>This is a not for profit organization that is strictly mandated by government procedures. It has a large budget. It has been around several decades. It serves tens of thousands users a year and enjoys monopoly on the services it's users require.
I'm familiar with that situation.
Two things:
1.) You're in no danger, there's likely no accountability at any level and you don't have to be in a hurry to quit. As a relative newcomer, what you see as a death spiral is likely status quo for the organization - it's a zombie.
2.) You never had a chance at effecting any real change, so don't feel guilty about bailing.
I too have been in a similar situation, and it was made less stressful by the #1 thing @incision mentions.
Realize that as bad as your company is at building software, it is probably equally bad at other things, like: Recognizing that someone has checked out, or Firing someone.
When I was in your situation I went into cruise control. I did the absolute minimum to avoid disciplinary action and began seeking out greener pastures.
This was my first development job, so I wasn't sure everywhere else wouldn't be the same. I also didn't have a very strong resume yet. I also wanted to switch from Java to Ruby. It ended up taking me almost a year, partly because I wanted to be certain the next place would be an improvement.
The next company I went to work for was awesome :-)
OP, you appear to have plenty of experience and can probably be chose-y about your next move and still not have to wait very long. There are a lot of great places hiring.
It might be a black spot in his career. It will be difficult to explain what went wrong while staying positive. Beside, this can strongly affect his moral. A back flip, if possible is in my opinion the right move: get the hell out of this.
Never, ever, ever bad-mouth a previous employer during an interview.
Ever.
Even if you worked for Satan himself, and he had Kafka and Joseph Heller design the Waterfall development process, and your team lead had the IQ of a telephone pole and the personality of a Comcast customer service rep.
You can say you weren't a good fit. That you felt the toolchain hurt developer productivity. Talk about how you want to be part of an organization that will let you hit your maximum level of achievement. Talk about how you hate bureaucracy because it puts barriers between you and the work that needs doing.
That's all fine. Show me, the interviewer, how driven you are to create.
But the second you start talking about how miserable you were, or how much of an asshole you thought your boss was, or about how much of an idiot your team lead was, you've basically cost yourself the job.
You might be completely right, but if you start talking about this during an interview, you come across as an antisocial, whiny, needy child. If these problems were so upsetting, why did you stay so long? Why didn't you try to fix things?
I want people in my company that will actively fix problems, not just complain about them.
I, the interviewer, can't change anything about your last job, and complaining to me about it doesn't help either of us. I'm going to wonder how you'll be to work with if you can't put the past behind you. I'm also going to wonder what you'll say about me, and the team, when you leave. Will you paint us in the same light as the job from hell?
If you whine about how much you hated your last job, all you do is turn on every red flag I have regarding personal interaction.
The interviewer doesn't know if your claims are true.
There are lots of people in the world who are impossible to satisfy, who blame all failure on everyone but themselves. They have complaints about everything, justified or otherwise.
By bringing these things up, a person who does not otherwise know you has two possibilities:
- The company you worked for really was that bad. This claim cannot be verified in a meaningful way.
- The candidate you're interviewing is one of these dreaded negative nancies who will disrupt your workplace as they proceed to complain about everything and redirect their own problems upon other people.
Since there is no way to tell which is true, and I have no incentive to trust you, and every disincentive to bring in someone like that into my office, I will not hire you.
Direct, concrete criticism is fine. "We used the waterfall model and I don't believe it works" - but do not come off as bitter, because that's exactly what the Negative Nancy typically sounds like.
While I disagree with your overal premise, I agree with what you then go on to say. Don't make general criticisms about previous jobs or employers ("it sucked") -- be specific about bad things, how you changed or tried to change or would in future address them, and what you learned.
Saying bad things about previous employers in a constructive manner is not a red flag. (Wasn't there a recent study showing that the people who complain also tend to be productive?) I sure hope so, because I complain a lot.
This is always about what you could have said. Every question in an interview is a chance to prove yourself a worthy hire, and complaining, while technically accurate, at most pushes you no further towards your goal. If your answer is to complain about your previous employer, you have simply wasted that question.
