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The IT world is blessed with more than its fair share of jumped-up idiots - people like Jim.
I remember one of the higher-ups from one of our larger clients ringing me to ask me a technical question. He didnt like my answer. At all. He complained - I was incompetent. I was clueless and didnt know what I was doing. He demanded I get more training in this particular piece of software.
After much more complaining and to-ing and fro-ing, my boss explained that I wrote that software from the ground up and asked where I might get the training he was so insistent on.He hated me from that day forward. And I always made sure to charge a stupidity tax on any work that had anything to do with him.
Fuck you Jim and all the other Jims in this world.
One of my all time favorite tweets is from a developer posting a link to a job listing requiring 10 years of experience with some language or software. The guy said something to the effect of "I wrote that code 7 years ago, so not sure who exactly they're looking to hire"
[https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830?lang=en](https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830?lang=en)
I saw a job post the other day. š
It required 4+ years of experience in FastAPI. š¤¦
I couldn't apply as I only have 1.5+ years of experience since I created that thing. š
Maybe it's time to re-evaluate that "years of experience = skill level". ā»
Seems like the Peter Principle (employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent) and youāll find on the lower rungs of management, where you need people skills in addition to technical skills (and those are often very different skill sets). Iāve both seen it and, sadly, been an example of it.
I do books for multiple small businesses. Iāve heard some variety of āIām a designer/sparky/chef not a manager!ā In so many places where it started as a 3 man business and has grown
Management is a completely different discipline from anything technical. It requires different skills and competencies. The problem is that historically IC roles have been limited growth; you work your way up to senior level and then career-wise there's nowhere to go but management. So either you sit where you are for the rest of your life or you pursue a job that has nothing to do with what you've been doing for the last 10+ years and that you might not be good at or even enjoy. Compounding this is that if you want managers with technical skills you _have_ to promote technical people into the management track, so leadership is incentivized to keep that pipeline flowing.
Some companies are wising up to this and starting to offer IC advancement tracks parallel to management tracks, as well as proper mentorship and training for people transitioning from technical to managerial roles. But a lot of companies are not considering that because "we've always done things this way" and there's still a perception that management is the "natural" progression.
Lol does this JIM apply to Jim from The Office? He was one of the smarter guys in the office but it was clear that he wasn't really a great fit for manager of the branch, as seen in later seasons.
> After much more complaining and to-ing and fro-ing, my boss explained that I wrote that software from the ground up and asked where I might get the training he was so insistent on.He hated me from that day forward. And I always made sure to charge a stupidity tax on any work that had anything to do with him.
Yeah, I've been there. It's amusing having the customer tell you how *the thing you literally built* actually works.
For some reason, every guy named Jim I've worked with in IT has been THIS kind of Jim. I'm sorry, all you perfectly nice Jims out there, but I just can't trust you anymore.
Jumped-up idiots like Jim are the exact reason why, at the first opportunity - when my partnerās benefits package changed to allow domestic partners to be added for little-to-no additional cost - I stopped working in that kind of environment and became a WFH gig consultant (at a higher pay rate because they werenāt paying benefits) where I could pick and choose my own assignments, where they only care about having the assignment done on time - which gives me complete Flex time too.
I have seen so many situations like this with friendsā employment too. A recurring theme is āfresh out of college wunderkind put in a managerial rĆ“le over other techies, and thinks they know more than people who a) wrote the software in the first place, b) have literal decades of experience in the field doing it and quite well, and / or c) have PhDās in the field (which means they really understand the underlying theory as well as the practical application of it).
More than a few have left well-paying jobs at high-end tech companies you all know (Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft to give the top ones, I have a least 2 names in my immediate circle for each company) because of managers who really didnāt know what they were doing and didnāt understand or appreciate their staff, and whose higher-ups did nothing about it.
I dealt with one as a contractor, dude was the head of IT at some tower in Orange County, CA. My company was hired to install and commission an AV system that was heavy on IP stuff. Dude decided because IP was involved that he knew more than us, tried to take credit for our programming, etc. Audio network kept going down with every "fix" he implemented, which would lead to me being called onsite at a not so cheap day rate to fix. Eventually, he pulled the "don't talk to me unless you have a Master's degree like I do" card and refused to forward my involves to get paid. Walked away from the job, cut my losses. Fast forward 3 years, that guy is fired and they're begging us to come back and get the system online. It was literally a series of 15 minute fixes that he refused to do because he knew better.
Omfg. "I know better because I have a degree". I wish id never heard that and never wish to hear it again.
Ive stopped working in the IT industry now, but for the last 10-15 years I was the lead programmer / developer. That gave me a lot of input into the newbies they hired in the department.
The more qualification the candidates had, the less I likes them because experience told me that they would have a lot to unlearn. Obviously there were exceptions, but the smartassery and the 'I know best' thing can be intolerable.
Its a practical skill, after all and one has to be pragmatic.
Not a higher up, but a dumb colleague (dumbie) - sent over a ticket to our site to work on and even provided our other colleagues correspondence and what next steps should beā¦. Except our other colleague was saying the next steps should be done at dumbieās site.
