[HN Gopher] Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years...
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Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I
stop this?
I joined Google straight from college 6 years ago as a SWE, and by
now I'm used to the style of work of "do the minimal work possible
to do the job", I never challenge myself to deeply learn about what
I'm doing, it's almost like I've been using only 10% of my mental
capacity for work (the rest was on dating/dealing with
breakups/dealing with depression/gaming/...). Even when I get a
meaningful project, all I do is copy code from the internal
codebase and patch things together until they work. I was promoted
only once. Now that I'm thinking of jumping ship to other
interesting companies, I'm having serious doubts that I really
learned what I should have learned during all those years.
Especially since I'm considering companies with a higher hiring bar
than Google. How can I keep myself accountable while I'm still at
the company to deeply learn the FE/BE technologies to be better
prepared for other companies? Should I start by preparing a
checklist of technologies and dive into each of them for a month
and continue from there?
Author : futur321
Score : 291 points
Date : 2020-01-05 15:16 UTC (7 hours ago)
| combatentropy wrote:
| How can you keep yourself accountable? What motivates me is to
| focus on the other, instead of on myself.
|
| If you're doing the minimal amount of work, does that mean that
| the users are suffering? If you had put in more effort, would
| they be able to get more out of your software with less effort?
| The drive to make the best experience for my users motivates me
| to learn everything I can about design.
|
| What about your fellow programmers? Does anyone else have to deal
| with the code you wrote? If so, is your code sloppier or harder
| to maintain than you could have made it, had you put in more than
| 10%? The drive to make code a joy to work on, for others and
| myself, motivates me to learn.
|
| What about Google? Are they getting their money's worth out of
| you? This is a bit harder to sympathize with, being that now
| we're talking about a rich company instead of particular people.
| But think of it as a test of your honesty. Did you agree to work
| a certain number of hours but are really working a fraction
| thereof? Don't get me wrong, no one that I know can code for 40
| hours a week, 50 weeks a year, without burning out. But I think
| your managers, if they understand programming, expect some
| reasonable fraction of your day to spent working hard, doing your
| best, etc.
| kerng wrote:
| You might be to harsh on yourself and what you have accomplished.
| Six years at Google is a great achievement in itself. Have you
| considered impostor syndrome?
|
| Maybe do a side gig and build something that you find
| interesting, could be a game for kids, a dating app, a music
| app,...
| oneepic wrote:
| I think everyone in the tech industry mentions imposter
| syndrome so much that it's either not the problem here, or OP
| has heard it so often that they're deaf to it.
| peterwwillis wrote:
| Real talk: if you haven't kept yourself accountable for 6 years,
| you probably won't now.
|
| I say quit your job, but don't have a plan; figure things out
| afterward. Catapulting yourself out of your comfort zone is the
| best way to get to know what you really want to do, and force
| yourself to care about what it is you want to do. Nobody here can
| tell you what that is.
| _pmf_ wrote:
| > it's almost like I've been using only 10% of my mental capacity
| for work
|
| I believe this kind of "we need the brightest engineers to spit
| out HTML via JS" is the major reason for the ridiculous amount of
| yak shaving around web development.
| sfblah wrote:
| I'm in the same boat as you. I've been working at the same tech
| company for 6.5 years making around 500 (used to be 1.2 but my
| stock grant ran out). I only show up one day a week to have lunch
| with friends and do nothing. My advice is to keep the money
| flowing and do something else on the side.
| sweetheart wrote:
| This blows my mind. I make 120k as a young person in SWE, and I
| feel like a fraud often for making that money, and being able
| to work from basically anywhere I want in the world. How do you
| justify it to yourself? Do other things fulfill you? I'm
| already feeling pangs of doubt about my life, and I work more
| and earn less than you. I'm passing no judgement at all, I'm
| just curious about how that dynamic effects you and your life.
| [deleted]
| sfblah wrote:
| I don't really care about stuff like that. I assume I'll get
| laid off at some point, but I've made so much that I don't
| really worry about it. It's hard for big companies to find
| people who aren't doing anything.
| [deleted]
| zzzcarrot wrote:
| Wow what level or how did you manage this?
| eerrt wrote:
| is it a FAANG/unicorn?
| sfblah wrote:
| It's not but it's a well known Silicon Valley company.
| hacker_newz wrote:
| What is your actual base salary?
| sfblah wrote:
| 300 plus bonus plus stock plus sundries like 401k match
| dash2 wrote:
| It's sad and revealing to see the other comments here. Many of
| them say, don't seek fulfillment in your job, just keep on
| cruising. What a change from the exciting atmosphere of the
| 2000s. Seems like software engineering has become a safe, dull
| career nowadays. Don't listen to them. Your 20s are the time to
| learn, push yourself and discover who you are. Autopilot is for
| middle age.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Software engineering just isn't that hard. Tedious yes, but not
| remotely difficult. We've been fed the narrative of economic
| success that many folks have forgotten what personal success
| looks like. You can be successful in your career and still feel
| like a failure.
|
| Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself
| from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what
| _really_ matters to you. Then focus on that, and use your job
| to fill the boring hours in between.
|
| I agree that you need to push yourself and discover who you are
| -- but the answers to those questions aren't going to be found
| at work. This sort of mid-life crisis is pretty common for
| career-focused people in their late 20s - early 30s and the
| solution is to find interests and friendships outside of work.
| djcapelis wrote:
| > Software engineering just isn't that hard
|
| 1) I agree that this is often true! Code can be pretty
| boring. That doesn't mean there are no interesting problems
| that you can tackle with programming. It just means most
| people work on incredibly boring stuff and think that's all
| there is and totally fine. Find something that's a better use
| of your time.
|
| 2) There is more and less difficult software engineering. If
| yours is really boring why wouldn't you try something more
| challenging? It doesn't always pay as well but it can be a
| lot less terrible to experience on a daily basis.
|
| 3) Most of the hardest problems in making interesting
| technology that touches the world isn't in exactly how the
| code is written. Learning this is the first step towards
| starting to be equipped to tackle the actually hard problems
| in our field. Which you could work on directly, if you
| wanted.
|
| None of this is to say that anyone has to do this. You don't
| _have_ to have fulfillment in your job. Though you and most
| others should frankly probably look around and make sure the
| code you're writing is doing actually good things in the
| world rather than bad ones, that's an ethical obligation but
| one that is pretty orthogonal whether or not you're working
| on interesting problems. (If people optimize solely for money
| though, they bend towards writing code that makes that
| empowers companies over people and generally makes the world
| a worst place. People have a responsibility to evaluate this
| and try and avoid the ones that don't.)
|
| Mostly: it's fine to make the choice to not work on something
| fulfilling. But stating that there's nothing fulfilling to
| work on in this world is just nonsense, defeatist and mostly
| means you've resigned yourself and everyone who takes your
| advice to unfulfilling, boring and miserable work that
| doesn't grow you worth a damn.
|
| And that probably sucks. So why take that approach?
| booleandilemma wrote:
| _Software engineering just isn 't that hard. Tedious yes, but
| not remotely difficult._
|
| Come back and say this after you've had to fix concurrency
| bugs or had to maintain some overseas contractor's terrible
| codebase with no documentation.
| Itaxpica wrote:
| Both of those sound tedious, neither of them sound
| particularly hard.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I have; I was a software engineer for over a decade before
| I moved up through architecture and laterally into product.
| Those problems are tedious. Not difficult.
| wolco wrote:
| 10 years ago everything was tedious but possible because
| you had full control. Now it's super easy until
| impossible/difficult.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| While I agree that there are _parts_ of software
| engineering that are merely 'tedious' rather than
| 'hard', there are definitely parts that are legitimately
| 'hard' too. Just because you've had a particular set of
| experiences that you've classified as tedious doesn't
| mean your perspective represents the totality of the
| industry.
| jcims wrote:
| The problem here is that 'hard' is dimensionless and
| relative. There are people in Australia right now
| storming the gates of hell with a shovel and a hose
| because that's the job they signed up for. If that type
| of work is on the spectrum, I can't really think of
| anything in software/systems engineering that's 'hard'.
| codr7 wrote:
| That sounds more like courage to me. Many of those shovel
| and hose carrying people would not make very successful
| software developers from my experience.
|
| It takes a certain kind of mindset; attention to detail
| and an ability to visualize and work at high levels of
| abstraction.
|
| To do it well, that is. Copy-pasting framework cruft
| until it sort of works is simply boring and the world
| would be a better place if we stopped doing that.
| sweeneyrod wrote:
| Hard as in unpleasant, obviously not. Hard as in mentally
| challenging, obviously yes.
| jspaetzel wrote:
| Software engineering can be hard and it can be tedious,
| either or neither... I think it's what you make of it. That's
| one of the most entrancing things about it to me. It's one of
| the few jobs that's truly "choose your own adventure".
| There's a thousand ways to solve every problem and you get to
| decide the difficulty at every turn.
| rzzzt wrote:
| How do you figure out what really matters?
| Difwif wrote:
| This one is long but I recommend trying to finish it. If it
| resonates at all you'll probably get sucked in to it before
| the halfway point. (The whole blog is fantastic)
|
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html
| phkahler wrote:
| It's a process. There is no manual, but some have found
| therapy helpful.
| vasco wrote:
| Everyone spends their whole lives trying to answer that.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash
| yourself from the notion that your job is your life and
| figure out what really matters to you. Then focus on that,
| and use your job to fill the boring hours in between.
