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Comment by 0daystock | Hacker News Reader

A lot of this is centered around doing less, expecting less from your workers, hiring more and "being more positive". These are pretty sentiments, but frankly they're completely dis-joined from the reality of working in a competitive, high-stakes engineering environment, where your boss WILL call you while you're on vacation, where you WILL go 8-12 months without finding a qualified candidate, where you WILL feel pressure to deliver products by deadlines. Unfortunately, Gitlab doesn't strike me as a high-stakes job for engineers nor managers. This isn't a moral judgement on them, but a reminder that serious work requires sacrifice and some burnout is inevitable, and even unavoidable. And that's not necessary a "bad" thing to avoid as it provides valuable life insights and growth in its own way.

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> the reality of working in a competitive, high-stakes engineering environment, where your boss WILL call you while you're on vacation, where you WILL go 8-12 months without finding a qualified candidate, where you WILL feel pressure to deliver products by deadlines.

This sounds like an unproductive environment?

Like... a boss shouldn't need to call reports on their vacation, that's why engineers build systems and automate things. Being unable to fill a position in 8-12 months suggests the hiring process is broken.

I'm all for the importance of hard work, but I'd suggest an org like this is working hard but not smart.

It was without a doubt dysfunctional, and I have since left the position, but that role was incredibly rewarding financially and taught me many things about myself, and what I desire out of life. So while I was totally burnt out by the end, the juice was certainly worth the squeeze - and I would probably do it again instead of a quiet job where my supervisor could just lower expectations, though I recognize that's not true for everybody.

Yeah...that's not a "high stakes engineering environment", that's a poorly structure engineering environment.

8-12 years is enough time to train an 'unqualified' candidate, or get them the requisite licensing/certificates/etc, assuredly.

On call while on vacation? You're understaffed then; even in the face of catastrophe you should have an on call rotation. If even then you still end up having to contact one person, you have too much knowledge siloed.

Etc.

What a shortsighted view. I struggle not to go against the comment guidelines. This hustle culture drives me up the wall.

A crunch once in a while is fine. Some deadlines are unavoidable. But brute force as corporate culture will inevitably lead to shit results. Especially in so-called "high-stakes environments" , where mistakes carry severe consequences.

On top of that, burning out can nullify years of "personal growth". A wreck is a wreck, no matter how many seas it has sailed.

Honestly, I understand your sentiment and there's probably a bit of Stockholm syndrome going on with my appreciation of such culture. Under it, engineering quality definitely suffers - as well as morale and such things - but these were inconsequential to the bottom line of the business. And while enjoying the rewards of our labor through stock options and market dynamics, it hardly seemed to matter to anyone, including myself. Let's just consider the value proposition: I accumulated five years of salary in one, and can afford to take time off work to focus on personal growth, or whatever. I'm not under any illusion that every high-pressure job is rewarding, but it certainly seems more likely than a lax one where people take their time and true laziness goes unnoticed.

> serious work requires sacrifice and some burnout is inevitable

Well, the Navy Seals, who know a thing or two about high stress and deadly serious work, popularized the expression "slow is smooth and smooth is fast."

But unless you're an emergency room doctor or defending Ukraine or developing the next COVID19 vaccine, come on, nothing you're doing is that important.

What you're describing is not a thing that most organizations have any real need for, it's a culture of fake emergencies.

> slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

and speed is the economy of motion.

> where your boss WILL call you while you're on vacation

> where you WILL feel pressure to deliver products by deadlines

vs.

> where you WILL go 8-12 months without finding a qualified candidate

Sounds like a pretty good position to set some boundaries as an employee.

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