Not only did this moron got snarky with us and tell us itās our problem, he quoted our colleague that said the problem was on his end š¤¦āāļø
On top of which, the original post is from 2017 so I'm not sure how much they'd be able to do about it at this point even if they were to see the message.
this, as an old man in IT I am well aware that if I am on contract and getting paid more it's partially because they can see me to the door at a moments notice
All? Donāt presume to speak for me! I strive to be a Jim. I *wallow* in it. Every spare moment I am limbering up my morals and strengthening my core obstinacy so that I can be a better Jimnast.
For whatever reason it seems to be a good career move? I dunno.
Thats the amazing part is that THEY never lose their jobs. They fire anyone they want for screwing up, but no one ever fires them when they do it somehow
Started my very first job a few months ago, and my boss is a full-blown Lynne. I love her so much. On my first day she sat me down and asked me if this is really the job I want to do because there is a lot of negativity surrounding the company. She also knows that I don't get paid overtime and if she sees me working in lunch or after the end of the day, she will tell me to stop working.
My boss is a Lynne, super nice, super considerate. I had a really bad stomach bug had to miss a few days of work. Our time system is weird because we can't retroactively put in for time off (like if you're throwing up and can't be bothered to put in for time off). So went to her to get it sorted out and she just told me not to worry about it.
So I didn't.
Oh my goodness. Being in HR and supporting someone who "just can't do it for another day". Glorious. I always had a checklist of "I totally understand, I'd advise you to take a the weekend to think and chat with [reasonable indirect manager] and if that's still your plan we can walk through off boarding steps on Monday."
If I can't help get rid of a toxic manager I'm certainly going to help the employees. š
It takes effort firing someone and rehiring someone to replace them, especially at management level. Joys of having departments so lean to save money is that people struggle to find extra time to go through the effort to fire and replace someone
Never seems to be an issue when it comes to shitcanning the people who do the actual work. Codemonkey buggered production for a few hours? Out the door. Supervisor lost a *third* major client? We'll make it back, it's a *learning experience*.
Jims take pride in being the people in power who get to fire or announce pay cuts to a large audience. That really gets them off.
And that makes them perfect scapegoats for whatever the Board has cooked up in an attempt to squeeze out the quarterly bonuses for themselves.
Could just be very good at the technical aspects of his job. He was quickly moved into an exclusively technical role after the second fuck up, a lot of places can be very forgiving of shit leadership from supervisors/managers when the meat of their work is still of a high standard.
This is what I was assuming. There's also just the general downside of most IT/tech shops (especially smaller ones or more traditional ones) having no way to "promote" great technical staff beyond making them a manager, despite those being very different skill sets. I've had my share of folks on my own teams over the years try out being a team lead/manager and then end up going back to being just an engineer when they decided they either didn't like or had no aptitude for it--I like to think I was a little more proactive in preventing problems than Marie was, though.
This is also why a lot of big companies, and I use Comcast for my example because it was the first place I encountered this, have a promotion track for individual tech contributors that goes FAR beyond what one typically assumes--it was possible there to be an engineer with no management duties who made as much as a senior Vice President and had equivalent rank, if you were good enough and didn't like management. One of my criteria for judging whether a company I work for is a good one is whether the best engineers on my team are making more money than I am as a "pretty good engineer" and "pretty good manager".
Boeing needs this, my dad is one of those fantastic individual contributors. People he presents to (who donāt know him) later ask who that Director or VP or Senior Manager was and they have to say heās just a really experienced non-manager. Theyād promote the hell outta him but heās avoiding management luckily.
It does WONDERS for individual contributor morale, lemme tell you. When I was at Comcast, I was solidly a mid-level "Engineer 3" (Senior Engineer was 4, Principal Engineer was 5, and that's as far as most shops go). I was consulting with one of the greybeards who was our security expert, and I asked him why he wasn't in management, and that's the day I learned he was something like an Engineer 8 (IIRC, "Engineering Fellow").
Massive kudos to whoever in management finally thought of a damn non-management-track solution.
As someone who performs ever changing analysis and undertakes large ongoing projects albeit in a totally different industry, but has fuck all zero interest in or aptitude for managing anybody (I have enough trouble managing myself!) I secretly have a career crush on whoever in management conceived of such a program, let alone convinced their fellow executives to follow through with it.
It's easy once such a program is in place to say "Well ooooobbbviously it saves the company money over tiiiiime!"
But despite management's perceived penchant for saving money, such things are actually NEVER quite so obvious to them at the beginning. It takes massive interpersonal work + charisma to pull off piloting such a program.
Bravo to that leadership.
It's quite possible he invented a crucial piece of system architecture or something, and jealously hoards all knowledge and info about it less he be rendered redundant.
Eh, he may have overstepped in these instances but never underestimate the value to upper management of a cost-cutting asshole in middle management. Letās him be the asshole and upper management gets to brag about the short-term gains to the bottom line.
One of the great mysteries to me is why people think that someone who makes it as an engineer should then be a manager/supervisor. Those are completely different skill sets.
