimum when not valued at work?
I am a senior individual contributor in tech. I got the signal that I am being managed out. However I am still giving my best as I am honest and passionate. Only consolation is that, a lot of colleagues are also being managed out. (The product is making good money though). The environment has become very toxic with a lot of politics across all the levels. To make matters worse, I am working on some legacy technologies. I know that sooner or later I will be laid off. Questions
1. Have you been through situation? How did you overcome?
2. How to implement the do the bare minimum?. I am finding it difficult. In fact, I keep checking office mails all the time.
3. What should your strategy be?. (I have been playing around with new tech though. But there are way too many fields in tech). Searching for another job is not an option at this point. I would rather wait for them to fire me.
120 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadThere is no shame in doing what you are paid to do, and no more, if your employer is making life unpleasant in some way. In fact, for most people, withholding additional labor is the only leverage they have in the employer-employee relationship.
While you are still there.
Anyway, if I'm right, it follows that you're struggling to do the bare minimum because people who care don't do the bare minimum, they do their best, often at expense to themselves.
I would suggest maybe you try to come up with some rules (no emails before X AM or after Y PM, answer emails at least 1 day after receipt, work no overtime unless asked) and you could practice them until it becomes reflex. On top of this, I find it useful to look at what your 'worst' peers are doing and slowly adjust the pace of work to meet them if you're outperforming them.
Whatever you do, start the search for a new job now. It takes time and applying and interviewing is a skill that you should practice, something amazing may come up and you can go for it, but you won't know unless you look. If you're aiming at big companies, you don't want to have to wait to the last minute when they give you notice to start grinding leetcode questions, do you?
Talk to a therapist. No shame.
I did this for 3 months whilst transitioning to a new job; my old boss was the biggest psychopath in the world. In three months I did absolutely nothing. They would send me to meetings and I’d just sit there! It can be done :)
Don’t take more than an item a day though.
Stock up on printer paper and things like that.
She told me that most of our office supplies are donations and we can't afford to just buy premium pens because I like them. I was miffed. So I paid out-of-pocket for a box of reliable pens (they cost about $1 apiece). Then I decided to prevent their loss I would label them with my name; that makes sense, right? The office had a labelmaker in the closet and I printed a label with my first name and affixed it to a pen.
My supervisor called me in and pointed out the label and asked me to consider how much that cost us. I ran some calculations and it came to about $0.25 for parts and labor to affix that label to a $1.00 pen. I was still miffed and didn't see her point.
Years later now I see she was utterly justified. It was such a small matter but she'd helped me understand what it's really like to run a business in the black. You just don't make concessions like that because every $1.00 pen you don't purchase is $1.00 that stays in the general fund until the roof collapses or you need to repair a toilet. So thank God for a well-run church that is also a business.
One of my current employees basically checked out at her last job because the boss was too tight to replace a janky VGA cable.
With us, she goes above and beyond, generating thousands a year in additional profits, because we and all it takes is making sure she gets the tools she needs and occasionally stocking the fridge with her preferred brand of orange juice.
It wasn't a case of my employer depriving me of tools necessary to do my daily tasks. It was a case of my employer pointing out that I had a very trivial desire that was totally unnecessary, and that I was being selfish by not considering their POV.
The church I worked for is not an independent entity; they're part of the largest and oldest corporation on Earth - literally. They operate 100% on freewill donations from the faithful; they don't run any profit-making enterprise. They are beholden to rules and regulations from above, but the diocese doesn't routinely assist them financially in daily operations or capital costs.
The church has to consider insurance and liability in everything they do, and my supervisor was the person in charge of making sure that employees were aware of, and on board with, rules and regulations like that.
That church is able to sustain over two dozen subunits of ministries, run by unpaid and mostly untrained volunteers. They've consistently maintained and improved the beauty of the physical plant, all while drawing significantly lower revenue than their neighboring churches. And the reason they can do that is because they're able to teach people like me to think about what it means to buy a $1 pen with a $0.25 label attached.
Stealing your salary by not doing any work is one thing, but if you’re already doing that to the tune of $10000/month, do you really need a $0.10 pen?
My professional advice is to work the job that you have or take a leave of absence.
Personally, a therapist is always a great resource and ally in life.
Are you expecting a large severance payment if you do work until they initiate termination, that you would not get if you quit?
Do you need any of these political bloodsuckers' reference and good word to land a new job?
If the product is making money but somehow the company that owns it does not see a future in more investment there, who are their competition and why not work for these guys instead? How valuable is your domain knowledge and how much is locked in non-competes? Same question for the customers of the product you are working on... Why is your goal to do the bare minimum? Why use the passive form in "being managed out"? Someone somehow has put themselves on top of your game what did they do to corner you, is this in the company's best interest, or is it in their own personal best interest?
