The title is a false dichotomy; you should be both, if you're only valued but not useful you're part of this echelon of seat fillers who get fired at layoff rounds to cut costs.
From King Solomon's Mines, there's a line from the indigenous "bad witch" when she's trapped the protagonists in the jewel hoard cave - something like "What will white man to with the jewels now? Eat them, perhaps?"
> If you’re reading this and wondering which side of the line you are on, I encourage you to take a moment to step back and look beyond the surface. Are you valued, or just useful?
Thanks for reminding me again that my 20 year career has been completely useless, other than being a "seat-filler".
I've been heavily feeling that recently too. I think in 20+ years of working there were maybe 2 or 3 of them where I had even a little bit of "valued".
I don't think so. A lot of managers value people who excel at talking big while doing little (if any) useful work, while they ignore the useful people who actually get things done.
Playing office politics right is the most important thing at work. Doing real work is secondary. On other hand as a workhorse I punch occasionally every management’s darling in the face. They don‘t like me, but they know, that somebody must do technical heavy lifting. Of course, I am number one in the layoff’s list :-)
You can never be sure of that (your conclusion). I had consistently disagreed with one of my managers, and ended up with the most positive performance review ever from them (I expected the opposite). It did help that I delivered on what I insisted on, of course :)
I understand the negative perception around the importance of playing "office politics", but realistically when people are working as a team it's important people can be cooperative, and office politics is mostly just the exercise of being a cooperative member of the team.
99% of the time people are not getting promoted or retained simply because they're more friendly with people at the top, but because they're broadly respected, cooperative, and have some adequate level of competency.
The anti-social 10x developer who sits in the corner of the office grunting at people with his headphones on might spit out a lot of code, but does so while causing friction and problems within the wider team. They might think highly of themselves, but they fail to see how a company full of these people cannot operate efficiently.
Doing "real work" + making effort to be liked and cooperative with those around you is the right strategy. Over indexing on just being like or just doing real work isn't going to get you very far.
You said, "they don't like me" and if that's true I do think you should try harder to be liked. You can still raise objections to things and have your own input, but learning how to do that in a way that doesn't irritate people or derail the team is an important skill to have.
I empathise though because I struggle with this myself – I'm autistic so I find it hard to be likeable and communicate with nuance. I have lost jobs and promotions because of my inability to play well in teams in the past. Even today it's hard, but it's better now I at least try my best.
I think, you‘re mixing up normal group dynamics with toxic office politics. When someone very visibly starts licking a* of the superiors. And the superiors very visible promote that individual. Everyone else is somehow confused and alienated afterwards. Not my first toxic environment.
I funded my studies working as intern at the university, it was sometimes rough, but very competitive work environment. There were some intrigues regarding lab funding and permanent positions, but it was fine after all. What I found later working for smaller and bigger companies is too bizarre. The amount of people who are ready to slit colleague’s throats for 200€ pre-tax monthly salary increase is shocking high.
Working in a team is nice unless the team is not functional. One can bake much bigger cake in a team. But… it appears there are too many people who will take team’s result and present as their own. Or just ignore their work packages. Or managers not resistant to a* licking.
I have good relationship with colleagues on my level and with my direct manager. Production guys come to me with technical problems, because they’re afraid of other hardware developer. The thing is that it’s ok to be not liked by everybody. I don’t like uneducated general manager assigned to this company by the new owner. I don’t like the bozo explosion happening here. The production guys don’t like other hardware developer. My manager does not like interim HR manager. But it’s fine as long as it does not lead to psycho relationships and toxic behavior.
The anti-social 10x developer is more often than not the anti-social 1x developer that makes everyone else move at 0.1x or worse. Not that I directly blame them for it - there is far too much focus on the individual here. It's not so common they are bad people, but more that their own management doesn't provide them with the incentives to behave any other way. It's all about incentives. If the incentives are there, the parties involved will inevitably find a way to compromise in a way that works for them, but if the incentives are fundamentally misaligned, there is no way this gets resolved. The only option is to run.
Toxic people and environments are not uncommon. It sounds like you’ve not experienced that too much, which is good. But there are sociopaths, liars, ladder climbers, manipulators, narcissists, and lots of other imperfect people who care more about their own title and compensation than the product or coworker harmony. As an autistic person, you might invest in learning how to spot such people to protect yourself.
Folks don't want to hear it, but our careers are based more on luck than any of us would like.
I avoided the first big round of layoffs at my last company. How? By being so overwhelmingly awesome and valuable that they couldn't afford to lose me?? NO!
I agreed to a smaller pay increase that year so a team member could get a much-deserved larger raise. I accepted more stock grants to help make up the difference. The next round of layoffs was based on stock packages granted to employees. More stock granted == more better, right?
I have always been useful not valued, worked at 8 or more places. Only people who value me are family. Businesses don't.
You find out pretty quick: suddenly on PIP, or get bullied thereafter because you phrased something slightly off in a Jira comment. If I can get paid and treated OK, I see that as good.
Don't put stock in business relationships. Try to have good ones but put stock in ... assets, family, health, etc.
Now I have seen valued people but they are rare. And if push come to shove I'm sure that bond could break.
Which is the correct approach for enterprises with tons of employees. Humans are never happy once they reach groups of certain sizes. Can only handle projects with certain sizes with apathy. Initiative may be looked for in smaller environments.
Thanks. It was the domain for an old blog that I took down awhile ago.
If you were trying to contact me privately for some reason, I can provide a working email if you give me a brief idea of what you wanted to discuss in a comment.
I'm not sure this is a reliable guide. I'm in academia, and the people who really can't be replaced are the administrative staff with hard-won institutional knowledge and connections--but they're valued far less than splashy big-name faculty with no institutional loyalty.
> They can’t be fired, but if they stop bringing in grants, they can face steep pay cuts and lab closure.
This describes the situation of tenured faculty (who are definitely who I had in mind when I referred to splashy big names), but universities have long been moving to a model with as few tenured or tenurable faculty as possible, where some instructors are full time but non-tenure-track, and others are part time (and so, for example, don't have to be paid benefits). At my university these are called lecturers and adjuncts, but other names exist. Both jobs involve renewable contracts (of different lengths), so they need not even be fired, just not have their contracts renewed.
Ask them all to take a month off and see which has greater impact and over which timescales.
Usefulness and value have different dimensions that can be orthogonal or even in opposition to one another. Many of us have worked in the presence of brilliant assholes and had to ponder that question.
I agree. It sounds like lack of documented processes and leadership oversight have made that corner of the organization a kind of personal fiefdom of the administrative staff.
> I agree. It sounds like lack of documented processes and leadership oversight have made that corner of the organization a kind of personal fiefdom of the administrative staff.
There are lots of problems with the way universities are set up, but, from the point of view of a faculty member and, I suspect, also that of a student, "more leadership oversight" would solve none of them. (Unless it was accompanied by a change of university leadership from those who think of a university primarily as a business, to those who think of a university primarily as a university. I have only spent a long time at one university, so it is possible that this problem is peculiar to my university, but my impression from talking to my colleagues is that it is not.)
I have the same experience. Multiple companies with a crazy manager that bullied and insulted employees. The bosses never do anything because the manager is always right.
At my last job I was the only developer who knew bash and Linux. I handled everything until a new CTO came and destroyed the servers with his lack of technical knowledge.
I was critically useful to the company until I broke down due to the daily harassment. I became valued the instant I gave my two weeks notice, but I still told them to go to hell.
> At my last job I was the only developer who knew bash and Linux.
Where or how so you find such jobs/companies? Whenever I interview for non faang companies I’ve been asked things like the cap theorem, concurrency issues, microservice patterns, ddd, and of course on top of that the live coding and systems design interviews.
For once, I’d like to join a company in which I seem to bring something only I know.
If this is your mentality, is it any wonder you aren't valued?
People post things like this and I'm not sure they have any emotional intelligence whatsoever. Sure, your work/job doesn't have to be your entire life. But what about a little pride in what you're doing? Working with smart people towards a goal to do something useful?
If your mentality is "just show up for work, do what they ask and go home" then it should be no surprise you're at the top of the list to get laid off. I wouldn't want to work with a person who "puts no stock in business relationships".
> If your mentality is "just show up for work, do what they ask and go home" then it should be no surprise you're at the top of the list to get laid off.
Conversely, if you think that devoting yourself to work will put you at the bottom of the list to get laid off, you are in for a big surprise eventually.
But more likely people who do bare minimum at work and always wait for someone else to ask else they just leave for home are first one to go. And it is happening to "minimal interest in work" folks in my team as I type this.
