this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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No, it's because we are working with humans and their deeply flawed organizations. As much as people hate corporations and love startups, both are always a mess. Every organization I've seen from the inside is barely functioning. Cruft, interpersonal conflicts, incompetence, or simply very bad market situations.
Software engineering kind of has to get involved with almost all of that. If you need to get approval from department A and Stacy just keeps changing what she wants, you'll have to carry that chaos into the development and it will usually percolate through half the engineering department, because hardly any interface is actually a stable attack surface. That means meetings, calls, meetings, reviews, meetings, and fucking Stephen again wants to pitch this weird framework he's so in love with, meetings, budget calls, because there's no way, simply changing the field length can take that much work, meetings, .....
It's not about corps vs startups. It's about having processes, good communication, dialogue, empathy. And it's also your manager's job to protect the team from externals that keep interrupting and making adhoc requests. If you don't feel safe in ignoring calls and replying with "I'm busy now, schedule smth today please", I consider that a highly toxic workplace.
For real. All the stuff that person complained about is something a manager should be handling. Mine do. It's very rare for requirements to change for things I'm working on. There's typically going to be some small changes, e.g. wording of a message or moving things around in the UI, that happen but that's to be expected and one of the better parts of working in agile. You make something and find it doesn't work as well as you hoped? Tweak it.
I think the only time things can change drastically is when I'm working on a priority event, AKA something really bad happened for a customer and we've got to fix it ASAP. There's no time to do in depth research beforehand. You just dive in and sometimes you think it's one thing but it's really something else or it's just more involved than you thought.
Exactly. Shit happens, and we might need to adapt and even scrap a whole sprint plan. But that's super rare, or it should be. But changing the Roadmap after each sprint is just something that happens.
Either way, none of that warrants random calls at all times from colleagues.
I guess every job I've ever had has been toxic then. Juniors and to some degree mid-levels don't usually have any say in things like when to meet
That's what retros are supposed to be for. To discuss how to improve the process.
lol that's funny, you're funny
from what you describe it does sound like a nightmare, but you’re ignoring or mocking people that tell you that it is not the norm
How am I ignoring or mocking anyone?
I got that impression from your reply “lol that’s funny, you’re funny” to a completely non humorous comment
Then you took it incorrectly, its mocking my employer more than anyone.
got it, apologies
No worries, it happens
Nah, I think you're mixing things up here.
"Toxic" is just a label you're putting on everything you don't like and you're also putting a ton of implications behind it.
If Stacy wants a feature, and she's the official representative, I need to clarify what that feature means. A manager can't shield me from having to research the technical implications, that's my job.
Also, you can ignore calls all you want, if there is a genuine need to communicate, you need to have that call at some point. That's actually your first point in the list above.
I think you never worked in a role above code grunt. As a senior developer, my job is to do all what I described above. I need to do all the technical legwork a manager can't. I need to write everything down. I need to get feedback from stakeholders. That's nothing a manager can do and that's nothing a junior can do.
I code something like half an hour a day.
It's not a label im making up. Toxic here is a synonym for unhealthy. If someone keeps calling you, interrupting you, micromanaging you, disrespecting your working hours or your focus times, that's an unhealthy relationship.
Stacy is entitled to regular details, sure. That's why we have tickets, and daylies and retros. She's not entitled to asking multiple times day if you're done yet.
I work above senior, have done management and tech lead. I've seen toxic workplaces, and I've seen good ones. I recognize the need for all the agile rituals. But that still doesn't entitle people to call all the time and interrupt you.
None of the things you mentioned were in my description. You made that up completely. I talked about meetings, no scheduling information.
Did I even imply that? No. You made that up.
Hearing only what you want, not what the other person said makes you almost perfect management material.
Seriously, look at my comments and your replies. You answered to a completely different reality.
I might... Have mixed multiple thread. I'm sorry