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0 pointsdagw4y ago0 comments

When developers end up "in an environment (they) don’t want to use" they often have one of 4 different responses:

1) Say "I'm really sorry, but I cannot do my best work in this environment", and hand in their resignation.

2) Learn to work within the constraints given and find ways to be productive anyway.

3) Take on the responsibility of trying to work within the system and improve things.

4) Bitch and moan, get all passive aggressive, start working slower (to prove their point) and generally piss off their surroundings, spread negativity and tank morale.

The point is that you should always pick some combination of 1-3, rather than 4. However 4 is by far the easiest and makes most people feel better about themselves so that is the one they tend to go for. It is also by far the most unprofessional, and reflects rather badly on you.

Full disclosure: I may have done nr. 4 at some point in my career.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

tut-urut-utut4y ago· 2 in thread

What's wrong with 4?

Option 1 is not always possible. Not everyone can just switch to another job at a whim, especially if that job fits in other categories quite well, e.g. good salary, very short commute, nice people.

Option 2 can be tried for a while, but if one knows he can't be as productive as he could have been given the choice of tools, motivation goes down quickly. I mean, why bother putting 10-50% more effort for the same output?

Option 3 is often unrealistic. Usually, the type of companies that doesn't give you a choice of choosing your tools is a company where trying to change something is almost impossible.

And we are left with Option 4. Except pissing of the surrounding, all other stuff is just what the company deserves. Also, no need to start working slower, that's what already happens because of the prescribed tools, and doing so intentionally is very bad, but as I said, also no need to put extra effort to compensate lost productivity.

dagwOP4y ago

Option 4 doesn't really primarily affect the company, it affects your colleagues and co-workers, none of whom are responsible for the situation you find yourself in. So if you're not going to do anything to improve your own situation, don't compensate for that by making the situation worse for everyone else around you with your negative attitude and constant complaining.

tut-urut-utut4y ago

In a company like that, it's most likely that other colleagues are also affected by the same thing, or some other restrictions. I may be missing Emacs, another co-worker may be missing VSCode and the third one would complain that he has to use something else instead of Sublime Text. And we all hate we have to use Jira, and would rather use maven or even ant instead of that goddamned gradle. Hearing that other co-workers have the same or similar issues can even make the team bond better because they are in the same situation. Sometimes expressing dissatisfaction with the way a company works is the only way to change things.

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saagarjha4y ago

I usually pick something along the lines of "use whatever I want anyways, and pick option 3 if they are amenable to it, otherwise just keep doing my thing silently".

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