It is not even about having them do work beyond normal hours. But just checking in normal hours if something need be done while they have spare cycle.
I guess it is all fine, employee made their choice and management theirs.
Consider that your point and the parent are opposite ends of a continuum and that healthy relationships lie somewhere in the middle.
Any transaction becomes increasingly zero-sum as you get to either end of the value proposition difference between the two parties. The non-zero area is in the middle.
You made some assumptions. Don't put stock doesn't mean don't be nice, make friends, be helpful, work hard etc. It mean don't be naive. It means also invest in stocks, skills, other income streams, networking etc.
For a while I was struggling to pinpoint my discontent, but I ended up realizing it was because I felt I was undervalued compared to the contributions I had made over the years.
As it happened, my superiors had come to realize the same, so when I asked for a talk, they preempted my plan by announcing this.
As mentioned by the article, I've since been included in much more strategic talks and discussions to help shape the future of the company, as we're moving our products from the desktop to the web.
It's still something I'll keep an eye on, but just realizing the source of my frustration was very helpful. It also made me more aware of how I shouldn't sacrifice too much unless it's being valued, as opposed to just being more useful.
Was in a hurry, so realize I forgot my main point.
I wish I had realized the source of my frustration and thus acted on it earlier.
It lead to a quite downbeat feeling, which still lingers a bit every now and then.
Of course this was just before the current mass layoffs, so getting a new job was definitely an option then, which I almost certainly would have taken had they not seen me.
Isn't being incredibly useful actually a pretty solid way to be valued, especially in the trenches? Maybe 'useful' is just 'valued' in work boots instead of a fancy suit.
Speaking from experience... it's hard to tell. Yes, but also: no. I know 'useful' is employable.
I have been more easily valued for my 'use' by being easier to manipulate. Or, sorry, felt more open/safe. Money spends the same: barely, too much work.
Layoffs? To quote Janet Jackson: 'what have you done for me lately?'
People can get used to a certain level of usefulness from a person, and start to take it for granted. The first time you swoop in and do something in an hour that had been holding others up for weeks, they're astounded by your usefulness. The tenth time, it's just what you do, so it's expected.
And yes, that does seem to happen more if you're wearing work boots, probably because people who never wear work boots assume that, if it can be done in work boots, it can't be as astounding and valuable as it appeared at first, or you would have moved beyond work boots by now.
Usefulness may hold its value in the trenches, but the people ultimately deciding everyone's salary generally aren't in the trenches.
Everyone can provide value to the world if we accept them for who they are, and what they love and can offer. The issue lies when we, as a society, decides what is valuable and what isn't.
I would disagree. They maybe don't teach in the way that would be ideal for each individual student (because that isn't possible when classes are in the 10's of students), and some of course are fundamentally terrible as is the same in every single profession, however they provide lots of other value than just teaching. They provide comfort and care and security for those children who have a poor home life. Even if they don't teach the child more than 40 % of what they should teach, what they offer in other ways is more valuable.
> I had become the go-to person for making things run smoothly, for fixing urgent problems, for delivering. But every time I pushed toward more strategic and ambitious directions, there was a lot of can-kicking and “let’s think about it” that went nowhere. I was incredibly useful to the organization, but not necessarily valued, and at some point, I started feeling a sense of stagnation. Compensation was good, the actual job was aligned with my interests, but that sense of being just a useful caretaker was hitting my motivation. In the end, I had to move on to another role.
I was reading that and thinking "some people are never happy". I mean, they got a nice job, nice compensation, recognition... the only thing missing, apparently, was that they were not part of the company's "strategy team"? In my experience, you can be the smartest person in the world, if the company already has a small strategy team (or top management) that is pulling all the strings and they're happy with that setup, you'll basically never be able to become a part of that, barring major changes in the company's org chart.
Well yeah, the only way to get to that position is if you get in early on a startup, make one your own, or get along really well with the top brass and have the knack for it.
If someone is valued, they will at least get pulled into private, 1-1 conversations with one of those people pulling all the strings.
No matter if their suggestions would be followed, their opinion would be heard, which ultimately establishes how valued one is.
I've seen this happen more than once, and most often, that person was recommended as the successor for who they advised.
I've been on both sides, and I like being "valued" that way: otherwise, I just feel like I am not contributing with the best I can provide, and not enjoying the ride.
It's just who I am, and it's not about "never being happy" — we all aspire to some things, and this beats compensation to me.
If you are happy being a worker bee it's great. If you want to take on more responsibility and have a seat at the table, it feels like you're being treated with kiddy gloves.
A lot of the kind of work the author mentions is done with the expectation that it will translate into more responsibility or influence at some point. If the company said "you're a great developer, but you'll never be more than that" the author probably wouldn't have invested to the same degree.
According to this definition, being involved more, I'd rather be useful than valued. Like Socrates who went to the market to see what things he doesn't need, I cherish each meeting I am not invited to. It's a blessing.
As long as the pay is good (or better) than in the "valued" path, useful is better.
Exception: I have equity and the decisions made are bad.
I like and appreciate the authors points but just wish they would have done more with the connection of the two.
You might be valued because you are many things. You might not be valued because of many things. If you are able to be useful and valued, while also being fulfilled and happy personally and professionally -- that's great.
But, there is normally not a direct and clear situation like this in organizations. If there is, enjoy it while you have it. Normally, it's not as direct and clear to assess and understand. You are also part of this equation. The dynamics in an organization are normally not consistent.
Dynamics in organizations can shift quickly. Culture can also mean you could be doing all you can but the situation is no longer good for you for a variety of reasons or good for the organization.
Informed re-evaluation of your own value in your situation, at reasonable points, is vital. You may be not as great as you think you are, you might not be able to feel valued or useful in a changed or toxic environment. You may not care about that stuff. The organization may be incapable of providing any of that validation but, ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you are able to live with and why. How the organization provides whatever for you to contemplate is part of the calculation that must rest on your shoulders -- and that effort is ongoing and important.
The more rare you are, the more you are valued. You still have to be useful to be valuable though.
In order to acquire those rare skills, an ungodly amount of work is often required. It is also a huge variable. A rare skill today can become useless tomorrow.
Also, beware of indispensable people. "This company needs me" can have all sorts of causes. Maybe you didn't documented things right, maybe you just have a long history with them. It doesn't mean being rare. Being rare is feeling "this skill I have could be of use to any similar company and few people know it".
The skill could be anything. Perfect pitch, excelent document writing, de-escalation, low-level bit shaving.
I'll add one more to this, "Pleasant personality". If you have are difficult to be with, you will be miserable and so will others around you, leaving you with very little or no allies. So new formula:
Valued = Useful + hard to find + easy to work with
"Easy to work with" is a wide requirement. It's harder to find.
But we can compare how far "easy to work with" goes in a more balanced scenario:
You're hiring for a critical rare skill. _Only two_ candidates were seriously considered, and you hired them both.
One of them delivers for the skill you hired (useful), but is not easy to work with.
One of them does not deliver for the skill you hired (useless), but is easy to work with.
So, it doesn't matter what your definition of "easy to work with" is in this scenario. It justs matters that whatever it is, it's not related to usefulness (so you can't get away with "but being useful makes you easy to work with").
Who would you lay off if your bills were depending on those guys?
Feeling valued is the key here. If you need external validation then by all means, work smarter towards it. Become a manager. Become a company influencer. Build a brand, and sell it hard.
At some point later in life, I hope you’ll figure out your own sense of value, true to your being, and decoupled from what others may grant. Your raison d'être.
I'd say value, in the way the author defines it, is more a function of scarcity. If you are someone who can get stuff done but you are easily replaced, you are useful - not valuable. If you can get things done that nobody else can, or will, then you are valued.
Didn't know other economic systems beat the fundamental nature of physics and reality where infinite isn't simply a concept. Are you sure you're considering a "charade" in the right direction?
That’s strange, because capitalism is the one that thinks infinity is real. Also it’s trying to break nature, quite literally given the state of our climate.
There are other ways to cooperate that don’t depend on sociopathy and infighting.
> That’s strange, because capitalism is the one that thinks infinity is real.
Your rhetoric doesn't pass. You contradict yourself in a single turn. Can't cite "scarcity" and "infinity" powers this fictional economic system you thought of as "capitalism".
You miss the point. It’s not I don’t believe in scarcity or the second law of thermodynamics, it’s that I critique capitalism’s handing of it that is by its very nature exploitative, short-sighted and unsustainable. It needs various and extensive guardrails to be functional at all otherwise it would have destroyed us already.
