Losing the plot, losing "can do", losing motivation.  Disillusioned engineer.  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 11:26:33 am
content: Skipping a lot of history where by I haven't actually done any work in work since the start of December. Where they assigned me to a production support group, without telling me and then complaining I wasn't providing support. My response was, "I'm not a support engineer and I'm not even supporting until the support engineer arrives.", my company backed me on that. Not least, they are asking me to support a suite of applications that should have taken 6 months which were required in 1 month and ended up being hacked together on late nights in 4 months. I refuse to support that junk. It's the result of a management mind set that software is either done or not done. They don't understand that engineers borrow time from the "quality" bucket when pressured.To highlight why I feel like I am quiet quitting, after complaining repeatedly about not having any development work, a manager threw me what he thinks is a bone. He asked me to ..."Research an API which will allow generic Java engineers with no <internal platform name> experience to insert/modify/query data from that platform."Ok. Sounds like fun, right? Well the platform in question is an open source platform from Apache that has been heavily modified, heavily restricted, heavily secured and heavily monitored by specific teams. Those teams whose name often contains "InfoSec" or "Security ops" ALWAYS win.My first quick google and a question to ChatGPT revealed exactly what I expected. Each and every single component in the platform is an Apache foundation project. Each and every single one of them has APIs bristling all over it. There are SEVERAL APIs already baked into most of the components, some of them are amazingly easy to use and implement. I got one running in docker in 15 minutes.The problem is, they have ALL been disabled, firewalled, crippled, locked down, locked out and basically forbidden from use.So, I ask, "What is the fucking point?", why don't you just go and ask the "InfoSec" guys to do it? Or at least ask them first what they will allow or won't allow and we'll just do it that way.They don't need an engineer, you need a politician and that's not me.I really just want to log out and forget the whole contract. It's pointless. Every single thing you can do as an engineer in this contract is FORBIDDEN. You have to instead go and fill in a form and order some access to some heavily crippled badly implmented "self service" platform which provides you a canned set of configuration which you MUST accept.It's getting intolerable. I have end users emailing me telling me there is data missing and honestly, I can't help them. It's not my data, I don't know where it comes from, I don't know what it means, I don't own the source, I didn't write the 15 steps in the process before the data gets to me, but it's in such bad shape there is no way to validate it's complete or partial. Beyond that, I have no authority in production to even access the files and can only see a view of the read only data.Do you guys understand how this is driving me insane?I've told my actual employer, "I'm out, get me out of here!", but they can't do that instantly. Right now I honestly feel like just quiting and I more or less am quiet quiting. I'm not being proactive and I'm no longer "Sure can do"

author: nvmR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 11:39:16 am
content: Hey OPSounds like a bunch of big corporate bs.Don't loose it, and don't take it into mind. You sound very qualified, find a new place to appreciate that. Don't quit until you find a new place, and reward yourself with a couple of weeks off time.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 11:43:17 am
content: Agreed with @nvmR. At the end of the day it's a job. You do what you do because you get paid to do it, but you have to want to do that too. If it's not working out, go take some leave to find another job and hand in your notice once you've got it.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 11:56:58 am
content: I formulated a diplomatic response which suggests options, states the challenges and makes it look like I'm working on it.To be honest, the fact the APIs are blocked is probably not because they don't want people using them, but rather that there are PARTS of those APIs they don't want arbitary users accessing and if they can't be separately authorized the whole API gets blocked. They even blocked "java --debug" on the dev servers. Any java process found running with the LWDP port enabled will be disabled and reported to senior management. That's completely insane. The reason. LWDP is an unauthenticated protocol and the dev servers.... are on the company wide flat production network. Doh!

author: shapirus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 12:18:27 pm
content: Isn't it exactly the same inside any big company? That's just the way it works. If you don't like it, find a startup doing what you are interested in: startups are much more flexible and they are where the skills of an engineer can be used as efficiently as it possibly gets.Big companies are good for those who like to get paid for imitation of work.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 01:03:33 pm
content: Quote from: shapirus on March 08, 2023, 12:18:27 pmIn my experience the big company effect doesn't come down as far as it does right now in this particular company. Normally "the trenches" where the real work gets done have some autonousy. Most business types stay out of engineering and the InfoSec people are at least reasonable with.In this company, most likely because of the sheer volume of tedious bs work, cannot get "good" engineers. Their solution to this is to wrap as many of the development tools up into self service, fully managed IaaS style infrastructure. WHich would be fine if it was done right. Of course it's not done right. It's been done to fit the timescales and deadlines set years before the project even started by people with as much technical compentency in software design as a freshyl run over hedge hog. Literally I have seen spread sheets which say that a bit of software development work will start in March 2024 and be compelted in production by May 2024 and that team is to IMMEDIATELY start on another bit of work. Not one single pair of developer eyes was involved in setting those dates and the aim to achieve them? Just hire more people or just cross assign developers from different departments... because they are all exactly the same .... yea. It doesn't work."Rats their scuttled ships departed". I feel like a rat.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 02:24:01 pm
content: If you can, do side projects. Sometimes even at work. Quiet quitting is definitely trendy word nowadays, but I've seen these behavior 15 years ago from people.Maybe you don't want to quit due to external factors, or the pay is good. I noticed I can go 2-3 months without interesting work. So I do hobby projects when it's slow. Management has no idea how to handle knowledge workers, and when they put another engineer in charge, that usually turns into a different kind of disaster. I also don't like the company that I work for now, because the people they promoted to manage me. So f them. I turn up, get paid, and reply when they write to me when working from home. I don't make decisions, and when they make the wrong one, just shrug it off.Are you placed here as a consultant, as I understand?