As an interviewer, I don't know you. What I do know is that there are a lot of whining "the grass is always greener" types that find fault in everything and don't realize the world isn't perfect.
If you say a single negative thing about your past employer i will immediately be fearful that you are that type of person. In fact, when I interview developers I specifically try to get them to say something negative about their current job. I do this because whiners are so unbelievably destructive to an organization that I never want to hire one.
Now I ask you... What positive purpose does it serve to bad mouth your previous employer to a prospective employer?
>I'm afraid I don't consider a well reasoned and well thought out criticism to be 'whining'
Hello again, friend. I politely request you reconsider what I wrote. I didn't say that you would be a whiner. I said that since I don't know you that my fear is you may be a whiner. Since people who whine are so damaging to organizations, I would almost certainly not hire you regardless of your other attributes.
Having said that, I certainly respect honesty. But please realize there are times when it's better to say nothing than to be completely honest. I've been married for 10 years so I have some experience in this. Have a nice day!
The company I am at now was all of those things when I started, it is none of those things now. You work at relationships, not jump ship and talk about them behind their back.
From OP's description, I see the same situation and agree with these observations.
Toxic is the right word - my personal experience is that hanging around to try and untangle/learn from the environment makes me super unhappy, and unmotivated.
Yeah, I've seen quite a few SMEs now for which this post basically describes the way the company operates.
They put out bad software, slowly, but seem to just about keep on ticking over. Suggestions for improvements are often met with mild positive feedback and a sense of amusement that you think you can actually change the place for the better.
I would like to say that there's a chance of salvaging the project but there probably isn't and its not your fault. I haven't been in your situation before but I would suggest that your course of action depends on you core morals.
Do your job, find a better place switch. if the money is good, consider one more lap at accepting the state of affairs and stay clear of the guillotine that will eventually make an appearance.
This sounds like the kind of place where one could put in his 40 hours and bootstrap a project on the side. As long as you can sort of disconnect yourself and avoid feeling overwhelmed, you could also put in just a solidly competent performance and enjoy the steady pay.
If that doesn't interest you, then quit immediately for greener pastures. Even if there's no risk to you, you only get one career, and staying there is wasting time.
This sounds like the kind of place where one could put in his 40 hours and bootstrap a project on the side. As long as you can sort of disconnect yourself and avoid feeling overwhelmed, you could also put in just a solidly competent performance and enjoy the steady pay.
That's not a bad idea. I did basically that for almost 2 years while working for on a trainwreck of a project managed by clueless PHBs. I just came in, did the bare minimum I needed to do to stay employed, and reserved as much of my mental, creative and emotional energy as possible for Fogbeam work after hours. Hell, I'd probably still be there, except I got so bored and tired of the B.S. that I started speaking my mind about things, and pissed off a lot of the managers, and eventually got laid off.
In hindsight though, getting let go from that place was a blessing. You can do that deal, but it takes a toll on you after a while, even if the job is nominally "easy". There's a unique sort of mental stress that comes from grinding through soul-sucking boring bullshit, tedious meetings, and inane bullshit day after day after day after day...
The day I walked out, the sense of relief was virtually palpable.
So I guess I'd say "go this route, but don't let it stress you out too much. Tolerate it as long as you can stay sane, then just bail, or force them to let you go".
> There's a unique sort of mental stress that comes from grinding through soul-sucking boring bullshit, tedious meetings, and inane bullshit day after day after day after day...
Been there. You're in no harm as long as you leave within the next 6 months. Don't let yourself grow bitter. Don't get to the point where you feel you have to leave now! You don't want your sanity or your career to suffer. Once you become "damanged" it will take a while to "heal" but during that time other hiring managers will pick it up like a sixth sense.
If you make the exit and explain to anyone who asks why you are leaving that you feel you are under utilized (no negative remarks) then they have to accept that. If they press, be diplomatic. Good luck.
You can't ignore the psychic impact of working on a project going nowhere, or down the toilet. As noted here, I don't think your own job seems in danger, but if you are not working on stuff that juices you up, and is going well, it will have a medium to long term impact on you.
Hiring managers can tell that you've been working on boring, soul-crushing stuff. This sense is almost indistinguishable from the sense that you are a bored individual; hiring managers won't bother to figure out what's what.