It’s the classic “capitalism is built on scarcity but behaves as if infinite growth is possible”-critique. There are interesting responses to that but “it’s contradictory” ain’t one of them.
What a wonderful text. I have seen soo many colleagues who do solid, if not extraordinary work, yet they get paid mediocre salaries. And then there are people who create an aura, as if they can walk on water. And get promoted constantly, get new roles, new opportunities. But when you scratch the surface, they are not necessarily doing much better work, but they are informed, know latest trends, use the right buzz words, bring a fresh air into the team, new models, mindsets, paradigms. And they think very highly of themselves. Unlike the others who do their job well, but are treated not like rock stars, and do not signal that they are ready to leave the company. So they always stay where they are, get paid the same. And management does not feel like treating them special to keep them.
I presume there is said opportunity, after all that's what company-hired "headhunters" are for.
But you also need to find people who are useful, undervalued (in the sense of the article, not in the sense of pay), and who are also willing to take the risk of jumping into a new environment even if that's uncomfortable at first. That means they need somehow to check that they'll be really valued at the new place, not just given a fancy title but no real decision-making involvement.
My guess is there's a positive correlation between useful-but-not-valued people and ones who are risk-averse and/or not the best social climbers, because the people who are both technically and socially brilliant or risk-taking are either valued already, or have already left your organisation.
Depends how safety-critical the system is? If you're one of the few that can maintain an old aircraft, medical equipment, COBOL software for a nuclear power plant etc.- then you don't want risk-takers, you want steady hands that keep your system running.
From the company's point of view, good management is finding the people who are useful and making them feel valued.
A useful person tends to have the ability to get hired elsewhere, and will sometimes do this even at a drop in salary, if they are more valued elsewhere.
It takes some guts to be in management, but being a good worker-bee will only get you so far. You have to know how to work with others, you have to be able to make critical decisions at the right moment. Not everyone has the talent for it. And if you don't have it, you don't have it. Will you, as this author has described, find a comfortable position in life, be able to afford whatever you need? Absolutely. And you'll never have to be responsible for impactful decisions; you'll never have to fire anyone.
> Will you, as this author has described, find a comfortable position in life, be able to afford whatever you need? Absolutely.
Only when the times are good, as many of us had to learn the hard way.
When times are tough and there aren't enough resources to go around - there is no substitute for being the one allocating the resources, or at least close to them.
“ I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.“ - General and Commander-in-Chief Weimar Republic https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord
Guess I fit the stupid and lazy category, interesting thoughts though. I act like I work half of the day and the other half I procrastinate and work simultaneously. Part of it may be ADHD but somehow it works out for me... Still getting my work done.
Or you’re clever and lazy but haven’t found the right general to promote you to high leadership yet. I think of Sir Ken Robinson whenever I hear anyone say ADHD is synonymous with “stupid”
I had to double check that I wasn't sleep posting or something cause that's literally what 90% of my days are like.
Probably 5% of the time I'll get stuck completely and those days are immensely stressful but on the flip side, the 5% of the time I actually am able to silence the procrastination demon in my ear, those days are so satisfyingly productive.
That kind of work avoidance sounds like a lot of work.
Advice would be to try to find a job or role doing something you’re interested it.
A lot of the subject matter of my work is not that interesting to me, and the politics and lack of any sort of vision or leadership at most organizations these days makes project work sometimes stressful. But (maybe as a survival mechanism?) I’ve found that focusing on improving how I do my work and taking pride in my output (even if no one else notices) is a way for me to have some control over my work day.
This way it’s about me and I’m not looking for external validation (which isn’t coming for a myriad of reasons that would be exhausting to list here).
My point is that we all (most of us anyway) have to work so my theory is that it’s best to try to find some balance of interesting, pays ok and you’re good enough at it that you can find some meaning in your work.
I do, only I've spent a lot of time the last 15 years thinking objectively about my strengths and weaknesses. I am so "lazy" that I work hard nearly every day. Let me explain.
1. Big tasks are stressful because, well, they're big. So I break them down in to components and chip away every day at them so that I am not overwhelmed. I call this taking care of my future self.
2. I love to have days where I get to wake up and do whatever I want to do that day. But I can't enjoy that freedom with bad conscious tasks hanging over my head, so I work my ass off to have those days. For example, my goal for the ENTIRE summer was to spread a yard of mulch, re-build two firewood racks, re-stack and move the logs that are in different areas to keep them seasoning, split and stack a cord of wood for next winter, lay posts for a fruit tree espalier, rebuild shed doors, cut back the wood line 10 feet. These are all already done because we had a nice weather spring. On top of that I changed the fluids on the tractor, the lawnmower, the riding lawnmower and cleaned the gutters.
3. Future proof my job. I got ISO 27001 certification in the spring during dry project spell, and I'm now doing my CCP certification. I have also made it a goal to do 2 hours of business development and networking every week.
4. I do billing on weekdays now, no longer on the weekends.
5. Exercise and sleep. Eat healthy. Don't drink alcohol. This means I wake up early and fresh and motivated to do a couple hours of early work every day. This usually means I'm done with my workday by 2:00pm.
6. Remove toxic relationships from your life. This could be friends, an employer, a client, whatever. They suck your happiness which impacts your productivity.
7. Don't keep up with the Jones's. Figure out what makes you happy. I've never cared about how people view me, I wear jeans and t-shirts mostly. Fancy cars & houses do nothing for me (I live in a great house on an amazing property in a very special area next to a city I have always loved even though it wasn't my "home", but it's not a McMansion). My car is low mileage and 10 years old.
8. Don't do ALL the hobbies. Find the one or two that you really get a lot out of and focus on those. For me it's music.
Did I know or do much of this when I was 20? no. 30? not really. Maybe some of this just comes from experience.
Nah actual work is mentally draining. While I avoid work I do private projects that are actually interesting to me. I work, just not on company stuff that I don't care about.
I am a quitter, I start projects for 2 weeks until I find the next shiny thing. I have a tendency to quit once projects go from learning to tedious repetitive work.
I'm the exact same. Sometimes work scratches that itch and I can work a productive 8 hours. Other times it's boring repetitive work and I'll start slacking off.
Learn to finish projects, that's where the satisfaction is. Perhaps go into it without an overambitious design, hit a milestone. Step away. Come back later and augment.
I had to quit my job as president of a company and start a consulting practice to do this (to varying degree of success, freedom requires constant vigilance).
I worked as a small elite unit in a world leading airline, team of about 5 poeple that went down to basically 1 ( after I was finally labelled as "difficult to work with" - ( I actually was always quiet calm friendly used to working in critical teams and worked basically close to 12 hour days.
Eventually a deadline was missed and "someone had to be blamed".
Having worked in countless companies I was ready for this and calm, basically fine with it, just kept working hard.
But I always remember of this one "middle manager" product lead or something, was constantly interrupting people, sitting with them, walking through what they were doing, following them, and eventually made a private accusation that I was "insulting other members of the team". ( I was basically silo'd knew no one, and also knew better than to criticise anyone). Stay with me...
I got chewed out by a seemingly random , mild mannered usually polite manager who never had a problem with me, infront of a few people ( I didnt say anything - instinctively I just knew this mean I was about to be let go, nothing I would say would help, and tensions were high due to deadlines ), accused of being troublesome etc. I calmly said I didnt know what he was stating, he calmed down and left.
Then I was "released from my contract".
As a consultant I don't get upset by these things, I am fine with it, I work as hard as I can and when the contract is over I leave.
However I will never forget how the one man, who never actually did any work, who interrupted everyone, and who made these accusations, was basically doing everything he could do "seem like he had a job".
He was infact, not quite the "hardworking and stupid". My only amendment that perhaps he was a special version of this, the "hardworking and unethical".
Only ever saw that once in nearly 2 decades of working but Im sure there were many more I didnt pick up on,
He stayed on, causing trouble, disrupting etc, and I always realised its because he kept a close profile to his superior, who had no eyes on the ground, and blindly trusted him due to an overload of work.
EDIT > Sorry I want to emphasise the main take away in my rant, is that the polite quiet well meaning, happy, working, well adjusted polite english gentleman behind me who was in management was suddenly shouting at me in front of others because he felt shocked at the accusation that I was a bad person, obviously which mean I deserved a dressing down, stood up and just starting shouting at me. This was a calm, relatively intelligent person, with his things in order, not affiliated with my project. Yet he just assumed an email chain from management around him, possibly with a very accusatory snippet from the trouble maker, was enough to convince him to act unprofessional and give me the dressing down. If anyone would have got into trouble or sued, it would have been this well meaning "smart" individual. That was my other main point.