|
| You're going to spend more time at work than doing almost
| anything else during those years of your life where you work.
| Why not do something meaningful with those hours if you can?
| And if OP can get a job at Google they almost certainly can.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| What percentage of software engineers are doing "something
| meaningful"? That seems like a small number, no?
|
| Contrast with teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers,
| etc., almost all of whom I think would say they do
| something meaningful.
| goldfeld wrote:
| A welcome change from the exciting atmosphere of exploiting
| young brains and sucking the marrow out of others' 20's?
| sweetheart wrote:
| I think many of the folks here agree with your latter point,
| that the point OP is at in his or her life is one for
| experimentation and discovery. I think they're saying this is
| easier when you can pull in fat, fat stacks with little effort.
| Fulfillment probably won't come from working at Google, so use
| the security it affords to find out where it _can_ come from.
| danShumway wrote:
| People aren't advocating that OP should stop learning (although
| there is nothing wrong with Software Engineering being a safe,
| predictable career for some people). They're advocating that OP
| should focus on learning things outside of work.
|
| A lot of exciting opportunities open up when you don't need to
| care about money. You can do experimental, innovative stuff
| just because it's worth doing, and not just because a VC
| investor wants another cash-out.
|
| Although, given Google's policies towards employee IP, that
| alone might be a reason to look for another company to work at
| -- keeping in mind that you almost certainly will be accepting
| a drop in pay if you leave.
| buboard wrote:
| being poor is bad, but being cushy is demotivating.
| "Experimental, innovative stuff" requires a certain level of
| hunger, or disregard for money. In both cases this person
| should seek elsewhere.
| pjc50 wrote:
| You will have a hard time finding a tech employer that
| doesn't have a restrictive IP clause.
| flattone wrote:
| Autopilot is for middle age? That's a pretty terrible thing to
| say. My 20s were a total waste. Now, mature and sorta burned
| out on nonsense distractions, I'm on fire.
| czbond wrote:
| Yeah, I agree here. I can't imagine going on autopilot even
| decades and decades from now as I hit 80. The point is to
| drive to learn AND create always gives you opportunity.
| s0crates28 wrote:
| I agree with most of your statements. However, I don't believe
| you should ever auto pilot. Life is about constantly, and
| consistently challenging yourself. Auto pilot, at any age, are
| for duds. Why auto pilot during middle age? I'd argue that you
| have acquired so much wisdom, leading into your middle age. Why
| stop the momentum. Use all your wisdom ALWAYS! :)
| awinder wrote:
| I have read that certain earth beings sometimes replicate
| themselves, and navigating the needy replicants needs & wants
| requires rejiggering how much life is spent where.
| [deleted]
| munmaek wrote:
| No, most comments say to find fulfillment through personal
| projects/hobbies.
|
| Work is work; it doesn't necessarily have to be the most
| satisfying or fulfilling experience ever. That's always going
| to be the case if you're working for someone else. Earning a
| boatload of money (and saving it) to retire early isn't
| anything to scoff at.
|
| This also assumes one can find a more fulfilling job elsewhere
| (with ideal compensation). Which is just that, an assumption.
| If, and only if, such a job were lined up, then it might be
| time to move on.
| furyofantares wrote:
| We spend a LOT of time at work. It's ridiculous not to seek
| fulfillment at work as well as elsewhere.
|
| Edit: I think maybe I didn't communicate well. I just mean
| that being fulfilled at work can be _very_ significant
| because work is such a huge part of our lives whether we like
| it or not. And so not _seeking_ fulfillment in work can be a
| huge blind spot.
|
| I didn't mean to imply it should be prioritized above all
| else, or that it's shameful not to have the luxury to achieve
| this to a high degree, as the OP presumably does.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Very few people have that luxury. The career path for your
| average software dev in Silicon Valley does not have a lot
| of interesting work involved -- it's a bunch of middleware
| stuff like parsing data, CRUD operations and updating
| documentation. It's the 21st century version of being an
| auto mechanic -- super interesting at first, but there's a
| definite ceiling on the knowledge.
|
| There is only so much interesting work to go around, and
| you're usually not going to be doing it. You can seek
| fulfillment at work, but you also have to be prepared not
| to find it. Seeking fulfillment elsewhere is the secret to
| not burning out.
| munmaek wrote:
| In an Ideal World, sure.
|
| The Reality that most people live in is that we need money
| to pay the rent, like right about now. This limits the
| opportunities available to us because we simply cannot wait
| to find a fulfilling _and_ justly compensated job.
|
| I simply will not work for low(er) income just to satisfy
| my need for fulfillment (at work). You know what's better
| than that? Financial security. Retiring Early. Owning my
| own house instead of renting.
|
| I would rather get paid a lot of money and not really work
| on very interesting things, if that meant I could retire a
| lot earlier and then do whatever I wanted for the rest of
| my life.
|
| When work ends for the day, I work on my personal & open
| source projects, or engage in other intellectually
| stimulating activities like learning a language, etc.
|
| I think the only exception at this point would be me taking
| slightly lower pay if it meant living and working
| comfortably abroad, because I want to live abroad for an
| extended amount of time, personally, so that tradeoff would
| be fine for me. In all likeliness that's going to be
| exactly what I do after I own my own house (at 26yo), and
| work under my own consulting business.
| Tarsul wrote:
| why would you want to own a house in your home country if
| you're working abroad?
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Security. Because you don't plan to stay abroad forever
| and your house will still be there for you when you come
| back, whether permanently or on holiday.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| _What a change from the exciting atmosphere of the 2000s._
|
| I miss this every day.
| dfilppi wrote:
| Start a side business
| Itaxpica wrote:
| Switch teams, ideally to something entirely different than what
| you're doing now. Google makes it easy and painless (in most
| cases) for a reason. I stayed at my first team at Google for
| years longer than most people do, and though I started strong, by
| the end I found I was feeling similarly to what you describe. I
| took that as an impetuous to switch teams and moved to doing
| something very different, and now a year later I've got my fire
| back and I'm learning tons every day. I'm sure at some point I'll
| get comfortable and complacent here again, but now I know to keep
| an eye out for it and take that as a signal that it's time to
| move forward again.
| drenvuk wrote:
| OP if you wouldn't mind going into it, what are these companies
| with a higher hiring bar than google?
| booleandilemma wrote:
| What about joining a startup so you're forced to do some real
| work?
|
| I've done the startup scene before, and I can tell you, you will
| be doing 3 different jobs and using 100% of that mental capacity.
| You will be making changes that wouldn't be possible without
| director-level oversight at larger companies. You will feel like
| you're making a difference.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| Quit and start your own startup.
| irjustin wrote:
| The question you asked, "how can i stop this?" is commonly not
| possible to tackle directly. If you didn't care about the company
| before, there likely isn't much for you now.
|
| I think you've got the right mentality - that staying where you
| are isn't the best long term move at your current stage of life.
|
| Ask yourself what is it that you want to try? ML, FE, BE, Full
| stack? and simply build a project out of it. Dabble and dabble.
| It'll likely be hard at first since there's a mental rut, but at
| some point, something will pique your interest.
|
| From there it's just diving deeper and deeper until you're ready
| to jump ship. You may even find it at the current company through
| a transfer.
|
| I don't recommend jumping ship until you're sure. You've got a
| fantastic backstop.
| dominotw wrote:
| Can you start
|
| 1. Consulting on the side? Surely you being G employee will open
| lots of doors.
|
| 2. Side project/your own startup .
|
| I think you are getting a great value for 10% of your capacity. I
| would just keep milking it till you get something on side get
| started.
|
| PS: I don't think 'deeply learn the FE/BE technologies' is good
| investment of time.
| akulbe wrote:
| I'm guessing Google has a very wide-ranging non-compete and/or
| IP ownership agreement that'd keep him from doing this.
|
| He works for Google, and I bet Google would say "we own your
| work, all of it".
| moonman80 wrote:
| Correct, but it is possible to apply for clearance on IP
| ownership depending whether or not there is a competition or
| not.
| freedomben wrote:
| I've fallen into slumps, and it can be hard to get out of them.
| However, what worked for me was putting my sights on something
| new, sometimes related sometimes not. I found I'm better at
| devops stuff, and it's more interesting to me than building CRUD
| services.
|
| You might try deep diving into Linux. Buying a book and studying
| for the RHCSA is a great way to get started with an achievable
| and valuable goal (disclaimer: I work for Red Hat and have the
| RHCSA). It is mostly applicable to all Linux, maybe 5 to 10% is
| RH specific.
|
| I also bought some Great Courses on philosophy and that has been
| stimulating. I can highly recommend the courses from David Kyle
| Johnson.
|
| You may also try starting a new project. That is the best way
| I've found to really learn BE/FE. Elixir is an incredibly fun
| language, and it's gaining traction. Get the Dave Thomas book
| first, then the Chris McCord Phoenix book. Being at Google
| there's probably lots of great people to ask for advice too.
|
| Just my thoughts. I'm no expert at this, just sharing what worked
| for me.
| uncle_j wrote:
| Make sure you save up the money, pay off _all_ your debts. Start
| doing stuff at work "properly". Then once you got yourself back
| upto "match fitness", start looking around.
| wuschb wrote:
| I have come to realize this past year some of us in IT have moved
| into the domain of true Subject Matter Expert. I personally
| proved my worth to my clients and based on that they more than
| happy to keep me on 'retainer' adding nothing new, but ensuring
| that current systems to fark up... I work from home doing nothing
| but attending meetings. I am on the peak of the efficiency curve.
