This taught me that businesses are out for themselves no matter how nice the people are. It then taught me that if I don't like somewhere, I will just outright look elsewhere and bail.
After being let go from my second workplace, I left my next one due to him promising me more money and then going back on it with another deal which sounded great, but actually sucked when I thought about it. He is a really nice guy, but such a shady businessman, so I looked elsewhere and then handed in my notice.
The workplace after that one wasn't any better, they wouldn't use GIT, worked on each site whilst live (no dev environment). I hated it, so I took a week off to search elsewhere, found something better and handed my notice in.
Also, I tried to push for better practices which the other devs loved, but my manager and boss just wouldn't listen and refused any of my input.
There's actually a guy in that workplace who is super nice, but has never been let down like I have so he feels he owes the company everything and won't leave. Whenever he tries, the boss will offer him more pay and then he stays. It's sad, because he deserves so much better. :(
Don't take the bait.
it's an admission that they know you are more valuable than you are being treated, and an acknowledgement that your misery in the situation is not going to change, which is exactly why they are hoping you will be ok with continued frustration in lieu of more money.
However, if a company has gimpy organization and technical APIs for many complex pieces of software and or processes in which making mistakes is costly and expensive, it is economical to raise someones salary $15k than have to invest in a newb to spend the next 7 months being able to operate as quickly as you do. It took me about 7months to be up and running efficiently with everything and be able to train other people. I still had to perform at full capacity on day one, but I was less efficient and because mistakes were so costly, I would have to wait 30-45minutes to find someone else to confirm an operation before making one, instead of making a mistake in production, until I knew how to do it myself.
In the manufactoring line, bottlenecks for tools being down was calculated by the millions per hour, because linear bottlenecks in product production actually cascade down a 4 months timeline for meeting product deadlines, which have payment associated with them, and significant penalties for being late.
Additionally, metrology tools to check errors sometimes cannot, based on chemistry and physics, detect errors in production until multiple steps down the line. So if there is a mistake in a base design, it won't get picked up for 3 weeks, and the entire line has to be restarted, so it really helps to have people know how to not screw up even if there isn't an official process for it.
They kept me on because I worked hard, and because I knew how to use over 18 different independent horrible pieces of software with no APIs, and run them simultaneously in realtime in production while operating a team of 15 people.
Losing me was uneconomical for them.
Never be afraid to fire a bad job. If you don't it will potentially screw your life up the same as bad management can a company.
The key for both ends I think though is "Sparingly" and make sure you have other options first. (Unless the situation is just so bad it outweighs lack of options.)
Point being, if you are company who is firing a lot of people, or an employee who is firing a lot of jobs, the problem may just be you!
I used to stay at a place and say "Ok, maybe its me, what can I do to put the most effort in, and maybe that will change how upper level toxic management trickles down and fundamentally changes how politics over rule technology and data based decisions, or hard workers over letting the old boys club stay comfortable"
I actually used to believe something I could do would change that or, if I worked hard enough or tip toed around management to make them feel comfortable about their culture and still find time to do the work I felt was important in my own time without offending people who felt comfortable consistently underperforming and had positions of superiority over me, that I would be recognized for my work, work ethic etc.
no, that's not the case. Leave and leave fast because while I was the one who eventually chose to leave those companies, those companies are never going to acknowledge how much you are worth, or that they don't deserve you. They care about self preservation and staying there no matter how well you perform is not going to help you get a better job elsewhere.
if it's short enough of a time then you don't even have to put it on your resume you worked there. A lesson I wish I knew fresh out of college.
of course, all of these things about me are true. There is something you can always do to improve yourself, or change your mindset to help yourself change how you approach frustrating situations to change how a team might respond to a solution or a challenge, and foster a more positive environment.
The biggest red flag? When you are constantly challenging yourself to grow and change to meet the needs of the company and find novel ways to contribute in your spare time, and basically having the "how can I rise to the challenge. How can I challenge myself? How can I grow?" mindset when management does not have a "how can we stay open minded and rise to meet the challenge" mindset. It's not just not a good fit for you, but it will be damaging to your career to be at odds with superiors who will feel threatened by this mentality and approach you have. It will be obvious to your peers this is the case, and it will make them look bad. When your authority is based on optics and politics, people like you are a threat to the company.
the other and only red flag you need is when the company doesnt see people as its most valuable asset, it sees large amounts of funding, and pretty buildings and initial investment as it's most valuable asset. Stay away.
and as a last note on this big red flag, again, all the things the companies I worked for did, was cool, fit my skills and interests, experience in school and previous jobs. If I tell you "hey I worked here developing cutting edge technology and heres some metrics of our stats in the market" people would say wow thats cool.
And it was cool, and it could have been cool, but people ruined it. It's really about the people, no matter what you are working on. If you don't have high quality people, then you can't have high quality products or services. Period.
I have never regretted it and only feel relief whenever I think about it. I walked straight into another job.