In the end, there were no moves I could have made, but it was incredibly surprising how many poeple were easily manipulated into being unprofessional etc because of false information coming from their tier / one tier up. Whole narratives painted. It was quite interesting. Eventually that individual must have been let go, but what a desperate, unethical way to live.
> However I will never forget how the one man, who never actually did any work, who interrupted everyone, and who made these accusations, was basically doing everything he could do "seem like he had a job".
Judging from your description, you could actually be a threat to his position. So that might be a preemptive strike.
I had not even thought of that! I did accidentally after a 10 hour day - slip for for half a second and said "what!?!?" it was less than a second and I was half way through leaving - it was after working hours, it was a big, complex question and interrupted my flow brashly, I didnt even realise I had said it in the wrong tone and that other poeple may have heard it. I immediately did my best to answer the question, but that slight slip up must have made him feel embarrased and under threat. I remember it now. To be fair it was after work, the wrong moment and really an interruption, when a calm "can we discuss this at one point" was expected in that env.
Another wild, unsubstantiated guess... The reason for him interrupting others, might be the stress caused by not understanding what's being said, but having to hold the professional image
A lot of people in management also have imposter syndrome which makes anyone under them that appears competent seem like a danger to them.
While doing a contract and consulting I've ran into this, but nothing like my wife in her career.
First corporate job as webdev/design, had her boss get fired for embezzlement of about quarter of a mil. Bosses after that kinda sucked so she left.
Second job (marketing manager/design) was fine for a while, until her great boss left and they replaced her with a sketchy character. I listened in on a number of her meetings and we came to the conclusion that he wanted to bring in a contracting group that was going to give him kickbacks. This guy seemed highly threatened by her. She found another job and within 6 months that guy was fired and the people that still worked there didn't know the exact details but there were hush hush whispers of fraud.
Third job (sr marketing manager) was fine with the first boss over her. But as always, that person found an even better paying position and left. Next director had an issue with taking other people's work and calling it her own. Wife did something unintentionally to embarrass the director in a meeting when the director had taken my wife's work and put her name on it and upper level management saw it. A few days later my wife was put on a PIP by her manager the director even though she had got outstanding remarks on the last quarter review that had ended a month before. Needless to say she did the following. Went and got a better job (director level now) but didn't tell them that. Then went to HR and filed a complaint over the PIP and ethics violations. After some back and forth it ended up with her leaving with a severance.
Really everything I've seen in management as you go up higher in the food chain is that it seems everyone is willing to, and expects others to knife them in the back in a lot of companies.
...the polite quiet well meaning, happy, working, well adjusted polite English gentleman...
You need to watch out for those, speaking as one myself. We did run an empire once and not by being nice. Have a look at George Orwell's short pieces set in Burmah (now Myanmar).
I am in my mid forties. I have always walked away the moment I have been yelled at any job. Each time I have done this I had zero dollars in the bank. That is a privilege I give to my family, and they don't even use it. If it is a big organization walk straight to HR or go home and call a lawyer.
I also agree it’s o er the line. However what I do is I leave “on my
Own terms” as a form of victory. I will make that the moment I mentally decide to leave but I let myself choose the timing as much as possible as a form of not letting my environment affect me. Not sure if that makes sense
I've noticed a strong trend that newly hired managers suffer from imposter syndrome more than anyone else. Rocking the boat, lighting fires, picking fights with their reports or people outside the team - these are common symptoms.
Some of these may also work in different life stages.
Want reasonable job security & compensation but currently pursuing a masters / raising an infant / dealing with elderly parental care - "useful¬ valued" may not be so bad for a few years.
Good points and maybe expressed to generally by me.
I suspect who is laid off first is more to do with the lifecycle of the company actually, having been in high/low/negative growth environments myself.
I have found in negative growth environments, managers tend to get pretty sober about who is actually useful not just valued, and cut accordingly. Negative growth environments is also when more cuts happen, with generally a worse job hunting environment if you are cut.
But in frivolous times, yes, I've seen plenty of useful people get cut.. but they always bounce back better anyway.
I kinda feel called out. My work should speak for itself. It often does, but I will always forget it when it comes time to speak of myself nicely.
I simply do not care to self-promote. It feels vain and vanity is one of the most useless things possible to me. Donald Trump is about 98% vanity, if you want to see what vanity is.
Not being able to actually cite the things I’ve done to someone who already knows what those things are has cost me several promotions, though. I can do the work, I can forecast needs, be ready for them, and solve them before they arrive, but because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me.
Now that I’ve typed all that out, I am remembering just how many times this has happened, and now twenty minutes into the week and I am 100% misanthropic. People suck.
> because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me
You need to re-frame this problem, so it's not about "self-promotion", and instead is about proactively forecasting the needs (as you put it) of your manager, not just the technical system you're managing.
If you view it as part of your job to document (not promote, just document) the work you've done, it's trivial to collect those links into a doc at the end of the promotion cycle, hand it to your manager and collect a promotion. Make sure that you're communicating throughout the cycle that you're expecting a promotion in your 1:1's and ask if you're on track towards that goal / if there's anything un-discussed you'd need to do to get there.
It's critical to understand that this is not vanity, it's part of your job (if you want a promotion, that is). I hope this is helpful!
how can i understand what my manager needs if i don't know what he does?
I have no idea what managers do, and I can't ever get an answer when I ask what managers do. "oh, all kinds of stuff." gosh, thanks. it's so clear, now.
Not sure if you are looking for an answer or just letting the steam out... But if you are searching for knowledge, then I would suggest picking up a book or two on leading people. It was a big surprise to me that such books exist and that they actually help understand the dynamics in companies, and how to achieve win-win outcomes. Good luck!
It's important to understand the incentives of everybody in an organization, even if they're not able to articulate it clearly to you, you should make it your personal mission to understand them. The incentive structure of your manager (i.e. the standard by which they are judged) is to keep their ICs productive while also attempting to keep costs "under control" (i.e. growing, but at a predictable rate that is below some hurdle).
If you want a promotion, your manager needs to be able to explain / provide evidence to their manager (and so on, all the way to the board in theory) as to why you deserve a higher salary.
If you are doing the right work, are able to provide them with an artifact (brag sheet / promotion packet) that concisely outlines the value provided, and consistently provide the signal that you'd be dissatisfied (i.e. potentially leave) without a promotion, you'll get a promotion. It's within your power to remove the only remaining obstacle for them by providing the packet, which is 80% of their work in securing you a promotion.
There are almost always more urgent issues for a manager to address than a high-performing employee who is quietly upset about not getting a promotion. By stepping up and helping them do this small part of their job, you're demonstrating empathy by solving an important but non-urgent problem for them. They will be grateful.
I am bad at this as well. I think part of it is to do with my upbringing as a poor, smart kid at a bad school. The way to be well thought of by teachers was to not cause a fuss and get good grades whilst the teachers concentrated on the disruptive kids.
I shudder at the thought of becoming one of those gobshites that asks senior management questions in townhalls like "How do you stay so grounded with all the awesome responsibility you are dealing with?"
There a few things that motivated me to start self publicising a bit more:
1) A Chris Williamson podcast where he said "Shy bairns get nowt" and also "Somewhere there is someone with half your talent and twice your confidence earning 10x your salary."
2) I email all my senior stakeholders (not just my line manager) details of the major projects I am working on. I try and frame this as an "FYI" and an offer for them to add extra context or re-align my priorities.
I've tried the brag document but I just can't do it. "ooh look at me, so special" i hate that crap.
I don't need 10x my salary, I just want to feel valued by my team. I have never felt that in my entire life, even though team members often mention that I save their bacon repeatedly in team meetings with supervisors. it's like no one hears it.
unless i change who i am as a person i will never be valued at work. it's just that simple. I won't play the vanity game solely for money. I won't do anything solely for money. I just want to feel valued and I don't think that is possible for me. I'm just not wired to feel that. So fuck me I guess. "you don't fit the mold kid, so you can go fly a kite"
For me, the motivation to move out of my comfort zone and become more "braggy" was to provide a better standard of living for my family. And also my ego - getting annoyed at seeing less talented people do better.
It is good. I used to do that and get some positive feedback on it. But lately with change in management who are least interested in such mails, and with constant banging of stay in your lane, I just lost the energy.
Point is these things can yield result but it is neither guaranteed nor welcome so many times. Also praising "leadership" is race to bottom, there are always bigger suck ups pushing themselves.
Thank you for posting this. Someone had told me this and attributed it to Clausewitz - so I've never been able to track it down. I've used it to make the case that laziness is not always a bad thing - i.e. lazy people find it easier to delegate.