It can take a couple of years to get your 'mojo' back if you have been in the wrong situation -- I would urge you to act wisely, and move before you lose it. You'll be glad.
I agree strongly with this. I worked as a consultant on a zombie project where the out-of-his-depth PM held a 2-3 hour phone call every morning with a team of 15 as his way of moving development along. Needless to say, that didn't work. I was billing a pretty great rate for myself at the time, and for a while sort of enjoyed just reading HN or a book on someone else's dime every morning, but eventually I realized it was sapping my will to do good work of any kind -- either paid or for myself. I found a good stopping point and left.
While this fish was rotting from the head down long before you arrived, it would be better not to be around when stool samples hit the gaseous oscillator. Some of it might stick to you by mere association.
This is superior advice to quitting immediately. You're much more likely to get a good offer if you already have a job and don't need a new one (talking in the financial sense here) than if you quit first and then have to negotiate a package from a position of unemployment.
I've seen people quit their job and be forced to come back when they couldn't find work elsewhere. Why take that risk when there's no need?
I think it might be revealing that nothing positive or anything about the job that might want to keep you there is mentioned in the writeup. If you don't like it and the environment is toxic, life is too short.
Will you learn more (career-wise) by staying and observing the fall & aftermath, or by leaving now?
I would put forth that you'll learn more by this experience about how people deal with failure and what happens afterwards than you would if you left. Will there be shouting & tears? Probably. Will people get fired? Almost certainly. Will you get fired? Chances are low, but not zero. Worst case scenario - you get some severance money.
Given the track record of successes in the software industry (few/poor), learning what not to repeat will probably take you further than anything you could learn by swapping jobs and doing CRUD work. And if you get asked about it, you say "I could have left, but I intentionally stayed on, as I felt that this was something that I needed to experience so that I wouldn't repeat these errors."
The important thing is to act strictly as an observer (do your work, but .. observe what is going on around you), and not to engage in any schadenfreude or gloating. The people that lost their jobs -- for the majority of them, what happened was not their fault and they shouldn't be blamed or made fun of.
So build up some savings (you should have 6 months of fixed expenses saved up, anyway), sit back, and enjoy the ride.
I disagree, but respectfully so. You will learn a lot by staying, but as you said, it truly is a toxic situation. You'd learn a lot by shoveling toxic checmicals every day for 6 months too, but that has semi-permanent effects on you, and it's just not worth it.
I recommend you get the hell out, ASAP. Take your time enough to try your best to pick a new landing spot that is not so dysfunctional (even then, there's no guarantees, but give it a good shot).
Life is short. Pick a new spot that will be as enjoyable as possible on a daily basis, while also carrying your career in the direction you want to go, and GET THERE ASAP.
(And I say that from experience -- I've found myself in a few of these messes myself).
But if you're young enough, you may be able to quickly recover from this situation. Better than if you ended up in a similar situation towards the middle / end of your career. One thing that a similar situation in my early twenties helps me with now, is no matter what, I can always say "At least it isn't near as bad as that company". Or, I can properly assess my current situation and know if it is getting just as bad / worse.
> I would put forth that you'll learn more by this experience about how people deal with failure and what happens afterwards than you would if you left. Will there be shouting & tears? Probably. Will people get fired? Almost certainly. Will you get fired? Chances are low, but not zero. Worst case scenario - you get some severance money.
No one is getting fired. This project is in steady-state.
I'm curious to know how you fingered the organization based on the scant amount clues provided in the text; like incision said earlier, there are a large number of companies in the exact same situation. What makes you think you've got the right one, specifically?
I think your plan is right - leaving is the only option. And rocking the boat before you leave is probably not useful to the org, nor helpful to your career. This sucker is going down, and moving along is the right call.
As you transferred in, and seem to show some loyalty to the org transferring seems to be a good possibility to look into, particularly as I agree with Incision: you in no danger (of getting fired/etc.)
On the other hand projects that are going down are horrible for your mental health and sometimes physical health, and as such getting out is important.