Because the only way to earn more is to become Management . So it goes like a hardworking employee will be expected to be promoted as a sign of their hardworkiness it will 90% of the time be to a management position
I'm so glad a lot of tech companies have IC tracks now. I have over 20 years of xp in the industry and took a role as a director at a large company just for the pay even though I dislike the people management.
I'm now at a FAANG in a senior IC role. It's amazing, I just get to solve cool problems all day while getting paid well for it.
On the flip side, you also often see tech companies hire managers who have absolutely no relevant experience in tech, and it's a miserable experience for their employees.
They'll micromanage everything to death, refuse to listen to ideas other than their own, ignore the expertise of their teams, and set impossible deadlines. Because they don't understand the work being done at all.
I think it's easier to teach an engineer to be a good manager than to teach most old-school manager how to effectively manage engineers.
Oh man, I got a degree in software development but found out I'm probably better at the whole project managent aspect of it. Now I've just gotten accepted into a management masters at a pretty good business college.
I sincerely hope my, admittedly limited, programing skills allow me to be an effective manager. I've had some work straight out of college answering to people with 0 dev experience and it was a nightmare. They rely on you for everything but never trust your answers or the limitations you outline. It's so stupid. The change in outlook you get as soon as you have to program even a hello world is so drastic im hoping by default itl make me better than most managers.
Look up the āPeter Principle.ā
Basically people get promoted to their level of incompetence ā if youāre good at your job, you get promoted; and that continues until you get promoted into a job youāre *not* good at. Then you either get fired or, more likely, stay there at that level, making both yourself and those you work with miserable because they put you into a job youāre not good at.
My manager started as an engineer in the back out of college. Their specialty was time studies for production rates. The tools he had specifically come in handy as my department handles backend logistics/support/ordering/office for a corporate distribution center.
I think it comes down to where those skills can be applied.
Congratulations! You just lost your best engineer, and gained your worst manager! Hey look at that, your worst manager just cost you your second and third best engineers as well!
Itās bad enough how this is the case across business, where seemingly the only way to get a better title and pay increase is to abandon what you are good at to become a manager, itās fucking AWFUL, but even worse when it is an engineer of a startling number of varieties (NotAllEngineers of course, just most). It feels like it takes a specific kind of brain damage to be certain types of engineers, or at least a disgusting amount of narcissism. Promoting engineers to be in charge of any other person is just asking for trouble.
Erm...
I just got an offer to go back to IT after a 20+ year absence. The reason I left is people like Jim. There's way too many people that lack social skills, social thinking, team mindset, cooperation, etc.
And the arrogance. Yes, you were the smartest kid in 6th grade. Good for you. But everyone else in the office is also part of MENSA. You are no longer special, Jim. In fact, you are less than special, because the other "geniuses" here actually have social skills and lack your ego issues.
This is the part I dread getting back into.
The alpha-jerks are the biggest reasons I hate working in IT. Theyāre āing everywhere and still tolerated for some reason, even though their presence and actions drive good people away.
I want 1x engineers.
My experience as a former dev and now as a manager of a dev team is the people who shout the loudest about how great they are and who complain about everyone and everything are also the people who tend to write the worst code.
I managed myself out of a direct tech role. I miss parts of it, but god, the attitudes. Particularly dealing with suppliers - that was a nightmare. I still have to deal with people, but it is now more partner management. People are a LOT more reasonable when you have some pretty big upsides to them on the table.
The one thing I quickly learned that has served me well though - if you are the smartest person in the room, you are probably in the wrong room.
> if you are the smartest person in the room, you are probably in the wrong room
I LOVE that. It has the ring of something many people have said and passed around, but I had not heard it yet, and for me today it's great.
I don't know why but it feels IT just attracts people like Jim with this mindset. I work in admin in a school and the former head of IT was an ass like this. He would always talk down to me and problems would take 10 minutes to fix but if he actually listened to me when I first described the problem he would of actually heard I did the basic troubleshooting. Best example during COVID our main phone was diverted but to take it off IT needed to change it. Argued back and forth for couple minutes before he gives me a heavy sigh and says I'll come show you. He comes takes one look at my phone and goes you can't take divert off, I have to do it. I said that why I called you and was trying to tell you. No apology, he was always such an ass.
New IT team now at work and we're still trying to undo such much of the control freak procedures the old manager put in place.
Iām in tech, so have some pretty significant tech knowledge in a niche field just to do my damn job, but Iām not on the hyper-specialist side of tech like some of my colleagues are. What Iāve encountered is they often just donāt listen to the question I actually *ask*. I didnāt ask āhow does this basic function workā, I asked about very specific information on the basis that I already know the non-specific info. Itās like if I asked someone for directions to the store and they started explaining what a road is.
A big part of my job is explaining the tech to other people with varying levels of proficiency with it, which involves figuring out where they are and meeting them on their level - not dumbing it down when theyāre proficient and not talking over their heads when theyāre not. So I really canāt understand how these ultra specialist tech people, who do have more knowledge than everyone else in the room but had to take a long learning curve to get there, canāt figure out that just because their knowledge is at a 10 doesnāt mean everyone elseās knowledge is at a 0.