Love this quote and tell it to friends often. I strive to be the clever and lazy officer. It was also eye opening to meet the first hardworking+stupid individual of my career and see just how much damage they really could do.
Unfortunately I've found that big tech companies are stuffed with "stupid and hardworking", an inevitable consequence of perf eval cultures that value work output over anything else.
I used to recognize this at my last job, pay was good but left searching for other opportunities where I felt valued in a team.
Two years later and I've about burned through all my savings looking for any job at all. Seems like current market has decided my skills and connections are not enough. Fixing to just uber or something next month out of desperation. I used to make six figures.
Turns out I decided to quit at the absolute worst time. I may not have been valued socially at the last gig but I felt somewhat useful. Nowadays enough time has passed and I no longer feel valued nor useful. The distinction fails to make any difference when the threat of losing it all constantly looms over you.
If I could I would go back in time and berate my self to keep that job at all costs and remain valueless, instead of insist grass is greener for some nebulous quality of "valued". Some things like health insurance are just more important than some intangible ideas of being valued or not by higher ups I won't really understand.
Thought I had one, turned in my notice but they rescinded offer a week later for no obvious reason and went hiring freeze. Was about the exact point when the market started inclining couple of years ago. Still think if I had interviewed a month before I would have got the position Been jobless ever since.
I blame my self for it, for not having the insight. Consequences were severe
No, you should blame the company that rescinded the offer!
Now it's probably too late but, did you try talking again with your former manager to see if you could get back your old job, after the offer was rescinded?
To quote Don Draper, “that’s what the money is for!” Find your meaning or value somewhere else not in your job and it will both be longer lasting and likely much deeper.
It would be nice, heck I would accept a 50% pay cut for a better team since I didn't even need all the money I was earning (except for my current survival I guess), money isn't what it's about to me so long as I can feed myself, but my job hunt now isn't really about team value anymore. It's not something I can afford to think about when any job has to do for the rent. I could go back to stocking shelves if the next data entry thing I feel over skilled for doesn't get back to me
I like my hobbies, just I can't pretend to enjoy them all day when my current lifestyle has been unsustainable for so long. It was easier start of the job drought and I could do whatever I wanted and it felt nice, picked up some (unmarketable but fun) skills. Now it's all caught up to me.
"At least the gig economy is an option" is a thought that appeared in my head recently
I am a physician. I am useful because i can remove kidney stones and relieve the awful pain people find themselves in. My value however continues to decline as the monopolistic practices of insurers and hospital systems (who are now starting their own insurances) has reduced my reimbursement to less than that of a plumber. The money that used to go to workers now goes to the c suite. Ironically they were nonexistent 50 years ago when healthcare delivery was better in the US. This redistribution of ‘value’ has been facilitated by information systems that have allowed data to be centralized and aggregated. I cant wait for AI to replace the c suite so all the money goes to shareholders- maybe then people will wake up.
Ultimately i see this whole trajectory as a communist plot- centralizing control and profit.
I think a lot of what middle management does may be replaced by AI, leading to flatter organizations. You probably have better insight into this than me, but I feel that the initial briefing with a patient may be done by an AI as well, saving the doctor time.
What is also useful to keep in mind is the tendency to recreate your primary family life in the workplace. So if you had critical controlling parents who never valued you and everything you ever did was worthless, then you'll tend to select for those places and it is often done outside of awareness.
Was your primary family spent being valued and appreciated? Then you'll select for that and when people start to not value you, you'll intervene earlier to correct for it and you'll have the skills to do that.
Did your parents respect your boundaries growing up? Were you able to erect strong boundaries and have people listen to you when they over stepped, or were you constantly put down and your wishes ignored? A lack of skills in erecting proper boundaries and then maintaining them by being in the goldilocks zone of not too soft and too hard can lead to issues in the workplace and personal life.
First step is bringing this in to awareness so you can look back with hindsight, next step (the hardest) is mid-sight, you know you are doing or not the doing the thing you need to do but can't do it or don't know how. There there is foresight, hey I normally do this thing that's not good for me here, I had better do the thing I need to do to keep this situation positive.
Keep this mantra in mind:
You are the only in charge of you and your emotions, no one makes you do anything, and you will protect yourself.
Awareness + skills = ability. Psychotherapy (not counselling) is what you need to look out for. Combine that with Transactional Analysis and it makes you very very effective.
This is interesting. I could imagine that it's not exactly that you are selecting for the same dysfunction. Maybe it's rather that you don't know what functional looks like, and therefore can't as easily find a place that fits or steer your current place in the right dirrection?
Our organism’s primary goal is survival. Unknown territory will feel unsafe and thus stressful, up to the point of unreal, even if on a rational level it may actually be safer. It takes courage to face and calm those fears without consciously or unconsciously returning to known survival strategies - and meta cognition skills to sufficiently distance yourself from those past emotional memories. After all, they allowed you to survive.
The psychological basis is most probably one of the main forces.. your job is your survival, just like your parents were. Very often your refuse to challenge limit or keep boundaries because of the same fear of being ousted and out of options.
It's both very useful to get out of this pit, and also sad.. because our lives are not supposed to be fully transactional. We prefer to have a group with who we share more than notarial duties.
Good advice. Psychological transference is a closely related term. But it’s easy to take that framework too far and eventually get to where you blame things like schizophrenia or ptsd on the mothers. People who grew up in shitty families probably have plenty of insight already. A lot of human behavior is determined rather than the result of free will. If you had a bad mom, it may be better to just lower expectations than try to “fix”yourself and become the CEO. And taking drugs like ssri or adderal helps many in their careers where psychotherapy might not. Freud loved cocaine.
Incredible comment, thank you. I can't believe I read this for free. This is probably years of distilled behavior science applied to a workplace-specific environment.
I'll add to the general consensus here that this is an extremely valuable comment. At least for me it closely resonates with things I am only now discovering, at an age close to 40; the (in)ability to set and guard boundaries is super dependent upon early life and upbringing.
You do need a certain degree of leverage. I think especially in the tech sector, people often do not realize how much leverage they have, and how a little pushback can go a long way. It is sometimes worth asking and testing: “Are they really going to fire me for this?”
This is true, but it's worth taking a step up a meta level.
People who don't believe they deserve to have their boundaries respected also don't tend to do things that will garner them the power that enables them to do so.
The amount of power we have is not at all fixed. It can be changed by our choices and is meaningful mostly relative to the power of the people around us, and we also have a lot of choice around who those people are.
In short, people who want their boundaries respected tend to work to avoid getting into situations where they aren't able to enforce them.
Setting boundaries implies conflict management. Most people have some power, but many fear to use their power because it risks conflict.
Navigating conflict is hard.
Many people are conflict avoiders, and they struggle to set boundaries. People pleasers or panderers in particular often cost themselves a lot to avoid conflict.
This is interesting and I've also seen this sort of psychoanalysis applied to relationships, but I'm skeptical and don't understand the evidence for these sorts of analyses.
What convinced you? Any particularly compelling resources re: the evidence and methodology for these theories?
If you earn some dough and are treated somewhat nice you have already hit the jackpot.
Don’t give up a perfectly good job just because you have power fantasy issues. You will always be a worker bee, that’s just how the world is set up. Someone or something will own your ass regardless of your compensation structure.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 302 ms ] threadSo be the diamond, not the water. Unless there's no water around anymore...
Thanks for reminding me again that my 20 year career has been completely useless, other than being a "seat-filler".
Being a work horse is nice. But if you can’t work with others, that might be one you are on the layoff list
99% of the time people are not getting promoted or retained simply because they're more friendly with people at the top, but because they're broadly respected, cooperative, and have some adequate level of competency.
The anti-social 10x developer who sits in the corner of the office grunting at people with his headphones on might spit out a lot of code, but does so while causing friction and problems within the wider team. They might think highly of themselves, but they fail to see how a company full of these people cannot operate efficiently.
Doing "real work" + making effort to be liked and cooperative with those around you is the right strategy. Over indexing on just being like or just doing real work isn't going to get you very far.
You said, "they don't like me" and if that's true I do think you should try harder to be liked. You can still raise objections to things and have your own input, but learning how to do that in a way that doesn't irritate people or derail the team is an important skill to have.
I empathise though because I struggle with this myself – I'm autistic so I find it hard to be likeable and communicate with nuance. I have lost jobs and promotions because of my inability to play well in teams in the past. Even today it's hard, but it's better now I at least try my best.