Some of the time, potential employers look at what you did when they knew times were rough at a given job. They assess your actions and ability to perform under duress. While I do not say stay. I would say take the time to provide the most value you can while you consider your next career move.
For example: Document inefficiencies, cultivate worthwhile relationships if applicable, establish trust where available and create a turnaround plan. The goal is not necessarily that you have to save everything but provide an open communication channel in case someone decides to shift culture for the better.
Lastly, stay humble. While it seems toxic and a road to nowhere, remember that where you are could be worse. You are a professional. Don't lose sight of that.
There is too big a need for talented developers for you to stay there. Call a head-hunter.
I’ve been in such clusterfucks, probably a dozen times (that's a very large number no matter how long your career is) and, as much as I need to tell me that, I never really learned from staying. All I learnt from trying to point out how brocken the situation was (the three first times) was that people do not like to be pointed out their mistakes, and some might actually commit suicide for that. The fourth time, my desk-mate wrote a book on how bad the situation was; the book was really good, actually, in a lucidly desperate and unwillingly helpful way. It ended up selling a dozen million copies (US Ed.: ISBN 0-375-42373-7.)
After that, I’ve learnt more than I want to, and more than I can actually use about too-big-to-fail, harrasment, corporate fraud and covering one’s ass. The only useful tidbit: I’m not happy in larger organisations (something anyone who met me for ten minutes can figure out).
Chiph is right: you will learn something, and be able to avoid patterns, but that's actually not very useful: you can tell a mess without experienced it before (you just did) and two messes never really look alike.
Staying would just make a part of your CV uncomfortable (mine is a minefield); one is probably easy to avoid or explain, and a great source of jokes for dinner-parties.
I make very funny presentations listing fuck-ups; none of them has ever actually helped anyone around me to not find a creative way to get something deeply wrong.
The company was French electricity monopoly EDF, and their reaction to the book was instrumental in propelling it to success. Its creator is now widely known as the French version of Scott "Dilbert" Adams.
Wow, just wow. I am working there at the moment, and it's even worse than you may think.
I've been there as a consultant for almost 2 months now, and I still don't have my computer.
As a developer.
I've been told it's normal, and nobody seems to be alarmed.
But that's not the worst thing. People actually enjoy it, if you listen to some, they found the perfect "job"! But it's crushing me, I'm a very passionate developer, and I miss coding. I'm done working for big french companies, I started looking for greener pastures a week ago, and I'll probably quit my consultancy firm next week.
Sometimes the fix cannot be implemented at the team level. It has to be implemented on a larger systems level. In other words, either the organization itself has to go bankrupt and be dismembered, or your entire team has to be dismantled and rebooted.
That's the advantage of living in a capitalist society though. Organization level reboots are relatively easy.
First, what you describe is pretty typical in certain sectors. They have a monopoly mandated by the government. They have no profit motive. You need to start by stepping back and realizing what the incentives are.
This is to do just well enough to avoid the ire of the government regulators. They don't need to earn customers. They don't need to offer quality services. They just need to do just well enough to scrape by. This is exactly what they are doing.
So the first thing you need to do is adjust your expectations and understand that it is all a charade, and that that is what the real game is.
The second thing you need to do is take a look at yourself. Do you want to work in such a place? If not start looking for another job now before the environment poisons you. The real danger is that it can poison what you want in your career if you want to effect change.
Although it adds color to the situation, not all non-profits are clueless about technology. There are many that are run as well as (or better than!) many tech startups.
If you're based in the Washington DC area, drop me a line. I'd love to connect and help you find a better position. (I'm not a headhunter or recruiter - just a non-profit developer who doesn't want to let one clueless NGO tarnish your impression of all non-profit tech for life.)
Until you find a new gig, go to work, do what you're told, and collect your paycheck. Don't invest any emotion in it or try to go above and beyond to help, it will just leave you bitter when it goes nowhere. Get out quickly though, because it could easily become a blemish on your resume.