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 02:45:41 pm
content: Look for a new job: Since 1968, as an EE, every time I left a firm, my next job was a great improvement, and learning experience.There are lots of opportunities especially if you are flexible in location, pay, benefits.Jon

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 03:29:56 pm
content: Simples... write to your CTO ingreen inkwith words similar to these: Feel free to edit them people.DearManagerChief-Technology-Officer,having been the support lead of the Poopy Suite for this last six months, I have formed a considered opinion that the suite has a number of significant technical and governance deficiencies. Deficiencies that aggregate into a significant threat to the suite's medium term sustainability.Issues include, but are not limited to, a spectacular failure to define up-chain ownership of data assets, a reliance on undocumented or obscurated third party APIs, the at-best ambiguous scoping of agile responsibilities and, governance that is somewhat consumed by the middle managerial brain fog.The support team can continue to administer a number of short term fixes, or nightly fire-fights as we call them, but this cannot detract from the core failing that this suite was built by monkeys paid peanuts. Monkeys who think continuous integration means, chuck turds and run.Let's do lunch bruv?Signed,DilbertIf that doesn't explode in their inbox, get out while you still can.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 03:42:36 pm
content: Once upon a time I did write a letter like that on my way out of a previous job; it was very therapeutic.I didn't actually send it, though. That would have been career suicide. But I did save it, and occasionally re-read it to remind myself how fortunate I am with my current employment situation.I would concur that "bye!" could be an appropriate, considered and sensible response to the position you're in. Best of luck finding something better.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 03:43:36 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 11:26:33 amAre you a contractor or an employee?If a contractor, quitting halfway through will go down well with the agencies - and you may well need them to get your next gig.If you are an employee, then you have the option of finding a better job and then working out your notice.Holding a gun to anybody's head is possibleiffyou are prepared to pull the trigger or have your bluff called. In either case it will be remembered, and that won't be to your advantage in that company.

author: Wallace Gasiewicz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 03:49:56 pm
content: Years ago I was assigned to a large plant with a horrible disability problem. My boss asked me to identify the problemI identified the problem and sent a letter to him and the corporation.I was almost fired. I was transferred and transferred and then fired.The corp went bankrupt in part by not addressing these problems (and other problems they did not wish to address)Nobody gained anything. I should have left the sinking ship long before I did. It would have saved me a lot of grief.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 03:53:40 pm
content: The way it works for me is I am employed by company X. Company X then second me onto a contract with Company Y. For all intents and purposes I am an employee for company Y. My employment contract and terms are with Company X.However the facility formally exists to request not just rotation from a particular company but between entire departments. It's a formal process which has governance and cannot be ignored.I've stated my want... no need... to get out of this company or I'll go nuts. It's been accepted, understood and they are working on it. In the meantime I can carry on at mediocre levels and not to worry too much about poor performance reviews, it's understood. Which is pretty understanding and fair.The issue is, they are not prepared to pull me out without a direct replacement and they don't have anything for me to move to immediately and nor do they want me sitting on the "bench" or doing unfunded interior projects.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 04:07:08 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 03:53:40 pmDo you mean X is a bodyshop?Allintents and purposes? HR35?QuoteI can see why a company doesn't want you sitting around doing nothing. Ifthatcompany can't find you something to do, then consider finding a company thatdoeshave things for you to do.There will be tradeoffs which only you can evaluate.In my past I took a job to see whether it would be very good (in which case I would move) or merely average (in which case I would leave and move elsewhere). I left, and putting myself in the position of having to make a decision turned out to be excellent.OTOH, at other times in my life with other constraints, staying put and/or locally was the least bad decision.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 04:20:31 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on March 08, 2023, 04:07:08 pmTo a degree yes. It does have many internally managed teams and the model they are really pushing is selling teams of people, rather than individual fungible bodies, "team augmentation".What often happens is the delivery folks sell this dream to us and the customers delivery people and when we land on site we get resourced whichever way the company wants, often sending the "team" to far corners of the planet on completely different projects and reporting chains.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 05:03:52 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 04:20:31 pmSounds like a nightmare. I always made a conscious decision not to work in environments like that, of course but that's a personal decision.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 07:09:30 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 11:26:33 amWell, if you add to your experience that tasks and responsibilities were not listed anywhere, only orally assigned and not communicated to anyone else, so that any question about any matter devolves into finding someone that can eventually tell you who you need to talk about it –– no, email won't work, they're far too busy to answer emails ––, then yes;perfectly. From experience. And yes, it did drive me insane. Burnout and then deep recurrent depression. Even though I eventually switched careers, the problems recurred. My brain chemistry is forever altered. Even after over a decade of therapy and trying to rebuild myself, I still haven't recovered my ability to reallywork. And I used to be known for being able to work in any situation whatever, with an absolutely rock solid,testedand verified ability to withstand stress.Don't be like me, and try and tough it out. You have options, even if it might not look like it right now. Use them, and get yourself the fuck away from that mental mangler. If you have a good working relationship with your real employer, take a holiday until they can reassign you, or quit. No work security is worth losing your mental health and ability to work.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 07:24:07 pm
content: [ Specified attachment is not available ]"Write two letters....."https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/From General Ralph Landry, in charge of US Drug Policy, to Michael Douglas as the incoming US drug tzar... An anecdote about Khrushchev<< "You know, when Khrushchev was forced out, he sat down and wrote two letters and gave them to his successor.He said - "When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe.When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter".Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter.Which said - "Blame everything on me". So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm.He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter.It said - "Sit down, and write two letters".>>>>>From the USA film Traffic, 2000I am writing two letters now (:-:)Jon