I funded my studies working as intern at the university, it was sometimes rough, but very competitive work environment. There were some intrigues regarding lab funding and permanent positions, but it was fine after all. What I found later working for smaller and bigger companies is too bizarre. The amount of people who are ready to slit colleague’s throats for 200€ pre-tax monthly salary increase is shocking high.
Working in a team is nice unless the team is not functional. One can bake much bigger cake in a team. But… it appears there are too many people who will take team’s result and present as their own. Or just ignore their work packages. Or managers not resistant to a* licking.
I have good relationship with colleagues on my level and with my direct manager. Production guys come to me with technical problems, because they’re afraid of other hardware developer. The thing is that it’s ok to be not liked by everybody. I don’t like uneducated general manager assigned to this company by the new owner. I don’t like the bozo explosion happening here. The production guys don’t like other hardware developer. My manager does not like interim HR manager. But it’s fine as long as it does not lead to psycho relationships and toxic behavior.
And then I started working for a different kind of companies.
I screen out any structure with VC money.
It means I work for company that you never heard of, but that are profitable year after year.
How? They are very careful who gets in. And they make sure everyone is actually useful. Ration manager to worker is really really low.
Oh, and they build a product with the intends of selling it. Crazy, I know.
In the end it's just luck.
The entire office was likely seen as "staff augmentation" rather than strategic.
I avoided the first big round of layoffs at my last company. How? By being so overwhelmingly awesome and valuable that they couldn't afford to lose me?? NO!
I agreed to a smaller pay increase that year so a team member could get a much-deserved larger raise. I accepted more stock grants to help make up the difference. The next round of layoffs was based on stock packages granted to employees. More stock granted == more better, right?
Sheer luck I didn't get the notice that time.
You find out pretty quick: suddenly on PIP, or get bullied thereafter because you phrased something slightly off in a Jira comment. If I can get paid and treated OK, I see that as good.
Don't put stock in business relationships. Try to have good ones but put stock in ... assets, family, health, etc.
Now I have seen valued people but they are rare. And if push come to shove I'm sure that bond could break.
if you bring even a tiny bit of your spunk, enthusiasm and passion to work you;d be labeled a problem immediately.
They want apathetic mindless drones.
If you were trying to contact me privately for some reason, I can provide a working email if you give me a brief idea of what you wanted to discuss in a comment.
"If you want to know who truly values you, look for the people who would not be able to replace you with someone else."
That usually has us pointing to friends and family, with the odd exception.
While faculty basically no matter how useless can never be fired.
"can't be replaced" has two opposing meanings in your post.
This describes the situation of tenured faculty (who are definitely who I had in mind when I referred to splashy big names), but universities have long been moving to a model with as few tenured or tenurable faculty as possible, where some instructors are full time but non-tenure-track, and others are part time (and so, for example, don't have to be paid benefits). At my university these are called lecturers and adjuncts, but other names exist. Both jobs involve renewable contracts (of different lengths), so they need not even be fired, just not have their contracts renewed.
Ask them all to take a month off and see which has greater impact and over which timescales.
Usefulness and value have different dimensions that can be orthogonal or even in opposition to one another. Many of us have worked in the presence of brilliant assholes and had to ponder that question.
There are lots of problems with the way universities are set up, but, from the point of view of a faculty member and, I suspect, also that of a student, "more leadership oversight" would solve none of them. (Unless it was accompanied by a change of university leadership from those who think of a university primarily as a business, to those who think of a university primarily as a university. I have only spent a long time at one university, so it is possible that this problem is peculiar to my university, but my impression from talking to my colleagues is that it is not.)
At my last job I was the only developer who knew bash and Linux. I handled everything until a new CTO came and destroyed the servers with his lack of technical knowledge.
I was critically useful to the company until I broke down due to the daily harassment. I became valued the instant I gave my two weeks notice, but I still told them to go to hell.
Where or how so you find such jobs/companies? Whenever I interview for non faang companies I’ve been asked things like the cap theorem, concurrency issues, microservice patterns, ddd, and of course on top of that the live coding and systems design interviews.
For once, I’d like to join a company in which I seem to bring something only I know.
If this is your mentality, is it any wonder you aren't valued?
People post things like this and I'm not sure they have any emotional intelligence whatsoever. Sure, your work/job doesn't have to be your entire life. But what about a little pride in what you're doing? Working with smart people towards a goal to do something useful?
If your mentality is "just show up for work, do what they ask and go home" then it should be no surprise you're at the top of the list to get laid off. I wouldn't want to work with a person who "puts no stock in business relationships".
Conversely, if you think that devoting yourself to work will put you at the bottom of the list to get laid off, you are in for a big surprise eventually.
But more likely people who do bare minimum at work and always wait for someone else to ask else they just leave for home are first one to go. And it is happening to "minimal interest in work" folks in my team as I type this.
It is not even about having them do work beyond normal hours. But just checking in normal hours if something need be done while they have spare cycle.
I guess it is all fine, employee made their choice and management theirs.
Any transaction becomes increasingly zero-sum as you get to either end of the value proposition difference between the two parties. The non-zero area is in the middle.
He has this mentality because he has never been valued, not the other way around.
For a while I was struggling to pinpoint my discontent, but I ended up realizing it was because I felt I was undervalued compared to the contributions I had made over the years.
As it happened, my superiors had come to realize the same, so when I asked for a talk, they preempted my plan by announcing this.
As mentioned by the article, I've since been included in much more strategic talks and discussions to help shape the future of the company, as we're moving our products from the desktop to the web.
It's still something I'll keep an eye on, but just realizing the source of my frustration was very helpful. It also made me more aware of how I shouldn't sacrifice too much unless it's being valued, as opposed to just being more useful.
What is "this"?
By "this" I meant that they had undervalued me and my contributions.
As a consequence I got a promotion and, as mentioned, included in higher-level talks.
I wish I had realized the source of my frustration and thus acted on it earlier.
It lead to a quite downbeat feeling, which still lingers a bit every now and then.
Of course this was just before the current mass layoffs, so getting a new job was definitely an option then, which I almost certainly would have taken had they not seen me.
I have been more easily valued for my 'use' by being easier to manipulate. Or, sorry, felt more open/safe. Money spends the same: barely, too much work.
Layoffs? To quote Janet Jackson: 'what have you done for me lately?'
And yes, that does seem to happen more if you're wearing work boots, probably because people who never wear work boots assume that, if it can be done in work boots, it can't be as astounding and valuable as it appeared at first, or you would have moved beyond work boots by now.
Usefulness may hold its value in the trenches, but the people ultimately deciding everyone's salary generally aren't in the trenches.
I respect teacher work deeply and think they should be vastly more compensated than they are.
The fact that it you are a teacher it might be complex to buy a house and have kids is mind boggling.
I agree with your comment.
this hits home, hard.
No matter if their suggestions would be followed, their opinion would be heard, which ultimately establishes how valued one is.
I've seen this happen more than once, and most often, that person was recommended as the successor for who they advised.
I've been on both sides, and I like being "valued" that way: otherwise, I just feel like I am not contributing with the best I can provide, and not enjoying the ride.
It's just who I am, and it's not about "never being happy" — we all aspire to some things, and this beats compensation to me.
A lot of the kind of work the author mentions is done with the expectation that it will translate into more responsibility or influence at some point. If the company said "you're a great developer, but you'll never be more than that" the author probably wouldn't have invested to the same degree.
As long as the pay is good (or better) than in the "valued" path, useful is better.
Exception: I have equity and the decisions made are bad.
You might be valued because you are many things. You might not be valued because of many things. If you are able to be useful and valued, while also being fulfilled and happy personally and professionally -- that's great.
But, there is normally not a direct and clear situation like this in organizations. If there is, enjoy it while you have it. Normally, it's not as direct and clear to assess and understand. You are also part of this equation. The dynamics in an organization are normally not consistent.
Dynamics in organizations can shift quickly. Culture can also mean you could be doing all you can but the situation is no longer good for you for a variety of reasons or good for the organization.
Informed re-evaluation of your own value in your situation, at reasonable points, is vital. You may be not as great as you think you are, you might not be able to feel valued or useful in a changed or toxic environment. You may not care about that stuff. The organization may be incapable of providing any of that validation but, ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you are able to live with and why. How the organization provides whatever for you to contemplate is part of the calculation that must rest on your shoulders -- and that effort is ongoing and important.
The more rare you are, the more you are valued. You still have to be useful to be valuable though.
In order to acquire those rare skills, an ungodly amount of work is often required. It is also a huge variable. A rare skill today can become useless tomorrow.
Also, beware of indispensable people. "This company needs me" can have all sorts of causes. Maybe you didn't documented things right, maybe you just have a long history with them. It doesn't mean being rare. Being rare is feeling "this skill I have could be of use to any similar company and few people know it".