If all of the common procedures like peer review and QA are absent, you've got some sweet freedom. The real problem is that you're trying to change it, try to live with it instead. This kind of workplace could be a lot of fun ;)
I have to add my vote to the "quit sooner rather than later" column. Several years ago I worked in a similarly dysfunctional environment (also in a monopoly position in their industry): terrible code, terrible development processes, you name it. I was tempted to quit after a month but gritted my teeth and tried to change things as best I could. I quit after nine months there because I realized that I was a) getting nowhere with higher mismanagement b) waking up angry because I was having dreams about the technical arguments I'd have the next day. Leaving that place was I think one of the best career decisions I have ever made. Epilogue: I nearly doubled my salary at my next gig, which also was nicer to work at. Life is too short to endure a shitty job. Good luck!
Sounds pretty normal for a big org. If that's not your cup of tea, quit and move on to something that fits you better and do it quickly. You've got nothing to lose and they really won't miss you so why prolong the agony?
Quit. When you have someone who has all the say who shouldn't that's a fundamental disrespect for our methodology. You can't work for people like that. Let's look at it in terms of your future. You can work there for five or ten years and you won't achieve anything but become lazier. You'll start to see things the way they do. You'll pattern your days closer and closer to the way they do.
But that's bad for the world. The world NEEDS people like you to do GREAT things... not mediocre things decided upon by lesser beings.
126 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadI'm familiar with that situation.
Two things:
1.) You're in no danger, there's likely no accountability at any level and you don't have to be in a hurry to quit. As a relative newcomer, what you see as a death spiral is likely status quo for the organization - it's a zombie.
2.) You never had a chance at effecting any real change, so don't feel guilty about bailing.
Realize that as bad as your company is at building software, it is probably equally bad at other things, like: Recognizing that someone has checked out, or Firing someone.
When I was in your situation I went into cruise control. I did the absolute minimum to avoid disciplinary action and began seeking out greener pastures.
This was my first development job, so I wasn't sure everywhere else wouldn't be the same. I also didn't have a very strong resume yet. I also wanted to switch from Java to Ruby. It ended up taking me almost a year, partly because I wanted to be certain the next place would be an improvement.
The next company I went to work for was awesome :-)
OP, you appear to have plenty of experience and can probably be chose-y about your next move and still not have to wait very long. There are a lot of great places hiring.
Bad mouthing former employers in an interview is totally not cool in my books.
Sometimes companies are just damn awful.
The interviewer can and will draw their own conclusions, both about the previous employer you're talking about, and more importantly, you.
Ever.
Even if you worked for Satan himself, and he had Kafka and Joseph Heller design the Waterfall development process, and your team lead had the IQ of a telephone pole and the personality of a Comcast customer service rep.
You can say you weren't a good fit. That you felt the toolchain hurt developer productivity. Talk about how you want to be part of an organization that will let you hit your maximum level of achievement. Talk about how you hate bureaucracy because it puts barriers between you and the work that needs doing.
That's all fine. Show me, the interviewer, how driven you are to create.
But the second you start talking about how miserable you were, or how much of an asshole you thought your boss was, or about how much of an idiot your team lead was, you've basically cost yourself the job.
You might be completely right, but if you start talking about this during an interview, you come across as an antisocial, whiny, needy child. If these problems were so upsetting, why did you stay so long? Why didn't you try to fix things?
I want people in my company that will actively fix problems, not just complain about them.
I, the interviewer, can't change anything about your last job, and complaining to me about it doesn't help either of us. I'm going to wonder how you'll be to work with if you can't put the past behind you. I'm also going to wonder what you'll say about me, and the team, when you leave. Will you paint us in the same light as the job from hell?
If you whine about how much you hated your last job, all you do is turn on every red flag I have regarding personal interaction.
If the company was badly organised, behind the times and resistant to change, I don't think there's anything much wrong with saying it. IMHO.
There are lots of people in the world who are impossible to satisfy, who blame all failure on everyone but themselves. They have complaints about everything, justified or otherwise.
By bringing these things up, a person who does not otherwise know you has two possibilities:
- The company you worked for really was that bad. This claim cannot be verified in a meaningful way.
- The candidate you're interviewing is one of these dreaded negative nancies who will disrupt your workplace as they proceed to complain about everything and redirect their own problems upon other people.
Since there is no way to tell which is true, and I have no incentive to trust you, and every disincentive to bring in someone like that into my office, I will not hire you.