| m0zg wrote:
| If I were in your spot, with the benefit of the hindsight, I'd
| continue riding the gravy train until asked to leave. Don't fuck
| up too badly, do your job, just don't worry about it too much.
| Get off the promo treadmill. Spend bare minimum of effort on
| work. Put the rest of the efforts into your hobbies and
| relationships.
|
| There's really no rational reason for you to worry about obscure
| corporate bullshit which will be gone and forgotten in 3 years.
| It pays the bills, but beyond that it's not your "life", so don't
| treat it as such. That's one of the benefits of being an
| _employee_ rather than, say, an _owner_: you get to leave work at
| work.
|
| What you _think_ Google wants from you and what it actually wants
| might be two different things. For as long as they choose to
| employ you (and moreover, promote you), you can be sure they're
| getting a good deal as far as their requirements are concerned.
| shantly wrote:
| I am not kidding: you are all set to be CTO or dev lead (mind:
| only if there's actually a team so you don't have to do much
| development) at some late-early stage funded startup, that wants
| a long-time Google alum on their staff, in leadership. Without
| even a change in your work ethic. Not even slightly a joke.
| [deleted]
| aey wrote:
| Work smarter not harder. Your brain should be sweating not your
| fingers.
|
| I worked at a Big Corp, and would often spend the day surfing or
| training for ironmen, and coding at the cafe shop between
| sessions.
|
| My reviews came back nearly the top ranking consistently. My
| "secret" if anything was jumping into the hardest technical
| problem available to me and taking it on largely myself.
|
| The folks that were promoted faster were the ones that put out
| business critical fires and spent 80 hour weeks debugging
| customer issues. Which was well deserved imho.
|
| Google is a huge company, with tons of opportunity. Your risk
| adjusted return there is probably higher than YC. If you can't
| figure out how to hit homeruns at Google you are likely to fail
| everywhere else.
|
| Your managers job is to tell you what you need to do to become a
| "critical" employee that's on the fast promotion track.
| goodguy1234 wrote:
| Here is my philosophy in life.
|
| "Make it a ride and become a passenger."
|
| I mean we are all going to the same place in the end. Nothing
| really matters.
|
| Have a comfortable job. And positive outlook but never plan for
| anything. Its so much fun. Life happens all around you and you
| just observe.
| alpb wrote:
| I have been at this situation at Microsoft for four years
| straight out of college. I would achieve notable things without
| putting too much into the work. Then I figured out what kind of a
| role and technology area I wanted to work on, changed ship and
| jumped to Google --now still happy after three years.
|
| Since you are new grad employee, I assume your comp wasn't
| competitive as it could be. 6 years at L4 also probably indicates
| you are at/below median comp for that level/location. You might
| be due for a change if you want more money.
|
| In my opinion, Google is still an amazing place to practice all
| sorts of different technologies. Internal education programs and
| mobility between teams would let you work anywhere in the company
| that's interesting to you. I suspect unless you find that
| passion, this might repeat anyhwere you go.
| skybrian wrote:
| Sometimes changing teams helps. Another possibility would be to
| see if you can take a leave of absence. Maybe combine them, take
| a leave of absence and then start fresh with a new team?
| rajacombinator wrote:
| Hiring hiring bar is generally a bad sign. Any company that
| thinks it needs to be more selective (in technical ability, at
| least) than Google is probably kidding themselves.
| enitihas wrote:
| We are highly lucky to be in a time where it is very easy to
| switch among high paying jobs across various companies. If you
| are able to get by with 10% of your mental capacity, I am sure
| you would be able to land up a lot of jobs. I would recommend you
| apply to many places, and take it from there, depending on the
| interviewing experience.
|
| I don't think you really need to learn anything special for job
| interviews. There is no necessity to understand special
| technologies, as most good companies are fine as long as you have
| any experience with similar things.
|
| I would also recommend you read books on programmers. I recently
| read "Masters of Doom", and it might open your eyes into goal
| driven programmers and their impact on the world.
|
| Also, out of curiosity, which companies do you think have a
| higher hiring bar than Google?
| mam2 wrote:
| Cant change deparmentd easily at google ?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Why not work for yourself instead of getting hired? After 6 years
| at Google you probably have some cash in the bank. Also, consider
| the possibility that maybe you don't enjoy programming just
| because you're good at it. What do you daydream about? You
| mention dating/breakups/depression and gaming (arguably a form of
| escapism), so it sounds very much like you have some unfilled
| emotional need. If that's family based you need therapy of some
| sort, but you also need to find something to do that satisfies
| you rather than hoping a partner will fix you somehow.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm not employed as a programmer _per se_ , but I work with a lot
| of programmers and other kinds of engineers. I wonder if you're
| talking yourself out of the value of your work. A great deal of
| engineering is not creating fundamentally new components, but
| organizing and arranging things, fitting them together, and so
| forth. Is this a bad thing?
|
| As businesses and their products get more complex, "systems"
| behavior becomes a larger part of making things work, until you
| might only need a few people working on components, and everybody
| else on fitting those components together in different ways.
| There's hardly any loss of honor in doing the 90% of the work
| that needs to be done and makes the business successful.
|
| I think you can do two things. First, look into new technologies
| that you'd like to dive into. Second, start to rehearse your
| elevator speech about how great your present work is, until you
| begin to believe it yourself, because it might be true. Doing
| great work and looking for better work are not mutually
| exclusive.
| elil17 wrote:
| In my experience, most medium to large size companies are
| primarily comprised of people doing what your doing. Most places
| you could lateral to would get what they expected. I think it's
| totally fine to do that and let the rest of your life be the more
| important thing.
|
| Now, if pushing your career forward is what you really want,
| people in a new company will start to notice once your putting in
| the effort and communicating what you accomplish. There's no
| trick to it, just putting in the effort on the tasks you take on
| and being thoughtful about how to accomplish them in a way that
| is focused on the company's goals.
| pdfernhout wrote:
| Or maybe you are perfectly adapted to your circumstances
| according to "The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to
| "The Office""? https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
| principle-... "The Sociopath (capitalized) layer comprises the
| Darwinian/Protestant Ethic will-to-power types who drive an
| organization to function despite itself. The Clueless layer is
| what Whyte called the "Organization Man," but the archetype
| inhabiting the middle has evolved a good deal since Whyte wrote
| his book (in the fifties). The Losers are not social losers (as
| in the opposite of "cool"), but people who have struck bad
| bargains economically - giving up capitalist striving for steady
| paychecks. ... The difference between [upwardly-aspiring Ryan]
| and the average checked-out Loser is illustrated in one brilliant
| scene early in his career. He suggests, during a group stacking
| effort in the warehouse, that they form a bucket brigade to work
| more efficiently. The minimum-effort Loser Stanley tells him
| coldly, "this here is a run-out-the-clock situation." The line
| could apply to Stanley's entire life. Stanley's response shows
| both his intelligence and clear-eyed self-awareness of his Loser
| bargain with the company. He therefore acts according to a mix of
| self-preservation and minimum-effort coasting instincts. ... The
| career of the Loser is the easiest to understand. Having made a
| bad bargain, and not marked for either Clueless or Sociopath
| trajectories, he or she must make the best of a bad situation.
| The most rational thing to do is slack off and do the minimum
| necessary. Doing more would be a Clueless thing to do. Doing less
| would take the high-energy machinations of the Sociopath, since
| it sets up self-imposed up-or-out time pressure. So the Loser --
| really not a loser at all if you think about it -- pays his dues,
| does not ask for much, and finds meaning in his life elsewhere.
| For Stanley it is crossword puzzles. For Angela it is a colorless
| Martha-Stewartish religious life. For Kevin, it is his rock band.
| For Kelly, it is mindless airhead pop-culture distractions. Pam
| has her painting ambitions. Meredith is an alcoholic slut. Oscar,
| the ironic-token gay character, has his intellectual posturing.
| Creed, a walking freak-show, marches to the beat of his own
| obscure different drum (he is the most rationally checked-out of
| all the losers)."
|
| If you want to change Google into a better company or
| alternatively build or find a better place to be, here is a
| reading list I've put together which might help:
| https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations...
|
| Since you mentioned depression, see especially the related health
| sections.
|
| All the best and good luck!
|
| P.S. Something I wrote in 2008 on ideological challenges inherent
| in Google inspired by contradictions in the "Project Virgle"
| April Fools joke: https://pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-
| obesity-and-Proje... "Even just in jest some of the most
| financially obese people on the planet (who have built their
| company with thousands of servers all running GNU/Linux free
| software) apparently could not see any other possibility but
| seriously becoming even more financially obese off the free work
| of others on another planet (as well as saddling others with
| financial obesity too :-). And that jest came almost half a
| _century_ after the "Triple Revolution" letter of 1964 about the
| growing disconnect between effort and productivity (or work and
| financial fitness) .... Even not having completed their PhDs, the
| top Google-ites may well take many more _decades_ to shake off
| that ideological discipline. I know it took me decades (and I am
| still only part way there. :-) As with my mother, no doubt
| Googlers have lived through periods of scarcity of money relative
| to their needs to survive or be independent scholars or effective
| agents of change. Is it any wonder they probably think being
| financially obese is a _good_ thing, not an indication of either
| personal or societal pathology? :-( ... Google-ites and other
| financially obese people IMHO need to take a good look at the
| junk food capitalist propaganda they are eating and serving up to
| others, as in saying (even in jest): ... "we should profit from
| others' use of our innovations, and we should buy or lease
| others' intellectual property whenever it advances our own goals"
| -- even while running one of the biggest post-scarcity
| enterprises on Earth based on free-as-in-freedom software. :-(
| Until then, it is up to us other ... "semi-evil ... quasi-evil
| ... not evil enough" hobbyists with smaller budgets to save the
| Asteroids and the Planets (including Earth) ... from financially
| obese people and their unexamined evil plans to spread profit-
| driven scarcity-creating Empire throughout every nook-and-cranny
| of the universe. :-("
| koonsolo wrote:
| I personally hate working for big companies. Your are just a
| little cog in a very dysfunctional machine. The 10% without
| anyone noticing sounds about right. Makes you wonder how much
| effort your colleagues are putting in...