The skill could be anything. Perfect pitch, excelent document writing, de-escalation, low-level bit shaving.
I agree, but I think it slightly differently, Valued = useful + hard to replace.
How difficult is to be replaced by some other human or a machine.
Valued = Useful + hard to find + easy to work with
But we can compare how far "easy to work with" goes in a more balanced scenario:
You're hiring for a critical rare skill. _Only two_ candidates were seriously considered, and you hired them both.
One of them delivers for the skill you hired (useful), but is not easy to work with.
One of them does not deliver for the skill you hired (useless), but is easy to work with.
So, it doesn't matter what your definition of "easy to work with" is in this scenario. It justs matters that whatever it is, it's not related to usefulness (so you can't get away with "but being useful makes you easy to work with").
Who would you lay off if your bills were depending on those guys?
At some point later in life, I hope you’ll figure out your own sense of value, true to your being, and decoupled from what others may grant. Your raison d'être.
There are other ways to cooperate that don’t depend on sociopathy and infighting.
Your rhetoric doesn't pass. You contradict yourself in a single turn. Can't cite "scarcity" and "infinity" powers this fictional economic system you thought of as "capitalism".
It’s the classic “capitalism is built on scarcity but behaves as if infinite growth is possible”-critique. There are interesting responses to that but “it’s contradictory” ain’t one of them.
about as long as the real world continues to have finite resources and people have differing ideas about what to do with them
But you also need to find people who are useful, undervalued (in the sense of the article, not in the sense of pay), and who are also willing to take the risk of jumping into a new environment even if that's uncomfortable at first. That means they need somehow to check that they'll be really valued at the new place, not just given a fancy title but no real decision-making involvement.
My guess is there's a positive correlation between useful-but-not-valued people and ones who are risk-averse and/or not the best social climbers, because the people who are both technically and socially brilliant or risk-taking are either valued already, or have already left your organisation.
A useful person tends to have the ability to get hired elsewhere, and will sometimes do this even at a drop in salary, if they are more valued elsewhere.
Sometimes being able to demonstrate that itself can increase your value to your current company.
> And if you don't have it, you don't have it.
hope this is parody
Only when the times are good, as many of us had to learn the hard way.
When times are tough and there aren't enough resources to go around - there is no substitute for being the one allocating the resources, or at least close to them.
https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY
Probably 5% of the time I'll get stuck completely and those days are immensely stressful but on the flip side, the 5% of the time I actually am able to silence the procrastination demon in my ear, those days are so satisfyingly productive.
Advice would be to try to find a job or role doing something you’re interested it.
A lot of the subject matter of my work is not that interesting to me, and the politics and lack of any sort of vision or leadership at most organizations these days makes project work sometimes stressful. But (maybe as a survival mechanism?) I’ve found that focusing on improving how I do my work and taking pride in my output (even if no one else notices) is a way for me to have some control over my work day.
This way it’s about me and I’m not looking for external validation (which isn’t coming for a myriad of reasons that would be exhausting to list here).
My point is that we all (most of us anyway) have to work so my theory is that it’s best to try to find some balance of interesting, pays ok and you’re good enough at it that you can find some meaning in your work.
To me, work avoidance sounds mentally draining.
Procrastination isn't an active thing, it just happens. If that doesn't make sense to you that probably means you don't have that particular issue.
1. Big tasks are stressful because, well, they're big. So I break them down in to components and chip away every day at them so that I am not overwhelmed. I call this taking care of my future self.
2. I love to have days where I get to wake up and do whatever I want to do that day. But I can't enjoy that freedom with bad conscious tasks hanging over my head, so I work my ass off to have those days. For example, my goal for the ENTIRE summer was to spread a yard of mulch, re-build two firewood racks, re-stack and move the logs that are in different areas to keep them seasoning, split and stack a cord of wood for next winter, lay posts for a fruit tree espalier, rebuild shed doors, cut back the wood line 10 feet. These are all already done because we had a nice weather spring. On top of that I changed the fluids on the tractor, the lawnmower, the riding lawnmower and cleaned the gutters.
3. Future proof my job. I got ISO 27001 certification in the spring during dry project spell, and I'm now doing my CCP certification. I have also made it a goal to do 2 hours of business development and networking every week.
4. I do billing on weekdays now, no longer on the weekends.
5. Exercise and sleep. Eat healthy. Don't drink alcohol. This means I wake up early and fresh and motivated to do a couple hours of early work every day. This usually means I'm done with my workday by 2:00pm.
6. Remove toxic relationships from your life. This could be friends, an employer, a client, whatever. They suck your happiness which impacts your productivity.
7. Don't keep up with the Jones's. Figure out what makes you happy. I've never cared about how people view me, I wear jeans and t-shirts mostly. Fancy cars & houses do nothing for me (I live in a great house on an amazing property in a very special area next to a city I have always loved even though it wasn't my "home", but it's not a McMansion). My car is low mileage and 10 years old.
8. Don't do ALL the hobbies. Find the one or two that you really get a lot out of and focus on those. For me it's music.
Did I know or do much of this when I was 20? no. 30? not really. Maybe some of this just comes from experience.
But mostly, don't believe the hype.
Sounds great, where do I find it?
Your mileage may vary.
Eventually a deadline was missed and "someone had to be blamed".
Having worked in countless companies I was ready for this and calm, basically fine with it, just kept working hard.
But I always remember of this one "middle manager" product lead or something, was constantly interrupting people, sitting with them, walking through what they were doing, following them, and eventually made a private accusation that I was "insulting other members of the team". ( I was basically silo'd knew no one, and also knew better than to criticise anyone). Stay with me...
I got chewed out by a seemingly random , mild mannered usually polite manager who never had a problem with me, infront of a few people ( I didnt say anything - instinctively I just knew this mean I was about to be let go, nothing I would say would help, and tensions were high due to deadlines ), accused of being troublesome etc. I calmly said I didnt know what he was stating, he calmed down and left.
Then I was "released from my contract".
As a consultant I don't get upset by these things, I am fine with it, I work as hard as I can and when the contract is over I leave.
However I will never forget how the one man, who never actually did any work, who interrupted everyone, and who made these accusations, was basically doing everything he could do "seem like he had a job".
He was infact, not quite the "hardworking and stupid". My only amendment that perhaps he was a special version of this, the "hardworking and unethical".
Only ever saw that once in nearly 2 decades of working but Im sure there were many more I didnt pick up on,
He stayed on, causing trouble, disrupting etc, and I always realised its because he kept a close profile to his superior, who had no eyes on the ground, and blindly trusted him due to an overload of work.
EDIT > Sorry I want to emphasise the main take away in my rant, is that the polite quiet well meaning, happy, working, well adjusted polite english gentleman behind me who was in management was suddenly shouting at me in front of others because he felt shocked at the accusation that I was a bad person, obviously which mean I deserved a dressing down, stood up and just starting shouting at me. This was a calm, relatively intelligent person, with his things in order, not affiliated with my project. Yet he just assumed an email chain from management around him, possibly with a very accusatory snippet from the trouble maker, was enough to convince him to act unprofessional and give me the dressing down. If anyone would have got into trouble or sued, it would have been this well meaning "smart" individual. That was my other main point.
In the end, there were no moves I could have made, but it was incredibly surprising how many poeple were easily manipulated into being unprofessional etc because of false information coming from their tier / one tier up. Whole narratives painted. It was quite interesting. Eventually that individual must have been let go, but what a desperate, unethical way to live.
Judging from your description, you could actually be a threat to his position. So that might be a preemptive strike.
While doing a contract and consulting I've ran into this, but nothing like my wife in her career.
First corporate job as webdev/design, had her boss get fired for embezzlement of about quarter of a mil. Bosses after that kinda sucked so she left.
Second job (marketing manager/design) was fine for a while, until her great boss left and they replaced her with a sketchy character. I listened in on a number of her meetings and we came to the conclusion that he wanted to bring in a contracting group that was going to give him kickbacks. This guy seemed highly threatened by her. She found another job and within 6 months that guy was fired and the people that still worked there didn't know the exact details but there were hush hush whispers of fraud.
Third job (sr marketing manager) was fine with the first boss over her. But as always, that person found an even better paying position and left. Next director had an issue with taking other people's work and calling it her own. Wife did something unintentionally to embarrass the director in a meeting when the director had taken my wife's work and put her name on it and upper level management saw it. A few days later my wife was put on a PIP by her manager the director even though she had got outstanding remarks on the last quarter review that had ended a month before. Needless to say she did the following. Went and got a better job (director level now) but didn't tell them that. Then went to HR and filed a complaint over the PIP and ethics violations. After some back and forth it ended up with her leaving with a severance.