Things are absolutely not like this everywhere. I don't know where you got this idea that things can never be better than terrible, but it isn't true.
> My goal of doing bare minimum is to teach them a lesson
I mean, you do you, but to me this vindictive motive reads as super unprofessional and could backfire on your career, even outside of this company. It's one thing if you're trapped at this job because of circumstances outside of your control, but assuming you have the opportunity to look for something else, you owe yourself more than to intentionally stay in a toxic workplace just to get some kind of misguided revenge (?).
Move on. Your career is not a torpedo whose only remaining purpose is to detonate itself at a target that's done you wrong. Leave the toxicity behind and do something you'll feel good about.
Number two is figuring out a new skill which will help you get that job, and using it at your current work somehow.
Not doing your best says more about you than about your employer.
Leave and get on with your life.
Good luck.
There is that cliche - "under promise, over deliver" , not sure if that applies to your situation...
Bad reputation travels further and faster than the good. Always acting professionally, even in difficult circumstances, is a good characterization to have.
That said, I do agree with the other comments here suggesting a talk with the manager or a new job. Why get yourself stuck in a situation where you can't take pride of your work?
+1 to this.
I recently did this and found it enjoyable; I followed this advice from mentors. Disconnecting from work made me happier & I get to spend more time with my family. I enjoy my stress-free weekends and live in peace.
The exact quote that made me nuke all work accounts from my mobile:
Your ${COMPANY} can replace you in an instant; Your family & loved ones can NEVER replace you!
If you think you might be facing layoffs, Talks might even have a goal for you like spending some of the worktime on relevant technologies in other teams.
I do not believe in 'how to do the bare minimum', it's often big part of mental health to be able to contribute.
I am sorry for your situation.
Is starting your own product also not an option? How long of a runway do you have if you were to quit immediately? Three months? Six months?
My experience is that most engineers with non-insignificant experience[1] can create an MVP in about three months.
[1] More specifically, have enough experience to estimate what can be done in two months (leaving a one month margin), and the pragmatism to ruthlessly cut scope until it fits into two months.
It’s easier to find a job with a pay rise when you already have a job, compared to if you’re unemployed.
This is a good time disconnecting from current work and explore new avenues. Start interviewing as a way to build up your confidence, visit other offices, talk to other passionate employees, understand what it could mean to be valued in a new company.
Contrary to popular HN belief, it is possible to land a new job, with better compensation and interesting work without participating in complicated interview processes.
At the very least, you have now opened doors to new work should you eventually be fired.
This x 100!
Contrary to popular HN belief, the job interviewing process can be fun, interesting and fulfilling. As a job candidate, you get the opportunity to do something almost nobody gets to do: you get to peel back the curtain on a workplace and, as an outsider, see what it’s like! Is it the sort of place you’d enjoy working in? We spend so long in most workplaces that it becomes impossible to see the forest for the trees; or see our potential independently of the potential of our coworkers. Interviewing shakes us out of complacency.
Job searching can be an opportunity to redefine yourself and explore what’s out there. Think of it like travelling to other countries. It can be stressful, but the change of scenery can be delightful if we let ourselves enjoy it.
I want to explore potential co-workers, what the employer would value in me, what interesting hard problems they have, what they do for fun, how they celebrate and how they learn, if they actually code or have meetings, what I would be doing, what they need help with, what I can bring.
I think all of the above can be understood in a meeting or two and should take about 2-3 days from meeting to offer and not be stressful :)
As a candidate you can choose to refuse to engage with such impositions. If it's a dealbreaker for the potential employee, you probably don't want to work there anyway.
If you are truly dependent on specifically them, eg for visa reasons, that can only lead to a "partially managed decline".
If not, it's better to make your own decision to switch tracks in a controlled way and leave their bullshit and your need to care at all about it behind. You only have so many days on the planet, you will regret wasting them with people that make you feel like this.
So I started just doing as little as possible and... nobody seemed to care. It was on paper a sweet gig. Decent salary, lopsided work life balance. But you're right... despite what sounds like a dream job, I was constantly bitter about it all.
I finally moved jobs, am actually working again, and much happier. Wish I'd done it 5 years ago.
Once you accept that you're more than likely going to have to leave, just start getting the gears turning to find a new job. Interviews, resume updates, learning new skills and getting certifications, basically anything that will help you land a role. Do some due dilligence on your potential new roles, the companies offering those roles, and the likely salary and benefits.
Treat this job search like proper work - so no slacking off, taking late lunches or anything of that kind. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that you come in one morning, and your office access won't work, and instead you have a action plan ready to go.