|
| Go work for a small company, at about 6 to 20 people. Your work
| can actually make a difference there. 10% or 100% at a big
| company won't really be noticed as x10. At a small company, it
| makes a huge difference, at about x10. And for me personally,
| much more gratifying.
| [deleted]
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| A) I saw "boss as a service" on HN some months ago. This might
| teach you diligence and accountability by rote. B) Jumping ship
| won't change this problem. This IS actually about you, and guess
| what, until you address it, it will go with you everywhere you
| go.
|
| Or you can become a skillful slacker as some here have mentioned.
| That personally wouldn't work for me; maybe it will for you.
| Inu wrote:
| Well, here's how Karl Marx put it:
|
| "What, then, constitutes the alienation of labor? First, the fact
| that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to
| his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not
| affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but
| unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy
| but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore
| only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels
| outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and
| when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is
| therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is
| therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to
| satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly
| in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion
| exists, labor is shunned like the plague. External labor, labor
| in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of
| mortification. Lastly, the external character of labor for the
| worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone
| else's, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs,
| not to himself, but to another. The worker's activity is not his
| spontaneous activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of
| his self."
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Does anyone else feel like a 3rd or 4th class citizen reading
| posts like these? How is someone supposed to "compete"
| financially or socially when there is a magic gate with so much
| privilege on the other side?
| christiansakai wrote:
| ......I don't know what to say. I know a few people are like this
| too. On the other hand, I think I do a lot of things for my
| employer and constantly learn/challenge myself, but don't make
| anywhere near FAANG SWE. I am trying hard to pass onsite FAANG
| interviews, and still failing. So I'm still Leetcoding now.
|
| But hearing stories like this just kinda demotivates me and
| confuses me more. Most non FAANG companies have no interest in
| keeping people who wants to stay purely technical like me, so in
| the end I'll have to end up at FAANG/unicorns to get better
| compensation. But on the other hand, joining FAANG seems soul
| crushing.
| blihp wrote:
| Don't confuse the mystique for reality. Google is just a large
| company now. The mystique helps them recruit talent. The
| interviews are mostly a filtering process since they have far
| more people applying than they actually need. Being a large
| company, they have more than their fair share of bozos who are
| now the gatekeepers of that process. The only thing that Google
| management really cares about at this point is maximizing
| profit. It's just a business and that's reflected in everything
| they do and don't do these days.
|
| There's nothing wrong with any of that. If you want to make
| more money and/or get Google on the resume to open up some new
| doors, keep trying and you'll probably eventually find a way
| in. Just don't think it's going to be some sort of techie
| nirvana... it's going to be a lumbering bureaucratic beast
| ruled by politics as virtually all large companies are.
|
| If you're looking for technical challenge and growth, you
| probably want to be looking at smaller tech companies who are
| where Google was 10+ years ago.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Try looking at what smaller companies are doing interesting
| things but don't have the whole FAANG "halo".
|
| I've never worked at a FAANG, but from my reading here and
| other places I think that the path to an interesting job would
| probably be easier at a smaller company than at a FAANG.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| viburnum wrote:
| Have you been on the same team the whole time? I've found that
| how I feel about my work and my productivity has a lot to do with
| what kind of team I'm on. I don't like being the superstar (too
| much pressure) and I hate being around a real superstar (all my
| code gets rewritten by the superstar so why bother writing it in
| the first place). When I'm with people at roughly my own level I
| have a ton of energy and actually enjoy my work.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| lol imagine not understanding why working for faang is not
| fulfilling
| sjg007 wrote:
| If I were you, before I would do anything, I would first go to
| therapy and work with a therapist. That or pick up a good CBT
| book.
|
| To me, it sounds like you have a lot of questions to resolve
| first. I would do that before you change anything. For example
| why do you think you are doing a minimal amount of work and does
| that actually mesh with reality? How do you define and measure
| work output anyway?
|
| You mention dealing with depression for example. In my experience
| dealing with depression itself is a full time job. That you held
| down a second job during that experience is a major
| accomplishment. Go easy on yourself.
|
| Remember above all that your thoughts create your emotions. Ask
| yourself why do you feel that way. What thoughts underlie the
| feelings. Question those thoughts.
|
| If you are in Mountain View or the bay area, I'd recommend going
| to the Feeling Good Institute. I'd also recommend reading Dr.
| David Burns book Feeling Good.
|
| Consider CBT as a set of tools for your brain and human operating
| system. I would start by learning those tools first.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| This is a great answer. I was going to say something very
| similar, but rather than a therapist, I'd recommend meditation!
|
| Talking to yourself about yourself and seriously debugging, can
| be a lot of effort but long term, it is very rewarding.
|
| I always say to people, "Emotions and intuition are just a
| complicated set of logic you don't understand yet".
|
| Emotions can be a fog in your mind, blocking you from seeing
| the path from where you are to where you want to be.
|
| Putting in the time to understand the root causes of your
| emotions, start to help map your mind and you can better
| navigate and find paths to your final goals.
| alamaslah wrote:
| I like how on hacker news every personal problem can be
| solved by three activities; Therapy, Meditation, and...Salsa!
|
| It's probably good advice. Although, I like to combine all
| three by doing painting and poetry. These activities might be
| better suited to some hackers.
| [deleted]
| sjg007 wrote:
| The root cause of your emotions are your thoughts.
| khamba wrote:
| Could you recommend a good CBT book?
| combatentropy wrote:
| I like Chris Thurman's books, like The Lies We Believe.
| sab24 wrote:
| Feeling Good by David Burns is a truly excellent book.
| Although published in the 80's it is still very relevant and
| useful.
| mondoshawan wrote:
| HN isn't the best place to ask for this since we can't really
| give actionable feedback. Look me up internally (jtgans) -- I've
| been at Google off and on for about 8 years cumulatively now.
| Happy to talk over VC if you'd like.
| blueblimp wrote:
| If you're looking to have kids eventually, your job situation is
| perfect for that: good salary and low stress.
|
| If you're having issues with dating and work at Google HQ, the
| problem may be that you're in an area over-saturated with your
| demographic (nerdy 20-something men). Strongly consider seeking a
| transfer to another office, any(?) of which will have more
| favorable area demographics for dating.
| frobozz wrote:
| Your current behaviour should mark you for fast track promotion.
|
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
| leetcrew wrote:
| isn't OP employing the loser strategy? they are doing (what
| they consider) barely okay work. the prospective sociopath
| strategy in that serious of articles is to do _below_
| -acceptable work and vie for political advantages.
| pavlov wrote:
| I think you underestimate your value to the company.
|
| "All I do is copy code from the internal codebase and patch
| things together until they work" -- this is exactly what
| established tech companies mostly need from their engineers. They
| want people with enough CS competence to not fuck things up while
| patching together new solutions from the institutional code soup
| that everyone knows how to navigate and review.
|
| If you can do this reliably at 10% of your capacity and don't
| have ambitions of applying creative solutions with unproven tech,
| you're a real asset. Don't leave rashly unless you're genuinely
| bored or frustrated.
| ec109685 wrote:
| You didn't read his whole post. They're bored. Their value to
| google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is
| beneath their capabilities.
|
| The failing for google is not providing this person a path to
| do more or at least understanding their ambition to do more.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed
| but the job is beneath their capabilities._
|
| That's what we call "the perfect job." It pays the bills, but
| leaves you the maximum amount of
| (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy to
| work on the things that _really_ interest you ... outside of
| work.
|
| Of course different people will approach this differently,
| but I don't _want_ my job to be interesting. I don 't draw
| any sense of self-worth / self-satisfaction / joy-in-life /
| etc. from my job. My job is just a means to an end, where
| that end is to pay the rent, pay the electric bill, buy food
| etc. I have enough other ways to achieve those other things,
| and an "intersting" (and by extension, "demanding") job just
| gets in the way.
| astura wrote:
| 99% of jobs are boring. You're just solving other people's
| business problems after all.
| mukel wrote:
| Google is going downhill, the day I finished my internship I
| sweared I'll never in my life work on any money-making, no-
| challenge project. A bunch of engineers do enjoy what they do,
| they work on the cool projects, that's enough to keep it going;
| the rest is just cattle, work for the cash, enjoy the free food
| and the reputation of working at Google; I'm still sick of being
| bombarded with the "changing the world" nonsense. Change
| projects/company, find a mentor and/or a mentee, build new stuff;
| find your purpose, unleash your intellect. Don't fall for the
| "changing the world" lie.