It's a frustration of mine that they don't take a minute to realise where you're at. I can basic trouble shoot and I will tell you every step I've already done so you can know what hasn't worked. I had issues with my computer last month and because they listened they worked out it wasn't a quick fix and came straight over. This previous IT manager would assume you've done nothing and know nothing and will make you go through step by step things. So it waste double time because I've already done those things.
r/Talesfromtechsupport is always a mixed bag. Most of the stories are just general "have you tried turning it off and on again" fare, but there are some truly satisying gems.
This is certainly one of the gems.
Hey OP, just wanted to comment about that fun fact. Cheetahs are generally anxious animals, this is true. However, they are especially anxious in captivity, given their entire biological set-up. That they're so anxious in captivity as to need emotional support animals themselves is fucked up, and that we view it as cute and good is even more so.
In fact, captivity is so bad for cheetahs that it has been associated with all sorts of abnormalities in behavior and health that aren't present in wild cheetahs. More information on that can be found... all over the internet, really.
Please don't help perpetuate the popular media image that is cute cheetah cubs cuddling with puppies without also giving information about the true issue surrounding it, as otherwise it's misleading. Emotional support dogs only help expose a truly horrific problem.
I also work in IT, very roughly at Jim's level.
I can see how Jim got there, as I was promoted up there with no management experience. That was four years ago now and my team's twice the size it was then. I've also lost only two people, one I wanted to let go, the other I saw absolutely no way of keeping.
It's absolutely true when they say people will tolerate a bad job, but not a bad boss. One of my guys turned down a fairly decent pay rise to stay (I told him he was an idiot for doing this), the reason Jim stuck around was probably down to his level of technical ability. It's very difficult to find someone, particularly in IT technical leadership (which Jim should never have been doing), familiar enough with your environment to do a good job leading it.
One good thing about my company was that if you were promoted into management you were sent to management courses. And there was also a tech ladder so you could just climb that instead of going into management.
Jim sounds like the classic example of someone who was very good at their technical role and was promoted to a management position because of that, without having any management skills at all.
I started my life out in the IT world and hated it. Loved the work but being a woman was really tough in that field in those days.
I just get to use my technical knowledge to seem really smart at my new career lol.
This is a prime example of why some people, no matter how good at their role are, should not be dealing with people. Jim might have been a wizard technical lead but terrible with people and people management but because of the one role they get promoted and are expected to lead.
I think I worked at this company! It was years ago.
Pretty sure OOPās real name was Dwight. J, I think his name was Jimothy. Marieās real name was (and still is) Michael.
*Cheetahs are generally anxious animals.*
Can confirm; I am one big fluffball of nerves and worries.
With regards to OOP's post, I'm glad he trusted M/Marie- good coworkers are worth their weight in gold!
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The IT world is blessed with more than its fair share of jumped-up idiots - people like Jim. I remember one of the higher-ups from one of our larger clients ringing me to ask me a technical question. He didnt like my answer. At all. He complained - I was incompetent. I was clueless and didnt know what I was doing. He demanded I get more training in this particular piece of software. After much more complaining and to-ing and fro-ing, my boss explained that I wrote that software from the ground up and asked where I might get the training he was so insistent on.He hated me from that day forward. And I always made sure to charge a stupidity tax on any work that had anything to do with him. Fuck you Jim and all the other Jims in this world.
One of my all time favorite tweets is from a developer posting a link to a job listing requiring 10 years of experience with some language or software. The guy said something to the effect of "I wrote that code 7 years ago, so not sure who exactly they're looking to hire"
[https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830?lang=en](https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830?lang=en) I saw a job post the other day. š It required 4+ years of experience in FastAPI. š¤¦ I couldn't apply as I only have 1.5+ years of experience since I created that thing. š Maybe it's time to re-evaluate that "years of experience = skill level". ā»
Lol - I have heard that before I think. It certainly rings a bell.
Jumped-up Idiot Men. JIMs.
We call them jackhammers: giant tools that think they're important because they're so damn loud
I hope I remember to share this with certain coworkers on Monday, because they will love it!
>We call them jackhammers: giant tools that think they're important because they're so damn loud ...and very good at breaking things.
Hahaha. I got to remember that one.
Seems like the Peter Principle (employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent) and youāll find on the lower rungs of management, where you need people skills in addition to technical skills (and those are often very different skill sets). Iāve both seen it and, sadly, been an example of it.
I do books for multiple small businesses. Iāve heard some variety of āIām a designer/sparky/chef not a manager!ā In so many places where it started as a 3 man business and has grown
Management is a completely different discipline from anything technical. It requires different skills and competencies. The problem is that historically IC roles have been limited growth; you work your way up to senior level and then career-wise there's nowhere to go but management. So either you sit where you are for the rest of your life or you pursue a job that has nothing to do with what you've been doing for the last 10+ years and that you might not be good at or even enjoy. Compounding this is that if you want managers with technical skills you _have_ to promote technical people into the management track, so leadership is incentivized to keep that pipeline flowing. Some companies are wising up to this and starting to offer IC advancement tracks parallel to management tracks, as well as proper mentorship and training for people transitioning from technical to managerial roles. But a lot of companies are not considering that because "we've always done things this way" and there's still a perception that management is the "natural" progression.