Really everything I've seen in management as you go up higher in the food chain is that it seems everyone is willing to, and expects others to knife them in the back in a lot of companies.
Sounds a lot like a projection, of what they would actually do
You need to watch out for those, speaking as one myself. We did run an empire once and not by being nice. Have a look at George Orwell's short pieces set in Burmah (now Myanmar).
- Not Useful, Not Valued: Get good or change jobs/industries.
- Not Useful, Valued: talks a good game (or is doing useful stuff that is not apparent)
-Useful, Not Valued: Could be useful at non-strategic stuff, or does good work without self-marketing, or has bad management and needs to leave.
- Useful, Valued: Ideal situation.
The not valued column is let go first via the fact that the value function is what decides if their managers care or not
I suspect who is laid off first is more to do with the lifecycle of the company actually, having been in high/low/negative growth environments myself.
I have found in negative growth environments, managers tend to get pretty sober about who is actually useful not just valued, and cut accordingly. Negative growth environments is also when more cuts happen, with generally a worse job hunting environment if you are cut.
But in frivolous times, yes, I've seen plenty of useful people get cut.. but they always bounce back better anyway.
I kinda feel called out. My work should speak for itself. It often does, but I will always forget it when it comes time to speak of myself nicely.
I simply do not care to self-promote. It feels vain and vanity is one of the most useless things possible to me. Donald Trump is about 98% vanity, if you want to see what vanity is.
Not being able to actually cite the things I’ve done to someone who already knows what those things are has cost me several promotions, though. I can do the work, I can forecast needs, be ready for them, and solve them before they arrive, but because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me.
Now that I’ve typed all that out, I am remembering just how many times this has happened, and now twenty minutes into the week and I am 100% misanthropic. People suck.
> because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me
You need to re-frame this problem, so it's not about "self-promotion", and instead is about proactively forecasting the needs (as you put it) of your manager, not just the technical system you're managing.
If you view it as part of your job to document (not promote, just document) the work you've done, it's trivial to collect those links into a doc at the end of the promotion cycle, hand it to your manager and collect a promotion. Make sure that you're communicating throughout the cycle that you're expecting a promotion in your 1:1's and ask if you're on track towards that goal / if there's anything un-discussed you'd need to do to get there.
It's critical to understand that this is not vanity, it's part of your job (if you want a promotion, that is). I hope this is helpful!
I have no idea what managers do, and I can't ever get an answer when I ask what managers do. "oh, all kinds of stuff." gosh, thanks. it's so clear, now.
Leaders primary concern is for those under them.
Managers primary concern is for those above them.
If you want a promotion, your manager needs to be able to explain / provide evidence to their manager (and so on, all the way to the board in theory) as to why you deserve a higher salary.
If you are doing the right work, are able to provide them with an artifact (brag sheet / promotion packet) that concisely outlines the value provided, and consistently provide the signal that you'd be dissatisfied (i.e. potentially leave) without a promotion, you'll get a promotion. It's within your power to remove the only remaining obstacle for them by providing the packet, which is 80% of their work in securing you a promotion.
There are almost always more urgent issues for a manager to address than a high-performing employee who is quietly upset about not getting a promotion. By stepping up and helping them do this small part of their job, you're demonstrating empathy by solving an important but non-urgent problem for them. They will be grateful.
I shudder at the thought of becoming one of those gobshites that asks senior management questions in townhalls like "How do you stay so grounded with all the awesome responsibility you are dealing with?"
There a few things that motivated me to start self publicising a bit more:
1) A Chris Williamson podcast where he said "Shy bairns get nowt" and also "Somewhere there is someone with half your talent and twice your confidence earning 10x your salary."
2) I email all my senior stakeholders (not just my line manager) details of the major projects I am working on. I try and frame this as an "FYI" and an offer for them to add extra context or re-align my priorities.
3) You can try this approach as well: https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/
I don't need 10x my salary, I just want to feel valued by my team. I have never felt that in my entire life, even though team members often mention that I save their bacon repeatedly in team meetings with supervisors. it's like no one hears it.
unless i change who i am as a person i will never be valued at work. it's just that simple. I won't play the vanity game solely for money. I won't do anything solely for money. I just want to feel valued and I don't think that is possible for me. I'm just not wired to feel that. So fuck me I guess. "you don't fit the mold kid, so you can go fly a kite"
For me, the motivation to move out of my comfort zone and become more "braggy" was to provide a better standard of living for my family. And also my ego - getting annoyed at seeing less talented people do better.
Point is these things can yield result but it is neither guaranteed nor welcome so many times. Also praising "leadership" is race to bottom, there are always bigger suck ups pushing themselves.
Two years later and I've about burned through all my savings looking for any job at all. Seems like current market has decided my skills and connections are not enough. Fixing to just uber or something next month out of desperation. I used to make six figures.
Turns out I decided to quit at the absolute worst time. I may not have been valued socially at the last gig but I felt somewhat useful. Nowadays enough time has passed and I no longer feel valued nor useful. The distinction fails to make any difference when the threat of losing it all constantly looms over you.
If I could I would go back in time and berate my self to keep that job at all costs and remain valueless, instead of insist grass is greener for some nebulous quality of "valued". Some things like health insurance are just more important than some intangible ideas of being valued or not by higher ups I won't really understand.
To other readers: don't quit your job until you have a new source of income locked in!
I blame my self for it, for not having the insight. Consequences were severe
Kept up my certs and all, still do tech stuff all them time, think I'll have a job even if it's minimum wage and underemployment at some point
To quote Don Draper, “that’s what the money is for!” Find your meaning or value somewhere else not in your job and it will both be longer lasting and likely much deeper.
I like my hobbies, just I can't pretend to enjoy them all day when my current lifestyle has been unsustainable for so long. It was easier start of the job drought and I could do whatever I wanted and it felt nice, picked up some (unmarketable but fun) skills. Now it's all caught up to me.
"At least the gig economy is an option" is a thought that appeared in my head recently
By definition risks don't always go your way.
One of the bad things about heiring is that it always seems that it's much easier to get a job if you have a job.
As a warning to others, get a new job before you quit your old one.
Ultimately i see this whole trajectory as a communist plot- centralizing control and profit.
Was your primary family spent being valued and appreciated? Then you'll select for that and when people start to not value you, you'll intervene earlier to correct for it and you'll have the skills to do that.
Did your parents respect your boundaries growing up? Were you able to erect strong boundaries and have people listen to you when they over stepped, or were you constantly put down and your wishes ignored? A lack of skills in erecting proper boundaries and then maintaining them by being in the goldilocks zone of not too soft and too hard can lead to issues in the workplace and personal life.
First step is bringing this in to awareness so you can look back with hindsight, next step (the hardest) is mid-sight, you know you are doing or not the doing the thing you need to do but can't do it or don't know how. There there is foresight, hey I normally do this thing that's not good for me here, I had better do the thing I need to do to keep this situation positive.
Keep this mantra in mind: You are the only in charge of you and your emotions, no one makes you do anything, and you will protect yourself.
Awareness + skills = ability. Psychotherapy (not counselling) is what you need to look out for. Combine that with Transactional Analysis and it makes you very very effective.
It's both very useful to get out of this pit, and also sad.. because our lives are not supposed to be fully transactional. We prefer to have a group with who we share more than notarial duties.
Thanks for articulating this so clearly.
If you lack the power to implement them they mean nothing.
Children can try and set the boundaries they want, but parents, family and society in general can just laugh and ignore them.
People who don't believe they deserve to have their boundaries respected also don't tend to do things that will garner them the power that enables them to do so.
The amount of power we have is not at all fixed. It can be changed by our choices and is meaningful mostly relative to the power of the people around us, and we also have a lot of choice around who those people are.
In short, people who want their boundaries respected tend to work to avoid getting into situations where they aren't able to enforce them.
Navigating conflict is hard.
Many people are conflict avoiders, and they struggle to set boundaries. People pleasers or panderers in particular often cost themselves a lot to avoid conflict.
My therapist said one sentence to me that stuck „… you are marrying your parents“
Like you seek a partner that has similarities to your mother or father. I see that very often with friends.
What convinced you? Any particularly compelling resources re: the evidence and methodology for these theories?
Is this research based or one of the things you believe to be true?
Don’t give up a perfectly good job just because you have power fantasy issues. You will always be a worker bee, that’s just how the world is set up. Someone or something will own your ass regardless of your compensation structure.