| vikR0001 wrote:
| Whatever my assignment is, I pick 1+ stretch goals for myself
| every day, and try to over-deliver above and beyond what my team
| expects. They are usually super-impressed and love it. Try that.
| gordaco wrote:
| Using about 10% of your mental capacity for your job is
| absolutely a good thing, if you're still doing what your company
| expects from you. This means that you still have 90% for
| yourself, and that's awesome.
|
| If you don't feel challenged enough, seek intellectual activities
| (of ANY kind, as long as you enjoy it. Code, study, read, play an
| instrument, whatever) outside of your job. They will be much more
| satisfying, because you will have complete control over when and
| how do you engage in them. I've been doing this for many years
| and it's one the most satisfying aspects of my life, if not the
| most.
|
| Also, being kind of a veteran (35yo), let me tell you this: be
| careful what you wish for. You seem to be enjoying a job that
| doesn't stress you or burn you out. If you start working at a
| company where you don't have that any more, there is a very good
| chance that you will miss the sustainability (in terms of mental
| health) of your current one.
|
| TLDR: if your job pays the bills and doesn't offer challenges,
| great. Look for challenges in other areas of your life to
| maximise happiness.
| dhuyrv wrote:
| You remind me myself a few years ago: a talented, but bored
| slacker who didn't see any point in investing any energy into
| that project. Turns out I was right: the project didn't go
| anywhere after I left and investing any extra time would be a
| clueless thing to do.
|
| So what's changed since then? Have I found meaning in work? No!
| I've become a professional slacker who knows all these
| psychological tricks, knows what body language to use to make the
| desired impression, what to say and what not to say. My managers
| think I'm a high performer who also makes valuable social
| contributions to our team and this is reflected in pay rises. I
| see my mission at work in carefully educating the overly
| enthusiastic co-workers by dropping a few seemingly random hints
| or observations that make them think and challenge their beliefs.
|
| Work is just work and unless you're curing cancer, you shouldn't
| put any effort into making some billionaires richer. Just do the
| minimum, get your paycheck and appreciate the fact that you don't
| need to worry about money. Very few people in the world have this
| level of freedom.
|
| But life is quite a bit more interesting than it seems. Learn
| applied psychology to understand what drives people. Learn about
| all these LLCs, corps, trusts and other fun stuff. Talk to a
| lawyer and try to start your own company. No need to leave your
| current job: you can use the gained knowledge to hide traces,
| while still being very legal and very cool. Even if you get
| caught, use the learned psychology tricks to negotiate: you may
| even find yourself in a VP position as few people can covertly
| pull this type of stuff. Even if it doesn't work, there is
| nothing to lose: 50 years later the only thing you will regret is
| not taking the risk because of some silly non competes with a
| company that no longer exists. Learn some Buddhism and some
| Tiberian phylosophy: it gives a very interesting and different
| outlook at life. Learn how pilot an airplane: like I said, there
| is nothing to lose.
| reactspa wrote:
| This comment is pure gold.
|
| I found Scott Adams' recent books and Daniel Kahneman's work
| profoundly influential in changing my "observed personality"
| (i.e. the psychology I project to the world), and making me an
| order of magnitude more effective in dealing with work
| issues/co-workers.
|
| Please share a few books (or perhaps authors/youtubers) that
| you learned from. Thank you.
| zzzcarrot wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the observed personality thing? How do
| you do this?
| mindcrime wrote:
| Not the parent poster, and this may or may not be what they
| were referring to, but FYI, there is an entire field of
| thought called "Impression Management" which may be of
| interest:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_management
| abledon wrote:
| which scott adams books? loserthink?
| aphextron wrote:
| >I've become a professional slacker who knows all these
| psychological tricks, knows what body language to use to make
| the desired impression, what to say and what not to say. My
| managers think I'm a high performer who also makes valuable
| social contributions to our team and this is reflected in pay
| rises.
|
| i.e. the Gervais principle [0]
|
| [0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
| principle-...
| kreck wrote:
| Thanks for the link. This is awesome.
| zzzcarrot wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the pyschological tricks and how you pull
| it off? How do you come off as a high performer?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane
| money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with
| a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are
| slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning
| themselves out for a 3% salary increase on that pitiful
| 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early
| retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or
| financial assistance from their parents.
|
| You guys don't know how good you have it. The behavior you
| described from your Googler friends would have gotten them
| instantly fired in any European company(yes, the _" you can't
| fire people in Europe"_ is just a meme).
|
| Reading OPs problem and some posts here where people are too
| bored of making ludicrous money left me with a bitter
| aftertaste that life really is unfair and success in life is
| more linked to the lottery of birth and opportunities available
| to you than any amount of hard work. Not hating, just saying.
|
| Good luck to you guys and hope you find a calling for a
| fulfilling job or a hobby that gives you meaning or purpose in
| life.
| [deleted]
| talkinghead wrote:
| well said
| cm2012 wrote:
| Workers working for FANG in the USA also have much better
| quality of life than Americans in general.
| datalus wrote:
| At least you weren't born like say during the Hundred Years
| War... :)
| esmi wrote:
| Do you think this is true in Google's European sites too? I
| have a hunch this is more of a Google thing than a US thing.
| I can assure you that plenty of engineers in the US grind
| away too.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I don't know but I think it could be a SV thing as it's
| ultimately a supply/demand issue. If FAANG corps in SV
| tolerate such behavior then it's because they can't find
| better people due to strong competition for talent. Google
| in Europe pretty much has no competition and there are way
| more hungry devs looking for quality work so it can afford
| to be way more selective with who they hire or keep. Supply
| and demand. My $0.02.
| Nickersf wrote:
| This.
| kradroy wrote:
| I second this as well. If you're really the type who's talented
| and motivated, then don't waste that talent and motivation on
| making someone else richer. Start your own thing. If you don't
| know how, then learn how. And if you're too afraid to do it,
| then spend your spare time on a hobby. Become a proficient
| pianist, learn to cook, run a marathon, anything other than
| making someone else richer.
| dejj wrote:
| > Tiberian phylosophy
|
| How to pass the Kobayashi Maru test!
|
| > Wikipedia: The objective of the test is not for the cadet to
| outfight or outplan the opponent but rather to force the cadet
| into a no-win situation and simply observe how he or she
| reacts.
| twic wrote:
| Oh, i assumed "Tiberian phylosophy" meant the teachings of
| Kane:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_(Command_%26_Conquer)
| joeyspn wrote:
| > Talk to a lawyer and try to start your own company.
|
| And if you have success, grow and you need to hire, then be
| aware of employees who preach to "not put any effort into
| making riches richer and just do the minimum!"
| dhuyrv wrote:
| I already have a team working for me and I don't understand
| why these people should exchange more time than necessary to
| make me financially independent.
| spery wrote:
| If they contribute and the company grows, who cares if you're
| paying them for their 10% or 110%? But I'll read your comment
| as a half-joke so forget what I said :)
| text70 wrote:
| How do we confirm that you are not actually just a manager
| looking for solutions to motivate lackluster employees?
| loopz wrote:
| Why name the company?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Why name the company?_
|
| Especially that one. I'll bet they know, by now (maybe they
| already did, and don't care. Google is famous for leveraging
| their -and our- data).
|
| I've found that many corporations are willing to settle for
| fairly mediocre work, as long as the processes are followed,
| and the cheese not moved. Having especially brilliant folks in
| place, means that if there is a problem, they have the
| bandwidth to deal with it. If I were your manager, I'd probably
| be pretty happy to have you there, but I'd also be worried that
| you weren't being challenged, and see if there was something I
| could do to challenge you, while improving my department's lot
| (I would probably do some kind of "20%" project).
|
| TBH: Most work is fairly rote. R&D departments are usually
| pretty small. Production is about a predictable, low-variance
| workflow.
|
| What I did, was work on some open-source stuff. Some of it has
| turned out to be quite impactful.
|
| But I was fortunate. I had an employment contract that didn't
| have the "shower clause" (where they lay claim to the ideas
| that you come up with in the shower).
|
| I strongly suspect that your contract has a "shower clause."
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I think cruising along at Google is extremely different to
| cruising along as a minor regional tech company.
|
| If you're at Google you're already clearly gifted and one of
| the leading people in your industry, and if you're cruising
| there then you're probably still doing absolutely stellar work.
| war1025 wrote:
| I think people overestimate the proportion of equally
| talented engineers that don't apply to the FAANGs of the
| world for personal (geographic) reasons.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| That's not quite what I argued though - I said if you're at
| Google then you're certainly extraordinary talented and
| you're going to be a leader in your field. You may be that
| elsewhere of course, but you'd certainly be that at Google.
| drharby wrote:
| Context helps. It isn't a trivial datam. S/Google/Army/g the
| responses would vary wildly regarding the military industrial
| complex, impact of contributing to it, etc.
| ZoomStop wrote:
| Why not? I think it adds context.
| nshung wrote:
| This sounds exactly like my last job :P I wonder if software
| development tends to become like this in general after a certain
| amount of time?
| kalium_xyz wrote:
| Go anywhere else if you are bored, most companies will hire an
| ex-googler. Or lead a stable / boring life like people will tell
| you to do, its not like this is the only life you have or
| something.
| throwaway_googl wrote:
| I have three friends at Google who are nice, smart people, but
| terrible employees. All three of them seem to be doing just fine
| in their Google careers.