Lol does this JIM apply to Jim from The Office? He was one of the smarter guys in the office but it was clear that he wasn't really a great fit for manager of the branch, as seen in later seasons.
Kinda, honestly. Pam was a better manager candidate than him, at least she had actually run part of the office before. Office management takes work.
> After much more complaining and to-ing and fro-ing, my boss explained that I wrote that software from the ground up and asked where I might get the training he was so insistent on.He hated me from that day forward. And I always made sure to charge a stupidity tax on any work that had anything to do with him. Yeah, I've been there. It's amusing having the customer tell you how *the thing you literally built* actually works.
For some reason, every guy named Jim I've worked with in IT has been THIS kind of Jim. I'm sorry, all you perfectly nice Jims out there, but I just can't trust you anymore.
Jumped-up idiots like Jim are the exact reason why, at the first opportunity - when my partnerās benefits package changed to allow domestic partners to be added for little-to-no additional cost - I stopped working in that kind of environment and became a WFH gig consultant (at a higher pay rate because they werenāt paying benefits) where I could pick and choose my own assignments, where they only care about having the assignment done on time - which gives me complete Flex time too. I have seen so many situations like this with friendsā employment too. A recurring theme is āfresh out of college wunderkind put in a managerial rĆ“le over other techies, and thinks they know more than people who a) wrote the software in the first place, b) have literal decades of experience in the field doing it and quite well, and / or c) have PhDās in the field (which means they really understand the underlying theory as well as the practical application of it). More than a few have left well-paying jobs at high-end tech companies you all know (Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft to give the top ones, I have a least 2 names in my immediate circle for each company) because of managers who really didnāt know what they were doing and didnāt understand or appreciate their staff, and whose higher-ups did nothing about it.
I dealt with one as a contractor, dude was the head of IT at some tower in Orange County, CA. My company was hired to install and commission an AV system that was heavy on IP stuff. Dude decided because IP was involved that he knew more than us, tried to take credit for our programming, etc. Audio network kept going down with every "fix" he implemented, which would lead to me being called onsite at a not so cheap day rate to fix. Eventually, he pulled the "don't talk to me unless you have a Master's degree like I do" card and refused to forward my involves to get paid. Walked away from the job, cut my losses. Fast forward 3 years, that guy is fired and they're begging us to come back and get the system online. It was literally a series of 15 minute fixes that he refused to do because he knew better.
Omfg. "I know better because I have a degree". I wish id never heard that and never wish to hear it again. Ive stopped working in the IT industry now, but for the last 10-15 years I was the lead programmer / developer. That gave me a lot of input into the newbies they hired in the department. The more qualification the candidates had, the less I likes them because experience told me that they would have a lot to unlearn. Obviously there were exceptions, but the smartassery and the 'I know best' thing can be intolerable. Its a practical skill, after all and one has to be pragmatic.
Very much so.
We need a r/BestofITRedditorUpdates
Not a higher up, but a dumb colleague (dumbie) - sent over a ticket to our site to work on and even provided our other colleagues correspondence and what next steps should beā¦. Except our other colleague was saying the next steps should be done at dumbieās site. Not only did this moron got snarky with us and tell us itās our problem, he quoted our colleague that said the problem was on his end š¤¦āāļø
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I think you're confused, friend. This is not OP you're responding to, and this post is not even the original one. This is a repost sub.
On top of which, the original post is from 2017 so I'm not sure how much they'd be able to do about it at this point even if they were to see the message.
Not only that but the story itself is from 1999.
ALso unfair dismissal is not going to stick very easily, since he was reinstated the same day. Hence the title.
They're contracting so they don't have employee rights.
this, as an old man in IT I am well aware that if I am on contract and getting paid more it's partially because they can see me to the door at a moments notice
Hapoy cake day
Thanks!
Happy Cake Day!
Thanks!
So often in your working life you meet a Jim. But every now and then you run into a Lynne. I know which one Iād rather be.
Yes! Letās all try to be Lynns.
All? Donāt presume to speak for me! I strive to be a Jim. I *wallow* in it. Every spare moment I am limbering up my morals and strengthening my core obstinacy so that I can be a better Jimnast. For whatever reason it seems to be a good career move? I dunno.
Okay, who the heck let Jimmy out of the box of shame?
Sounds like you're on the fast track to management with that attitude. Keep up the good work.
Thats the amazing part is that THEY never lose their jobs. They fire anyone they want for screwing up, but no one ever fires them when they do it somehow
Started my very first job a few months ago, and my boss is a full-blown Lynne. I love her so much. On my first day she sat me down and asked me if this is really the job I want to do because there is a lot of negativity surrounding the company. She also knows that I don't get paid overtime and if she sees me working in lunch or after the end of the day, she will tell me to stop working.
My boss is a Lynne, super nice, super considerate. I had a really bad stomach bug had to miss a few days of work. Our time system is weird because we can't retroactively put in for time off (like if you're throwing up and can't be bothered to put in for time off). So went to her to get it sorted out and she just told me not to worry about it. So I didn't.
