Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

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I think he's using "CRUD" as a metaphor for "crappy assigned work that hurts your career". This has nothing to do with "CRUD" so much as the dissatisfaction that sets in when you realize that the shots, in most of the world, are still called by morons with no vision.

Actually, I think CRUD itself is a good thing. Why? Because it's a description of a simple interface. You really get the elegance of a CRUD API in the corporate world. Normally, you have a bunch of stupid features and requirements that attached themselves like barnacles.

In truth, building CRUD apps places a person well above the average in the typical corporate stack. At least you're building new stuff and have a chance to shine. Unlike on a maintenance job (which is what most people get) you will get visibility if yo do good work. Most corporate denizens don't even get that. They're lucky to write 200 lines of new code per month.

My suggestion: "How to you escape the shackles and bullshit of your CRUD job and use all those great resources in your head to turn that job on its side and change the world from right where you're at?"

The problem here is that most people need an income, every month, or they start to have serious financial problems. Knowing where overperformance leads-- getting attacked by envious/insecure idiots and ending up unemployed-- I wouldn't recommend it unless he has financial security.

I've noticed this sentiment on HN a number of times. In my experience at large companies and small ones, I've never seen overperformance turn into unemployment. I believe it has happened, but I doubt it is common, and I certainly don't think it's common enough to base job decisions on.

In my experience, I have seen the opposite a number of times -- people who overperform have been rewarded with more responsibility and more-interesting jobs. This includes situations in which people automated away their job responsibilities.

In my experience at large companies and small ones, I've never seen overperformance turn into unemployment.

It's more subtle than that. People don't get fired directly for overperformance, so much as they make enemies who later sabotage them. It's hard to do anything important and not piss someone off.

I have an overperformance story from Google that's legendary, although I didn't actually get fired.

Overperformance doesn't inexorably lead to termination, and it's certainly not immediate. It is, however, more likely to lead to termination than the opposite. (On the other hand, underperformance is more toxic to your career in the long term.)

"Performance" is a middle-class myth for AFCs (Average Frustrated Chumps). You get fired if you fail politically. Being at either extreme, performance-wise, increases the likelihood that this happens.

I suspect some of it has to do with your personality and how much your over-performance engenders envy.

Looking at my work history, it cost me 3-4 jobs at companies that subsequently failed. The best example is one where the new and essential product needed to avoid an m*n database transaction explosion, where m is the number of clients. My warnings about this---and it was very easy to explain and the math is rather simple after all---kept me off that project and sidelined to a dead end. The project ... went even worse than expected, was never reliable after the 2nd client logged in (the project manager had never even done a multiple client system before), until a new crew was hired to rewrite it, but it was a little late by then....

When Mr. Church say "You get fired if you fail politically." he's spot on. That was obviously a factor these jobs and cost me another one or two. All of these were small companies, except for Lucent during it's year of free fall from 106,000 employees to a targeted 35,000 or so; they ended up getting bought by Alcetal.

Here's a constructive comment (I hope): one thing you have to watch out for is managers who are failed programmers. Even worse is if they had no input into your hiring.

Tell us the story.

>Knowing where over-performance leads-- getting attacked by envious/insecure idiots and ending up unemployed

This sounds like what you're saying--

Law 1: never outshine the master. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ldbjR2trg

And Law 46: never appear too perfect.

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