|
| One is very smart, but he's been telling me literally for years
| that he has zero motivation, to the point where he sometimes
| won't actually start working until 6PM. He's moved around within
| Google trying to find something he's interested in, but it's just
| the same thing on a new team. I've suggested a number of times
| that he leave and find something that inspires him, but he's too
| used to the salary, perks, and lifestyle to try something new.
|
| Another friend is very similar - nice guy, but there was a
| consensus at his last startup that he wasn't really accomplishing
| very much, and he would have been fired if he hadn't left
| voluntarily.
|
| Another friend is a nice guy, but the most irresponsible person I
| know. He's been fired from other jobs for being unable to show up
| before 1PM, and he keeps making some truly irresponsible life
| choices (ghosting people, drugs, prostitutes).
|
| I know this is anecdotal, but do other people have this
| experience with Google engineers? It seems like Google is the
| kind of environment where (at least if you're an SWE) you can get
| away with doing the minimum for a very long time.
| [deleted]
| oneshot908 wrote:
| Time is the only nonrenewable resource. And you just lost some
| reading this response. Act accordingly.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| When your company is a monopoly that has a printing press for
| money, the normal competitive pressures don't apply. There's no
| need to aggressively cut head count because employee salaries
| are such a small percentage of their expenses relative to other
| companies of similar size.
|
| Google is like an ivy league school: the hard part is getting
| in.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| _Google is like an ivy league school: the hard part is
| getting in._
|
| Having worked at Google myself, unfortunately this sums it up
| just perfectly.
| filoleg wrote:
| I think that might be what inspired the "rooftop assignment"
| plotline in the first season of Silicon Valley.
| HashThis wrote:
| I know companies that won't hire Google employees because of
| this reputation.
| trolololooo wrote:
| Yes I've seen the same thing and more than once. Why should
| anyone leave, it's easy enough, and probably would be worse
| somewhere else. To me it's sad when this happens, because it's
| slowing down people who could be contributing to innovation and
| cool stuff, but I get it, paychecks are good.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| They have probably got to the stage where they don't want
| innovation. They have a machine that prints money like there
| is no tomorrow. Why risk that with new ideas.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| It sounds like you need someone who you feel accountable to. You
| mentioned depression. I'm not sure if you mean clinical
| depression, or post-breakup blues. But either ways consider
| talking to a therapist [0]. If it turns out your mental health is
| fine, consider a career or life coach to help you meet your
| goals.
|
| 0: I can personally recommend TalkSpace. Fixing my anxiety and
| ADHD has made my work life nearly immeasurably better.
| struct wrote:
| > it's almost like I've been using only 10% of my mental capacity
| for work (the rest was on dating/dealing with breakups/dealing
| with depression/gaming/...)
|
| I think that could give an indication of what might be wrong
| here, I can relate (somewhat!). I work for a top-flight tech
| firm, straight out of school, for about 5 years or so, and for a
| long time I felt just like that: I focused for a very long time
| on achieving the next goal - passing an exam, getting into
| University, getting that job, and not really focusing on what
| that was all for, not really focusing on my personal life etc.
| Once I got my job I was like "what is all of this for?"
|
| So I changed tack, I rotated positions at my job, I tried to
| "live with purpose", do something with a super-high impact, and
| not put myself under such relentless pressure to succeed. It may
| not feel like you have a super-high impact, but I'd say you do -
| the services you run help to improve literally millions of
| people's lives. Try to think about it like that, instead of "I'm
| not living up to my potential", think about the enormous impact
| you already have. If you just don't find the work interesting,
| talk to your manager about the possibility of a secondment to
| another team.
|
| I'd also advise that relationships are hard, and it is OK to feel
| miserable when they end. But one thing I only realised recently
| is that if your misery extends by more than a two months, it
| could be indicative that you need to see a doctor. Depression is
| a terrible condition that's still (IMO unfairly) stigmatised and
| it's often hard to disentangle from the rest of what goes on, but
| it is not a weakness to admit that we all need some help
| sometimes. If you need an impartial but sympathetic ear, you can
| find my email in my profile. Good luck! :D
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Heartbreak often lasts longer than 2 months. It's not
| necessarily a medical condition though. Counseling can help,
| but also more time helps too.
| throwthisaway2 wrote:
| You want to or you font. Its not googles fault. Font expect
| others to give you drive. I feel you ate asking hn for something
| you dont really want. You wouldnt need to ask us if you wanted
| advance. You would be coding instead.
|
| Your problem is you are bored, because cjallenging yourself in
| tech is easy to do, but just dont want yo do it.
|
| If you were promoted again you wouldnt be leaving. Thats your
| true motivation.
| goatherders wrote:
| You don't realize how good you have it:
|
| 1. you work for a company that is an excellent resume booster
| outside of the valley. I'm from central texas and most everyone I
| know in tech has worked at Dell and once complained how boring it
| was to work at Dell. The moment they decided to move away from
| Austin their Dell experience made them very hot commodities to
| non-Austin tech companies. Every day you stay at Google the more
| valuable you become.
|
| 2.you presumably make enough money to not worry about your
| monthly Bills and probably have enough to save as well. At age 28
| you are well ahead of the vast majority of 28 year olds from the
| last 100 years. Not saying you should be content but still...
|
| As others have said you have a great opportunity to do some new
| things, both in terms of mental and financial capacity. Nevermind
| learning more tech stuff...get a hobby. Try different things to
| make you the kind of person you've always wanted to be. Most
| people are not able to do that because of stress at work or
| stress about money. You seem to have neither.
| bellme8947 wrote:
| > Nevermind learning more tech stuff...get a hobby.
|
| 100% agree. A lot of young tech people seem to go directly from
| school to career level job without developing hobbies/interests
| outside of work. While that's fine...you should at least see if
| activities outside of work/dating/breaking up appeal to you.
|
| Buy a mountain bike, get into woodworking, learn about bird
| watching, or anything else that interests you. Maybe getting
| more enjoyment outside of work will make having a chill job an
| asset instead of a source of stress.
| flavor8 wrote:
| > Every day you stay at Google the more valuable you become.
|
| Ehhh, to a point. Straight out of college and then (e.g.) 10 or
| 15 years at the same company says a lot about a person.
| astura wrote:
| What do you mean?
| czbond wrote:
| While I see what you're getting at, and don't disagree, I
| have also noticed that the people that stay put while
| everyone else jumps ship provide a line of consistency that
| can get them promoted up. They say the stupid ones stay, and
| the smart ones leave.... but it isn't always intelligence
| that gets one promoted in such cases.
| uwuhn wrote:
| If I were you, I would stay at Google but try a different type of
| SWE. Like switching to mobile or something.
| dudus wrote:
| I was in a similar situation, but even though I have an
| engineering background I was in GTech.
|
| I thought I was doing meaningful work at first. But after 7 years
| of the grinding it took its toll, I burned out and I left in
| September.
|
| I'm not sure our situation is comparable, but I'll share some of
| my experience.
|
| I was very well paid and that kept me on the job longer than it
| was healthy for me. Still I can't tell you if I made the right
| decision or not. My job was not stressful at all and not
| demanding, but I had some periods that I slacked too much and
| that took a toll on my perf. A bad perf made internal movements
| harder.
|
| I wish I could have stayed longer for the money, I wish I had
| better scores that internal movement was possible. In the end I
| just got up one day and quit, and I don't regret.
|
| I'm taking my time now to rest, travel and work on some side
| projects before restarting my career. I lived a pretty scrappy
| life in the bay that I can now not worry too much about money for
| some time.
|
| I don't share the Google hate so common in this forum, I think
| it's a wonderful company to work for. A lot of opportunities,
| great people and comp. I blame only myself for my mental health
| deteriorating and affecting the quality and balance of my work.
| I'll work on getting that in order before finding a new job, and
| if I get back to Google I'll feel lucky.
|
| This was more a rambling than anything. But to summarize my
| advice would be to prioritize your mental health, that's a lot
| more important than you realize. If you feel like the grinding is
| affecting you seek help or quit and find something else more
| fulfilling. If you feel you are ok maybe try an internal transfer
| and stay longer, add a side project if you need a challenge. If
| you do decide to quit give yourself a quarter to rest at least.
|
| And lastly you're probably better than you think you are,
| impostor syndrome is real and affects everyone.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| If this is anywhere near the norm, it explains why Google has so
| many people yet kills so many projects.
| md5wasp wrote:
| Hi there, I did the exact same thing as you (at Google Sydney),
| before eventually deciding that I must strike out into the
| wilderness.
|
| In the few years since I left; I worked as a solutions architect
| managing a team, a team lead, a remote dev, and now in a startup.
| Front-end, back-end, flip-side, all the ends. So I've been
| deliberately trying different angles of my career to see what
| suits.
|
| I'd describe this process as grueling, ("challenging" is too
| friendly). I honestly think I would have been happier staying at
| Google, farting around, and being social. I agree with a lot of
| the comments here. However it's a catch-22, because the me that
| exists now wouldn't choose to go back and overall I think this
| has been good for me - and not just because of the, er,
| _character building_ aspect of it.
|
| If you stay at Google, make the most of it by progressing
| deliberately in your social life. If I'd've stayed, I could have
| comfortably raised some kids with my wife by now - but that's
| still on the todo list.
|
| If you leave, just jump right in. I didn't study anything, I just
| picked it up as I went along. If you were able to follow Steve
| Yegge's advice and Get That Job At Google, then I'm sure you're a
| smart cookie and can fake it til you make it.
|
| Basically I'm saying you can be happy either way. If you leave,
| know what you're getting yourself into. If you stay, don't waste
| this time but use it on yourself.