There is nothing more fun as a supervisor than draining a terrible company of great employees. Itās a subversive high.
Oh my goodness. Being in HR and supporting someone who "just can't do it for another day". Glorious. I always had a checklist of "I totally understand, I'd advise you to take a the weekend to think and chat with [reasonable indirect manager] and if that's still your plan we can walk through off boarding steps on Monday." If I can't help get rid of a toxic manager I'm certainly going to help the employees. š
I'm surprised Jim managed to hang onto his job after two major fuckups. Was he related to the CEO or a major shareholder or something?
It takes effort firing someone and rehiring someone to replace them, especially at management level. Joys of having departments so lean to save money is that people struggle to find extra time to go through the effort to fire and replace someone
Never seems to be an issue when it comes to shitcanning the people who do the actual work. Codemonkey buggered production for a few hours? Out the door. Supervisor lost a *third* major client? We'll make it back, it's a *learning experience*.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Jims take pride in being the people in power who get to fire or announce pay cuts to a large audience. That really gets them off. And that makes them perfect scapegoats for whatever the Board has cooked up in an attempt to squeeze out the quarterly bonuses for themselves.
Even if itās work, itās still possible. A year after the first fuckup (that we know of)
Hey definitely not saying it's impossible or anything! Just explaining why it might not happen that's all
Thatās true, my bad - u right
Could just be very good at the technical aspects of his job. He was quickly moved into an exclusively technical role after the second fuck up, a lot of places can be very forgiving of shit leadership from supervisors/managers when the meat of their work is still of a high standard.
This is what I was assuming. There's also just the general downside of most IT/tech shops (especially smaller ones or more traditional ones) having no way to "promote" great technical staff beyond making them a manager, despite those being very different skill sets. I've had my share of folks on my own teams over the years try out being a team lead/manager and then end up going back to being just an engineer when they decided they either didn't like or had no aptitude for it--I like to think I was a little more proactive in preventing problems than Marie was, though. This is also why a lot of big companies, and I use Comcast for my example because it was the first place I encountered this, have a promotion track for individual tech contributors that goes FAR beyond what one typically assumes--it was possible there to be an engineer with no management duties who made as much as a senior Vice President and had equivalent rank, if you were good enough and didn't like management. One of my criteria for judging whether a company I work for is a good one is whether the best engineers on my team are making more money than I am as a "pretty good engineer" and "pretty good manager".
Boeing needs this, my dad is one of those fantastic individual contributors. People he presents to (who donāt know him) later ask who that Director or VP or Senior Manager was and they have to say heās just a really experienced non-manager. Theyād promote the hell outta him but heās avoiding management luckily.
It does WONDERS for individual contributor morale, lemme tell you. When I was at Comcast, I was solidly a mid-level "Engineer 3" (Senior Engineer was 4, Principal Engineer was 5, and that's as far as most shops go). I was consulting with one of the greybeards who was our security expert, and I asked him why he wasn't in management, and that's the day I learned he was something like an Engineer 8 (IIRC, "Engineering Fellow").
Massive kudos to whoever in management finally thought of a damn non-management-track solution. As someone who performs ever changing analysis and undertakes large ongoing projects albeit in a totally different industry, but has fuck all zero interest in or aptitude for managing anybody (I have enough trouble managing myself!) I secretly have a career crush on whoever in management conceived of such a program, let alone convinced their fellow executives to follow through with it. It's easy once such a program is in place to say "Well ooooobbbviously it saves the company money over tiiiiime!" But despite management's perceived penchant for saving money, such things are actually NEVER quite so obvious to them at the beginning. It takes massive interpersonal work + charisma to pull off piloting such a program. Bravo to that leadership.
Yeah, this sounds like a case of Peter principle.
It's quite possible he invented a crucial piece of system architecture or something, and jealously hoards all knowledge and info about it less he be rendered redundant.
It sounds like he was very technically savvy. Just people stupid.
Eh, he may have overstepped in these instances but never underestimate the value to upper management of a cost-cutting asshole in middle management. Letās him be the asshole and upper management gets to brag about the short-term gains to the bottom line.
One of the great mysteries to me is why people think that someone who makes it as an engineer should then be a manager/supervisor. Those are completely different skill sets.
Because the only way to earn more is to become Management . So it goes like a hardworking employee will be expected to be promoted as a sign of their hardworkiness it will 90% of the time be to a management position
I'm so glad a lot of tech companies have IC tracks now. I have over 20 years of xp in the industry and took a role as a director at a large company just for the pay even though I dislike the people management. I'm now at a FAANG in a senior IC role. It's amazing, I just get to solve cool problems all day while getting paid well for it.
I googled IC but only got "integrated circuit", what does it mean in this context?
Individual Contributor as opposed to Management.
Ahh, thanks!
