Why? Can you explain.
In your next family gathering people will ask you to fix their computer. You say 'Sorry I'm not IT, I'm a programmer'. Suddenly they dislike you. Do they dislike your cousin who waits tables for not fixing their computer? No, just you.
Similar themes play out in a business setting. If you're competent everyone will want you to do everything important. Which will result in:
1. You get stretched too thin and start making mistakes -> fired.
2. You refuse to take more than your share of work. This is seen as a slight to whomever you refuse. Similar to the above anecdote.
No one gets upset with the person who can't help them. They get upset when the person who can help them doesn't. Additionally people tend to focus on what you haven't done yet, not what you've already accomplished. The more that you are able to do, the larger the unfulfilled expectations become. Suddenly a large portion of the projects are complaining that they would be further 'if only we could get Redmaverick to help'. Now you're seen as the bottleneck for not helping, rather than the asset because your skills apply in so many areas.
If you are a skilled person who can execute tasks, it is vital that you always frame yourself by your accomplishments. By default your capabilities will be used to create a long string of perceived obligations.
It can be worse than that. In a small startup, you can be the least-worst informed and capable about several critical areas, where you pitch in and do a better job than anyone else could have, and make mistakes.
(In one particularly galling example in my work history where I was employee #1, I recommended an ISP, which was good, but without talking to me the co-founder who set that up also bought their bundled email service, back in 1997 when this was seldom well done. This turned out to be a mistake visible at the top of the company....
Or take firewalls: while I now know a lot more about them, and can set one up with raw iptables or Shorewall, back then all I knew was what I'd read in Cheswick and Bellovin's seminal book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalls_and_Internet_Securit... and said, "Gauntlet has a good reputation". Yeah, but its company, Trusted Information Systems, had just been bought by Network Associates, which apparently following a common Computer Associates business model of firing almost all of the technical staff and milking the reputation....)
I'm (mildly) bipolar. The highs hurt me more at work than the lows. The lows I can push through and compensate for. I have a strong enough work ethic that except in an absolute mind-breaking depression (which I haven't had since my early 20s) I can handle it. In the highs, I either overperform or raise expectations. I always do a very good job of something, but that something might piss someone off.
Reliable median performers, on the other hand, don't piss anyone off or surprise anyone.
Which, if you're one of these "overachievers", increases the chance the start up that hires you, at least early enough that stock options might even vaguely maybe be worth something someday, will fail. This has happened at several that I've worked for, they died hard after I was purged.
That is my take and my experience from that statement.
The best thing to do after having been tainted by startup education is to go into consulting.
Bingo. You fucking nailed it.
The best thing to do after having been tainted by startup education is to go into consulting.
How easy is that? I'm considering that avenue for myself, largely because I'm sick of office politics, re-orgs, and other time-wasting bullshit. With a consulting arrangement, there's no expectation (on either side) of a long-term deal and I think that's better, because most companies renege on their side of the social contract (e.g. investing in their people's careers.)
How do consultants find good ($100+ per hour) work? If I could get the same take-home pay as a consultant, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'm honest enough to know that I'm not a team player (unless I assemble the team) but I do great work and I'd rather be in a place where that's respected.
The Gervais Principle is a fascinating series of articles that explain why this is the case and also give a lot of insight into corporate America. It's a great read.
"Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser."
If you are working long hours and aren't rapidly negotiating your way up and into serious equity then you are marking yourself as a sucker. Don't be surprised if they continue to exploit you.
Overperformers, on the other hand, draw attention and animosity. People may say they like change, innovation and creativity. Abstractly, they do. At work, when they're trying to hold position within an organization that would throw them under the bus without hesitation, they hate change (except change that they control) and anything that smells remotely like it might be a challenge to their authority, reputation, or power, no matter how remote that challenge may be.
I'm seriously considering going into consulting, specifically because it's the one employment structure where overperformance isn't catastrophic. The worst result of overperformance is that you automate yourself out of a job, but that usually leads to another, better, one.
If you're an underperformer, you might get laid off in a year or two. You'll typically have a severance or warning because people will still generally like you as long as you're not an asshole.
If you're an overperformer, then unless you have someone powerful who goes out of his way to protect you, you're going to be fired (on a bogus "performance" case where you're set up to fail) in 3 months. You're also probably the type of person who, when served with a PIP despite being one the biggest assets to the company, will go nuclear, create morale-killing spectacles, and be talked about for years afterward. (Not that I know anyone like that...)
Underperformers can move along. With 2-3 years on their resumes, no one asks any questions. Overperformers often blow up spectacularly and develop reputation problems because, even if they're abstractly admirable, they didn't know the rules.
I think Googler's and Xooglers on HN have by now learned to restrain themselves but I've had enough of this troll. I don't know what the actual psychiatric terminology would be but I know what the symptoms are: Toxic levels of cynicism combined with massive delusions of grandeur ("... despite being one the biggest assets to the company..." Hah.). Please note that the company he's talking about is Google where he spent a few months (or perhaps a year or so) in 2010/2011 timeframe. His equally delusional rants on internal mailing lists were stuff of (hilarious) legend. It was clear to any engineer with half a brain who read one of his rants that you don't want this guy anywhere near your team.
I do sympathize if he's suffering from genuine psychiatric issues and needs medical help. Someone close to him needs to help him get the care he needs.
But please, please young hackers, don't pay any heed to his alleged words of wisdom. The world, and especially silicon valley, may not be all cookies and cream... but it's also not the satanic hellscape that you're reading about in these sickening threads. Lots of young people enter this world every year, do their work, get compensated handsomely and treated royally (way better than almost any other profession that a young graduate could find work in today) and live happy, fulfilled lives. I wish a few more voices here would spread a bit of positive news (and down-vote the ever cynical trolls on a regular basis).
I wasn't even on a PIP at Google.
You launched a personal attack on me for no reason. The conclusion I'm left with is that you're probably an asshole.
If you're an overperformer, then unless you have someone
powerful who goes out of his way to protect you, you're
going to be fired in 3 months.
I was thinking I would put them to work writing good software, delivering business value and generally making my team look good. In the fullness of time, and if they're interested, I would support them for promotion. While I would lose them as programmers, blocking their promotion would not be productive (assuming they're smart enough to notice, which you'd hope high performers would be), and as managers they would add to my political allies in other teams.
How would I benefit from firing them instead?
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/my-name-is-cl...