| temporalparts wrote:
| Have you figured out if it's Google or software engineering as a
| whole? I think the safer option, if it's available for you, is to
| change to a different team in a different part of Google.
|
| Google is huge and if, for example, ads is boring to you, try
| Google Brain or any of their X projects (self driving cars?).
| That way you have more data points around what's causing you to
| slack. It's not necessarily the case that when you do find
| personal alignment that you won't regress to slacking off.
| dhuyrv wrote:
| As if anyone can just go and try Google brain or self driving
| cars. Unless he has suitable background, he won't be allowed to
| do the really interesting projects.
| sheinsheish wrote:
| Hilarious advice and thread. Thanks everybody :)
| mrnobody_67 wrote:
| Get an internal transfer at Google.
|
| Or find ways to challenge yourself outside of work = learn to fly
| a helicopter, set a goal to run a marathon or ironman, learn
| ballroom dancing, learn how to sword fight/fence, whatever...
| push yourself outside of the comfort zone, sign up for 5 "intro
| to" classes to avoid procrastination and see what clicks.
| 2sk21 wrote:
| Google of today sounds a lot like the IBM of the early 90s. There
| were many clock watchers who came in, read the newspapers and
| left for the day - with a long lunch break in-between. A big
| chunk of these people were kicked out by the crisis that hit IBM
| in 1994.
| jboggan wrote:
| If you can not only survive at Google but slack along well enough
| to get promoted once on "10% of your mental capacity" I'd stay
| right where you are. You aren't going to find a better place to
| earn money for equivalent effort and it sounds like you've
| already adapted to the ecosystem. Sounds like you need an
| interesting side project or just a meaningful hobby.
|
| Don't go looking for the missing sense of fulfillment you have at
| work, either for Google or any other company. Crack some classic
| literature and take some long walks, figure out what you haven't
| been doing.
| crobertsbmw wrote:
| Agreed. Most people are doing _work_ , I would love to be able
| to coast on 10% and then be go build robots or something.
| Balgair wrote:
| > Crack some classic literature and take some long walks,
| figure out what you haven't been doing.
|
| I'll plug a great New Years Resolution I did last year (2019)
| that really helped me: The Harvard Classics.
|
| https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1
|
| It's very old stuff (pre-WW1), but a fantastic guided dive into
| the Western Cannon. It was SOOO worth it to me at only ~15
| minutes a day of reading. You can jump in at any time, readings
| are not connected. Today's (Jan 5) reading on Mazzini still
| sticks with me a year later. I didn't pay for it, I just
| downloaded all the volumes and read those, but I should have
| paid for it, it was that worth it to me in 2019.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Some of the advice is about expanding yourself, that's good
| advice.
|
| Some of the advice is about how you milk your current position.
| You said 6 years in industry so I'll take that at face value.
| Without promotions I'm assuming you'll be working till
| retirement even at google. Even an early retirement at 55 or 60
| is another 25-30 years of this. Unless you're a hero out of
| Dilbert fiction you won't be able to milk things that long for
| many reasons.
|
| I'm an PE at an Amazon subsidiary so I end up getting involved
| with engineers and teams who are having issues a lot, so this
| is advice from what I've seen. I've also got a lot of mentees
| and all of them have hit lulls (short or long) in their
| careers. This can happen with high performers or career in role
| type people and those who decide software isnt' for them
| (managers and go do somthing elsers).
|
| What I see often are people who think that they're treading
| water but to their managers and leads they're slowing
| degrading. Unless you are somehow objectively measuring your
| performance versus your past self this is very likely
| happening. Lowering motivation leads to slower work. Unless
| highly trusted, managers avoid giving critical work to
| unmotivated emplyees. And worst off I usually see people in
| your place turn salty / bitter / angry. Then things really
| start to go down hill.
|
| The real enemy here is boredom. As yoda once said "Boredom
| leads to stagnation, stagnation leads to getting passed by,
| getting passed by leads to salt, salt leads to PIP."
|
| So now you're 30, pissed at your current job, salty, and not
| sure what to do. Not a great place to be and it shows in
| interviews.
|
| I have one friend who this happens to every few years. They get
| tired of their current projects and get frustrated. Then they
| stop caring and think they're doing OK. Then about 6 months to
| a year later they get the talk (pip, letting you go etc). By
| this point it's usually too late, salt and mistrust have built
| up and it's hard to break free. (Note: unless you have a
| manager who is very good at managing your carreer path, they
| won't notice this slide until year review time when it's likely
| to late). I have a deal with them now that whenever they feel
| bored they talk to me and we try and find a good new place for
| them.
|
| There's nothing wrong with staying at a certain level forever
| at a company. Some people really like that and love the work
| life separation. You gain trust with managers and mostly you
| are able to build what is needed and go home at the end of the
| day. The deal here is to just make sure you a) aren't bored,
| and b) you are providing value to the manager/lead and they
| trust you, talk with them often, c) your company will allow you
| to stay at that level forever. The last one is a kicker, some
| companies will manage out people who say stay at SDE1 for more
| than 5 years as low potential.
|
| I've dealt with others who were actually performing well for
| their previous role but had stopped growing. They were promoted
| into place so they would grow and fill the expanded role. After
| several years of that person (lead) coasting, the team wasn't
| in a great spot. I got called in to evaluate poor team
| performance. This ended up with the lead leaving the team and
| essentially down leveling.
|
| What I'm saying is it can happen to anyone regardless of
| trajectory.
|
| The fix, however, is hard. You need to find what motivates you.
| I can't answer that for you. This is the worst / most annoying
| advice I give my mentees, or hell my teenager. This is because
| you don't know what you don't know.
|
| Some people find the fix is job hopping. This is a great way to
| stay well compensated and working on greenfield projects while
| in a up market. However it does make it quite hard to grow to a
| senior position as you don't stay long enough to build up those
| relationships, and is harder to do in a down market. You also
| take on the risk of the new position not being what you
| expected.
|
| So again it comes down to figuring out what drives you, as this
| is the best overall fix. And to that, I'd say what I said at
| the top differently: "Go Find Yourself". You said you're
| coasting anyway. Figure out what actually motivates you. Both
| at home (don't just consume content), and at work (If you still
| have trust, ask to experiment with roles).
| [deleted]
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Terrible advice. The FAANGs are highly competitive and people
| are eventually going to notice that this individual is not at
| the average job level they should be at relative to their years
| at the company. That will eventually make internal transfers
| very difficult (yes, hiring managers do check for duds for
| internal transfers) and motivate their management chain to wash
| this person out of the company as good attrition.
| meddlepal wrote:
| Yea but that could take many months to years to happen. Keep
| milking it. They'll have a good financial cushion to find
| something else afterwards.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| I won't say that's not a valid choice (I've seen it done)
| but if it comes down to that, the tarnished reputation is
| probably going to hurt them more than the money they get.
| This industry is not all that large at the FAANG level and
| the people who succeed or at least do moderately well at a
| FAANG tend to go on to senior positions at other companies.
| This person probably does not want a bunch of former co-
| workers around to say "Oh, _that_ person; I remember them.
| A nice enough individual, I suppose, but no hire. "
|
| On top of that, the wash out process isn't likely to be all
| that pleasant, particularly if this person has depression
| problems already. Getting negative feedback and the cold
| shoulder from their colleagues for months/years is probably
| very demoralizing even if they are still drawing a big
| paycheck.
| itronitron wrote:
| Nothing about the OP's provided context suggests they
| have 'depression problems', are getting negative
| feedback, or are about to wash out from Google.
|
| They are simply asking for what they should be learning
| in order to be competitive in the job market.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _Nothing about the OP 's provided context suggests
| they have 'depression problems'..._"
|
| Really? " _...(the rest was on dating /dealing with
| breakups/dealing with depression/gaming/...)..._"
|
| > " _... are getting negative feedback, or are about to
| wash out from Google._ "
|
| Those are the long-term consequences of his current
| state, as I stated quite clearly.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Maybe they are at the average job level but just aren't
| feeling challenged? They did get a promotion, so they can't
| be that bad... Maybe they're just bored? Either way, leaving
| a secure, good paying job is almost always bad advice,
| especially without a firm plan in place..
| chillacy wrote:
| While L4 is terminal at Google, it's still not particularly
| high achieving for 6 years of career. Google also doesn't
| make it easy to jump from L4 to L5 either, so OP may feel
| like they're stuck in a rut because of that as well.
| mattrp wrote:
| 100% in agreement. One major risk you've accumulated by
| slacking is that you may not easily get another job if
| google does eventually push you out. Your next employer
| will say, tell us what you've done - specifically. At some
| point you either have pride and integrity as a person or
| you're an asshole. Google might tolerate that now when
| you're young but I think fewer and fewer others will as you
| age. It sounds like you have some time to make some changes
| in your life - I would recommend you start there before
| kids and other life events take priority.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| One promotion means he is L4 minimum, which is now the level
| which Google no longer requires you to move up. As long as he
| is getting "meets expectations" with the occasional "exceeds"
| every three cycles or so, he will be able to coast at the big
| G for a long time.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Sure but how do you do that without becoming depressed or
| very angry? I know a few people who can.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| You find meaning outside work.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I have no clue what working at FAANG is really like, but from
| the comments I read it is said to be very much an _" up or
| out"_ culture. So I wonder how it is even possible to stay for
| six years with only one promotion and how long this is going to
| go well?