Direct, concrete criticism is fine. "We used the waterfall model and I don't believe it works" - but do not come off as bitter, because that's exactly what the Negative Nancy typically sounds like.
Saying bad things about previous employers in a constructive manner is not a red flag. (Wasn't there a recent study showing that the people who complain also tend to be productive?) I sure hope so, because I complain a lot.
If you say a single negative thing about your past employer i will immediately be fearful that you are that type of person. In fact, when I interview developers I specifically try to get them to say something negative about their current job. I do this because whiners are so unbelievably destructive to an organization that I never want to hire one.
Now I ask you... What positive purpose does it serve to bad mouth your previous employer to a prospective employer?
I'm afraid I don't consider a well reasoned and well thought out criticism to be 'whining'
Hello again, friend. I politely request you reconsider what I wrote. I didn't say that you would be a whiner. I said that since I don't know you that my fear is you may be a whiner. Since people who whine are so damaging to organizations, I would almost certainly not hire you regardless of your other attributes.
Having said that, I certainly respect honesty. But please realize there are times when it's better to say nothing than to be completely honest. I've been married for 10 years so I have some experience in this. Have a nice day!
Toxic is the right word - my personal experience is that hanging around to try and untangle/learn from the environment makes me super unhappy, and unmotivated.
They put out bad software, slowly, but seem to just about keep on ticking over. Suggestions for improvements are often met with mild positive feedback and a sense of amusement that you think you can actually change the place for the better.
Do your job, find a better place switch. if the money is good, consider one more lap at accepting the state of affairs and stay clear of the guillotine that will eventually make an appearance.
It sounds like you did more than your part.
If that doesn't interest you, then quit immediately for greener pastures. Even if there's no risk to you, you only get one career, and staying there is wasting time.
That's not a bad idea. I did basically that for almost 2 years while working for on a trainwreck of a project managed by clueless PHBs. I just came in, did the bare minimum I needed to do to stay employed, and reserved as much of my mental, creative and emotional energy as possible for Fogbeam work after hours. Hell, I'd probably still be there, except I got so bored and tired of the B.S. that I started speaking my mind about things, and pissed off a lot of the managers, and eventually got laid off.
In hindsight though, getting let go from that place was a blessing. You can do that deal, but it takes a toll on you after a while, even if the job is nominally "easy". There's a unique sort of mental stress that comes from grinding through soul-sucking boring bullshit, tedious meetings, and inane bullshit day after day after day after day...
The day I walked out, the sense of relief was virtually palpable.
So I guess I'd say "go this route, but don't let it stress you out too much. Tolerate it as long as you can stay sane, then just bail, or force them to let you go".
So true.
If you make the exit and explain to anyone who asks why you are leaving that you feel you are under utilized (no negative remarks) then they have to accept that. If they press, be diplomatic. Good luck.
Hiring managers can tell that you've been working on boring, soul-crushing stuff. This sense is almost indistinguishable from the sense that you are a bored individual; hiring managers won't bother to figure out what's what.
It can take a couple of years to get your 'mojo' back if you have been in the wrong situation -- I would urge you to act wisely, and move before you lose it. You'll be glad.
While this fish was rotting from the head down long before you arrived, it would be better not to be around when stool samples hit the gaseous oscillator. Some of it might stick to you by mere association.
I've seen people quit their job and be forced to come back when they couldn't find work elsewhere. Why take that risk when there's no need?
I would put forth that you'll learn more by this experience about how people deal with failure and what happens afterwards than you would if you left. Will there be shouting & tears? Probably. Will people get fired? Almost certainly. Will you get fired? Chances are low, but not zero. Worst case scenario - you get some severance money.
Given the track record of successes in the software industry (few/poor), learning what not to repeat will probably take you further than anything you could learn by swapping jobs and doing CRUD work. And if you get asked about it, you say "I could have left, but I intentionally stayed on, as I felt that this was something that I needed to experience so that I wouldn't repeat these errors."
The important thing is to act strictly as an observer (do your work, but .. observe what is going on around you), and not to engage in any schadenfreude or gloating. The people that lost their jobs -- for the majority of them, what happened was not their fault and they shouldn't be blamed or made fun of.