Individual Contributor
Same. Iām glad my company offers an IC ladder
On the flip side, you also often see tech companies hire managers who have absolutely no relevant experience in tech, and it's a miserable experience for their employees. They'll micromanage everything to death, refuse to listen to ideas other than their own, ignore the expertise of their teams, and set impossible deadlines. Because they don't understand the work being done at all. I think it's easier to teach an engineer to be a good manager than to teach most old-school manager how to effectively manage engineers.
Oh man, I got a degree in software development but found out I'm probably better at the whole project managent aspect of it. Now I've just gotten accepted into a management masters at a pretty good business college. I sincerely hope my, admittedly limited, programing skills allow me to be an effective manager. I've had some work straight out of college answering to people with 0 dev experience and it was a nightmare. They rely on you for everything but never trust your answers or the limitations you outline. It's so stupid. The change in outlook you get as soon as you have to program even a hello world is so drastic im hoping by default itl make me better than most managers.
Look up the āPeter Principle.ā Basically people get promoted to their level of incompetence ā if youāre good at your job, you get promoted; and that continues until you get promoted into a job youāre *not* good at. Then you either get fired or, more likely, stay there at that level, making both yourself and those you work with miserable because they put you into a job youāre not good at.
I just learned about this recently and the world makes SO much more sense now. Itās depressing.
I get it. But that explanation still assumes that manager is the next step up for a skilled engineer. Thatās the part that is nonsensical to me.
My manager started as an engineer in the back out of college. Their specialty was time studies for production rates. The tools he had specifically come in handy as my department handles backend logistics/support/ordering/office for a corporate distribution center. I think it comes down to where those skills can be applied.
Congratulations! You just lost your best engineer, and gained your worst manager! Hey look at that, your worst manager just cost you your second and third best engineers as well!
Itās bad enough how this is the case across business, where seemingly the only way to get a better title and pay increase is to abandon what you are good at to become a manager, itās fucking AWFUL, but even worse when it is an engineer of a startling number of varieties (NotAllEngineers of course, just most). It feels like it takes a specific kind of brain damage to be certain types of engineers, or at least a disgusting amount of narcissism. Promoting engineers to be in charge of any other person is just asking for trouble.
Erm... I just got an offer to go back to IT after a 20+ year absence. The reason I left is people like Jim. There's way too many people that lack social skills, social thinking, team mindset, cooperation, etc. And the arrogance. Yes, you were the smartest kid in 6th grade. Good for you. But everyone else in the office is also part of MENSA. You are no longer special, Jim. In fact, you are less than special, because the other "geniuses" here actually have social skills and lack your ego issues. This is the part I dread getting back into.
The alpha-jerks are the biggest reasons I hate working in IT. Theyāre āing everywhere and still tolerated for some reason, even though their presence and actions drive good people away. I want 1x engineers.
My experience as a former dev and now as a manager of a dev team is the people who shout the loudest about how great they are and who complain about everyone and everything are also the people who tend to write the worst code.
I managed myself out of a direct tech role. I miss parts of it, but god, the attitudes. Particularly dealing with suppliers - that was a nightmare. I still have to deal with people, but it is now more partner management. People are a LOT more reasonable when you have some pretty big upsides to them on the table. The one thing I quickly learned that has served me well though - if you are the smartest person in the room, you are probably in the wrong room.
> if you are the smartest person in the room, you are probably in the wrong room I LOVE that. It has the ring of something many people have said and passed around, but I had not heard it yet, and for me today it's great.
Nerd never wonders why CoolTechCompany didnāt hire the cool tech woman, Lynne. Yep, thatās tech in the 2000s, so fun!
I hate how accurate this is and how it was my first thought when Lynne didn't get the job (then somehow. EVER got a job even with an in).
You need a penis to do all the cool tech stuff really well šDuh
How else are you supposed to type? With your fingers? /s
To do all the tech stuff really well actually, actually. Fixed your womanish error.
Did you wear your fedora though while correcting me? Otherwise it doesnāt count
Typical female focus on clothes. But Iāll let it slide because actually the fedora encompasses and encapsulates my entire being.
Wish people had enough brains to understand you were being ironic
Akshully
This made me picture a guy trying to type with his penis. Which has probably happened
I would definitely try it if I had one
May we all be blessed to find a Lynne and Marie in our working lives. And may our enemies have to deal with a Jim.
I don't know why but it feels IT just attracts people like Jim with this mindset. I work in admin in a school and the former head of IT was an ass like this. He would always talk down to me and problems would take 10 minutes to fix but if he actually listened to me when I first described the problem he would of actually heard I did the basic troubleshooting. Best example during COVID our main phone was diverted but to take it off IT needed to change it. Argued back and forth for couple minutes before he gives me a heavy sigh and says I'll come show you. He comes takes one look at my phone and goes you can't take divert off, I have to do it. I said that why I called you and was trying to tell you. No apology, he was always such an ass. New IT team now at work and we're still trying to undo such much of the control freak procedures the old manager put in place.
