And you are here why?

You're young, fresh of heart, recently graduated and out to conquer the world. It's your first job, and you're oh-so-excited because you get to Contribute! You get to Be Part Of Something Big! You're on your way! And then BAM!  you run into workplace politics 🤬, and there go your dreams, running smack-dab into the brutalist wall of reality.  Mind you, this is the easy version, when you're fully aware of what's going on around you. It's even worse when you get caught up in it, and don't realize what you're doing 🤯. We, as humans like being part of something larger than ourselves, something that gives us a sense of belonging,  that can help us be rooted amongst all the chaos that is swelling all around us. And our workplace is one of the most natural places to find this. Yeah, yeah, the obvious comes to mind - company songs (hello Japan), group activities (trust falls!), and oh so much more. But, in this case, I'm actually referring to something...

Hang out in the world of Software Development for pretty much any length of time, and you’re sure to hit a  DeathMarch  (•). You know, the kind that goes, “WE HAVE 17 DAYS TO RELEASE ALL HANDS OF DECK LATE NIGHTS MOAR COFFEE …”. Oh, there might ben occasional “justified” one — I recall an instance when a Very Important Client basically told us to add a feature within the month, or they’d switch, and switching meant that we’d be out of business. Result — lots of pain and suffering on our part, but it was that, or around 45 people being out of jobs. (And yes, we did, eventually, manage to rebalance our clients so that this wouldn’t happen again…) That said, most of them tend to be due to  some  form of screwup in the development process — be it requirements, expectations, or whatever. However,  there are those organizations (quite prevalent in #TechBro culture), where late nights are a way of life. Beware these! In particular, look out for two specifi...

 /via http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2018/06/19/the-world-cup-and-the-sysadmin/ We’ve tried many variations over the years — the one I found the most effective was to actually just put the game up on the TVs that are liberally distributed around our offices. ( And yes, we even bought a couple of extra TVs for a few of the neglected walls, to make sure… )

Yeah, we’ve all seen the phrase “People Leave Managers, Not Companies”, right? It might have been in   an article , or   a book , but the baseline story is always —  so logically  — some variation of If you are a good manager, then people like working for you, and will stay around, but if you are a bad manager, then people do not like working for you, and will, therefore, leave It’s all so straightforward and logical, right? Well, it turns out that it is also a load of bullshit. Raghuram et al.   (•)studied this exact issue, and discovered that,   employees leave both good and bad bosses at almost the same rates . The reasoning, as it turns out is also just as logical — and as with most things in the real world, not as “simple” a story as we would like it to be. Basically, good managers   level-up   their employees to the point where they are now ripe for the picking by others. Good leadership doesn’t reduce employee turnover precisely   beca...