So build up some savings (you should have 6 months of fixed expenses saved up, anyway), sit back, and enjoy the ride.
I recommend you get the hell out, ASAP. Take your time enough to try your best to pick a new landing spot that is not so dysfunctional (even then, there's no guarantees, but give it a good shot).
Life is short. Pick a new spot that will be as enjoyable as possible on a daily basis, while also carrying your career in the direction you want to go, and GET THERE ASAP.
(And I say that from experience -- I've found myself in a few of these messes myself).
No one is getting fired. This project is in steady-state.
As you transferred in, and seem to show some loyalty to the org transferring seems to be a good possibility to look into, particularly as I agree with Incision: you in no danger (of getting fired/etc.)
On the other hand projects that are going down are horrible for your mental health and sometimes physical health, and as such getting out is important.
For example: Document inefficiencies, cultivate worthwhile relationships if applicable, establish trust where available and create a turnaround plan. The goal is not necessarily that you have to save everything but provide an open communication channel in case someone decides to shift culture for the better.
Lastly, stay humble. While it seems toxic and a road to nowhere, remember that where you are could be worse. You are a professional. Don't lose sight of that.
I’ve been in such clusterfucks, probably a dozen times (that's a very large number no matter how long your career is) and, as much as I need to tell me that, I never really learned from staying. All I learnt from trying to point out how brocken the situation was (the three first times) was that people do not like to be pointed out their mistakes, and some might actually commit suicide for that. The fourth time, my desk-mate wrote a book on how bad the situation was; the book was really good, actually, in a lucidly desperate and unwillingly helpful way. It ended up selling a dozen million copies (US Ed.: ISBN 0-375-42373-7.) After that, I’ve learnt more than I want to, and more than I can actually use about too-big-to-fail, harrasment, corporate fraud and covering one’s ass. The only useful tidbit: I’m not happy in larger organisations (something anyone who met me for ten minutes can figure out).
Chiph is right: you will learn something, and be able to avoid patterns, but that's actually not very useful: you can tell a mess without experienced it before (you just did) and two messes never really look alike. Staying would just make a part of your CV uncomfortable (mine is a minefield); one is probably easy to avoid or explain, and a great source of jokes for dinner-parties.
I make very funny presentations listing fuck-ups; none of them has ever actually helped anyone around me to not find a creative way to get something deeply wrong.
The company was French electricity monopoly EDF, and their reaction to the book was instrumental in propelling it to success. Its creator is now widely known as the French version of Scott "Dilbert" Adams.
But that's not the worst thing. People actually enjoy it, if you listen to some, they found the perfect "job"! But it's crushing me, I'm a very passionate developer, and I miss coding. I'm done working for big french companies, I started looking for greener pastures a week ago, and I'll probably quit my consultancy firm next week.
(we = Mozilla Paris)
That's the advantage of living in a capitalist society though. Organization level reboots are relatively easy.
This is to do just well enough to avoid the ire of the government regulators. They don't need to earn customers. They don't need to offer quality services. They just need to do just well enough to scrape by. This is exactly what they are doing.
So the first thing you need to do is adjust your expectations and understand that it is all a charade, and that that is what the real game is.
The second thing you need to do is take a look at yourself. Do you want to work in such a place? If not start looking for another job now before the environment poisons you. The real danger is that it can poison what you want in your career if you want to effect change.
I don't feel comfortable bringing suggestions up as I was instructed that I'm not the source of change.
...such as a supervisor that is resistant to learning new information.
If you're based in the Washington DC area, drop me a line. I'd love to connect and help you find a better position. (I'm not a headhunter or recruiter - just a non-profit developer who doesn't want to let one clueless NGO tarnish your impression of all non-profit tech for life.)
You're passionate enough to have written this. Most people do not. Don't let this situation destroy it.
My co-founder lived in that kind of company for 2 years. He learned a lot of what not to do but it took its toll.
Sidenote. We're looking for passionate people.
But that's bad for the world. The world NEEDS people like you to do GREAT things... not mediocre things decided upon by lesser beings.