| rkagerer wrote:
| Strong disagree! I can't believe all the advice here telling
| you to stay in a situation where you don't feel challenged.
| Clearly you wouldn't have written the post if you were content
| with the status quo.
|
| Find a role you thrive in, doing work that musters your
| enthusiasm. Whether it's at Google or elsewhere. Yes, it means
| giving up the cushy freeride, but there's no substitute for the
| deep sense of pride and satisfaction from solving a tough
| problem and building something you're passionate about.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I suppose this depends on whether you prefer to live to work
| or work to live. When I was younger I lived to work. Now I
| work to live. I've taken up backpacking, woodworking, and put
| a greater emphasis on my family life. If anyone is on the
| fence here, I definitely recommend working to live. If you
| can avoid misery at work, you're a lucky person, so do that
| if you can. But at the end of your life the odds you'll be
| most proud of selling a few more units of some software is
| very small.
| djcapelis wrote:
| This is a false dichotomy and just drives me up a wall. Why
| not get fulfillment in both the work and non-work areas of
| your life?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| This person is in the early stage of their career. Building
| the skills, network, and reputation necessary to carry them
| through the rest of their career while they are young and
| energetic _is_ working to live, particularly at a FAANG.
| Nobody wants to become a 50 year old with the skills and
| experience of a 30-year old.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| If someone with the skills of a 30-year old can eek out a
| good comfortable living without much effort, what's wrong
| with wanting that? Most 50-somethings I know are doing
| basically what they were doing at 30.
| earthtolazlo wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more with this. A meaningful connection
| to your output is important, but most jobs are bullshit and
| won't satisfy that need. Leaving a cushy job to pursue that
| is rarely a good idea. The grandparent post is right - get a
| hobby or find some way to volunteer and give back.
| filoleg wrote:
| I agree with the first half of your reply and the overall
| sentiment that freeriding like this is just gonna leave you
| just further disappointed and dissatisfied in your life.
|
| However, one thing i disagree with you and a lot of other
| similar replies on is that finding another more challenging
| job is the only way to solve it. Wouldn't OP working on a
| side project or contributing to open source with all that
| free time he has solve the existential problems he is having
| just as well? Not even mentioning the fact that doing so
| sharpens his technical skills, adds projects to his resume,
| with the main difference (as opposed to working an intense
| job) being that he has way more freedom to choose what he
| wants to work on and how.
| damnyou wrote:
| Doing capitalism better is the least interesting way to find
| fulfilment. Find a partner and build a family instead. Or
| find a hobby.
|
| I know because my thoughts used to be very similar to yours.
| joejerryronnie wrote:
| I find that if I focus on improving one aspect of my life
| (e.g. health/fitness, hobbies, time with family, etc) then
| other aspects tend to become more satisfying as well. I think
| this is due to a general sense of accomplishment and the
| motivation from a "win" to refocus on improving in other
| areas.
| soulnothing wrote:
| But how many places do you feel challenged at? I've been
| unchallenged in my work for the majority of my career. The
| only time I remember mental challenge was in my first year.
| Now the challenge is unrealistic deadlines, or oh we've been
| outsourced again.
|
| Finding a job that is challenging and mentally stimulating is
| very difficult. I know a number of people who echo this
| sentiment.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Second this.
|
| Keep slacking at Google. Unless you're ridiculously underpaid
| -- with a six year tenure -- you're probably in the top 2% in
| terms of income. You've probably got refreshers that have
| inflated in value quite handsomely. You're not going to find a
| better yielding security than your job.
|
| Find something better to do with your time. Figure out what
| your goals are. Whatever they are, you have the resources. Make
| it happen!
| sbodevguru wrote:
| Something that really helped me when I was younger and in a
| similar boat, was to grit my teeth and throw myself into the
| work; by that I mean, force yourself to be first in, last out
| every day, take on literally every task - no matter how shitty -
| that is available to you, your team, or anyone you know that
| needs help. Take some work home with you if you can. And keep
| doing this for 4-6 months. By that time you will probably be
| heading towards burnout, and you'll need to slow things down for
| a bit.
|
| But when you do take some slack and reflect, then you will
| realise that you just learned a ton of really practical things
| that can help you in your next job. You've also learned the
| discipline of hard work (which in the long term trumps any deep
| knowledge of tech because ultimately every job eventually becomes
| a grind, and tech is ever-changing anyways). Plus you've probably
| made a good reputation for yourself which never hurts.
|
| You will also be able to decide if you found that last few months
| energising or if you would rather gnaw off your arm than do it
| again. And that helps to answer if you should leave the job or
| not :)
| kissgyorgy wrote:
| You leave Google.
| brenden2 wrote:
| Honestly, if I were you I'd just keep chugging along and collect
| as much money as possible. Start investing, and make yourself
| financially independent. After that, you can quit and do whatever
| you want.
| westonplatter0 wrote:
| Take 6 months and hire a coach or go to therapy to figure out
| what you really want.
| yongjik wrote:
| LOL are you me, because that sounds very familiar. I cruised
| along at Google for many years, got bored, quit to try my own
| startup idea, didn't work out, now working in some SV startup.
| (Can't say I'm getting better challenges, but at least I'm
| tackling them better.)
|
| I think you got enough advice, so I'll just add a few points:
|
| * Challenging oneself to try harder is itself a skill. Don't lie
| to yourself that you're only using 10% of your capacity - it
| implies that given the right condition you'll be 10x as
| productive, but we all know "the right condition" never happens.
| Truly productive engineers (and I saw a lot of them at Google)
| bring the right conditions to themselves. At best, you will be
| something like ~2.5x productive, _if you try your damnest_.
|
| * Google still has tons of different projects. I don't know how
| easy it is to transfer internally these days, but at least try to
| find something that sounds interesting to you. A lot easier than
| changing the company.
|
| * Googlers have complained that "all we do is moving protocol
| buffers from one place to another," since forever. That's part of
| the job: truly interesting stuff doesn't happen that often. And
| yes, I think the problem is more pronounced at Google, because
| really interesting problems were already solved by much better
| people, so you end up moving protobufs. But all other places have
| similar issues, more or less (see point 1 above).
|
| * If you decide to change places, do NOT look for higher hiring
| bars. (I'm not telling you to avoid them: I'm just saying they're
| irrelevant.) Google already has a pretty high bar, and tons of
| incredibly talented engineers. Having extra hoops during the
| interview did't motivate anyone, and it wouldn't you, either.
| lsc wrote:
| >all I do is copy code from the internal codebase and patch
| things together until they work.
|
| this is... a big and important thing (and difficult... a lot of
| people re-implement rather than trying to understand what is
| there.) when dealing with a giant big corporate codebase. This
| might be, the primary SWE job at big corporate? I mean, there's a
| _lot_ there, and to understand what is there well enough to
| actually do something with it is not nothing.
|
| All that said, 6 years is a long time to spend at your first job.
| There's nothing wrong with seeing what else is out there. Don't
| quit until you have the next job in the bag, and keep in mind,
| when you quit, that you might want to come back.
| nogbit wrote:
| Are you looking for job satisfaction or happiness? If the former
| then look for another job, but the grass isn't always greener.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Honestly, start a side project or get a hobby. Take a vacation.
| Go for long walks on the beach.
|
| I really doubt any other tech company that pays as well as Google
| will be any more interesting. And most people eventually get
| bored with their jobs. There is no job that isn't repetitive to
| some degree.
|
| Also, you seem to be downplaying your experience and what you've
| learned but I highly doubt you'd have kept your job if you were
| truly slacking. Odds are you just got efficient at doing your job
| and are getting bored.
|
| Anyhow, there is something to be said for a stable, well-paying
| job, so go figure things out in your personal life before you
| shake up your professional life.
| PopeDotNinja wrote:
| Have you considered simply finding things to work on that you'd
| actually find interesting? They don't have to be projects that
| are officially sanctioned. I'm doing mostly backend coding on a
| legacy app, but certain parts of the app and our infrastructure
| make that harder. So when I identify something I don't like, I've
| started chipping away at making it better: logging, deployment,
| testing, builds, etc. Surely something at Google is suboptimal.
| You can seek it out and make it better.
| tuckerconnelly wrote:
| Clean your damn room :) Recommend reading Jordan Peterson's 12
| Rules for Life
| cmsonger wrote:
| It's hard to know how to answer without knowing more. I slack off
| when I don't love the work. Whereas when I am building something
| that I think is really cool, you can't keep me away from the
| keyboard. When I'm a cog in the machine, I struggle to do more
| than the 10% you are doing.
|
| First question I'd ask myself would be: "Why do I think this
| would be better elsewhere?" Is the issue Google, or is the issue
| you/the profession?
|
| Depending on the answer it seems like there are a few reasonable
| landing zones: 1) find a new job at google that addresses the
| perceived issues at google. 2) jump to a new job at a new company
| that addresses the perceived issues at google. 3) approach your
| current job with a new attitude to work harder and do more. maybe
| set your sights on next promo. 4) embrace your slacking, saving
| money to prepare for a career change.
| mrpoptart wrote:
| Motivation comes from three things, provided you're in a creative
| role and money's not an issue: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.
| You need to be able to decide how to get the job done, you need
| to be able to get better and better at your job, and you need to
| understand why your job matters in the scope of something larger
| than yourself. Figure out which is missing, decide if you can
| find it, and if not, go somewhere that can give it to you.
| [deleted]
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