If I were to stop freelancing and get a job again, I would just leave it off my CV.
I've done something similar twice, except there were no interesting technical challenges. Both were government jobs where I was lured in to do all this cool work and then get told to sit there and do nothing. The pay and hours were awesome, but for my 20 something self it was a terrible fit.
What I'm actually doing could be considered a cross between 'IT guy' and 'generic office staff' (I go to tons of meetings, write lots of system-engineering-esque documents no one will read, and because I am 'a computer guy', I'm bombarded with annoying IT technician-level questions all the time). I'm extremely overpaid for what I'm doing (I'm bored out of my skull most of the time), but the local job market is such that I'd probably spend several months unemployed if I were to just up and quit.
Just keep looking for something else. It's easiest to find a job when you already have one. That's because there is no financial pressure to take whatever comes along. You can take a little time to find a good fit. Don't feel that this reflects in any way on your attitude toward your current job. Do your best at that, but when you go home spend at least a few hours a week looking for something else. If you stay in your present job for too long (years) it will stunt your professional (and possibly personal) growth.
A few years ago, the single most powerful thing I did was knock out all our non-mortgage debt. It's freeing to know that if something happened, I could take a pay hit of $Xk/month and still have the same lifestyle.
Being unemployed for several months is way less scary if your monthly expenses are lower and you have cash in the bank.
I call this being "Dave Ramsey Debt-Free" - and everything you say is true. There's a lot more to it than that (how to properly pay down debt, how to properly use credit cards, buying vs leasing automobiles, plus buy used only, etc) - but the "debt free" part of it is spot on.
The money in the bank? That's f-u money, meaning you get tired of things, tell yer boss to take the job and shove and walk out the door. I've done this a couple of times, and both times it was ultimately worth it, and wasn't scary because I knew I had enough saved that I could keep going at my expenses level for a couple years or more if I had to.
It's a very freeing position to be in.
They pay you alot of money to be there to do stuff they don't understand, but outside of that, they don't really want you interfering with their day to day life with all that "tech stuff".
Definitely find a better job, and don't underestimate the value increase in you quality of life by being around better people who challenge you. Nothing is worth more than that. So outside of minimum financial obligations, make plans to move elsewhere even if it will take a while. If you are the breadwinner in your situation for yourself and or other people, they will have to deal with it.
It may take even 3-4 years to move if you have long term commitments and get ready to go and do it without being risky financially, but honestly its worth it. If you are the one providing for people and you are the one donating half of your waking life and you are the one smart enough to be dissatsified with the lack of mental stimulation then you deserve to have a job you enjoy.
Being around people at work who challenge you and being on a good team will without a doubt increase your personal joy in life as well. Being emotionally isolated in a company who designates you as the computer guy and wants to drain your brain more by asking to create documentation to make the integration of technology in the company appear more valid than it really is, or save them if you don't show up work one day, is an abuse to your mental situation as much as you allow it to happen.
If you are already that smart, rising to the challenges you wish you could will only result in more income later, so don't let the current financial benefits/perceived location limitations stop you from pursuing a more rewarding career.
A couple years may seem like a long time but...what are you going to do, rot in a n IT office for the next 40 + years of your life? Make the difficult decisions/sacrifices now and even if you are in your 30s or even more, still youll get decades of happiness and challenges you won't if you throw your hands up in the air now.
Exactly this. This is my number one job here.
The rest of the time at work, I spend inventing projects to helped me learn some interesting technology. My bosses were happy because I stopped bugging them for work to do.
Out of curiosity, in what direction?
(Also in the process-driving-me-round-the-bend camp, but concerned that a lot of alternatives might be a case of "out if the frying pan, into the scrum"...)
The agile bits were standups before we'd even got anything to do, card votes on how long features would take and I was saying months and everyone saying days, but I was the only one with any significant experience. Lo and behold 4 weeks later when I left it still wasn't done. There was some nonsense around the kanban board when they'd move things when nothing happened, tasks were really poorly split up so some bits would just get stuck, etc.
I am now in my mid 40s. I started working in tech in the mid-90s. I was ambitious and mainly only worked for or led tech startups. (I did well for myself, so can't complain too much)
When I look back on my career, had I went with my intuition at critical times, instead of what I felt was 'my duty' (or whatever justification I made to deny my intuitive senses), I would clearly be further ahead. In total, I probably wasted several years waiting for people or situations to change for the better, passing up several ultimately better opportunities.
A few times not seeing bad management in a startup where you took options rather than a decent wage would do it too.
I never heard the phrase used to represent opportunity cost and it's not clear that OP intended it in that way.
I wasted countless opportunities waiting for things to get better, when I probably intuitively knew that they wouldn't. Partly, it was because I didn't want to be considered inconsiderate or rude. But, also, it was because I latched on to other things: the mission, the market, the tech, the product, the teams, etc.