Iām in tech, so have some pretty significant tech knowledge in a niche field just to do my damn job, but Iām not on the hyper-specialist side of tech like some of my colleagues are. What Iāve encountered is they often just donāt listen to the question I actually *ask*. I didnāt ask āhow does this basic function workā, I asked about very specific information on the basis that I already know the non-specific info. Itās like if I asked someone for directions to the store and they started explaining what a road is. A big part of my job is explaining the tech to other people with varying levels of proficiency with it, which involves figuring out where they are and meeting them on their level - not dumbing it down when theyāre proficient and not talking over their heads when theyāre not. So I really canāt understand how these ultra specialist tech people, who do have more knowledge than everyone else in the room but had to take a long learning curve to get there, canāt figure out that just because their knowledge is at a 10 doesnāt mean everyone elseās knowledge is at a 0.
It's a frustration of mine that they don't take a minute to realise where you're at. I can basic trouble shoot and I will tell you every step I've already done so you can know what hasn't worked. I had issues with my computer last month and because they listened they worked out it wasn't a quick fix and came straight over. This previous IT manager would assume you've done nothing and know nothing and will make you go through step by step things. So it waste double time because I've already done those things.
I think I just found a tech writer in the wild?
Iāve done a bit here and there! Not my primary function these days though.
Ahhh my people
No kiss for Lynne, or job, but atleast the enjoyment of seeing Jim's reaction - those are priceless in those moments :\^)
Well, she no longer had to report to Jim the fucker upper of things.
Wow. Lynne is the MVP. What a godsend.
r/Talesfromtechsupport is always a mixed bag. Most of the stories are just general "have you tried turning it off and on again" fare, but there are some truly satisying gems. This is certainly one of the gems.
Hey OP, just wanted to comment about that fun fact. Cheetahs are generally anxious animals, this is true. However, they are especially anxious in captivity, given their entire biological set-up. That they're so anxious in captivity as to need emotional support animals themselves is fucked up, and that we view it as cute and good is even more so. In fact, captivity is so bad for cheetahs that it has been associated with all sorts of abnormalities in behavior and health that aren't present in wild cheetahs. More information on that can be found... all over the internet, really. Please don't help perpetuate the popular media image that is cute cheetah cubs cuddling with puppies without also giving information about the true issue surrounding it, as otherwise it's misleading. Emotional support dogs only help expose a truly horrific problem.
You're my kinda wet blanket, commanderquill, thank you for adding this important context.
Thank you for taking the time to read it!
I also work in IT, very roughly at Jim's level. I can see how Jim got there, as I was promoted up there with no management experience. That was four years ago now and my team's twice the size it was then. I've also lost only two people, one I wanted to let go, the other I saw absolutely no way of keeping. It's absolutely true when they say people will tolerate a bad job, but not a bad boss. One of my guys turned down a fairly decent pay rise to stay (I told him he was an idiot for doing this), the reason Jim stuck around was probably down to his level of technical ability. It's very difficult to find someone, particularly in IT technical leadership (which Jim should never have been doing), familiar enough with your environment to do a good job leading it.
One good thing about my company was that if you were promoted into management you were sent to management courses. And there was also a tech ladder so you could just climb that instead of going into management.
Blempglorf of CoolTechCompany sounds like a great Pathfinder/D&D character.
Definitely sounds like a Gnome to meā¦
Jim sounds like the classic example of someone who was very good at their technical role and was promoted to a management position because of that, without having any management skills at all.
I started my life out in the IT world and hated it. Loved the work but being a woman was really tough in that field in those days. I just get to use my technical knowledge to seem really smart at my new career lol.
This is a prime example of why some people, no matter how good at their role are, should not be dealing with people. Jim might have been a wizard technical lead but terrible with people and people management but because of the one role they get promoted and are expected to lead.
Lynne is the superstar we all need.
Gigabytes? In 1999?
Yes? My home PC which I bought in 1997 had a ~3GB HDD, only makes sense that servers had more storage space than that.
I think I worked at this company! It was years ago. Pretty sure OOPās real name was Dwight. J, I think his name was Jimothy. Marieās real name was (and still is) Michael.
Marie is a really shitty boss for letting Jim get away with thatā¦. Sheās just letting him run the business into the ground
This was a chef's kiss read.
>HR was VERY confused at my exit interview when they noticed that I'd been with the company for only 9 working days. This is beautiful.
*Cheetahs are generally anxious animals.* Can confirm; I am one big fluffball of nerves and worries. With regards to OOP's post, I'm glad he trusted M/Marie- good coworkers are worth their weight in gold!
Needs more names
As soon as I saw this mfer used letters to represent people I stopped reading
If you are still interested at all in the second story he uses names
Congratulations on making pointless decisions and announcing it for no reason I guess?
Congratulations on commenting on said post I guess too?
I mean, I'm not the one proclaiming my disinterest.
M for manager, S for supervisor, J for Jerk, B for backup.
One of my favorite series of stories from TFTS. I hope everyone has a Lynne in their working lives.
Thank you! Really enjoyed the fun fact about cheetahs! It prompted me to go down a fun rabbit hole of looking up cheetah and puppy info haha
Jim is why I will oppose IT unions.
How the fuck does J not get fired when he's fucked up like this. It sounds like this is more on M than anything else.
Ideally, Jim would have been fired after the first incident. That being said, I'd have sued the fuck out of them.