author: aargee
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 05:47:15 am
content: Much of the corporate world is heavily invested in managerialism, which has resulted in a fragile shell of nothing.I'm about to exit the system earlier than planned to enjoy life, for this very reason.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 09:15:50 pm
content: Just a small follow up.I had meeting today driven by a local manager with most of the technical SMEs and he was simply epic. Without more than 20% subject knowledge... he drove the meeting, drove the points, drove the summary and drove the individual assignments and priorities. In an hour. Cutting off more senior managers in order to bring order and complete items before waffling on.My jaw dropped. That is management. I know we all hate them, I know there is a void between management and "workers" but I think a lot of what has been going on in the past 3 months is simply my actual project manager was otherwise overloaded with other projects of higher priority and the whole project scope of mine was "back burnered" so nobody cared.From my perspective I was standing in a burning house with a single fire extinguisher trying to hold the fort and already heading out the door, fleeing, deciding it was better to toast marshmallows rather than get burnt badly.An hour with the right people in the room together sorted 90% of it, or at least took 90% of it off my stack and SEP. Gave a few days work too at least.It would appear stuff like this "happens" and it's sort of ... normal situations that develop. Having an idle engineer is not a concern to them. They consider it "a good problem to have". and simply agree it's a shame that such a good engineer is idle in "psuedo support role". Having a low priority project smolder is not uncommon. Burning like a house on fire was a bit extreme, but not really my concern. If I do the job I'm asked to do and persistently clarify what that is, it's not my problem.Friday went well. By the end of the meeting I had direction and tasks. I went through 3 out of 4 of them, sent the emails and logged out with an update sent on the ETA on the 4th.I actually did a days work! Woohoo! First time in, literally 3 months. Better Friday feeling.It won't last. But I'm trying to absorb the highs.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 09:39:32 pm
content: GoodNext: how can you and those around you create the conditions in which the new momentum is preserved?

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 10:28:48 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on March 10, 2023, 09:39:32 pmExactly. My plan. Become friends with this manager and get to working for him.I will add, the meeting was not short of cultural, managerial styles 'arcing' violently.... and he contained those admirably where I'd have sighed and/or vented.EDIT: (btw +beer)"That's understood, we can take that up 'offline'"I have heard that so many times. It's nice to work with someone who doesn't accept that as an answer. Again. Refreshing to have actual "boil down to task and assign" management.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 10:32:26 pm
content: Emulate his style.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 11:02:32 pm
content: Quote from: aargee on March 09, 2023, 05:47:15 amGood decision!

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 11:04:48 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 04:20:31 pmIt's an horrific business scheme IMHO. Not for the owners - it's very profitable. But for employees, it's hell.You may not have a choice right now, but I would strongly suggest working on getting out and finding something else. Either direct employment in a company, or starting your own business depending on what you can do/how you see things.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2023, 11:16:26 pm
content: -long rant+[self sic]Get me OUT of this non-sense of politics and customer support and give me a fucking problem it's my job to complain about and I'm responsibility to solve/deliver... with the authority, title and resourcing to do so. Don't demand of me and then tie my hands and expect anything other that groaning and sighing.